Every office slowly drifts. Checklists get skipped. Processes change. Before long, nobody remembers the "right" way to do things. That's exactly why Alex created Milo, an app that helps your team follow checklists, complete recurring tasks, and stay accountable. Learn more HERE!

This Week's Episode

Clear aligners can feel simple… until you’re halfway through a case wondering what the hell happened.

Dr. Matt Standridge is back to break down one of the biggest reasons dentists get frustrated with aligners: case selection. We talk about why some cases are much more predictable than others and how understanding a few basic principles can keep you out of refinement hell.

We discuss:

If you’ve wanted to do more clear aligners but aren’t always sure which cases you should actually take on, this episode gives you a much simpler way to look at them.

Special Offer for Our Listeners

Matt is offering our listeners $500 off his online Ortho course!

Use coupon code JACD26 at https://orthodonticxp.com/ to save $500.

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE.

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions.

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

Ask three team members how to complete the same task.

If you get three different answers, you don't have a system...you have habits.

That's why Alex created Milo...to help out dental offices standardize checklists, recurring tasks, and workflows so everyone is on the same page.

Learn more at https://go.startmilo.com/jacd

This Week's Episode

Dr. Mike Costa is on pace to do 500 full arches this year.

But he didn’t start out as an implant dentist doing hundreds of cases. Mike and Eric actually crossed paths years ago as dentists in the Navy. After leaving the military, Mike found his way into a fee-for-service practice in Knoxville, Tennessee, where a partnership with the right mentor helped completely change the direction of his career.

Today, Mike says he’s the #1 Yomi robotic implant surgeon by volume and has built a team capable of completing 6–10 full arches every week. We talk about how he went from doing bread-and-butter dentistry to becoming the dentist other dentists refer complex cases to, why working Fridays became an unexpected growth strategy, and how adding IV sedation, robotic surgery, digital workflows, and an in-house lab allowed the practice to keep increasing its implant volume.

Mike also walks us through what actually happens when a full-arch patient enters his practice—from the initial consultation and 3D facial scans to AI smile design, robotic implant placement, photogrammetry, and delivering a fixed set of teeth within 24 hours.

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly.

JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments!

https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

One of the easiest ways to find holes in your systems?

Ask different team members how they complete the same task. If every answer is a little different, your systems are living in people's heads instead of your practice. That's why Alex created Milo...to standardize checklists, workflows, and recurring tasks across your entire practice. Learn more at https://go.startmilo.com/jacd

This Week's Episode

Signing a lease for your dental practice seems pretty straightforward… until you realize how much control your landlord can actually have over your business. We sat down with Stephen Strecker of Tower Realty to talk about how dental real estate has changed since COVID and where the biggest opportunities are for dentists today.

Stephen breaks down why personal guarantees have become so common, how the wrong assignment language can cause major problems when you eventually sell your practice, and why the rent you negotiate isn't even close to the whole story once triple nets and CAM charges get involved. We also get into why prime retail space has gotten so expensive, whether paying more for visibility is actually worth it, and the surprising opportunity Stephen is seeing in office space right now.

We cover:

• How dental leasing has changed since COVID

• Why landlords are asking for personal guarantees

• The lease provision that can create problems when you sell

• Why dentists are competing with restaurants and national retailers for space

• Retail vs. office space for a dental practice

• Why $40/sq. ft. rent might actually cost you closer to $55/sq. ft.

• What triple net and CAM charges actually pay for

• How to protect yourself from rapidly increasing landlord expenses

• Whether dental rents will keep going up • Why the market may finally be shifting back toward tenants

Plus, Alex and Eric revisit the tiny 1,250-square-foot practice Alex started in and somehow managed to squeeze five operatories into.

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️

Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. 🌐 https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳

Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

We added some of Taher’s real checklists from Colorado Surgical Institute to Milo, so you can grab them and use them in your own practice.

Get Taher’s checklists on Milo HERE.

This Week's Episode

Taher joins us to talk about how he went from a general dentist trying to get surgical reps wherever he could to placing thousands of implants and eventually building Colorado Surgical Institute.

We get into what those early implant courses were actually like, why getting reps isn't the same thing as getting good training, and how a dentist should progressively build their surgical skill set without getting in over their head.

Taher also tells us how a failed startup nearly wiped him out financially, how he ended up buying a $1.1 million practice in Greeley, CO and eventually grew it to nearly $5 million, and why trying to implement everything at once ended up burning out some of his best team members.

We also talk about why case selection matters so much when you're learning surgery, dealing with complications, knowing when to refer, building relationships with specialists, and why Colorado Surgical Institute was designed to be more than another weekend implant course.

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE.

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions.

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

One of the easiest ways to find holes in your systems?

Ask different team members how they complete the same task.

If every answer is a little different, your systems are living in people's heads instead of your practice.

That's why Alex created Milo...to standardize checklists, workflows, and recurring tasks across your entire practice.

Learn more HERE.

This Week's Episode

As dentists, we're constantly trying to avoid becoming a commodity. We invest in better patient experiences, technology, customer service, and relationships because we know that if the only thing patients compare is price, nobody wins.

That got us thinking... dental labs are in the exact same position.

With labs popping up everywhere, overseas manufacturing, and crowns getting cheaper every year, how does a lab actually stand out? Is it just a race to the bottom, or is there another way to build a successful business?

That's what we sat down with Aaron Hoffman from Sunflower Dental Studio to find out.

Aaron shares how Sunflower grew by focusing on craftsmanship, relationships, and helping dentists long before asking for their business. We also talk about why cosmetic dentistry is so dependent on the partnership between the dentist and the ceramist, where digital dentistry and AI fit into the future of labs, and why some parts of dentistry still can't be commoditized.

Even though this conversation is centered around dental labs, I think every practice owner will recognize the same challenges in their own business. The question is the same for all of us: How do you build something people choose because they want to—not because you're the cheapest?

We discuss:

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE.

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions.

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

One of the easiest ways to find holes in your systems?

Ask different team members how they complete the same task.

If every answer is a little different, your systems are living in people's heads instead of your practice.

That's why Alex created Milo...to standardize checklists, workflows, and recurring tasks across your entire practice.

Learn more HERE.

This Week's Episode

We brought back an old friend of the podcast, Cory Ball.

If you've been listening for a while, you probably remember Cory from one of our earlier episodes where he shared the story of buying his first practice. At the time, it was collecting about $400,000 a year with a ton of inherited problems. Cory was honest about how overwhelming that first year of ownership had been.

Now, about 18 months later, the practice is on pace to do $1.3 million.

We wanted to have him back on to find out what actually changed.

Cory shares the biggest things he credits for the growth, including becoming more efficient clinically, learning which procedures to keep doing (and which ones to refer), building a team that genuinely enjoys working together, and the lessons he's learned as a first-time owner.

We also spend some time talking about the mental side of practice ownership, why the anxiety never completely goes away, hiring in today's market, and some of the mistakes he'd avoid if he were starting over.

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE.

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions.

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

One of the easiest ways to find holes in your systems?

Ask different team members how they complete the same task.

If every answer is a little different, your systems are living in people's heads instead of your practice.

That's why Alex created Milo...to standardize checklists, workflows, and recurring tasks across your entire practice.

Learn more HERE.

You don't expect your payment processor to be the thing that causes the biggest headache in your practice... until you try to leave.

That's exactly what happened to one dentist who thought he could switch providers...only to find out it was going to cost him $10,000 just to get out of his agreement.

In this episode, we sit down with Roman and Steven from nadapayments to unpack how this happened, why these contract clauses exist, and what every practice owner should be looking for before signing with a merchant service company. We also get into hidden fees, leased equipment, why processing rates seem to creep up over time, and whether AI is actually good enough to review contracts for you.

If you've never looked closely at your merchant statements or your processing agreement, this episode might save you thousands.

In this episode, we cover:

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE.

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions.

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

Ask three team members how to complete the same task.

If you get three different answers, you don't have a system...you have habits.

That's why Alex created Milo...to help out dental offices standardize checklists, recurring tasks, and workflows so everyone is on the same page.

Learn more HERE.

This Week's Episode

Most dentists never learned orthodontics the way they wish they had.

Matt Standridge joins us to talk about why so many general dentists struggle with clear aligners, why a lot of them give up after just a few cases, and what actually builds confidence. We started out discussing a controversial orthodontic white paper, but the conversation quickly turned into something much bigger—how dentists can better diagnose cases, avoid common mistakes, and understand the fundamentals instead of relying on software to do the thinking.

We also get into the extraction vs. non-extraction debate, airway considerations, why dental school leaves so many dentists feeling unprepared for orthodontics, and how Matt built an education platform that's focused on teaching principles instead of selling a particular aligner system. 

We discuss:

Special Offer for Our Listeners

Matt is offering our listeners $500 off his online Ortho course!

Use coupon code JACD26 at https://orthodonticxp.com/ to save $500.

Sponsor Shoutouts

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE.

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions.

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

Every office says, "That's just how we do it here."

Until you watch three different people do the same task three different ways.

Milo is the app Alex built to keep checklists, recurring tasks, and office workflows consistent without having to constantly remind everyone.

Learn more HERE.

This Week's Episode

Before AI receptionists, only about 25% of patients would leave a voicemail. Today, around 80% will actually complete the conversation with an AI receptionist instead.

That's one of the stats Laura Nelson, VP of AI at Mango Voice and founder of Front Office Rocks, has seen as more dental practices start using AI to answer their phones.

We get into the biggest bottlenecks at the front desk, why scheduling is still so difficult to automate, what today's AI tools do well, and where they still fall short. We also talk about how technology can take repetitive work off your team's plate so they can spend more time doing the things that actually require a person.

If you've been trying to separate the hype from what's actually useful, I think you'll like this conversation. Laura has spent years training front office teams, so she brings a practical perspective instead of just telling everyone AI is the answer to everything.

A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible!

🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE.

💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions.

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

Every office starts with great systems...until reality gets in the way. People take shortcuts, new team members learn different habits, and before you know it, everyone's doing things differently. That's why Alex built Milo...to keep your checklists, recurring tasks, and office systems running the way they're supposed to. Learn more HERE!

This Week's Episode

Russell Schafer did.

We talk about how he built a profitable practice around a niche that most dentists avoid, why digital workflows have completely changed the way he treats denture patients, and what dentists should know before trying to bring dentures in-house.

We also dive into Digital CE Guild, Russell's new project that's trying to become the Craigslist for dental CE. The idea is simple: one place where dentists can search for continuing education by topic and location instead of bouncing between Facebook posts and dozens of different websites. You can check it out at dcgdental.com.

In this episode, we discuss:

Sponsors

Darkhorse Tech

Check them out at www.darkhorsetech.com

Nadapayments

www.nadapayments.com

Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/

Connect with Us

If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!