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#982: The Future of Dentistry and How You Can Keep Up
Kiera talks about the numerous shifts on the horizon in dentistry, what your practice can do to embrace the changes, and how Dental A-Team can help.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. I hope today is just an incredible day for you. And I hope you remember you are in the greatest industry possible. And today I'm really excited because I feel like there's some opportunities to discuss and challenges that I think offices are gonna be facing in the next five to 10 years. I wanted to pop on and just say like, hey, dentistry is changing fast. And my question is, are you and your practice gonna be ready to seize the opportunity or?
Honestly, are you going to be struggling and hanging out in the back? I think that there will be a lot of shifts. I think we've seen a lot of shifts in dentistry. And so really just popping on to help you look for different things for technology, patient experience, different things within the practice, and really be able to help you guys prepare and get your practice there. Do you guys know Dental A Team? We are here to serve. We are here to help you and your practice have the best experience. I truly do believe that running a dental practice that's profitable and successful does not need to be hard. It does not have to be crazy.
and it can actually be fun and we can get doctors and team members aligned to be able to work in tandem together. And so that's why we're here today. I'm super excited because honestly, staying ahead of these trends is going to help you have long-term practice success. I've really been watching in the offices that we consult, the ones that are adapting and early adapters to technology, I think are going to be in the forefront. And so really just looking at where you are in the life cycle of your practice, looking to see where you want to be in the next five to 10 years.
and not making decisions to sell or to go to a DSO or to stay in a legacy practice out of necessity, but actually out of choice. So number one, I think that AI is coming in. AI is coming in pretty popular. There's a lot of different things. So we're having it in diagnostics. So like Pearl and Overjet, they're able to help co-diagnose with you. There's 3D printing that's coming in. I know offices are using AI and creating bots. We have an office.
where they've created an actual 24 hour a day bot for their practice. And I really think right now is a time for you to be learning. So whether it's 3D printing within your practice, automating our patient communication, looking into AI like this practice where they have a bot, using chat GPT for other things, utilizing AI, think helping practices with case acceptance. We've talked with Pearl, I've had Pearl on the podcast before, but what's crazy cool about that is offices are utilizing it.
actually you're seeing like a 30 to 50 % increase in case acceptance just by using this AI assisted technology. And I prefer Pearl over Overjet. Honestly, I think that there's no wrong choice on it. But the reality is like, I think you've got to get these things in motion. You've got to start looking for them. Otherwise, I really am concerned for you as a practice that you will accidentally become outdated. So really making sure that you are, you're working through this, that you are adding these things in because I think
AI is going to rapidly take off. And if you're not prepared, I think you will be outdated. So that's opportunity number one. So I'd say get involved in some sort of AI, whatever it is, even if you just start dabbling in chat GPT every single day, whatever it is, but really starting to utilize that. Opportunity number two. Now these are the opportunities that I see in the next five to 10 years. I think they're hitting this now. But number two is going to be like looking at membership plans, fee-per-service.
looking at some of those things. Now I'm not here to say drop insurance plans. I've actually been, think a consultant who's been pretty adamant about hanging onto insurance plans for as long as you can, pending upon what you want to do for marketing. If you're an incredible marketer, rock on, you might not need it. But insurance is just going to be something where I feel over time, it's going to get a little bit funkier. I don't think you're going to see a huge increase in insurance funds. I could be totally off on this. I'm not stamping my like everything that I am, but I think like, let's pay attention to it and let's see.
costs are rising in dentistry, but insurance plans are not paying a lot. And so could we start to shift our patient base? Could we start to retain our patients and actually build this fee for service model in? Now you've got to be super careful and I'm going to put like huge asterisks and exclamation points and pieces around it because if you do not transition out of insurances correctly and have a plan and a process and a patient experience in place, you will get like, I've seen it be so bad for practices. So really I think like,
One, if you don't have an in-house membership plan, let's get that started. I'm very pro these. It allows you to have options in the future. It allows you to have different marketing strategies. I think a lot of people are just looking at benefits at a different way now. And I think it just helps you to not be as dependent upon insurance in the future. Then number two is assess your insurance plans. And let's see, are there maybe any insurance plans that we could drop that aren't really going to hurt your production? You really got to do this strategically. Otherwise it will burn you in the booty.
and I do not want you to be at that practice. I've had too many of those offices, so let's make sure you're not there. And then make sure that we're like really getting people sticky to our practice. I think this will be a really, really, really big change for people. And then also it's something where even as fee for service patients, if you can get them on membership plans, I can speak for myself. Being on a membership plan, I actually came in for my two cleanings as opposed to a fee for service patient who often will only come in one time.
So I think it's just another way for you to have more patient flow, more opportunities to diagnose by having that membership plan. I have a practice where they were, this is me as a patient, I was going to them and they had a membership program. The doctor left, branched off, opened up their own practice and they don't have a membership program. And I was like, well, sweet, maybe I'll just go to you once a year. This is as a consultant. I know I need to go in twice a year. I know I have amazing teeth, but I don't need to go twice a year. Like honestly, if I only go once a year, my teeth are probably fine.
but if they had put me on a membership plan, there are other opportunities. For example, you could offer me a night guard, you could do whitening on me, you could do fluoride treatments on me, but because they're not putting into place a membership plan, odds are I probably won't be going back. So look to see how can we actually get our patients to be retained in our practice, not dependent upon insurance. So when we start to trickle that down, we start to convert more and more of our patient base. And what I will say is a lot of practices have transitioned say,
30 % of their patient base over to a membership plan. They start practicing on this, they start getting used to it. So when they want to drop insurance plans, they have a solution that's been really ingrained into their practice. The team's really good. I'm obsessed with companies like Dental Menu. I think that they do a great job for membership programs. I think that they've got a great one built. BoomCloud Clear. So you can just take a look to see who you like the most for it. And then I'm really obsessed with Moola. Moola, I think is a great credit card processor for you.
that actually helps you with your membership programs in-house so you can actually save on your credit card fees. I'm really pro them. Any of these companies that I'm recommending today, be sure to tell them, Denali team, you heard it on the podcast because they actually have a referral pricing for you. So that's what I negotiate. We don't do hardly any affiliates within our company. I just negotiate the lowest fees for you. but really I think looking to see, I think it's an opportunity for you with insurance plans and the economy to start adding in a membership.
Opportunity number three for you is looking into, tell the dentistry I don't think like hot, hot, but I do think virtual consult and online payments. So how can we make things easier for people? So can we get a virtual consultation? Can we start to have, I know there's like, we've had other people on our podcast before where they do virtual, like your smile, what is it? Your virtual smile consult. And what you can do is you can actually do treatment planning. You can have new patients meet you.
You can have videos on your website where it's like, hey, I'm the doctor. They can actually ask questions to the doctor. I have seen a lot of this with bigger cases come into pretty strong effect. Also, if you're wanting to do say consultations where maybe we're doing bigger treatment plans or even like full mouth cosmetic, there's a lot of those that I think are out there to help virtually. I have a doctor and they do a lot of what's called hybrid. So all on X cases and there's a software they can literally use and show the patient their new smile sitting in the chair.
So I think whether you're having patients virtually meet you or if you're using that technology within the chair to help present your cases better, having online options, so online scheduling, online payments, those types of things I really think we need to get more into the virtual world. I think dentistry is a smidgey dated. So I would strongly recommend for you on this to see how can you actually add these pieces into your practice because I do think these are going to like enhance you and just be something patients are expecting. Right now patients are expecting online.
patient scheduling, they're looking for online payments. They're looking for, mean, think about it. If I want to have a consult, my husband and I, we've done IVF. I've talked about it a couple of times on the podcast. I did a virtual consultation with my IVF doctor in another state and we went and we went, now, if you know IVF, IVF's around a 20 to $25,000 process per cycle. And so thinking about that in comparison to dentistry, they literally did virtual consults with me so I could be out of state, I could fly in.
I didn't have to actually be there. And so looking to see, that's what modern medicine is doing. What things could we actually do in dentistry that might be able to help us out as well? So I really think looking for that, that's where I mentioned Moolah, they're great for online, your smile, your virtual, gosh, I'm like botching it. I think it's your smile virtual consult, virtual smile consult. Look it up, that one I'm not as strong on. But just see how can we incorporate some of these items within our practice.
And I would really say that when you do this, you're able to get those high case acceptance. You're able to have more patient acceptance. Think about it. We're paying bills online at night. We are also scheduling appointments. I am constantly on my phone in the middle of the day, at night, on the weekends, moving appointments around, looking to see. And I think if we're not offering that for our patients, we're actually gonna get left behind because patients might accidentally leave you to go to a practice that's actually more up to date. So definitely.
Let's get into how can we become more virtual online. I think it's a huge, huge, huge opportunity for practices. Like I said, I think those are the top three opportunities right now. So we've got AI, membership programs, and then getting more virtual. So virtual consults, virtual like having more available online options. And then I think two of the big challenges in the next five to 10 years, which I think we're seeing it, which I think tie into the opportunities are,
We know it's expensive to run a dental practice. And I think dentistry has had this like nice run for quite a few years, decades where they've been able to stay in a very profitable margin. Hence why DSOs have entered the playing field. And so I think with inflation, higher payroll, supply costs, I think that there's some things in there to pay attention. And number one is you've got to know your number. So I'm really pro overhead calculators, looking at it, having your team involved with you, making sure that all of you are on the same page.
Those are gonna be some really good ways for you guys to stay on top of it, not falling out behind the scenes and figuring it out. Then utilizing buying group things. So for example, Synergy is a great buying group. You buy from your own preferred vendor, but you just get a discount on your supplies. Why not do things like that? How can we actually look to see, can we hire hygienists in and then have a base plus commission? and I were on the podcast.
a couple of weeks ago talking about how we can incentivize hygienists and not have to have as high of payroll, but really looking to see what are the ways that we can do this, looking to see how we can increase our fees, doing a 5 % fee increase, negotiating with insurances or possibly dropping some of those lower paying ones. What are some of these pieces? And what I will say is When you watch your numbers and you analyze your overhead, I promise you, you will be more profitable. So right now we're like, gosh, it's so expensive, which I'm not here to say it's not.
But there's offices out there that are running at a 35% overhead. So that means there's 65% profit margin for them. So looking at that and knowing that there's practices that are able to do that, that means once we know it's possible, then we can look for how you can do it in your practice as well. Now I understand that there's different areas. California is expensive. Hawaii is expensive. Like I hear you, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. And I think being a wise steward over your numbers is actually something that I really would implore you to do.
to make sure that as costs rise, you know what you're actually spending money on. So you can actually make better decisions. look to see, can we hire this person? Are we paying within the realm? What do we need to do? Could we add on other services within our practice? all on X cases, ortho cases, things like that. But I really think like it's a huge challenge that I think you've got to stay on top of. Otherwise, before you know it, you're gonna just be like inundated and not be able to hire team members because we weren't watching it. We didn't know our numbers. We didn't know what we needed to be producing.
We didn't build block schedules to make sure that our practice could actually run lean and efficiently. And then challenge two, which I think has been hitting hard, which we'll just kind of address, is like staffing shortages and team retention. But I will say that this is like an if. Like there's so many offices out there that I know have incredible cultures. And so what I really feel like needs to happen in this realm is you've got to be an office that in a place that people want to work for. I started noticing that the new currency is time.
Time is the new currency, I think, in where we're at right now. Time and compensation and being happy. But I don't think it's as high on compensation as people think it is. Yes, it's a piece, but I see team members that are getting paid less, but for great cultures are saying because they want this work-life balance. They want more time. They want to be able to be with their kids. They want to be able to feel appreciated with their boss. They want to feel like they're doing a great job. And that is more the currency of today. And so how can you build this culture where
We attract a bunch of people to our practice. We have team members that want to stay with us and that we actually know that, like, we're looking to see how can we maximize this. I am seeing a trend, I'm not saying this is how you have to be, but I am seeing a trend where there is a four-day work week of employees actually tends to lead to less burnout and less team turnover. I don't know what it is. My five-day practices tend to have a bit more of that, but the four-day, and again, they, so they're not,
just open four days or open five days, but they have these rotating shifts and rotating days where they're off. I have seen that that's helping. And so I really feel that when you can build this amazing culture, build it to be a place where you're excited about, add fun things in, watch your overhead, watch those costs. But I really think it's something that's possible. think back to why you started to practice. You wanted to change, you wanted to do things differently. You want to have a team where you were so excited. I know that's what I get excited about. love, I love having a team. love.
loving on them. I love giving them opportunities. I love seeing them flourish in their lives. I love being excited for the growth they're having and so really trying hard to build this incredible team culture to cut the team turnover, to keep it to where you're this like raved about practice where everybody wants to work for you. I think would really, really be an incredible thing for you to just take on. And I know we've heard about it, but I think like, look at your culture, look at the things. I had to do a deep dive of this last year.
Britt and I, sat there and we're like, all right, what is the team saying? What are the issues that we know we're seeing consistently? And what do we want to do to change to make this a better environment and a better space? And I feel that only teams in incredible culture, but there were things that we were struggling with. were things of that we needed to change. There were things that had shifted since I started the company. And I think you've got to stay on top of that. Otherwise, I think you can easily get outdated. So that's a quick wrap.
I think the biggest opportunities are definitely AI membership programs and then also getting virtual, like getting everything up to date and online. And then challenges of course are going to be higher costs and then staff shortages and team retention. But I honestly believe that those who adapt, those who innovate, those who listen to this and they don't just passively listen but actively implement are going to flourish. They say a lot of times the biggest millionaires and billionaires are born during times of hardship and harder times. And so I think
Instead of looking at this like, my gosh, the world is falling apart. Look at this. I'm like, this is the greatest time in dentistry. This is where you get to rise to the top. This is where adding customer service or doing unreasonable hospitality or being a different work culture will actually set you apart. Like you have a chance, like it's not all just set anymore. You have a chance to shuffle and ruffle and make your way to the top. And I honestly believe that you can future-proof your practice. You can get ahead of these trends. You can look ahead and
You can be the practice who is proactive and looked and saw where to get the worm and how to navigate your practice rather than being the one who wished that they would have innovated sooner. And so really just to call the action and truly if you want to future proof your practice, you want to get ahead of these, us. We're on Instagram, DentalATeam or email us, [email protected] I'm happy to pop on a strategy session with you, give you a free practice assessment for your practice to look at maybe where the gaps are, maybe where your blind spots are, maybe we can help you out.
And honestly check out our newsletter. We have a newsletter that goes out so you can always subscribe go to our website TheDentalATeam.com We try to keep you guys on top of this of just insights and knowledge to where we can really help you and your practice thrive And so really this is truly what the Denali team does. This is who we are This is what we love to do and if you're ready to take on opportunities and overcome your challenges reach out Now's the time I do not believe that having a practice should be hard. I do not believe that these things are just
Let me talk about it. It's time to implement. time to take action. And it's time for you to be the elite practice that you were destined to be. And as always, thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
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By Kiera DentKiera talks about the numerous shifts on the horizon in dentistry, what your practice can do to embrace the changes, and how Dental A-Team can help.
Episode resources:
Sign up for Dental A-Team’s Virtual Summit 2025!
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. I hope today is just an incredible day for you. And I hope you remember you are in the greatest industry possible. And today I'm really excited because I feel like there's some opportunities to discuss and challenges that I think offices are gonna be facing in the next five to 10 years. I wanted to pop on and just say like, hey, dentistry is changing fast. And my question is, are you and your practice gonna be ready to seize the opportunity or?
Honestly, are you going to be struggling and hanging out in the back? I think that there will be a lot of shifts. I think we've seen a lot of shifts in dentistry. And so really just popping on to help you look for different things for technology, patient experience, different things within the practice, and really be able to help you guys prepare and get your practice there. Do you guys know Dental A Team? We are here to serve. We are here to help you and your practice have the best experience. I truly do believe that running a dental practice that's profitable and successful does not need to be hard. It does not have to be crazy.
and it can actually be fun and we can get doctors and team members aligned to be able to work in tandem together. And so that's why we're here today. I'm super excited because honestly, staying ahead of these trends is going to help you have long-term practice success. I've really been watching in the offices that we consult, the ones that are adapting and early adapters to technology, I think are going to be in the forefront. And so really just looking at where you are in the life cycle of your practice, looking to see where you want to be in the next five to 10 years.
and not making decisions to sell or to go to a DSO or to stay in a legacy practice out of necessity, but actually out of choice. So number one, I think that AI is coming in. AI is coming in pretty popular. There's a lot of different things. So we're having it in diagnostics. So like Pearl and Overjet, they're able to help co-diagnose with you. There's 3D printing that's coming in. I know offices are using AI and creating bots. We have an office.
where they've created an actual 24 hour a day bot for their practice. And I really think right now is a time for you to be learning. So whether it's 3D printing within your practice, automating our patient communication, looking into AI like this practice where they have a bot, using chat GPT for other things, utilizing AI, think helping practices with case acceptance. We've talked with Pearl, I've had Pearl on the podcast before, but what's crazy cool about that is offices are utilizing it.
actually you're seeing like a 30 to 50 % increase in case acceptance just by using this AI assisted technology. And I prefer Pearl over Overjet. Honestly, I think that there's no wrong choice on it. But the reality is like, I think you've got to get these things in motion. You've got to start looking for them. Otherwise, I really am concerned for you as a practice that you will accidentally become outdated. So really making sure that you are, you're working through this, that you are adding these things in because I think
AI is going to rapidly take off. And if you're not prepared, I think you will be outdated. So that's opportunity number one. So I'd say get involved in some sort of AI, whatever it is, even if you just start dabbling in chat GPT every single day, whatever it is, but really starting to utilize that. Opportunity number two. Now these are the opportunities that I see in the next five to 10 years. I think they're hitting this now. But number two is going to be like looking at membership plans, fee-per-service.
looking at some of those things. Now I'm not here to say drop insurance plans. I've actually been, think a consultant who's been pretty adamant about hanging onto insurance plans for as long as you can, pending upon what you want to do for marketing. If you're an incredible marketer, rock on, you might not need it. But insurance is just going to be something where I feel over time, it's going to get a little bit funkier. I don't think you're going to see a huge increase in insurance funds. I could be totally off on this. I'm not stamping my like everything that I am, but I think like, let's pay attention to it and let's see.
costs are rising in dentistry, but insurance plans are not paying a lot. And so could we start to shift our patient base? Could we start to retain our patients and actually build this fee for service model in? Now you've got to be super careful and I'm going to put like huge asterisks and exclamation points and pieces around it because if you do not transition out of insurances correctly and have a plan and a process and a patient experience in place, you will get like, I've seen it be so bad for practices. So really I think like,
One, if you don't have an in-house membership plan, let's get that started. I'm very pro these. It allows you to have options in the future. It allows you to have different marketing strategies. I think a lot of people are just looking at benefits at a different way now. And I think it just helps you to not be as dependent upon insurance in the future. Then number two is assess your insurance plans. And let's see, are there maybe any insurance plans that we could drop that aren't really going to hurt your production? You really got to do this strategically. Otherwise it will burn you in the booty.
and I do not want you to be at that practice. I've had too many of those offices, so let's make sure you're not there. And then make sure that we're like really getting people sticky to our practice. I think this will be a really, really, really big change for people. And then also it's something where even as fee for service patients, if you can get them on membership plans, I can speak for myself. Being on a membership plan, I actually came in for my two cleanings as opposed to a fee for service patient who often will only come in one time.
So I think it's just another way for you to have more patient flow, more opportunities to diagnose by having that membership plan. I have a practice where they were, this is me as a patient, I was going to them and they had a membership program. The doctor left, branched off, opened up their own practice and they don't have a membership program. And I was like, well, sweet, maybe I'll just go to you once a year. This is as a consultant. I know I need to go in twice a year. I know I have amazing teeth, but I don't need to go twice a year. Like honestly, if I only go once a year, my teeth are probably fine.
but if they had put me on a membership plan, there are other opportunities. For example, you could offer me a night guard, you could do whitening on me, you could do fluoride treatments on me, but because they're not putting into place a membership plan, odds are I probably won't be going back. So look to see how can we actually get our patients to be retained in our practice, not dependent upon insurance. So when we start to trickle that down, we start to convert more and more of our patient base. And what I will say is a lot of practices have transitioned say,
30 % of their patient base over to a membership plan. They start practicing on this, they start getting used to it. So when they want to drop insurance plans, they have a solution that's been really ingrained into their practice. The team's really good. I'm obsessed with companies like Dental Menu. I think that they do a great job for membership programs. I think that they've got a great one built. BoomCloud Clear. So you can just take a look to see who you like the most for it. And then I'm really obsessed with Moola. Moola, I think is a great credit card processor for you.
that actually helps you with your membership programs in-house so you can actually save on your credit card fees. I'm really pro them. Any of these companies that I'm recommending today, be sure to tell them, Denali team, you heard it on the podcast because they actually have a referral pricing for you. So that's what I negotiate. We don't do hardly any affiliates within our company. I just negotiate the lowest fees for you. but really I think looking to see, I think it's an opportunity for you with insurance plans and the economy to start adding in a membership.
Opportunity number three for you is looking into, tell the dentistry I don't think like hot, hot, but I do think virtual consult and online payments. So how can we make things easier for people? So can we get a virtual consultation? Can we start to have, I know there's like, we've had other people on our podcast before where they do virtual, like your smile, what is it? Your virtual smile consult. And what you can do is you can actually do treatment planning. You can have new patients meet you.
You can have videos on your website where it's like, hey, I'm the doctor. They can actually ask questions to the doctor. I have seen a lot of this with bigger cases come into pretty strong effect. Also, if you're wanting to do say consultations where maybe we're doing bigger treatment plans or even like full mouth cosmetic, there's a lot of those that I think are out there to help virtually. I have a doctor and they do a lot of what's called hybrid. So all on X cases and there's a software they can literally use and show the patient their new smile sitting in the chair.
So I think whether you're having patients virtually meet you or if you're using that technology within the chair to help present your cases better, having online options, so online scheduling, online payments, those types of things I really think we need to get more into the virtual world. I think dentistry is a smidgey dated. So I would strongly recommend for you on this to see how can you actually add these pieces into your practice because I do think these are going to like enhance you and just be something patients are expecting. Right now patients are expecting online.
patient scheduling, they're looking for online payments. They're looking for, mean, think about it. If I want to have a consult, my husband and I, we've done IVF. I've talked about it a couple of times on the podcast. I did a virtual consultation with my IVF doctor in another state and we went and we went, now, if you know IVF, IVF's around a 20 to $25,000 process per cycle. And so thinking about that in comparison to dentistry, they literally did virtual consults with me so I could be out of state, I could fly in.
I didn't have to actually be there. And so looking to see, that's what modern medicine is doing. What things could we actually do in dentistry that might be able to help us out as well? So I really think looking for that, that's where I mentioned Moolah, they're great for online, your smile, your virtual, gosh, I'm like botching it. I think it's your smile virtual consult, virtual smile consult. Look it up, that one I'm not as strong on. But just see how can we incorporate some of these items within our practice.
And I would really say that when you do this, you're able to get those high case acceptance. You're able to have more patient acceptance. Think about it. We're paying bills online at night. We are also scheduling appointments. I am constantly on my phone in the middle of the day, at night, on the weekends, moving appointments around, looking to see. And I think if we're not offering that for our patients, we're actually gonna get left behind because patients might accidentally leave you to go to a practice that's actually more up to date. So definitely.
Let's get into how can we become more virtual online. I think it's a huge, huge, huge opportunity for practices. Like I said, I think those are the top three opportunities right now. So we've got AI, membership programs, and then getting more virtual. So virtual consults, virtual like having more available online options. And then I think two of the big challenges in the next five to 10 years, which I think we're seeing it, which I think tie into the opportunities are,
We know it's expensive to run a dental practice. And I think dentistry has had this like nice run for quite a few years, decades where they've been able to stay in a very profitable margin. Hence why DSOs have entered the playing field. And so I think with inflation, higher payroll, supply costs, I think that there's some things in there to pay attention. And number one is you've got to know your number. So I'm really pro overhead calculators, looking at it, having your team involved with you, making sure that all of you are on the same page.
Those are gonna be some really good ways for you guys to stay on top of it, not falling out behind the scenes and figuring it out. Then utilizing buying group things. So for example, Synergy is a great buying group. You buy from your own preferred vendor, but you just get a discount on your supplies. Why not do things like that? How can we actually look to see, can we hire hygienists in and then have a base plus commission? and I were on the podcast.
a couple of weeks ago talking about how we can incentivize hygienists and not have to have as high of payroll, but really looking to see what are the ways that we can do this, looking to see how we can increase our fees, doing a 5 % fee increase, negotiating with insurances or possibly dropping some of those lower paying ones. What are some of these pieces? And what I will say is When you watch your numbers and you analyze your overhead, I promise you, you will be more profitable. So right now we're like, gosh, it's so expensive, which I'm not here to say it's not.
But there's offices out there that are running at a 35% overhead. So that means there's 65% profit margin for them. So looking at that and knowing that there's practices that are able to do that, that means once we know it's possible, then we can look for how you can do it in your practice as well. Now I understand that there's different areas. California is expensive. Hawaii is expensive. Like I hear you, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. And I think being a wise steward over your numbers is actually something that I really would implore you to do.
to make sure that as costs rise, you know what you're actually spending money on. So you can actually make better decisions. look to see, can we hire this person? Are we paying within the realm? What do we need to do? Could we add on other services within our practice? all on X cases, ortho cases, things like that. But I really think like it's a huge challenge that I think you've got to stay on top of. Otherwise, before you know it, you're gonna just be like inundated and not be able to hire team members because we weren't watching it. We didn't know our numbers. We didn't know what we needed to be producing.
We didn't build block schedules to make sure that our practice could actually run lean and efficiently. And then challenge two, which I think has been hitting hard, which we'll just kind of address, is like staffing shortages and team retention. But I will say that this is like an if. Like there's so many offices out there that I know have incredible cultures. And so what I really feel like needs to happen in this realm is you've got to be an office that in a place that people want to work for. I started noticing that the new currency is time.
Time is the new currency, I think, in where we're at right now. Time and compensation and being happy. But I don't think it's as high on compensation as people think it is. Yes, it's a piece, but I see team members that are getting paid less, but for great cultures are saying because they want this work-life balance. They want more time. They want to be able to be with their kids. They want to be able to feel appreciated with their boss. They want to feel like they're doing a great job. And that is more the currency of today. And so how can you build this culture where
We attract a bunch of people to our practice. We have team members that want to stay with us and that we actually know that, like, we're looking to see how can we maximize this. I am seeing a trend, I'm not saying this is how you have to be, but I am seeing a trend where there is a four-day work week of employees actually tends to lead to less burnout and less team turnover. I don't know what it is. My five-day practices tend to have a bit more of that, but the four-day, and again, they, so they're not,
just open four days or open five days, but they have these rotating shifts and rotating days where they're off. I have seen that that's helping. And so I really feel that when you can build this amazing culture, build it to be a place where you're excited about, add fun things in, watch your overhead, watch those costs. But I really think it's something that's possible. think back to why you started to practice. You wanted to change, you wanted to do things differently. You want to have a team where you were so excited. I know that's what I get excited about. love, I love having a team. love.
loving on them. I love giving them opportunities. I love seeing them flourish in their lives. I love being excited for the growth they're having and so really trying hard to build this incredible team culture to cut the team turnover, to keep it to where you're this like raved about practice where everybody wants to work for you. I think would really, really be an incredible thing for you to just take on. And I know we've heard about it, but I think like, look at your culture, look at the things. I had to do a deep dive of this last year.
Britt and I, sat there and we're like, all right, what is the team saying? What are the issues that we know we're seeing consistently? And what do we want to do to change to make this a better environment and a better space? And I feel that only teams in incredible culture, but there were things that we were struggling with. were things of that we needed to change. There were things that had shifted since I started the company. And I think you've got to stay on top of that. Otherwise, I think you can easily get outdated. So that's a quick wrap.
I think the biggest opportunities are definitely AI membership programs and then also getting virtual, like getting everything up to date and online. And then challenges of course are going to be higher costs and then staff shortages and team retention. But I honestly believe that those who adapt, those who innovate, those who listen to this and they don't just passively listen but actively implement are going to flourish. They say a lot of times the biggest millionaires and billionaires are born during times of hardship and harder times. And so I think
Instead of looking at this like, my gosh, the world is falling apart. Look at this. I'm like, this is the greatest time in dentistry. This is where you get to rise to the top. This is where adding customer service or doing unreasonable hospitality or being a different work culture will actually set you apart. Like you have a chance, like it's not all just set anymore. You have a chance to shuffle and ruffle and make your way to the top. And I honestly believe that you can future-proof your practice. You can get ahead of these trends. You can look ahead and
You can be the practice who is proactive and looked and saw where to get the worm and how to navigate your practice rather than being the one who wished that they would have innovated sooner. And so really just to call the action and truly if you want to future proof your practice, you want to get ahead of these, us. We're on Instagram, DentalATeam or email us, [email protected] I'm happy to pop on a strategy session with you, give you a free practice assessment for your practice to look at maybe where the gaps are, maybe where your blind spots are, maybe we can help you out.
And honestly check out our newsletter. We have a newsletter that goes out so you can always subscribe go to our website TheDentalATeam.com We try to keep you guys on top of this of just insights and knowledge to where we can really help you and your practice thrive And so really this is truly what the Denali team does. This is who we are This is what we love to do and if you're ready to take on opportunities and overcome your challenges reach out Now's the time I do not believe that having a practice should be hard. I do not believe that these things are just
Let me talk about it. It's time to implement. time to take action. And it's time for you to be the elite practice that you were destined to be. And as always, thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.