Is your inventory management causing you some issues? Are you looking for a better tool to manage all of the “stuff” in your practice? This week on The Business of Dentistry I welcome Dr. Paul Bhatti. He has created an inventory management software titled “Sowingo” which is changing the way dental offices are managing their inventory.
Sowingo provides the clinical team with a way to organize and streamline their process for tracking inventory and open up time for other purposes. Lost inventory is lost money. When we consider how much is wasted in our offices due to expiration dates, the costs can be staggering. In fact, millions of dollars worth of products are lost each year. And we also lose money as staff members spend their time tracking inventory by hand when they could be using their talents elsewhere in the office, perhaps helping to increase revenue. This software tracks general inventory, medications, and implants and has modules to track things such as certifications and safety data sheets as well. And, the software continues to expand its capabilities due to the feedback from clients.
Are you ready to change the way your practice is managing inventory? If you’d like to consider a transparent, cost-effective way to cut down on lost inventory and get organized, listen to this episode of The Business of Dentistry. This software is solving problems so we can become more productive in our practices as we work to provide the best care for our patients.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Resources from this episode:
Sowingo website: https://www.sowingo.com/
Dr. Paul Bhatti: https://www.parkviewsurgery.ca/meet-us/dr-paul-bhatti/
***
EPISODE CREDITS:
If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.
He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.
Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com
Burnout is alive and well in our profession. Studies show that 7%, and as high 21% of dentists struggle with the symptoms of practice burnout.
These dentists feel drained. They complain of chronic tiredness. They suffer from mental fatigue. They deal with frazzled emotions. They start to see patients as "procedures" rather than people. Cynicism reigns their life.
It is common for these colleagues to seek isolation. At first, they turn away from their team and patients. This can expand to friends and family. They suffer in silence. They can drift into substance abuse as a means to cope.
Adding to these problems, they start to blame themselves. They devalue their self worth and feel a lack of personal achievement. They feel as if they offer no value to others. Every time they hear the phrase, "no offense, I hate dentists," it reinforces this belief.
This downward spiral starts to take its toll. It starts with the dentist. But begins to impact the dental practice. Lost patients, lost team members, and falling revenues add to the stress. Burnout's tentacles start to reach into all aspects of the dentist;s life. This starts a move on a spectrum from general stress to burnout. Burnout leads to depression. A path on one wants to be on.
Does any of this sound familiar? I hope not. But there is a chance some of the above statements describe you.
This begs the question. How do I know if I'm suffering from burnout? No simple answer exists. Burnout has a multitude of symptoms. Dentists have varying degrees in which they experience each of them. So, with no simple solutions, what is a good starting point? We say you should start with a personal wellness assessment. One designed for dental professionals.
In this type of self assessment you will be able to gauge your risk for burnout. The results of your assessment will give you information to make future decisions. Some of us don't need to do anything because we have a low risk. Others may need to make some self directed adjustments or seek outside help.
To get you started we have connected with Mind Garden to offer you a limited (100), no cost, wellness survey. This will help you better understand if you are trending towards, or in the throws of burnout.
You can get this limited offer by clicking on the link below.
Get Your Free Personal Dental Burnout Assessment
Your first name and a good email address will get you the link to an anonymous wellness assessment . The actual assessment gathers no personal information. At its completion you will have a private report provided to you. You may review the report at the end of the assessment or download it to review at a later date.
Take the first step to beat dental burnout.
Click below to take the free dental professional wellness assessment now.
Have you found yourself going through your days, seeing patients, but wishing you were actually handling a different kind of patient workload? That’s the situation that my guest this week, Dr. Brian Harris, found himself in. He found that he really enjoyed doing cosmetic cases over any other kind of patient case and wanted to increase his patient cosmetic base. That’s when he decided to reach out to potential patients virtually. He came up with a new system, Smile Virtual, as a way to reach out to potential patients. Today, he is sharing this amazing new program with all of us.
If you’re ready to practice the way you want to practice and work the way you want to work, his virtual consult platform may be able to help you create the workload of your dreams. Your practice can change. Today, Dr. Harris explains how virtual consulting is removing barriers with new clients and saving practitioners precious time that can be spent the way they want to spend it.
Are you ready to take a step on the path to doing things a little differently and reduce open chair time? If so, you won’t want to miss this episode!
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Resources from this episode:
Smile Virtual website: https://www.smilevirtual.com
Dr. Brian Harris: https://www.harrisdental.com/dr-brian-harris/
This week on The Business of Dentistry, Gerry McGoldrick, Chief Marketing Officer of Kleer, joins me to talk about how dentists can create customized dental membership plans for their practice. On average, 20 to 30% of dental practices patients are uninsured and they're only coming in every other year. How can practices help this specific patient base without hurting their own bottom line? Enter Kleer, a cloud-based platform, where dentists can easily design, implement, and manage their own dental membership plan.
In today’s episode, Gerry shares how Kleer originated and who they serve. Plus, you’ll hear the benefits of creating your own membership plan, how their system works, and how it helps uninsured clientele. If you’ve been wondering how to answer the question, “How do I serve my uninsured patients better and still make money?” then this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Resources from this episode:
Kleer’s website: https://www.kleer.com
On this episode of The Business of Dentistry, I had the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Casey Culberson. He likes to “work hard but play hard, too!” This is a great way to live, as we all need to have favorite pastimes to reduce the stress in our lives. Speaking of reducing stress, Dr. Culberson has created a way for phobic patients to take their mind off of dental procedures while at the office, which we discuss in today’s episode.
Dr. Culberson recognized a need for entertaining for his patients while they received treatment, and now with his new invention, he is helping to calm phobic patients in many dental offices too. In this episode, you will hear about his Molar Media Mount, what it is, how he invented it, and how he is using it in his practice today. You’ll also hear about the benefits of shared office space and how a change in perspective helped him manage his practice in a new way.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Resources from this episode:
The Molar Media Mount: https://www.molarmediamount.com/
Dr. Casey Culberson: http://www.caseyculbersondds.com/
This episode of The Business of Dentistry discusses an incredible opportunity for dental professionals to explore: the often undiagnosed disease of sleep apnea and its treatment options. My guest, Michael Cowen, and his business partner, Chad Wooters, discuss how their platform, Awaken2Sleep, is changing dental practices across the country. Chances are, you have many, many patients coming through your practice who are suffering from sleep apnea and may not even know it. This program can empower you to help the patients who entrust themselves to your care.
In this episode, we discuss their educational program and how it can be utilized in your practice. This program is designed not only for the doctors but also for the dental office team. By educating your staff, you are equipping the entire office to help patients. As Michael notes, they have “created a platform for doctors to be heroes for patients.” Do you have any idea how lucrative this segment of your offered services could be? You may be very surprised at the answer!
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Resources from this episode:
Awaken2Sleep’s website: https://awaken2sleep.com/
For a free 7-day trial: https://www.sleepheronetwork.com/
***
EPISODE CREDITS:
If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.
He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.
Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com
Part 1 of our Burnout series. This week we talk about how to recognize burnout with its multifaceted features.
After a long hiatus, the Business of Dentistry is back. As a re-launch episode, I figured we would start off talking everyone's favorite - hate mail.
Outside of my family, the two things that I’m the most comfortable and passionate talking about are dentistry and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Today I want to share with all of you a few thoughts on the lessons I’ve learned after losing a match during the jiu-jitsu tournament I had signed up for.
My experience there taught me a few important things, and I later realized that these things can also translate well to my practice. So I will use these lessons in the future, both on a business and a jiu-jitsu side.
When you have something go wrong, I strongly encourage you to not just quit on the first try. It may be something that will work in the future. Reorganize, regroup, come back and try it again.
Key takeaways:
Today I have a very short episode for you. It’s all about rekindling the excitement and the fire by trying something new. I know that I haven’t posted anything in awhile, but I needed some time in order to breathe, recharge, and think deeper. Now I’m back and I’ll be having some pretty exciting guests coming on the show, so stay tuned!
Key takeaways:
Reese Harper is the founder of DentistAdvisors.com. He started working in the financial service industry in 2003, and had several business owner clients. Over time, he realized that dental practice owners were really different from the rest.
Compared to his other clients, dental practice owners had a lot more financial questions, and seemed to be carrying more financial anxiety and stress. So Reese figured out that the generic solutions that the financial planning industry were providing to dentists were just not meeting their needs. Dental practice owners had a more complex financial picture, and that made him choose to work exclusively with them now.
Key takeaways:
Links:
This week I’m flying solo again. I share some practical tips that have helped me in my practice in the hope that you will feel prompted to make some changes as well.
First I talk about why I find documenting my protocols very important. All these steps are very intuitive now, but I got a lot out of just writing them down and sharing them with other people.
I also really think you should take a look at your credit card statements once in a while, because you might discover automatic payments that you completely forgot about.
Finally, I am currently looking at implementing the agile methodology in my practice. If you’ve already done that, I’d really appreciate your feedback. You can email me at drkirk@businessofdentistrypodcast.com.
Key takeaways:
As promised, my guest this week is Mr. Chuck Blakeman, the author of Making Money Is Killing Your Business and Why Employees Are Always a Bad Idea. Join us for a very captivating show where we touch on some very important strategic aspects that we all tend to forget too often.
Today’s lesson is that your business can really take off if you understand and apply some simple concepts. Too often we tend to get in our own way when it comes to our practices because we’re too busy trying to make money. The tyranny of the urgent wraps itself around us, while the priority of the important quietly sits in a corner waiting for us to pay attention to it.
There are two types of business owners: the income producers that always need to be in their practices in order for everything to function properly, and the true business owners that can take a month off to go on holiday while they keep making money even when they’re away.
After reading Mr. Blakeman’s book I re-evaluated my own situation. And after speaking to him, I found yet more hidden practical gems that I can use in order to bring my practice and my life to the next level.
Key takeaways:
Links:
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Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
This week I want to touch on a few more things regarding the book I mentioned last week, Making Money Is Killing Your Business by Chuck Blakeman in the hope that you might get a bit of practical inspiration that you can implement in your daily life.
First things first, I have some great news: I have been contacted by Mr. Blakeman’s team, and I am going to have him as a guest in a few weeks. I’m very, very excited, and events like these are for me some of the hidden advantages of podcasting. So I’m going to keep you updated about that. If you happen to have any questions that you’d like me to ask Mr. Blakeman, you can send me an email at DrKirk@businessofdentistrypodcast.com.
In this episode, I also speak a bit more in-depth about the tyranny of the urgent, a concept introduced by Mr. Blakeman in his book, and one that I find truly thought-provoking.
So please remember that if you want to get somewhere in your professional life, it’s crucial that you always keep an eye on your overall strategy, and you don’t get buried in your daily activities. I started implementing a few things for myself, and I’m more than happy to share them with all of you.
Key takeaways:
Links:
This week I want to give you a little bit of an update on what’s going on around here.
I read a book that got me thinking a lot, and I recommend it to every solo practitioner out there: Making Money Is Killing Your Business, by Chuck Blakeman. Reading it makes you really reflect on the state of your business, and your long-term objectives. Personally, I realized that I would like a few things to change, and I am most likely going to bring in another surgeon to help me out.
Blakeman makes some very interesting points on the so-called “tyranny of the urgent”. We can become so caught up in our daily activities, that we lose track of what we want to achieve in the long run. It’s something to keep in mind: be aware of what you really want to achieve and check yourself from time to time to see where you’re at.
Finally, I’m really excited to announce that we’ve started a new digital magazine for dental practice owners, ownR Magazine. Go check it out and let me know what you think, I appreciate every piece of feedback I receive.
Key takeaways:
Links:
My guest this week is Travis Hornsby, the founder of Student Loan Planner, a student loan advisor company.
Behind every great man there’s a great woman, they say. In Travis’s case, the great woman is his wife, a physician in Saint Louis. When they first started dating, she had a lot of student debt. So Travis decided to help her out by making a model of how they can pay off her student debt.
He used all the knowledge he got from bond trading and modeling complex debt instruments and started researching what are the most advantageous choices you can make while repaying your debt.
His then girlfriend, now wife, started spreading the word about what he was doing, so he started helping more and more dentists. He advised about 250 dentists and dental specialists in the past 18 months.
Key takeaways:
Links:
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This week I am joined by Dr. Paul Etchison, host of The Dental Practice Heroes Podcast, and author of Dental Practice Hero: From Ordinary Practice to Extraordinary Experience.
Paul comes from Illinois, and studied in Chicago. After finishing dental school, he worked for a specialist who owned several practices. There he got the chance to learn a ton of things, and after about two and a half years, he started thinking about creating his own business.
The next step for him was taking Dr. Scott Leune’s Breakaway Practice Seminars and gathering as much information as humanly possible.
He then started looking for a location for his office, found the perfect spot and grew the business really fast. Fast forward to six years later, they now have almost 3 million visits every year and still counting!
Key takeaways:
Links:
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Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
My guest this week is a self-declared Nebraska farm boy whose first career pursuit was athletic medicine. He later realized that athletic trainers are really married to their job, and this wasn’t the lifestyle he wanted for himself.
Dave Maloley then switched to dentistry and never looked back.
Today we talk about why it’s necessary to keep an eye on your vision, and why you should constantly remind yourself of what’s important to you.
We also touch on Dave’s 16 life categories that help him be more focused on his goals, on how he discovered high-performance training and how it completely turned his life around.
Finally, it’s useful to remind you that you can always sign up for the Dental Success Network, whenever you have questions, or if you need to double-check something. It’s an enormously valuable resource.
Key takeaways:
Links:
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Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
This week I speak about two things that have helped me improve my practice and my wellbeing.
The first one is treating myself to a buffer day before jumping back to work on a Monday morning. I realized that by doing so, I was more relaxed, and I could tackle the everyday problems better. I strongly suggest you give it a try if you’ve never considered it before.
The second thing that I truly benefited from is painting a whiteboard in front of my desk. So now every time I need to add something to my schedule, I can just add it to the list, and I will have it in front of my eyes until I solve it. This small trick has helped me be more organized and it took away the stress of having to keep things in my head.
Key takeaways:
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This week I touch on a few things I’ve noticed in my area lately. Consider revisiting some policies and protocols from time to time, to make sure you are in compliance with state and federal regulations.
I found out from my Marketing Director that OSHA has been paying some visits to dental offices in Tennessee, checking if our business is up-to-date with their requirements.
As you might be aware of, we have a problem here in Tennessee with opioid prescriptions. The state legislature is trying to tackle it by passing a new bill, which I’m not so excited about.
I also speak about a new credentialing organization we recently switched to, and some DEA visits I heard about from an oral surgeon friend of mine.
Key takeaways:
Links:
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This week I speak about the challenges I’m faced with as a small practice owner. Sometimes the administrative tasks that I need to solve stress me out, and I am still working on improving my problem-solving skills and coping mechanisms.
I often get complaints from my patients about the fact that I sometimes step out of the practice. It’s impossible for me to always be there, sometimes I need to take care of certain things.
I also recently remembered how important it is to observe your office from the patient’s point of view. I strongly suggest you give it a try and do so periodically.
We’ve been having some problems with the dental camera and with the website. If you know a good web developer or a long-lasting, top quality dental (video) camera, get in touch with me at drkirk@businessofdentistrypodcast.com. I really appreciate your help.
The challenges we are all faced with in our professional careers are part of our journeys. And I’ve learned to care more about my journey than about my destination.
Key takeaways:
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Full show notes at http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
This week is all about the strategies I’ve used in order to set boundaries in my professional life. These helped me handle my burnout and ended up being a valuable tool for everyday use.
In December 2011, I was a bit of a mess. I was endangering my personal and professional life, so I took my wife’s advice to go and seek professional help.
I went to see five different specialists, and they each gave me their advice. I started implementing it, and slowly, but steadily, I started improving.
This episode is a heartfelt testimony of my journey. I share the three types of boundaries I’ve set that made the biggest difference for my well-being.
Key takeaways:
Links:
Join me for a talk on some important strategies to use in order to overcome your burnout.
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Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
Full show notes at http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
Kevin Donlin, doctor, and manager of We Care Dental and member of the South Dakota Army National Guard, shares his challenges and solutions to being a small town practice owner.
When you’re living in a small town, you will most likely end up being either the only dentist in town or one of two or three others. This situation poses challenges if you are considering expanding your practice. Kevin shares his opinion on what your options are and how to best tackle this situation.
Apart from managing his practice, Kevin is also involved in the National Army Guard. This means that his schedule is most of the time full, leaving him little time for other activities. Kevin speaks about how he copes with being away from home for extended periods of time.
Are you a small practice owner in a small town? Then this episode is just for you.
Key takeaways:
Links:
Join us for a conversation on the advantages and demands of small-town dental ownership.
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Full show notes at http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
Boomcloud founder, Jordon Comstock, is no fan of insurance companies. He is convinced that dental practices don’t need a third party providing them with clients, so he developed a software that enables practitioners attract and retain customers through in-house membership plans and financing.
He is not alone in this venture. More and more dental and medical offices become tired of having to deal with insurance companies and develop plans of their own.
If you’re a dental (or medical) practice owner thinking about making a change and reducing or renouncing your insurance dependence, then you’re in for a treat, as Jordon carefully lays out the steps you need to do in order to become more independent. As a bonus, you should know that generating recurring revenue stream will increase the valuation of your practice.
Key takeaways:
Links:
Join us for more information on how to create recurring revenue stream through membership plans or in-house financing.
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Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/
Brian Colao, Director of leading US law firm Dykema, shares with us his expertise on how to get started with expanding a solo practice to a DSO or securing a private equity deal.
The dental industry is currently heading towards more DSO affiliations from solo practitioners. Getting affiliated with a DSO or doing a private equity deal can result in a much higher ROI over time, so many practitioners choose to expand.
What are the first steps towards restructuring to a DSO, or doing a private equity deal? What questions should you ask yourself and how much money would you need? What should you know beforehand when deciding between a DSO and a private equity deal?
Brian Colao comes to the rescue with answers to these questions and more.
Key takeaways:
Links:
Tune in to hear more on how Brian Colao’s company is helping solo practitioners get the best investment return out of their business.
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Full show notes at: http://businessofdentistrypodcast.com/