Tiff and Kristy talk about how to reach an ideal state: three-day work weeks and clearing that seven-figure mark. Their advice includes block scheduling, mining your patient base, aligning your team, and more.

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Transcript

Tiffanie (00:01)

Hello Dental A team. I am back here today with Kristy. I am so excited to be here, Kristy. And for those of you who maybe this is your first podcast with us, my name is Tiffanie and I am a dental consultant here with the Dental A Team. And as Kara said, we're taking over the podcast. So I've got Kristy, one of our other amazing and just beautifully minded and just sweetest ever.

 

consultants. Kristy, you are just one of the most amazing human beings I've ever met and I'm just so excited to have you here on the podcast with us as well as on our team. So happy Friday. It's Friday here for us and we are we've got a couple podcasts we're going through today, Kristy. I'm really excited for this one. But before we get started, how are you today?

 

Kristy (00:47)

doing wonderful. The weather's great and I'm here with you. It's equally ⁓ mutual feelings to be here with you and podcast for our people. So love it.

 

Tiffanie (00:59)

Amazing. Thank you. I'm glad you're having good weather. It's hot here. So be prepared for that. I know you're coming to Arizona soon. So it's very hot here right now and it should cool down a little bit next week while you're here though. So you should be fine. Maybe bring some of that nice weather with you. So today you guys, really want to chat. There's a few things I want to chat about and today on this podcast, I wanted to chat through

 

really making your life whatever it is that you want that to look like. And a lot of the doctors that we work with want to obviously cut down clinical hours. I think that's something that's on everyone's radar is really being able to.

 

Work the days of the week that you want to in the practice and then investing that additional time back into your family and into your personal life, your friends, all of those spaces that you would normally spend that time, whatever that looks like for you. And Kristy, we've talked about this a lot and I actually, have one plan I can think of off the top of my head right now that we have worked really hard to get his schedule and his intentionalities exactly what we're talking about today. And what he does so that everybody can hear is he works about three and a half

 

days per week and definitely definitely clears over seven figures and so what I wanted to talk about today is really how do we get to that three day per week clinical time and that seven figure mark that you know we're dentists here like you guys should be you guys should be making that if that's what you want to make you should be making that and how do we make that happen as a reality and when I first started working with this practice years and years ago he was like gosh I think you know Tiff

 

long-term, like within five years, this is what I want to be making, but I think I'm gonna have to add a fourth day a week. I'm gonna have to work Monday through Thursday. And I was like, well, maybe, but I mean, do you want to work Monday through Thursday? And at the time he said, I maybe by the time I get there, I do right now, I don't. Great, well, if you change your mind, then we can add it, but let's build this without that fourth day.

 

And he along the way decided, you know what, actually want to do two Thursdays a month because it fits, it just fits with his lifestyle, fits with what he wanted to do. So it turned into, you know, average of three and a half days per week. But he stuck to the idea of creating his practice to look like what he wanted it to look like. And I remember Kristy early on and still to this day sometimes that happens, but I remember early on him really acknowledging the fact

 

that this was what he wanted for himself, for his family. This is what he, you know, was active in his community and within his church. And he wanted this to be a reality for him. His opposing side, what was happening there, was that he was on a lot of dental forums with a lot of classmates and people he'd met at CE courses or wherever along the way. And he was really, really getting wrapped up in the numbers of it all and what...

 

what they're doing and having a bigger practice and adding operatories and adding an associate and five hygienists and he was thinking, gosh, to get where I want to go, all of these doctors feel like they've made it, you know, and do I then is that what I need to do to make it? And I think all of us do this, whatever position we hold, think even as like a mom, right? It's like just that compares the night as we look at other people.

 

other moms and we're like, how come I don't do that or should I be doing that or etc. And it's got to be so hard to live that way. Right. And really, really, what we had to do was we had to take a step back and think about what is the most important thing for you right now? What do you want your life to look like again? Right. And what does that mean in your life if you're posting?

 

And we had to create all of those spaces from a feeling standpoint and then implement them. So my story, that practice, know, it just pops into my head. He's the one that pops in my head when I think three days, seven figures. And he's just come such a long way and it's had its trials and its tribulations, but I really wanted to take a step back and look at what did we do? How did we create that for our clients?

 

and how do we help someone to get to that point? And Kristy, I know you've worked with a lot of practices as well, and you've helped dentists do the same thing. So I wanted to take them through some of those processes today and the build out of those goals with the intentionality behind it. Kristy, I know you...

 

work with a ton of practices and I know you've done this a million times and if I were to come to you and say, gosh, I have this dentist who wants to work three days a week, this is the amount of money that he or she wants to make, take home, the profit. What would be the first space you would, you would coach on? Where would you say, let's start here?

 

Kristy (06:04)

Yeah, I love that you're speaking that because again, we can make those goals. We just got to clearly define them. And to your point, I would definitely start with scheduling it, right? If that's what we need to make, let's reverse engineer it and block schedules so that we ensure that's happening. The other part that I would add in there is it's kind of funny that you're saying like three and a half days a week because ⁓

 

What we tend to see is when we do add those block schedule and doctors hit that three, three and a half days a week, they tend to be more profitable during the time that they're there rather than working five days a week. So yeah, most definitely I would start with number one, looking at that goal and then reverse engineering it into the schedule using their scheduling blocks.

 

Tiffanie (06:55)

For sure. I love what you said

 

there because it makes me think of, always tell my son like, gosh, you would take and I would too, right? If I gave you an hour in the morning to get ready, you would take the hour and be rushed.

 

But if I give you 30 minutes in the morning to get ready, you're gonna be ready at 28 minutes. Like you're gonna get it all in, you're still gonna get it done, you're just always gonna utilize the amount of time that you have. So what you said there is I do agree, I do see a lot of doctors that will work.

 

less clinical than other doctors and their intentionality behind getting the production in there, especially when there's a really good why behind it is so high that they work harder to get that production there and to maintain it. And so they actually do become a lot of times more profitable than doctors who are working maybe five days a week because their production is getting spread out, especially on the scheduling side for a team. They're like, well, I got to have something on Friday. We got it. We've got to be here. So

 

I'm gonna put this crown on Friday, whereas if we were only Monday through Wednesday, it would probably get stuck on Wednesday this week rather than Friday and giving so much availability to the patient. So I totally agree. And you're spot on with the goals. So that's exactly what we did. We said, okay, well, if you wanna make this much money, take home, what does that look like fixed cost-wise, overhead-wise? So we had to build out what that goal meant.

 

how we could get the practice to be profitable enough to make that much money as take home and then reverse engineer that. So we had to say, what does that look like? All the multiplication, the addition, all of those pieces. What does that look like in a production goal?

 

so that 98 % or higher of collections gets you to that profitability. Then you have to backtrack and say, well, great, this is how much money I need to make this year, maybe a million dollars, right? We wanna break one million this year. How do I do that? What does that look like per month in production?

 

Then we say, okay, divide that by how many days per month we're working. So if we're working three days, right, it was probably about 12 days on average. So what does that look like every day? And how much production does that equate to? And I do have to say a caveat here.

 

because I think it's easy to say, yeah, but what about the fee schedules? Totally agree with you. You need to get your fee schedules up. Number one, if you can do anything about your fee schedules, go work on those. First and foremost, number one, get those things in line. But I do have to say this dentist I'm thinking of specifically is in the heart of a very saturated state and a very

 

difficult area to get ⁓ fees increased and he is PPO driven in lot of different directions. So it is possible. It just depends on what you're willing to do and then also what treatment you're doing. So what we have done with that is we've built out that block schedule. We've built out how his optimized days would look. So when is he doing his crown preps? When is he doing his large treatment? ⁓ Is he doing root canal?

 

love them. So which root canals is he doing if he's going to do them? Oral surgery, like what are we doing in those three days? And how do we build the production to match that daily goal? And then it was a, there, are there things that you want to be doing that maybe you're not doing a lot of yet? And he, this specific dentist, I've got another doctor, I've got a couple doctors that are like, yeah.

 

Tiff, I want to do implants and I want to do cosmetic cases. I want to build smiles and do smile design. And I'm like, well, great. If you can get one or two smile designs a month, are you kidding me? We're halfway there. So then what we had to do is we said, OK, great. Where would we do those in the schedule? When they come, where would we put them? And build that out as well. So the implant.

 

Obviously the implant placements like those were going to go first. Where are those going to be and how many implants do we need per year to help equate to that goal? then Kristy, I know you've done this a few times as well, looking at the marketing space, right? Because what do you feel like Kristy then?

 

We've got this goal set, we've got this block scheduling in place and we're like, okay, great. We want to do more implants and more cosmetic cases. Kristy, what would you then look for to increase those within the practice?

 

Kristy (11:38)

Yeah, well number one, I always like to go mining in our own patient base, you know, and I love that you mentioned like the service mix and doctors wanting to do specifically in this case, the implants, because it's funny how many times we hear that and then we go back and look like at the last 12 months and maybe they've done five implants, you know, I love doing them, but why aren't we doing them, right? And so just by recognizing that, putting a goal to it and then

 

Tiffanie (12:01)

Yeah.

 

Kristy (12:08)

consistently going back and measuring that. We've talked about this before Tiff, if I'm gonna go buy a white car of a specific brand, all of a sudden I start seeing all those. So to your point, I would go back to our patient base. I would definitely make sure the team is aware of that goal and then enroll the whole team on how do we find more of these patients that could use implants, right?

 

Then amongst our own patients when they're coming in, do they have missing teeth? Did we do a recent extraction, right? Have we discussed this before and it's time to bring it back up? So ideally that's where I would go because they're already in your practice, they love you, you've got a relationship with them and you'll be amazed at how many patients you'll find just by putting it front of mind and enrolling the whole team behind you to look for it.

 

Tiffanie (13:06)

I agree

 

and training them on the right questions, the right scenarios. Like what are we looking for? Are we looking for missing teeth? Are we looking for cracks? we like bringing that awareness? I totally agree. think everything we want is actually already here. We're just not tuned in to see it. So just like the car, we want the white Camaro because we never see a white Camaro. We make that decision to like, that's what I'm going to get. I'm going to get a white Camaro because no one has them, right? Or a purple Camaro because no one has them. And this

 

Kristy (13:35)

Thank

 

Tiffanie (13:36)

the next thing you know, you're like, well, shoot, I was wrong. There's a million of them. I want something different. And you're just going to keep going on that road because you brought the awareness to you. So I love that analogy. And I think it's so fitting for any, any treatment that you're trying to increase in your practice. It's already there. We're just not attuned to looking for it yet. So there's already opportunities there. How do we get the team members?

 

Kristy (13:41)

Thank

 

Tiffanie (14:04)

in line with seeing them to support you in the diagnosis. Now, the biggest thing I can say right now is if you have this goal or a different goal, I don't care what your goal is, if your goal is to work three days and make seven figures, that's fine. ⁓ Whatever your goal is, enlist your team in the support factor of achieving that goal.

 

because without them, it's all on you and there's no way, doctors, that you can do it all. You cannot, you will not remember.

 

all of these spaces to look for the implants, especially if you're like, well Tiff, gosh, Kristy, I want to do implants, I want to do cosmetic cases, I want to try all on fours, I want to, you know, I want to reduce the number of root canals I'm doing, but I want to do more extractions, like gosh, dang it, there's 16,000 different things that you could want to do that are top of mind on your brain, but what is the decision of today? What is our focus?

 

How are we gonna measure it and how are we gonna stay consistent? I've had multiple dentists ⁓ wanna add more implants and Kristy, I love how you said to go back through the inventory, because it's exactly where we started. Many, dentists have done this very successfully. I know with me, with you Kristy, with all of us and on their own, really looking at how many did I do? How many have I done? Because sometimes, right, we'll think,

 

you get your hair cut and you're like

 

10 people tell you, gosh, your hair looks amazing, right? And the one person is like, I don't know if I would have done bangs. Like that was a bold move, right? And the next thing you know, you're in the mirror going like, gosh, dang it, should I have done bangs? Because one person out of 11 said that, and that's what you remember. And so when it comes to this, think the same philosophy applies because you might think, gosh, I've done a million and you did two. Or you're like, I didn't do any. And you're like, oh my gosh, I did 16. How is that possible?

 

Kristy (15:40)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (16:04)

we weren't looking at it. And if you've done whatever number you've done, how do we increase and layer on top of that? Because if you could find five last year...

 

I guarantee there's probably 15 more that we either diagnosed and didn't get acceptance on, or we just didn't see. So Kristy, to your point, really adding that in to even your morning discussions of looking at the patients and saying, who's eligible for whatever treatment it is that you're focusing on? Do we have patients coming in today that are actually eligible for that treatment? Do we have patients that we've already diagnosed this on? Can we ask, why aren't we scheduled? What's holding us back from getting this treatment done? Why not today?

 

Where can we find those opportunities within the patient base we already have? And then dialing in your messaging to the community. Because you've got to start making sure that you're attracting the patients that are going to build your business to meet the goals that you want. We cannot.

 

Just like we can't make everybody happy, we cannot serve everyone in the dental community. You are built to serve the community that fits your desired outcome. So if you try to blanket, serve everyone, you're gonna get a crazy mixed bag and you're probably gonna be really stressed out. But if you commit to serving the people that fit your avatar and who you are,

 

you're going to be able to reach these goals really easily. So dial that in with your marketing company or your marketing gal at the practice, whatever that looks like, dial that in. I know I've had a couple of practices, Kristy, that have struggled with new patients or they've had a flood of new patients. And when we look at it, they've had a flood of new patients, but struggling to meet production goals. And I'm like, well, one, maybe we have too many new patients or two, what kind of new patients are you getting? And I've had

 

all kinds of scenarios, but one that comes up a lot is too many limited exams, and we're focusing on same day treatment or like quick turnaround and not converting to comps, which it's technically a new patient into the practice, so count it how you want to. But when we've got, I don't know, 40 new patients and 25 of them are limited exams, 15 are only new, we're gonna struggle. So, Kristy.

 

We've got a lot here ⁓ going on all kinds of different tangents here and we still have one more point that I wanted to get to, but let's recap. So we've got.

 

Kristy (18:29)

Bye.

 

Tiffanie (18:36)

building out the goal, reverse engineering that and making sure we've got block scheduling in place, which we're not going to clearly do like a huge block scheduling podcast today, but there are a million and you can email us [email protected] for tips and tools as well. And then dialing in that marketing space to make sure we're getting the patients that we want internally marketing to our patients, making sure that we're speaking to them and then externally marketing to the patients that we want as well. And then Kristy this is a space, this next one that I'm going to

 

you to get to. This is a space I think you do really well with teams, so getting to the seven figures production is one space of it, the right patients, that's just one space of it. But we can produce all we want and if the money's not coming in you're not, you're just...

 

upside down and you guys are just tired. So Kristy, I can talk, we can both talk production for freaking days and marketing for days, but what do they need to do on the flip side of that and what support, again, from their team members do they need to make sure they have in order to reach this goal?

 

Kristy (19:39)

Yeah, absolutely. I always like to say, number one, let's start with ⁓ what is our parameters for the office? Your team members that are presenting finances, they need to have the understanding, what can they do? What are the tools in their tool belt ⁓ to offer to patients? And then it really is about getting creative. Even if the office is wanting everything paid in full on the day of service,

 

You know, are we letting patients walk out the door just because they can't pay it all at one time? You know, we could get creative and potentially even do like a layaway process, right? Or if these are big treatment plans, you know, do we have the right third party financing? There's specific finance companies that do larger amounts. And so getting to, you know, when we're presenting financials,

 

Tiffanie (20:28)

Yeah.

 

Kristy (20:37)

understanding truly what are the parameters, setting the realistic expectations within the office of what is our goal for finances. We want 98 % as a minimum goal for collections. So ideally we're meeting that. then also just making sure we have means for people to say yes financially, if you will.

 

Tiffanie (21:05)

Yeah, yeah, and I love the way that you go through that with your clients on getting that yes and getting the financial options dialed in because it is different for each doctor in a lot of ways. And in addition to that, making sure we have that follow up process. So if we can have the tools to treatment plan correctly, collect

 

in advance or on the day of treatment over the counter correctly, fantastic. And then on the flip side of that, we've got to have the systems in place for insurance claims follow ups. And then if there's anything outstanding after insurance for patients, how are we gonna get that money? How are they gonna pay? And what are our options for that? Because just like you said now, Kristy, making sure we have those options for treatment planning and case acceptance. Well, what do they do? What are their options if they have a bill?

 

leftover, is it the same? Like what does the team do with that? So I agree having those protocols written and having them dialed in and trained is massive. So thank you. That is a space I think you really thrive and I've watched you train, I've watched you train doctors on how to do collections. So I think that's impressive in itself. So I want to make sure you, you got all that out there. Thank you. So recapping, we've got

 

Making sure you guys know what it is that you want first and foremost. Know what it is that you want. Reverse engineer from there on how you're gonna get there. So build the financials out and then also build that block scheduling in there you guys. We harp on block scheduling and we're not the only consulting company that works with block scheduling and there's a reason for that because it freaking works. I just got off a call with the doctor an hour ago that was celebrating a 6 % decrease in overhead for quarter one because

 

is working, collecting is working, the protocols that they put into place and she specifically said the block scheduling is working. So this is within an hour of us recording this, go do it. And then making sure that your marketing is working internally and externally, you're attracting the patients that you want into your schedule and getting those collections processes in place you guys. If you don't have them, if you need help with any of this, you know to reach out, that's what we are here for.

 

We love giving information out. That's why we have all of these podcasts. I don't even know how many we have anymore. There's just a slew of them. whatever it is you need, just go to TheDentalATeam.com and search in the podcast tool bar and it will be there.

 

Kristy, parting words. I love, I know I shocked you with this, you're going to be shocked anymore, but I love your parting words always. So if you could wrap today's podcast into a bundle and impart some wisdom on these doctors that are listening, what would it be?

 

Kristy (23:48)

Yeah, I would say number one, track and measure, right? If that's your goal to do more of that, let's get more of it. Track and measure. When you have cases closed, really take a look at what did we do? Like how can we repeat what happened? Your conversations, everything, you know? And then when you are treatment planning implants, because we were talking about implants, say, and you have patients that leave and don't schedule.

 

Make sure your admin team or treatment coordinator, whoever is presenting that treatment, writes down what was the patient's words, what were their objections, because that's where our opportunity lies. And a lot of people automatically think it's a financial thing. And sometimes it's not financial. Sometimes it could be from the clinical side, how can we get better at presenting that treatment, expressing the benefits and

 

Tiffanie (24:34)

Thank you.

 

Kristy (24:43)

of doing the treatment, consequences of not having an implant, right? And add an expense if we don't do it. with that, really dial into those opportunities, celebrate your success, and then where the opportunity lies, we can certainly help bridge that gap for you. So, yeah.

 

Tiffanie (25:02)

I love that. Thank you.

 

Alright guys, you heard it from us here today. Go get to work, go build out those goals, go figure out what that looks like for you and for your lifestyle, what you want. And as always, drop us a five star review below so we know that this was helpful and beneficial for you and so that others can find it. [email protected] is an easy way to find us or TheDentalATeam.com are all kinds of different avenues to chat with us. So if you need anything, when you need anything, and when you're ready to take that next step forward on creating this in your own

 

life, reach out, we're here to help you and we'll catch you next time.