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When a Dentist Needs to Stand Up for Themselves · The Millionaire Dentist™

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  Hello everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by four
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  Quadn's Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry,
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  finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentists you deserve to be.
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  Please be advised we do speak with an honest tongue and may not be
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  safe for work. Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hires back at the
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  Millionaire Dnist Podcast in studio with co host Jared Bridgeman. What hi, Casey,
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  how are you Your Your sweater's giving me a seizure? How many colors
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  do you have over there? Twelve? Listen, It's like Bill Cosby sweater
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  before Bill Cosby went a style. It's a little bit like a Burton Ernie
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  sweater. So all day people have been calling me Ernie. Yeah, that's
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  probably a better uh fine muppet fan. So it all works out. What
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  we've been up to. Uh, you know, I spent the weekend dragging
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  the kids around doing sports things. I should say they dragged me around.
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  One of the things I was very proud of. My son is six and
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  he's doing soccer and he really worked hard to not score all the goals himself
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  and help everybody. So he kind of stood up for his teammates, which
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  was nice. Hashtag humble brag. Listen to you, listen, I'm excited
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  for my kid to be successful since I'm here. Well, for the listeners
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  out there, Jared doesn't really like sports, and you know he's just spurn
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  At our early age, it was terrible. Yeah, that last kid picked.
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  So now that his kids having all that stuff and this kid's out of
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  the gate, phenomenal. You're embracing it though, you're kind of liking it.
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  Yep, that's good. Yep. But he's helping out his teammates.
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  I like it. What do you want to talk about the day power?
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  I wanted to talk about, if you let me finish, I'd like to
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  talk about standing up for yourself. Yeah, you like that? Still stand
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  up for yourself. Don't let me bullyeve you right. Well, you know,
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  we talk about a bunch of these different things. We've talked about some
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  of them separately, but we've talked about how a lot of times practice owners
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  are non confrontational. Now standing up for yourself doesn't actually, you know,
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  have to mean a violent confrontation by any means. But there is something that
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  needs to be said or done at times. It could be with patient,
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  can be with an employee, could be standing up to ds os or insurance
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  companies. That's kind of where I wanted to go. Let's just you know,
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  shotgun it out there and get it all all going. Yeah, I
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  think podcasts over be be courageous. Thanks, right, you're welcome. Done,
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  No, you're right. So you know I want to talk to you.
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  You know you're as a as our listeners know. You're always out and
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  about commuting and talking with the common dentist out there. What are what's a
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  major thing that you feel you just want to scream, stand up for yourself?
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  What's what's a topic? I just shared this earlier today with a new
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  hire, talking about how so often insurance adjustments can be a real challenge and
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  a practice right to produce one six collect a million, six hundred thousand off
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  the top. And I've talked to practice owners where we'll get into that and
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  rather than address that issue, they've told the lie to themselves of yeah,
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  but I'm helping people, right, And so it's it's almost one of those
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  things that know they need to address it. It's they feel like they're helping
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  people on one side, of the other side is there's nothing I can do
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  about it kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot
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  of you know, employee wages insurance. Those are probably the top two casey.
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  And then the situation of insurance is do you have any good examples of
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  potential waste A dot could stand up for themselves. Yeah. I think having
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  the courage to actually look at it and know where your true true fee schedule
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  should be, what your true insurance adjustments are. We've talked about this before.
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  Not cooking the books, don't bill expect to collect. Make sure you
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  actually understand what your true insurance situation and adjustments are, because if you're cooking
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  the books, it looks like you have six percent. No, you have
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  twenty six percent. You're not putting it in the software. So really the
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  first step is just understanding the situation and then looking at different metrics patients per
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  day, PU production per day, how far you're booked out? Is there
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  an opportunity to do something here? And it's how I always I want to
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  recoin or resay your one of your favorite phrases, which is what's worse than
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  having bad information what's worse than incomplete or incorrect matak making decisions using incomplete or
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  incorrect data. And then to your point, if somebody is not sure what
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  their true insurance adjustments are, how are you going to fix that? You're
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  going to keep taking six figure haircuts every year because and again a lot of
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  times it comes from they don't know what to do or how to change it.
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  So it's easier to just say it's unchangeable. Yep. Then stand up
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  for yourself, have it to have your team do a deep dive and understand
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  it better. You said, like a number two kind of thing would be
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  a lot of times employee wages are just employee situations in general. What are
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  some good examples now wages I can obviously understand, which would be, you
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  know, a long time or even a short term employee asking for more money
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  and maybe trying to hold you hostage over that. What are some other situations
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  where a doc may need to stand up to an employee. You know,
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  we don't want any hostage situations. I mean, it can be culture.
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  I mean there's a lot of times that they'll know there's an employee that really
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  is a cancer, but they don't have the courage to do anything about it,
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  right, And I feel like that's a common one and a lot of
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  businesses too. There's always not always, but sometimes you'll get examples universal.
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  I mean any organization anywhere where, right, and so really making sure you've
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  identified and rectified what you want your culture to be and if somebody is not
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  adhering to it, then what are those consequences? Again, it comes down
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  to are you going to have an employee run your practice or are you going
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  to take control have the courage to run your practice. Now that can trickle
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  down too. Wages. That's a real touchy top topic because underwhelming staff and
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  team are demanding more money or they walk because they know there's a demand and
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  supply issue with good workers correct, And so that's a real big one.
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  I've heard some horror stories before about maybe a new dog buying a practice and
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  keeping some of the older staff, and how that can be an issue too.
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  It's it's the boogeyman, right, So new practice and old staff and
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  there you go back to junior high and you're worried nobody's gonna dance with you,
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  nobody's gonna like you. And I didn't have to worry about it.
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  They just didn't. That explains so much, but ultimately not wanting to change
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  too much and so then putting up with too much. Now there's pace to
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  everything. We say that all the time. So you have to have strategy
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  and good advice and good implementation of that strategy. But there are a lot
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  of times where the old staff they're trying to run the show and almost work
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  against the new practice owner. And this could even be in year two or
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  three sometimes because they have their their habits and their traditions and they that they
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  think are better even if they're not. Yeah, a lot of employees overvalue
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  their place, and it's incredible how many people we talk to. They go,
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  I finally had the courage to part ways with an office manager or an
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  assistant or two hygienists, and I didn't get how that can be scary.
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  Absolutely, I'm not discounting it. But ultimately, while we're talking about having
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  the courage to stand up to it, to do the right thing, and
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  then it was never as bad as they thought it was going to be in
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  their head. Ultimately they were able to move forward and then that gain or
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  benefit was so much better. Well, because if you're seeing as a pushover
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  in your own business, in your own practice. Your other employees will see
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  that and we'll potentially take advantage of it as well. Yeah, I mean
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  we don't. We're not practice management with like leadership, but a lot of
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  the things that we help our clients with they then become better leaders. And
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  then they also have a team that we can fall on that sword, yep,
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  and help give that advice. But ultimately, when people have the courage
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  to do the right things, and normally it just comes down to doing the
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  right thing, the thing you know, and you're pity your stomach that you
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  need to do. If you do it, typically you're better off because of
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  it versus the tail wagging the dog. And then all you do is complain
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  about your team, your staff or even like patients. I mean there's some
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  patients that I've heard a lot of these stories where they'll come in and they'll
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  try to get discounts or free dentistry or complain or threat and that they're gonna
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  do, you know, put a bad review out there. Again, you
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  have to have strategy around when that happens, not if because it's gonna probably
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  happen. Also to ask about patients next, I like that you brought up
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  the threat of a bad Yelp review, which I don't. It's not as
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  big of as a deal as some people played out to being as You're at
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  restaurant, I think, but one of the ones, this is an episode
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  from quite some time ago, we had talked about making patients accountable MM and
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  I think that's where also standing up, standing up for yourself could could come
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  into play. Yeah, we've got some people. I love it. They
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  have like their go to couple practices that they say, you know what,
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  I really feel you're a better fit for Doc so and so down the road,
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  and I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and let them know that you'll be
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  contacting them, and we're gonna go ahead and close out your client file.
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  And you say it really nice. Basically you're saying f off, right,
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  but you're saying it in a professional way. And again, having all these
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  systems in place that when these things happen, what are you going to do?
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  Because if you don't have a plan, and if you don't have a
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  team, and you don't have any courage, you're going to be frustrated.
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  Dentistry is not going to be what you thought it was going to be you're
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  going to be paying. Patients are going to be walking all over you,
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  Your staff and team's going to be walking all over you. The insurance companies
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  are going to be walking all over you. And then you go to your
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  study club and just bitch and moan about how dentistry is terrible. Right,
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  right, It's not terrible. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. But
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  yeah, if you're not doing any of these right, I can see how
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  that's definitely a pain. Well, it starts to add up. I mean,
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  as a practice owner, you're getting it from all angles and you're grinding,
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  you're working every day. You're also producing an incredible amount of dentistry.
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  That's the Yeah, that's the Then you get worn down to become that smooth
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  stone. Well, and then we talked about standing up the DSOs. Yep,
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  again, there's a place for them, and we're not poopooing them.
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  I'm gonna I mean too much. But sometimes the corporate dentistry ds O route,
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  they come in with the check and the practice owner doesn't feel like they
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  have any other options. Right, the wave that in front of your face
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  and then yeah, jump and if you can get your practice and house in
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  order. Then you can also can always say no to them, but to
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  stand up to them and feel good about it versus oh, I don't want
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  to upset them because this might be my only way out to sell my practice,
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  you know. I mean just courage in general. Some people have it
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  more than others, and some are too courageous and do dumb stuff. So
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  again that that word is a sliding scale. But the PGA Golf tournament in
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  Valhalla and Louisville is this is this weekend, and took my nine year old
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  and my dad to the to the practice round, just a nice gentleman and
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  a scholar. But there was this area where all the players kind of funneled
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  in and out, and there was a kid area for autographs and it was
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  it was great, but there were some adults in there and they were just
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  pushing. They're the ones that were trying to sell autographs. And my nine
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  year old kind of forearms shivered one of them and kind of looked up at
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  him with a look and they were like, oh, I'm sorry and moved
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  And I was so proud of her because like innately, she has a little
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  bit of that courage to do that, and then she got John Rahm's autograph,
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  Justin Thomas's autograph, Tommy Fleetwood. You don't know who those people are,
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  well listen, and I'm sure at the at the same time too,
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  those golfers really appreciated that because they know these these adults are just trying to
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  flip and make some money. Well, there's actually kids here who were appreciative
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  and like their heroes. I don't know a ton of famous people, but
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  I do know some people of notoriety, and they tell me the kids they
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  love. But the adults they can't stand because they know they're probably just gonna
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  sell the autograph or try to, you know, do something. But the
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  kids, they flock to them, and they there were certainly a chuckle or
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  two. Yes, that's right, that's right, Casey. We just had
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  a really successful and great event down on a land actually two of them,
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  going over the business side of dentistry. We are going to be visiting some
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  other areas soon. We're going to be hitting Saint Louis for two different events
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  as well as Kansas City, So check those out. Go to four Quadrantadvisor,
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  dot com slaw and click on events. We were going to be hitting
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  our hometown area of Indianapolis, visiting Evansville, Indiana as well. A lot
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  of really really cool things coming up. I know we're going to be at
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  the IDA. We're gonna be at the is the state we reside in the
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  Indiana Dental Association meeting. We've you know a lot of our clients are are
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  president's past presidents on the board are going to support that. Are we going
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  out east too? I believe so. Hey, the only thing hotter is
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  the Taylor Swift to are Other than that, it's uh, the four Quadrants
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  a Millionaire Dentist to our Boom boom, Thank Casey. That's all the time
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  we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing
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  some really great information, and thank you to you the listener for tuning in.
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  The Millionaire Dentist podcast is brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory to see
• 12:50
  if they might be a good fit for you and your practice. Going over
• 12:54
  to four Quadrantsadvisory dot com and see why year after year they retain over ninety
• 12:58
  five percent other clients. Thank you again for joining us and we will see
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  you next time.