How to Succeed as a Dentist and Build a Thriving Career

Introduction

The biggest obstacle many dentists face is that they think they’re entitled to a prosperous career. “I’m a really good dentist. Therefore, I should be able to succeed as a dentist.” The problem is that only 50% of becoming a successful dentist is about your clinical dentistry skills.

The other fifty percent of what you need to do to become a prosperous dentist is “The Business of Dentistry.” This will determine whether you thrive, or even survive, as a dentist. In this blog post, we’ll explore what The Business of Dentistry is, and how to leverage it to enhance your dental career.

Clinical Dentistry

Most dentists focus on the left circle in the image below – Clinical Dentistry. They invest their time and money into clinical dentistry training. They focus on becoming the best clinical dentist, thinking to themselves, “If only I can have perfect margins on my crowns, I will be successful in dentistry. Patients will come to see me. Financially, all will be well.” However, when business is not going well, instead of looking at their marketing or customer service, these dentists simply sign up for another CE course to improve their clinical skills.

Most dentists avoid the circle on the right – The Business of Dentistry. They have very little or no training in this area, so they avoid it. Like many other practitioners and service providers, dentists don’t like being forced into the business arena, and often declare, “I just want to come into the office and do dentistry.”

However, to succeed as a dentist and to run a thriving practice, you need to master both circles. You must learn to love the business of dentistry as much as you love providing dentistry services. The best way to do this is to make the circle on the right as important as the circle on the left in your dental career. You can learn to become great at The Business of Dentistry, which will help give you financial security and freedom.

If you’re not skilled in The Business of Dentistry, working alongside a dental consultant like Dental Business Advisors and partnering with a Dental CPA firm provides you with the support you need to grow your business. 

The Business of Dentistry

The Business of Dentistry includes obtaining and maintaining patients, developing motivated and well-trained team members, plus understanding and applying accounting principles. It also involves problem solving, decision making, maintaining operations, paying overhead bills, and building goodwill in your practice.

The most important part of The Business of Dentistry is to keep your schedule filled with great patients who accept treatment, pay on time, and most importantly – refer others to your practice (all of which creates goodwill). Goodwill is achieved by providing an excellent patient experience and requires you to balance high-quality clinical skills with strong business skills.

By building goodwill, you can increase your dental practice value which will benefit you when you decide to sell your business. However, most dentists struggle with the business side of dentistry. Unfortunately, if you avoid developing your business – including marketing, strategy, and customer experience – you’re going to limit the growth of your practice. And you may not succeed in owning a dental practice at all.

Improving Your Dental Practice

Very often, a dentist neglects their business or delegates unreasonable responsibilities onto other staff members. However, employees usually have different goals than the CEO of a business. When this happens, the dentist loses.

We recommend that you schedule a 2-3 hour block every week dedicated to being a business owner, getting visibility over your operations, and making strategic decisions. No clinical procedures are done during that sacred time, which allows you to focus on the needs of your business.

During this block of time, it’s important to review the following:

1. Look for problem areas or inefficiencies in your dental practice. 
2. Study your monthly P&L and other financial reports. 
3. Talk with your team members and hold team meetings periodically for training purposes.
4. Meet with your vendors and mentors, building a team of advisors. 
5. Review your office systems, policies, and customer service.
6. Set goals and make decisions on how to accomplish them. 
7. Read and educate yourself on being a business owner. 
8. Develop a healthy culture for you and your team.
9. Consistently ask yourself and others: “How can we do it better?” Make that a motto in your practice. You might even display it as a plaque in your office!

The time and energy that you invest into your business will create a much higher return than doing another filling or seeing another patient. Plus, focusing on your business development may potentially save you hundreds of thousands of dollars down the track.

A Case Study – Too Much Trust

One of my clients Joe came to me complaining about how well his practice was doing, but that his take home compensation was poor. His practice was collecting over $750k per year in patient revenue and he should have been enjoying $225k-$300k per year in compensation, but he wasn’t.

Like many dentists, Joe was solely focused on clinical production. His front desk manager ran the business. She had been with him for ten years. He depended on her to make decisions and take control. She was the only one who knew the password to the computer. She paid the bills, made the deposits, and signed his name when needed (including for prescriptions).

Shortly after he asked us for assistance, he walked into his office on a Monday morning and was greeted by three men from government agencies. They were there to close him down!

His front desk manager had been selling prescriptions to the public over the weekend and had attempted to sell some to an undercover agent. And of course, Joe’s signature was on the prescriptions. He was told the fine would be around $250k and he lost his ability to write prescriptions. His front desk manager was terminated and she fled the state.

After reviewing his accounting, Joe discovered that his manager had embezzled over $130k in the last year alone. He was in shock! How much more had she embezzled over the years? He realized he had trusted her too much, but the damage was already done.

Joe was able to reduce his fine to $75k, but he was forced to take out a second mortgage on his home to pay it off. A year after losing his license, he regained his ability to write prescriptions for his patients.

Now, Joe sets aside time every day to review his business. We helped him put systems in place to prevent this situation from occurring ever again. He only places trust in others if it can be maintained through accountability and supervision. The good news? Joe learned the error of his ways, and since then has become a very successful dentist with multiple practice locations.

Conclusion

Being a successful dentist isn’t just about being good at dentistry. That’s only half the battle. The other half is understanding how to run the business side of things. By learning and applying key business skills, you can stand out, attract more patients, set yourself up financially, and build a thriving practice. Your clinical skills are important, but it’s your business skills that will determine if you just get by or truly succeed. Focus on both, and you’ll set yourself up for long-term success.

To find out more about The Business of Dentistry, you can contact Glen Jensen or book a free consultation with our Dental CPA team here. At DrillDown Solution, we specialize in working with dentists to create financial freedom and long-term financial success.

This was a guest post written by Glen Jensen from Dental Business Advisors.

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