It’s my strong opinion that dental practices are either growing or they are in decline. A case could be made that there is a third option, staying the same, but with ever-rising overhead, staying the same is just another form of decline.  

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I’ll share 4 specific tips that will help you thrive in 2018 and beyond.

Thrive in 2018: Marketing and Whitening

Develop a Comprehensive Marketing Plan

New patients are necessary for a growing practice. Oftentimes the difference between a good practice and a thriving practice is the volume of quality new patients.

Spend some time crafting a comprehensive marketing plan that includes internal, external, and digital marketing activities. In my own practice, our most effective internal marketing strategy is the dentist calling all new patients and any patient who receives an injection on the evening of treatment.

An effective external marketing strategy for us is making NFL-quality mouth guards for our local high school football team. Also, one very effective digital marketing strategy has been getting online patient reviews. An appropriate marketing budget for a growing practice is 4-5% of revenue.

Embrace Whitening

Growing your whitening business is a great way to attract patients. Here are 3 simple things you can do to increase the amount of whitening treatments you perform:

1. Take a shade match at the beginning of the hygiene appointment. Then show the patient their current tooth shade on a shade guide organized chromatically from dark to light.
2. Value-price whitening. Consider value-pricing as a means of making it more affordable and accessible for your patients. The real economic benefit is the restorative and elective treatment that results from increasing your whitening.
3. Offer lifetime whitening. Consider offering free gel to your whitening patients, provided they keep their recommended hygiene appointments. This is a win/win strategy that patients love!

To be continued …

There are so many different processes, techniques, and skills that go into a functional dental practice that it can be hard to keep track of them all. Seemingly inconsequential things like referrals can get the better of us if we don’t have a solid system in place.

Patient Friendly Referrals

The best specialist referrals involve open communication and provide patients with a sense of care and consideration. Patients prefer to be given a tangible referral tool, such as the specialist’s brochure, along with your confident assertions of their quality. This gives them something solid to associate their trust with and provides further familiarity.

Validation of your referral comes in other ways as well. Patients will want you to provide the introductory information that you might assume the specialist will want. It’s important to remember that they won’t automatically feel comfortable putting their health in someone else’s hands.

You might consider asking the patient if they would like your office to call the specialist to establish the referral and set up their first appointment. This strengthens their sense that you are actively involved in the referral and have a strong relationship with the other office and team. It’s proof of your commitment to their health.

A big no-no is not discussing the patient’s condition with the specialist before their appointment. It will become very obvious to the patient if you haven’t done your due diligence in helping the specialist understand their needs. They will feel stranded and ignored, and often are uncertain that the specialist will communicate back with you after their visit.

Finally, make sure you have an arrangement with the specialist ahead of time that they will check in with you after the treatment. Then, once the patient returns to your practice, you can share with them all you learned from the specialist since they were there.

How do you ease patient concerns during the referral process? Leave a comment below!

Our good intentions and true thoughts surrounding a difficult situation with a patient can get lost in the communication process. When we fail to meet patient expectations, we can almost become a different person.

Our patient interprets what we say and do as demonstrations of our character. This is why, if we want to resolve conflicts and make patients feel understood, we need to pay special attention to showing that we care.

How to Show You Care About Patient Concerns

There are many ways to show you care that can be beneficial on both sides. It also helps to take criticism not as a personal affront, but as an opportunity for improving our communication skills. It may seem counterintuitive, but the best way to soothe or diffuse heightened emotions is to let people experience them. Allow patients to fully express their upset, instead of trying to shoot them down or make light of the situation.

Then, truly embrace empathy. Don’t just listen and nod without truly empathizing with their upset. Let them know that you understand how hard the situation is for them. Next, acknowledge the challenge of revealing their true feelings by thanking them for their honesty and for telling you what they think.

And then there’s the hardest part: apologize. You don’t need to admit you’re guilty and beg their forgiveness. You simply need to express how sorry you are that they are experiencing upset. Also, don’t assume that you can guess how to fix the problem.

Ask your patient how they want to be helped and be honest about whether you can make it work. By patiently listening and acknowledging their feelings, you may have already given them exactly what they wanted.

How do you show your patients that you care? Let us know in the comments! 

Throughout my dental hygiene, dental school, and residency programs, I was blessed to have exceptional instructors and role models. All of them encouraged me, believed in me, and most importantly, impressed upon me the importance of lifelong learning. Many of them recommended Pankey, telling me to go there as soon as I could.

A Journey to Deeper Patient Relationships

That journey began in 1994. I will never forget sitting in Dr. Irwin Becker’s philosophy class as he talked about the Crosses of Dentistry. He discussed “Knowing Your Patient” and I remember becoming very emotional.

As a young hygienist, it would bother me when I would see a re-care patient and not remember what we talked about the previous time. I started jotting things down on index cards about each patient and keeping them in a private file. Not the things you would typically see in chart notes, but personal things they felt comfortable sharing.

Each time they came in, I would refer to the personal card file and refresh my memory as to where we left off. There was no way I would have been able to remember all those special discussions, so I had to write them down. Each time they came in, the next chapter began.

I also started sharing more information about myself. I found the more I shared, the deeper the conversations went. I really wanted to know my patients on a much deeper level and that is what happened over time.  

When I came back to the Pankey Institute for the second continuum, I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by name by Dr. Ernie Anderson, one of the course instructors, as I stepped into the elevator of the condos. Obviously, he had taken time to look at the roster to see who was in the class and that was very impactful. The kindness, thoughtfulness, and encouragement shown to me at the Institute were instrumental in demonstrating how I wanted to make my patients feel during my care.

Time spent getting to know my patients has resulted in lifelong relationships. Of all the things I’ve learned, this is one of the most important keys to a meaningful and enjoyable career.

Buyers are actively seeking dental practice opportunities all over the country. With the influx of doctors to desirable areas, sellers must have a strategy for how to identify the right buyer for their legacy practice.

Navigating the Best Transition For Your Dental Practice Legacy

Complementary technical skills to properly care for a patient base are essential. Behavioral considerations like interpersonal skills and communication are part of the success of a relationship-based practice. Timing and financial considerations play a large role in buyers identifying their opportunity as well. Working with a seasoned transition consultant allows for the vetting of these necessary components.

Some practice brokers seek a transactional experience for a changing of the guard with a processing of documents and a single strategy for its completion. This is driven strictly by financial and legal considerations. That transactional mindset is what you have been working to avoid in your practice for a career. So why would you consider growing your practice or ending your career with a philosophy that goes against the grain of what your practice has become?

Curiosity Driven Dental Practice Transition Strategies

Why not become curious about practice transition strategies? You could explore a co-discovery experience of what best fits your practice model and philosophy. Asking more questions and learning more about what makes your practice a successful legacy is the first step.

Transition consultants offer a complete approach to evaluate your relationship-based practice. The approach seeks all the financial and legal considerations plus works to transfer the technical, behavioral, and business culture. The purpose of this is for continuity in your practice and security for your future built on strategic solutions. Finding a transition consultant with successful business experiences helps make them uniquely qualified to collaborate with you to develop your strategic transition or expansion solution.

Whether you are a specialist or a general dentist, seek a consultant that will perform a comprehensive exam on your practice. They should report their findings with a thorough and professional strategy to meet your wants and needs. Developing a legacy plan for your relationship-based practice model that creates opportunity and security for your next phase must be intentional.

Are you ready to discover the best strategies for you and your practice future?

As dental practices grow and change, new seasons bring opportunity and security for both sides of a transaction. Charting a new path can be stressful and uncertain as many practitioners have not weathered a transition in years.

Considering a Transition Change In Your Relationship-Based Practice?

Young dentists are often seeking that opportunity for the first time. Experienced doctors often bought a practice many years ago or started their practice from scratch as a young doctor themselves.

The practice climate is changing! It is a competitive market with educated young professionals seeking the right opportunity and practice owners wanting to finish well while leaving a legacy with their practices better than they found them.

Organizational changes in practices can take many paths. Growing a practice through a merger or partnership brings its own set of challenges and opportunities. However, a practice based on relationships with patients, teams, referral bases, and communities requires special care.

Evaluating Your Practice Philosophy During a Transition

This process can be a stressful distraction to owner dentists. Those dentists that have committed their professional growth to technical excellence and relationship-based practice culture may need strategic help in navigating the right practice transition.

Dental practice transitions have been around for decades. Selling a practice to a young colleague and walking away has been the standard solution. Today, there are many different solutions that reach the goals of the seller and the buyer. Many relationship-based dental practices are seeking a like-minded professional to carry the torch and move the practice legacy forward. This goal requires intentional planning and careful follow through.

The time to evaluate practice philosophies is BEFORE a transition occurs. Examining wants, needs, timelines, and the type of transition that best suits those needs develops during the pre-sale process. You likely didn’t build your relationship-based, highly technical practice by doing what everyone else has done.

Becoming an expert in your field has been intentional and constructed with the concept of excellence and communication as a basis for that success. When it’s time to expand your dental practice or find your successor those same themes should continue.

To be continued…

How do you make your dental practice resilient? 

In a recent article in INC magazine, venture capitalist Dave Whorton and Red Herring co-founder Chris Alden used the term ‘evergreen’ to describe the increasing number of private, profitable, market leading businesses designed to remain independent for a long, long time.

In other words, they possess abundant, healthy longevity that is grounded in their very nature. To me, that sounds exactly like the high quality, relationship-based practice each of us is attempting to create and develop all day every day in our professional lives.

Whorton and Alden identified seven very instructive characteristics of an evergreen company. I adapted them to be relative to a relationship-based dental practice. Let’s take a look.

How to Create a Relationship-Based Evergreen Dental Practice

1. Purpose

Being passionately driven by a compelling vision and mission. There is no substitute for clarity around your WHY. It is your unique story.

2. Perseverance

Having the grit to get through and past barriers. When you have a long term perspective of your practice, professional career, and life, the short term trials seem much less daunting. Those trials also occupy much less space in what you measure as important. The destination is a fixed standard. The time required to get there is a variable. I call that standard an ‘unchanging point of light.’

3. People First

The people of your world are both the reason for your work and the vehicle to make that work come to life. Surrounding yourself with the best and most talented people available to you is the most powerful accelerator to your practice development.

4. Private

Your dental practice, even with multiple dentists and a large team, is still a micro enterprise owned and operated by practicing dentists within the practice. This makes your enterprise much more agile, responsive, and tactical. It is one of the critical advantages we have over large corporate ownership.

5. Profitability

Profitability is a measure of value delivered to the patient. By building high trust relationships that essentially function as partnerships, the patient is much more likely to choose comprehensive solutions to their problems. This builds productivity and profitability.

6. Paced Growth

Focusing on long term strategies of practice growth and development creates a mindset of investment in people, technology, and skills. This creates a brand and practice culture that are unique in the marketplace with the power to attract and retain great people. These people are your team, your patients, and your interdisciplinary team of specialists and technicians.

7. Pragmatic Innovation

The best dental practices we know continually educate themselves and their patients. They employ contemporary technologies that are critical to their performance and results. They never stop seeking a better way to do what they do. In short, they lead, they innovate, and they teach others to do the same. It is a mindset and a way of life.

Are you thinking it’s time to bring in an associate and start the process of planning a practice transition?  

Most dentists contemplate this matter at some point during their practice career but often struggle through the process and don’t know where to start. Taking the plunge is much easier once you feel more comfortable with your own perspective on dentistry.

As with all relationships, you have to work on you before you can offer something to another person. 

The Missing Link of Choosing an Associate

After many years of private practice and four associates who stayed an average of four years each (and left for “greener pastures”), I finally figured out the missing link.

This link is a clearly written and spoken practice philosophy. It is not your mission and/or vision statements (although they are important too). 

A Practice Philosophy

A practice philosophy is grounded in the 3-5 core values that describe the essence of WHO you are and WHAT you stand for. These crucial values also answer the question WHY? Why do you do what you do?  

My practice philosophy is rooted in the tenets of the Philosophy of Dentistry presented by Dr. LD Pankey. Living a life of success and happiness for Dr. Pankey meant being balanced in the areas: Work (Profession) – Love (Relationships) – Worship (Spirituality) – Play (Recreation).  

My philosophy is similar to Dr. Pankey’s, but also incorporates the values of Excellence, Integrity and Life-long learning. For me, being very clear in my principles and ideals made it much easier to evaluate and assess all potential candidates who considered joining me in my practice.   

Before embarking on the process to find the right associate/partner for your practice, ask yourself if you are clear on your core values and practice philosophy.  

Don’t miss Dr. Crete’s writing on 6-handed bonding restorations and his favorite dental material.

When a dental partnership fails, it’s natural to want to keep the truth quiet. The dissolution of relationships, especially business relationships, is often seen as shameful. In Part 1 of this series, I decided to openly discuss a partnership that ended. Here, I continue that story.

When Dental Partnerships Go Awry

After negotiation and mediation failed, our contract stated we would have our case settled by the American Arbitration Association. When the dust settled three-and-a-half years later and the final appeal ruling of the Arbitrator’s decision came down in my favor, it ended up on the front page of our local Daily Law Bulletin.  

I had multiple texts come in that morning from attorney friends and patients congratulating me on the victory. Even an arbitration victory can feel like a loss with the stomach lining and energy that it takes to go through the process.  

I know that some lessons will never be learned out of a book and need to be experienced, but please add this one phrase to your existing or upcoming contract: The loser of any appeal of binding arbitration shall pay the other party’s attorney fees. That alone would have prevented many years of stress, a whole lot of money spent on attorneys, and some gray hairs to boot.  

Creating a Partnership Charter

Recently, I was introduced to a book entitled ‘The Partnership Charter’ that has energized me around new possibilities for a partnership with my current associate. A partnership charter is a cooperative document meant to instill a spirit of collaboration into an agreement between parties.  

While not legally binding, it provides a framework for the partnership that is highly individualized and contains no boiler plate standard clauses. The process is the most important outcome and the document is secondary. It is meant to be reviewed and revised throughout the partnership, becoming a true living document that creates continued conversation over synergy and fairness.  

Though not every scenario can be planned for, I am confident that getting in and out of my next partnership will be spelled out much more clearly than my last. The charter will provide a process of collaboration that will guide us toward fairness for all concerned.

In part 1 and 2 of this candid blog series, Dr. Brad Weiss discusses the dissolution of his partnership with an associate and how he believes others can avoid falling into similar situations.

In July, I finished my term as president of my rotary club. I termed it a “planned hardship,” much like a camping trip where you know you will be better for having experienced it.

Each week for the rotary club meetings, I ended them with Rotary’s Four Way Test: First, is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will it be beneficial to all concerned?  

My vision of what defines a successful partnership aligns with the rotary club mindset. I believe a partnership in the dental practice is where each of the four above criteria can be met. My patients are the ultimate beneficiaries of a well-functioning agreement.  

A Broken Dental Partnership

I am not a practice transitions expert, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but I did go to the school of hard knocks. I have been an associate, worked as an employee for a corporate entity, shared space as my own S Corp, and eventually merged my small practice with a much larger one to become a 50-50 partner with an associate as our employee.  

There is shame attached to the failure of any relationship. As my partnership split after six-and-a-half years, mine is no exception. The more I tell my story, the more I hear such similar stories from other dentists. It is eerie and disappointing to know that more is not done to improve the odds of partnership success.  

My belief is that the shame attached keeps others from knowing how to avoid potential strife between two otherwise reasonable people.

To be continued…