Art of Dental Finance and Management

Today we officially announce our new podcast name – “The Art of Dental Finance and Management”. We are also thrilled to announce our exciting new partnership with Decisions in Dentistry magazine. In this episode, Art visits with Josey Sewell, the Director of Education for Dental Intelligence. Josie and Art discuss topics important to practice owners: • Why culture is important • How to hire and on-board new team members • How to avoid mistakes in communication • How your office manager should be trained • How to integrate metrics into the practice Josie's experience gives the listener a road map to being a good leader and creating an office environment where the team and the practice can thrive.

In today’s episode of The Art of Dental Finance and Management, Art visits with Justin Klingshirn, Vice President for Bank of America Practice Solutions. Justin and his team work with dentists in Southern California to help them obtain financing for practice acquisitions, start-ups, expansions and re-locations. Justin discusses what is important for dentists to understand about their credit, and how their debt (especially student loan and credit card debt) affects their ability to borrow money. He outlines what dentists need to do to assure they are in the right place financially to be able to obtain financing to buy, start or expand a dental practice. Justin also goes through the formula banks use to determine how much money they will lend on a practice acquisition. He gives some great tips for young dentists who want to get started in practice ownership and what it takes to obtain financing if a dentist wants to own multiple practices. Justin is a wealth of information and this episode is important if you are a dentist interested in borrowing money.

Today Art has the privilege of visiting with Dr. Bob Frazer, a world-renowned lecturer and educator to the dental profession. Bob describes how he takes dentists through his Applied Strategic Planning process, which helps dentists establish core values, mission statements, and strategic models for their business. The lengthy process covers all aspects of a dentist's personal and business life, and concludes with an integrated action plan. Bob’s program has been applied by many, who praise its impact on their practice. This episode will inspire you to action!

• Understanding why it's important
• Conducting a needs assessment
• Assessing how much should be purchased

This episode of The Art of Dental Finance and Management features dental coach/advisor, Teri McAviney of Mak Concepts. Having strong communication skills, along with a plan for patient relations and conversion, will help your dental front office succeed in converting more new prospective patient calls into new patient appointments. Teri outlines examples of specific communication skills needed by dental team members answering the phone and talking to a prospective new patient. For example, when a new patient calls, one of the first questions they may ask is, "Do you take my insurance?" Teri shows that there is a right and wrong way to answer the question. If you answer it right, you can get the patient into the office. If you answer it wrong, they will hang up and find another office that does take their insurance. Teri also covers other scenarios that require strong communication skills: when a doctor buys a practice from another doctor, as well as how to get an existing patient to accept an associate dentist when the senior doctor is cutting back. This is an episode which should be listened to multiple times, especially by the front office team, to increase your number of new patients and improve your dental practice.This episode of The Art of Dental Finance and Management features dental coach/advisor, Teri McAviney of Mak Concepts. Having strong communication skills, along with a plan for patient relations and conversion, will help your dental front office succeed in converting more new prospective patient calls into new patient appointments. Teri outlines examples of specific communication skills needed by dental team members answering the phone and talking to a prospective new patient. For example, when a new patient calls, one of the first questions they may ask is, "Do you take my insurance?" Teri shows that there is a right and wrong way to answer the question. If you answer it right, you can get the patient into the office. If you answer it wrong, they will hang up and find another office that does take their insurance. Teri also covers other scenarios that require strong communication skills: when a doctor buys a practice from another doctor, as well as how to get an existing patient to accept an associate dentist when the senior doctor is cutting back. This is an episode which should be listened to multiple times, especially by the front office team, to increase your number of new patients and improve your dental practice.

In this episode of The Art of Dental Finance Podcast, Art and his good friend, dental coach Bob Spiel, have a conversation about how to successfully hire an associate. According to Bob, about 70% of associate hires fail for many reasons. Bob discusses when you are ready to hire an associate, how important it is for the team to be involved in the selection, what mistakes dentists make in hiring the wrong associate, why the associate must fit the culture and philosophy of the practice, and much more. If you are considering hiring an associate, or if you are a dentist looking at joining a practice as an associate, this is a must listen.

Today Art visits with his good friend and colleague, Roger Williamson. Roger's company, Kent Mortgage, issues home mortgages and has helped many of Art's clients over the years. Art and Roger discuss how banks and finance companies evaluate a prospective borrower's credit, how credit scores are affected by different types of debt borrowers have, what dentists can do to make sure they have good credit, and what mistakes they should avoid. Roger also discusses the different options for home loans and the process he goes through to help guide a client in selecting the right option. He gives great insight into what dentists should do to keep good credit and prepare for buying a home.

In this episode of The Art of Dental Finance podcast, Art speaks with Curtis Marshall from Dental Intelligence. Dental Intel is used by over 5,000 practices nationwide and is a sophisticated dashboard program that extracts information from Dentrix, Eaglesoft and Open Dental.  From the dashboard, dentists (and their advisors) can find areas in their practice that, if addressed, can improve revenues and profits.  Art and Curtis discuss why it is important for dentists to increase the number of visits from patients and production per visit, what pre-appointment and re-appointment percentages mean, how this program can help them see what percentage of exams a dentist performs results in a diagnosis, and much more.  This podcast will hopefully motivate our listeners to work ON their practices, and not just IN their practices, using powerful tools like Dental Intel.