Dental A Team Podcast

Kiera reflects on some of her most memorable episodes and experiences across 1,000 episodes (!!!) of the Dental A-Team podcast! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today feels like a ridiculously special, amazing, incredible day. We are at 1,000 Dental A Team podcasts. Like, can you honestly believe this? I can't believe it. I can't believe that we have hit record on this podcast a thousand times. And honestly, I wanna say thank you to you as listeners, to all of you who have made this podcast a reality. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent. I love dentistry. I love making people happy. I love. truly enjoying life. And this podcast came to me while Jason, my husband and I were hiking Yosemite. And I said, Hey, I've noticed that there's this area where they're unserved, where doctors and teams are not communicating on the same way. And like, there's really got to be a better way to help practices scale, to grow, to evolve. And being a team member myself and a business owner, I thought let's combine both of those perspectives. So truly it's an honor. ⁓ I honestly cannot believe that we are here. So if you've been here since episode one, please send me an email. [email protected]. I will send you a personalized thank you to you. I am just so honored. If you've been here for at least like 900 of them, let me know. But truly it's such an honor to be able to have this podcast where we're able to give back, to serve, to share, to laugh, to grow. This podcast has been such a healing space for me. And so today I thought it'd be really fun. for us to actually go through some of our most powerful success networks that's helped hundreds of doctors. It helps you. And I've called it the yes model. ⁓ that's focusing, wow, that's focusing in on you being able to say you, earnings and systems and team development. So focusing on you as a person, helping make sure that you're profitable as a practice, and then having systems and team development in place ⁓ to make sure that you can really, truly say yes to everything in life that you want. Because I truly, truly, truly believe. that running a practice, having a successful team, having a team of people that are accountable does not have to be hard. And so really that's been the whole purpose of this is to make it tactical, practical. And I thought like, Hey, this is going to be something really fun. We're actually going to pull from our framework. But what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to pull from past episodes, some of our hottest episodes, some of those fun episodes to kind of help you see how we can focus on you as a person, how we can focus on your earnings and profitability of the practice and helping with your systems and team development. Now, something that is fun is that there actually were several episodes that were our top downloaded episodes over the years. And so this is just something fun if you enjoyed it, amazing, but truly we looked back and these ones stood out. And so our episodes were episode 469, 10 Practices in 2 Years with Lewis Chen. So such a fun one to inspire, to ignite, to help all of us like really just get, I remember that practice and I was like, my gosh, I thought I like. rampaged up and in like two years we had three, but to do 10 practices in two years. Our other top downloaded episode is episode 501, What Office Managers Need to Know and really helping those office managers highlight, elevate. Being an office manager in dentistry, I feel is such a tricky zone because there's really no rule book for it. And that's what we tried to create at Dental A Team is what is an office manager supposed to do and giving support to office managers and doctors so you can truly have these incredible leaders in your practice. And then our next most downloaded episode was episode 607, A Day to Remember. And that was actually released on Thanksgiving. So shout out to you guys for having these as the most popular downloaded episodes. But like I said, I want to give you guys that framework for being able to say yes to everything with some podcast tools. Don't worry. You want to go back and listen to them if you don't want to. But trying to chunk that so you can really look at your life and your practice. Kiera Dent (03:41) So breaking into the you section, this is about you as a person. This is about you being that visionary, that owner, that fulfilled human, because honestly, if you're not fulfilled and you're not happy with what you're doing, honestly, your practice can't be there. And when we build the yes model, we purposely put it in a specific order of you first, and we focus on you as a person. Then we focus on earnings and profitability. And then we focus on systems and team, because what I found is if we put them in this order, You as a person first, kind like take the oxygen

Kiera is joined by Mark Rasmussen, CEO of Moolah, to talk about the landscape of credit card fees and how to reduce them, membership discount plans, and other bonus features offered by the dental payment tech company. (Pssst, Mark was last on episode 866, It's Time to Modernize Payment Processing!) Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am super jazzed because I have a guest here who's going to help us with cashflow leaks, modernizing your practice, figuring out those membership plans, all the things that you need and want. We're going to talk about some case studies. This is one of my absolute favorite guests, Mark Rasmussen, CEO, owner, founder, Moolah. How are you today, Mark? Welcome to the show. Mark Rasmussen (00:22) Hey, Kara, I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing awesome. So, so, so it's connected with you and your listeners and excited to get into all this juicy good stuff about revenue and payments and modernizing things. Let's do it. I love it. Kiera Dent (00:31) Yeah. Let's do it. So I have a slight crush on Moolah. Like truly you guys like just make credit card processing easy. And so what I want to start off, if you guys don't listen, Mark and I have done other podcasts in the past together. ⁓ But I don't know, Mark, what you guys say on your email subject lines, like on your little, what is it your signature, but I feel like it should be like your new favorite credit card processing company. Like that's what I feel like Moolah's tagline should be because I wanted to do a couple case studies with you since we last chatted. Mark Rasmussen (00:40) Hahaha Kiera Dent (01:05) ⁓ Mark knows, like, I do have a crush on Moolah. I try to get them to come and be our processor too. Mark Rasmussen (01:10) I need to like soundbite clip that, like I have a crush on Moolah just like everywhere in social. I love that. Kiera Dent (01:15) I do. do because I like companies that make things easy, but also are like the cheapest on the market and credit card fees are one of my biggest beefs. Like really truly I get annoyed when I look to see how much credit card fees are charging. And when you guys, ⁓ deadly team listeners, just so you know, I'm going to throw it out there. Like anybody who goes through our link literally saves 10 basis points. ⁓ on it, which is huge to get anywhere in the credit card industry. So you're getting below that 2.99. So you're getting 2.89 on cards not present and 2.39. And I hope that Mark, I'm allowed to say that because I'm just going to be bold and brazen. And if not, we'll cut that out. So don't stress about that. Mark Rasmussen (01:52) No, no, no, for sure. And not only that, it's like, that's not just a like teaser rate, like they look, your practices will get that preferred rate forever, right, which is awesome. And, and it's like you and I were talking a little bit earlier, too, of like, a bit of shock and awe of like, I and myself as well, I've been seeing like some statements from potential practices. And I'm like, ⁓ my God, I'm like, I'm seeing like, Kiera Dent (02:03) which is so big and you don't add extra heat. Mark Rasmussen (02:19) six, seven, eight percent, like net effective rates. I know you were saying you have been seeing even higher. It's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. It's almost criminal. Kiera Dent (02:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it does feel criminal because like here's the thing like you might get a cheaper rate somewhere else but when you look and dig into the details and this is where it feels annoying and obnoxious to me and doesn't happen right away it happens like when you've stopped looking at it you're like I've checked my credit card company for years they don't do anything and then all of a sudden it starts creeping up and being eerie and that's where I just get annoyed and that's why like I have a crush on Moolah because you guys don't do it and you guys stay consistent for it so I felt Mark and I, you didn't listen to our last podcast, we'll definitely link it in the show notes for you. But Mark, I felt we should kick today off with some case studies because I have some clients that I've recommended over to Moolah. And I think my favorite one is we were looking and I had a practice and our overhead was high. So like this practice, they don't love to like look at numbers. They have an amazing CPA. Like I will say we do look at numbers, but they're kind of like, yeah, carry it. We'll just like out produce our problems a little bit. And that's fine. Like anybody can have that. But I said, Hey, Mark Rasmussen (03:17) Alright. Kiera Dent (03:21) Your credit card fees are really high. think that they were honestly like 10%. And I'm like, is that really true? Like that just seems outlandish. And they said, well, Kiera, we're in a contract. Mark, do you want to throw up with contracts? Tell me about credit card contracts

Tiff and Kristy discuss how to best support patients during limited exams, including centering your own team's frame of mind, creating proper triage protocol, building trust through communication, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Tiffanie (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back today with some really, really exciting things. We speak to the doctors, we speak to the team side, and we really want that to come together in today's podcast. We've got a lot of information for you doctors, but then we've also got a lot of information for you to pass off and train your team members on or pass off this podcast, and we will help train your team members on this space just here within this podcast even. Jam-packed with a ton of information. It's for everyone. Team members, if you're here listening and your doctor's not a listener, vice versa, send it on over because I do think this is going to be some great information for everyone to start implementing right away. So you guys, I have Kristy here with me today. You know her, you love her. I know her, I love her. There's just no one on this earth that will meet her and not love her. So Kristy, you are just an amazing human being. are an excellent coach. and consultant. You've been doing this for many years and I am just constantly impressed by you and how you really work so well with doctors and especially team members. I've seen you really diffuse a lot of situations, handle with care, and you constantly make people feel seen and feel heard. So thank you for being here with me today, Kristy. And really before we pop into this, I'm going to I like to surprise you and Dana. Dana will tell you I do this a lot. So something pops into my head and I'm like, actually, that's gonna be really great. I think before we even get started on this, you guys, so that you know, we're gonna be really, we're gonna be talking about how to really, really maximize a limited or an emergency exam and how to enlist the team to support and getting the most out of it for yourself and for your patients. So before we get started, Kristy I would love for you to share with everyone here today and myself. on a couple of ideas or maybe even tools, I don't know, but how do you do so well at presenting yourself for other people to be able to feel so comfortable and the ability to allow people to be able to feel vulnerable in your space to be able to learn and to be able to make changes and impart changes with practices? Like, how is that? I know it's a natural tendency of yours, but if there's anything you can help doctors and team members really learn on how to show up so that they can do that too, I guess is what I'm asking. Kristy (02:35) I suppose you're right. I think it does come natural to me. I'm a pretty great listener yet. Also, I think it's very important to validate people where they're at and never make them feel small. You know, Tiff, I do not like being in the limelight, but I get a lot of thrill out of watching other people's growth or really watching them and seeing their brilliance within them and making that shine, bringing it out. I suppose I look again, it's meeting them where they're at, showing them maybe something different than they even thought possible for themselves and just touching on their brilliance. It's okay if we don't know everything right now, but dang, together we're gonna grow and we're gonna do this. So really just partnering with them and making them feel safe in that space, know, treating them like I would have wanted to be treated too. So, yeah. Tiffanie (03:30) Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And it sounds like for implement implementation tools, it's really seeing people and acknowledging. what it is that they're doing. if you've got a front office team member and you're like, gosh, like we've got 99 % of our patients confirmed for tomorrow, acknowledging that like, how did you do that? And really, like you said, partnering, I love that you use that word use it often, really partnering with that person and celebrating some of the things that they're doing really well. But also acknowledging there may be space for growth, we might have 99 % confirmations, but maybe we have three, four, five hygiene openings on the same day. So acknowledging spaces that are going really well, but also that there is growth in everyone to be found and how do we layer on top of what we're doing really well already to create change in all of the areas to get the results we're after. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. So I love that theory and idea and I love how you do handle that. I think it's key and Kristy (04:28) You nailed it. Tiffanie (04:36) imparting any kind of change or any kind of just updates even, right? Like handbook updates, like all of those pieces that are scary to go back to your team and say, hey, we're going to change this, we're going to do it differently, because human nature

Fred Heppner of Arizona Transitions is back for part 2 of his chat with Kiera! Life comes at you fast, and sometimes, it comes in the form of a surprise. Kiera and Fred talk about creating an exit strategy today for your departure from dentistry, as well as what the economics look like for moving on from a practice. Episode resources: 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 for you to have part two of me and Fred Heppner going through associates, DSOs, how to really grow this. You guys, we had such an incredible first half of this episode. It was so long and so much information that I wanted to break it into two parts. So here's part two. I hope you enjoy. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast. Kiera Dent (00:24) should people be talking when they're in their 20s 30s or is it something we're like start to think about it I know Ryan and I from Dentist advisors we we talk shop about this quite often of like there I mean there are studies that show that when you retire you actually start to atrophy in life and ⁓ there isn't as much of a purpose and so we talk often of like how can we continue that mental stamina, the things that are going to fulfill us, whether it's working or something else of philanthropy, like whatever is going to keep you going as a human, whether you're working in the chair or you're not, I think is important. So that's I was curious of like, really probably connecting with you three to five years before we think we might retire, but with the caveat of, hey, if something were to happen to me, what would kind of be my exit strategy? your like death list like I do, like if I die, this is what's going to happen. It's creepy, but it's awesome. Fred Heppner (01:15) No, it's, it's creepy and it is awesome. And at the same time, it's a really good conversation to have because if we're three to five years out, then one of the first things to do is say, okay, so what's going to happen if you're not here? And that carries on to the discussion we had earlier. So once the discussion about, what do want to do when you, when you retire or you stop practicing dentistry, then the questions start coming up. What about the economics? Kiera Dent (01:27) Mm-hmm. Fred Heppner (01:44) So in any... Yep, absolutely. Kiera Dent (01:44) I was just going to say, like, is it sell? Is it DSO? it? And also, I mean, this to me also, I think might exponentially accelerate some people's plans because the DSOs are hot and it's like 10x EBITDA. That might accelerate your retirement or your sell because you're on a wave right now that who knows if in the next 20, 30, 40 years we'll be there. Fred, I'm super curious, like, how is this whole DSO model maybe shifting it for transitions? Or is it? I'm curious. Fred Heppner (02:13) It is, it's shifted quite a bit, but what it's shifted is a real desire for dentists to be able to sell their businesses and release the management responsibility and to have somebody else take that over. 15, 20. Yeah. I just want to do, I just want to do dentistry. I don't want to manage a business. I don't want to manage people. Um, I don't want to run the company. I want to be able to practice my trade. Well, Kiera Dent (02:22) you The dream for every business owner. ⁓ Exactly. Fred Heppner (02:43) I can tell you that in the last 15, 20 years, it's certainly exploded in dentistry and not in a bad way. And here's why. Dentists graduating from dental school today need a place to work. The banks that loan money to dentists to buy dental practices are looking for dentists that have a couple years experience in dentistry. They have a production track record. The banks can see what it is that the dentist can do. Chair aside. a good credit score and some liquidity, usually 8 to 10 % of the purchase price of the business that they're looking at in cash. So one of the things to consider is graduating dentists should be able to make the minimum payments on their debt, on their student loans, on what debt they have, and begin to put money away as quickly as possible to gain some liquidity. So as we look at the equation of what DSOs are doing, they're providing them with a place to work. Because as dentists come out, I mean, the majority of dental practices that I work with, maybe you can echo this or discuss it, are just single dentist practices. Right, they don't have a, somebody called it a plus one at some point time, and I thought, okay, that's decent. So you have the dentistry, but there's the ability to bring somebody on maybe one or two days a week. Well, that doesn't, Kiera Dent (03:44) Mm-hmm. Totally same. Mm-hmm. Fred Heppner (04:09) That doesn't feed a hungry young dentist coming out of dental school who really has a lot of debt and wants to begin to work and develop a way to reduce that debt. They're lo

Kiera is joined by Fred Heppner of Arizona Transitions to talk through dental practice transitions. Their conversation includes when you should start thinking about your transition, what the economic outcomes will be any way you go, what a private indemnity group is (and how it can help), and more. Episode resources: 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 today I am so excited to welcome an incredible guest to our podcast, Fred Heppner. He's with Arizona Transitions. And honestly, I feel like right now in today's world, dentists need more than ever guidance and direction of like, what do we do? How do I transition my practice? What am I looking at for retirement? Do I go the DSO route? Do I do the legacy practice route? I just feel like there's so much confusion. And so trying to cut through that noise, Fred is incredible. We met him and I just said, you know what? He's incredible. And so he said for him, it's whether a person is buying a dental practice or putting a dental practice up for sale, Fred truly can help you successfully navigate through that transition. He deals with complete transitions of dental offices and also practices securing a partner or an associate, which that is such a hard thing. Like, how do we do this? There's a million ways to slice and dice that pie because he's worked with so many different aspects of the dental industry. His experience allows him to ensure that all parties are satisfied with the transition. So I'm super jazzed. Fred, welcome to the show today. How are you? Fred Heppner (01:02) I'm doing great. Thank you, Kiera. I gotta meet this guy. Who is this guy, Fred? Kiera Dent (01:06) Well, here he is, if I'm not mistaken. But truly, I'm so honored to have you on the podcast. When our team met you, they were like, Kiera, he's got to get on the podcast. And so just truly excited because like I said, this is a zone that I get excited to geek out on because we deal with it in consulting all the time. Our clients are constantly asking us like, what should we do? They want to bring on partners, they want to bring on associates, they want a retention model. ⁓ They want to know like, I feel like your dental practice can be your greatest asset or your greatest burden, depending upon how you set it up. And so really being able to just dive in with you. And like I said, I think there's so much noise right now. The dentists are like, it's almost like ostrich in the sand. Like, I just don't want to even think about it. I'm going to put my head in the sand. I'm not going to pay attention. But the reality is like, let's educate, let's learn. Let's bring experts in like yourself. So that way dentists can feel more confident making the decision. I don't think it has to be scary. I don't think it's be daunting. We just need to be educated and. Fred Heppner (01:41) Yeah, I agree. No. Kiera Dent (02:05) and hear wisdom and then do what feels right. So Fred, that was my intro, but anything else you want to add of how you got here or, mean, I'm just excited to riff with you today. Fred Heppner (02:14) I appreciate the opportunity and I can tell you even from what you just said back in, back in 1983, when I started in the business of dentistry, the interesting thing was I didn't hear very often, Hey, what's your transition plan? Because oftentimes dentists were really just going to build a practice and then that was going to be their retirement and they would sell their practice and retire. Financial planners were, were non-existent to a large degree. And it was early on that I heard somebody and it really resonated with me. They asked a young dentist who had just taken ownership or started a practice, when are you going to hang up your hand piece? And the dentist kind of, I just got started. What do mean? When am going to hang it up? I got, you know, I got 20, 30 years here. No, no, no. The moment you take ownership of a business, you want to consider what your transition plan out would be early on so that it doesn't spring it on. Kiera Dent (02:51) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Fred Heppner (03:09) We may talk here later on about, what happens if you're not there? What happens if there's an injury or disability or illness and you can't practice dentistry? Now what? And let's consider talking about that maybe later on. So early in the game, it's appropriate to have some kind of idea of some kind of transition plan. Transition plan doesn't mean I have to value my business. I have to procure a buyer act to make sure that financially qualified. I have to get a contract. I have to get a lease. That's not a transition plan. In simple, think. Kiera Dent (03:21) Yeah. Fred Heppner (03:38) The transition plan is what do you want to do when you sell your practice, when you move on from dentistry? And you know, as well as I do, you have clients who have been in dentistry and practice for

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. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review 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

Kiera and Kristy discuss ways your practice can completely "drain the lemon" of juice (aka, financial opportunity) without becoming completely overwhelmed. This happens by identifying a goal and reverse engineering it. Kiera and Kristy give numerous examples of how this works, as well as other opportunities for hidden value in your practice. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is such a special day. I hope you guys are having the best day because I'm having a great day because today I'm podcasting with our one and only Kristy Treasure, one of our incredible consultants. And I am so excited to have Kristy with us. Kristy, how are you doing today? Kristy (00:17) Gosh, it's fantastic. The first day is spring and we're gonna bring some new life to clients here. Add potential clients, right? Kiera Dent (00:24) I agree. I completely agree with you, Kristy And honestly, if you guys have not met Kristy, Kristy is incredible. She's been on our team. Kristy, feel is just like the queen of wanting to have these amazing practices, just hit great numbers. Kristy loves numbers. She loves to dig in. And Kristy has this like very delicate leadership style. Like I watch you and I see you just transform practices. You gain their trust, you build their trust, you help team members. I mean, offices who've said, Kiera I only want to work with you, are working with Kristy and loving her. And so it's just really fun, Kristy, to have someone who just is so passionate about dentistry. And I'm just so happy to have you on the podcast with me today. So that's a little intro to Kristy. If you haven't met her, haven't heard from her, you definitely need to. So Kristy, love having you on our team. It's always a treasure. Kristy (01:11) Thank you. I love being here. It's a great culture and you know what? We just have fun serving clients and that's what it's about. Kiera Dent (01:19) We totally do. And so Kristy, I want to join the podcast today because I feel I've been watching you consult some clients and I've been seeing it's fun in our morning huddle. Don't worry guys, in Dental Team we have a morning huddle. You can tell I used to be a dental assistant, team member, that's what I do. And so Kristy, we always share client wins and it's really fun because then we can share from consultants like, hey, what are you doing really well? What things are we doing well? And Kristy, I've been watching, she's been posting up some really fun changes that she's been able to do with practices, so much so that offices who have never been able to hit certain dollar amounts in their production, things that they never believed were possible, getting overheads like, Kristy is burning and churning and doing it, it's like, Kristy, you come in with this like delicate wave of authority and it's just beautiful. And so I kind of wanted to talk, not necessarily specific to these practices. But I mean, offices who have never had 100 grand, Kristy's been able to help them. Offices who have never been profitable, she's been able to help them. Offices who feel like they can't get their leadership team on board, Kristy's getting them. People who say like, we'll never be able to make an operations manual. I'm watching and Kristy you're just like getting these offices to navigate along. And so I thought today would be really fun for us to talk about maybe what are some of the tips or tricks. Again, not necessarily specific to these practices, but things you see overarching that really work to add. production to a practice or get a team bought into it. So let's start first. mean, everybody always wants to geek out on numbers. So Kristy, what are some of the things that you've found are just really successful? I mean, you're an office manager of a very, very, very successful practice. You've consulted lots and lots and lots of practices even before coming to Dental A Team. You've got some history with you. So Kristy, let's kind of share some Kristy magic of what are some of the things you've seen that really help impact numbers in a practice quickly and easily with a whole team bought into that. Kristy (03:06) Yeah, would say first off and foremost, like obviously picking maybe the top five metrics to start working on and every doctor in office talks about production and collection. And so starting with some of the basics that they already understand, but also like. Figuring out that point, what are we working for? Not just in a five year or 10 year range. I mean, you talk about that all the time, but also what are we looking for this year? And then reverse engineering it. Because if we don't have a point to guide to, It's just numbers and even when we're talking percentages, we can have 100 % of collections, but is it enough to pay the bills? Is it enough to do the goals that we're reaching for as a team? So def

Kiera and Tiff share highlights from the Dental A-Team Summit — the best one yet! They touch on communication, the life cycle of a business, keeping teams energized, and more. Mark your calendars for the Dental A-Team Summit 2026! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and ⁓ gosh, today's a great day. I have the one and only Spiffy Tiffy on the podcast. I feel like we're going back to like OG status here, Tiff. Like it's been a while. Welcome to the podcast. How are you? Tiffanie (00:14) I'm good. Thank you. Luckily, Shelbi snuck a time in here for us. I mean, gosh, we've got a birthday podcast. We've got this coming up. Like we've got all kinds of stuff in the works, but I'll see you in a gear in a year. Right? That's all we get. Kiera Dent (00:26) I know, right? See ya! See you next May. I'll see ya. No, I love it because honestly, you and I host, we podcast, you take a lot with the consultants and so ⁓ I selfishly put you in on my day of podcasting because I miss, I miss our OG days. I miss ⁓ us hanging out. I mean, I did take us on a hike and podcast. Like that was really going back in style. Supposedly the video works. If you guys saw it, give us a thumbs up. ⁓ We were both very awkwardly uncomfortable sitting up there, but it was awesome. And the things like this, got sunburned. So that was funny when we were up there, all the pieces, but it was a good time. And I felt like this back to our original roots, Tiff. Sometimes I think we need to remember where we came from and how we got here. So, I mean, I was just talking to Shelbi and Kristy and told them about our Venmo days and how you stayed with me through all these years. If you don't know the Venmo story, Tiffanie (00:57) There were so many courts. I agree. Here I am. Kiera Dent (01:22) When Tip first started, I paid her via Venmo and Venmo has maxes if you didn't know that. Tip was a 10.99, so I paid her via Venmo. I would not recommend this. And why Tiffanie stayed with me, I don't know because the Venmo would max and I'd have to text her and be like, hey, so it's maxed out. Give me like two days. It wasn't that I didn't have money. It's just that Venmo would max. So Tip, I don't know. Like how did you feel like that wasn't a shady business? That's question number one and then we'll get into our real topic today. Tiffanie (01:31) Thank you. have no idea. Honestly, I don't have an answer for that. I truly just don't. I just trusted and I mean, by early on, it was like the first two months of working together and you didn't have employees yet. So I guess in the back of my mind, I was like, we're just creating the systems, like we're figuring it out. And worst case scenario, like I always, I always have a backup plan and I was still in my office. So it was like, that's fine. We're figuring this out. We're going to see how it works. And here we are almost eight years later. Kiera Dent (01:51) Ha you You are. It's incredible. Nope. Definitely not Venmo. And it was funny because I was thinking back to like startup businesses and I did a podcast with someone else and we were talking about like, I think you forget when you like go to open your second location or your third of like, ⁓ yeah. Like we had to scrap it that hard when we first started. So Tiff, thanks for, thanks for being an OG, which stands for original gangster, not oldie, but goodie, but it's okay. If you want to do Kiera's style, I had to ask Tiff. Tiffanie (02:18) Not Venmo-ing. Kiera Dent (02:44) a things in my life. had to educate me on a few and that was one of them. was like, Tiff, does OG stand for? And here we are. So, Tiff, I figured with you and I on the podcast today, I thought it'd be really fun. You and I just in person did our fifth summit. Can you believe five summits? Like Tiff. Tiffanie (02:49) Luckily I'm all filtered. No, when we had, actually saw it on social media, on our social media. It said like, our fifth summit is coming. And I was like, oh my gosh, is that true? Like, you sent the postage on our Instagram and that's how I knew. So no, I can't believe that it was our fifth summit. It blew my mind when I saw that. Kiera Dent (03:09) you Yeah, it was well and there was a point in time where I debated if I wanted to keep doing summits. And the only reason that I actually went through is because we started the summits. Our first one was in 2021. And I knew I would be able to remember how many we had done because 2021 is one, two is two, and I was like, we got to keep this up. Otherwise, I'm going to really get off count. So that's why I know it's the fifth because it's 2025. ⁓ But I think honestly, Tiff, you and I, I wanted to give some highlights. If you missed it, you missed out and you should definitely mark your calendars for next year. I will say with wild confidence and Tiff, I think you would agree of all the summits t

Tiff and Dana discuss the numerous innovations happening in the field of pediatric dentistry, specifically minimally invasive care and maximizing shortened attention spans. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Tiffanie (00:02.2) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be back here with you. If you listened to an earlier podcast, I alluded to the fact that Dana and I were going to have some fun with a really cool podcast. I'm excited for this one. I think it took a little bit for us to prep for this one, but I think that's the world of dentistry for us. Dana, thank you for spending so much time with me this afternoon busting out a few podcasts here for the... For the listeners, how are you this lovely afternoon? Dana (00:33.698) Doing good, doing good. I'm excited to be here. I've had to reframe my podcast time to Tiff time because it helps really get me pumped up and excited for it. Tiffanie (00:39.768) I'll make it. Tiffanie (00:44.986) I appreciate that. I love that so much. It is our time together. Kristy started saying the same thing too. And, I love getting you guys on here and I can't wait to get some with Trish and all the other consultants that, that we have. think it's just so valuable for us to get the time together, share ideas. Cause you know, we have, we have our consultant co-labs, but this seems to be where the most ideas just like randomly spur out. Cause it's almost like we're coaching. when we talk about these things. So you're welcome to the world. Thank you to the world for joining us for our consultant time. It's my Dana time, my Britt time, my Kristy time. So thank you, Dana. I appreciate it. Today, I thought it would be fun. And I want to caveat this before I truly talk about what we're talking about. This is for everyone. We want to focus today on pediatric dentistry innovations. But I really think that there's some valuable tips and tricks in here for everyone and not just pediatric practices. I know a lot of GP practices see many children. I know a lot of pediatric practices that refuse GP referrals, which I think is really funny. And I totally understand because when I was in my GP practice, it was like we would take kids, but the worst kids we did not. And so I totally get it. It just makes me chuckle every time. Regardless, my oral surgery practices, you guys are seeing kiddos and by kiddos, mean like realistically 16 and under is what we're talking about here today. I know my my periopractices, sometimes you guys are seeing them too. My son plays lacrosse and gosh dang those teeth. just cringe every time something happens, mouth guard or not. I have seen, I don't know how many mouth guards fly across the field and they have stopped play because it's thank God. I thank God for this for these. rules and regulations, but it's part of the uniform. And so if they're missing, if they if if the ref see it fly out of their mouth, they'll call the bell stop the game so they can go get it. But I'm like, you got hit so hard your mouth guard blew out. Anyway, it's periodontist. I know you're seeing kiddos too. So everyone's seeing kiddos. And today it's just pediatric dentistry innovations and Tiffanie (02:57.342) I think, Dana, you said it well just before we got on here. There's not a lot of exciting new things for pediatric dentistry or realistically right now for dentistry in general. We've kind of hit the space of, we're gonna try this stuff out for a little while. So I agree with you there, but I think we've come up with some really good things and tested and seen some amazing things that are working for the generations of kids that we have right now. we were talking attention spans. So I know that that will come into play with some of the stuff we're speaking on today, but really, really honing in on, I think it's, again, it's going to come back to like that trust and that value and making sure that emotionally we're, we're emotionally evoking things for our patients, whether they're adults or children, so that they're comfortable, they're confident, they trust us and they want to return. For the kiddos, I get really emotional and I just love on the pediatric practices. I myself could never work in a pediatric practice full time. There's no way. I don't have the patience for it, but man, do I value and appreciate the work that all of you guys are doing and Dana, that you were able, that you've done and are continuing to do in your efforts as well. Because to me, I've done mostly GP and oral surgery. And I really had so many patients. I've met so many people that are so afraid of the dentist because they had a horrible experience as a child or because they had a parent who had a bad experience as a child that passed it on to them. Those were the worst for me, but I just value and appreciate the amazing pediatric practices who are out there doing amazing work and creating lasting. impressions

Kiera and Tiff are tuning in from a hike to talk about their shared birthday (today, May 8!) and how their personal and business evolutions have morphed. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:00.977) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and... Spiffy Tiffy. Oh my gosh. We are on a hike and we're in the middle of the wilderness. We're a hot mess right now. So Tiff flew in and we decided since we're actually together, we should do our birthday podcast together because little known fact, if you don't know, Tiff and I actually shared the best birthday in the entire world. Yeah, May 8th. I think they knew that though. I think they did too and if you didn't well welcome and so I convinced if we were gonna go on a hike today and when we used to be like old school old school dental a team we used to go on hikes and podcast on a hike so we decided to We've got cords all over us. Like this is in our ear. We haven't done this in so long I feel like rookie move here So if the video turns out amazing and if it doesn't well Just imagine Tiff and I are sitting up on a hill on this bench It was a beautiful hike up. We're in Reno, Nevada right now, but we get to celebrate our birthday and I wanted to riff this because May 8th is an incredible day. Tiff and I are both like so random. Tiff, we met. I feel like Tiff and I in the work world, we met on a blind date basically. Like we were set up by a mutual friend for Tiff to come and join and she is still on my phone Tiffany Trader DPP. Yep. DPP is the company that Kara previously owned that brought us together. it was DPP. Dental placement pros. Tiff was a recruiter and then Recruiter turned consultant turned lead consultant. She's kind of done it all but if I feel like happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you. Gosh, it's like just right around the corner It is and so this is releasing on our actual birthday And so I thought a fun rift would be to if we are both about to enter a new decade of our lives And I thought about thinking about like decades decades in practice ownership decades in our life I don't know how you're feeling but going into our birthday this year I've really been like on this mole of like, do I want to be in the next decade of my life? And what do want that to embody? And I know you and I are both kind of on that same path. It's really fun. It's been fun with you. think over the course of time, shoot girl, it's been almost eight years. Five, eight, eight years. That's actually cute. But just thinking about like, we've gone through so much together. And I think if we were to look back at when we first started the company. The Dental A Team (02:14.635) I feel like Tiff started it with me. Like seriously, you've been through 99.999 % of all of it. just thinking back of like, I think of who we were when we met versus who we are today and really like huge kudos to us of like both progressing and growing. But I'm like, Tiff, what does this next decade look for you? Like I thought, let's think about it. And like, maybe what was the decade before? What was that focused on? And then what are we going into for this next one? From your perspective, from my perspective and helping owners and like offices think about like. when you first started your business, might look different and like, what are the different decades or even five years of your life? How do we kind of like capture that and maximize? To me, this I feel like is living life on purpose rather than just unconsciously going through the motions. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's actually it's a really fun conversation, not only because it's a fun conversation, but it's actually. I think I can make it super applicable for life and for business in general. So whether you're a dental practice owner or you're an entrepreneur of your own or just whatever kind of business you're owning or working in or managing, I think I can make it pretty applicable because when you ask me that question, like, what am I going into? What did I come out of? Like, what does that look like? And I think we both are very intentional human beings. So we're always very intentional with our time and we're very intentional with like what's coming and how can we make the best or the most of what's coming. And I can say this one's fun too and easy for me because I'm going into a whole new world of age. Going from 39 to 40, that whole new like 10 years, everybody looks at their lives in like 10 year segments. And going into 30, that life was how can I show up the most for my kid? Because Brody, you know, was at an age where he needed me. He needed the best parent that he could have. He needed the happiest mom that he could have. And I was very intentional with who I was being and what kind of a life I was creating for us so that Brody could have the best experience as possible. So going into 30 was like, okay, how do I show up

Tiff and Dana talk about a large trend happening in dental practices this year: last-minute cancellations, and why it's such a stressor for the doctors. They share how to notice the signs of no-shows further in advance, plus ways to troubleshoot the problem. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Tiffanie (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I have the one and only Dana here with me. Dana, we're still working on that dynamite. Dana is my favorite nickname, but we'll see what Kara decides sticks. So. Thank you, Dana, for being here with me today. If you guys are watching this podcast, which I think is still a weird concept in my brain, Dana has the most incredible hair today. Dana, I'm always impressed with your lovely loc. So thanks for coming ready to go today. How are you? Dana (00:34) doing good. Thank you. If you only knew how little time it took me and that's why it's consistent because it takes me no time to get it to do this. I'm excited to be here anytime I get with you on this podcast tip is special time. So Tiffanie (00:42) I love it. Thank you. Thank you. And I do enjoy our time together. I'm trying to make sure we get that one on one time a couple more times per month than just podcasting. So thanks for being patient with me on that. Dana, I get to pick your brain all the time. We have a really fun one coming up here in a second that I know everyone's going to be really excited for. But right now, I really want to pick your brain a lot on cancellations and the cost of cancellations to a general practice. I know in My client base, what I have seen and tell me Dana what you're seeing as well. I have seen this year just like a wild bag of like, patients coming? Are they not coming? Are they canceling? What are the reasons? Like it just feels like a mixed bag of information. Since realistically, I would say it probably, I think it started trickling around November, but January, February was wild. Weather was wild. And then now that we're getting into, you know, summery months, we're getting out of spring and into summer months here in May, it just still seems to be like trends are just kind of cycling around that same space. are you seeing that with your clients you're working with and friends in the industry that you're chatting with as well? Dana (02:03) Yeah, I feel like it is a weekly basis where it's like, okay, how are things going? Well, the schedule was full, right? It was looking great and it just seems to be falling apart. So a lot, a lot of last minute cancellations where it is really hard for the team to pivot and pivot quickly in those instances. Tiffanie (02:09) Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. And so on one hand, I want you guys out there, doctors, team members, office managers, those of you who are listening today, on one hand, if this is something that you guys are coming up against this year, I want you to know that right now in 2025, this has been a trend that we've noticed within the dental community as a whole. today we really want to talk about the cost of those cancellations. I think it's great for doctors to know that information. A lot of doctors do, lot of owners already have that information, but I think it's great for team members and office managers to really know the cost of that as well so that we can see why are the doctors harping on us, not just because they don't have patients, but why is it so stressful to them? And doctors, why am I feeling this internal stress? And then I've also got some tips in here, Dana and I have gone through that are ways for you to know that there's a problem, start noticing it more in advance. and then ways to troubleshoot those problems as well. So first and foremost, I think, Dana, the most important thing to remember is that we've got to make sure that we've got a solid plan and a solid action, actionable pieces as far as our goals. If we don't know our goals, if we don't know where we're heading, then... Like, what are we even doing? Right? So as long as we, as long as we can keep a good heading on our goals. And I mean, by that, like, what is our monthly goal? What is our daily goal? And then always looking at what have we done? Where are we going? And what's that gap in between? If we're not watching that gap in between, we can fall into a really scary space. And then it's that last week of the month that we've all lived where the office manager is like, okay, guys, we just need $30,000 in addition this week. Who needs ortho? right? And we're like, scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get that money in. But it's because we haven't watched all month where those numbers are at. making sure that we're always looking at that, and we're always paying attention to those things is going to be massively important. Now, Dana, I know you have a lot of practices that are tracking this, that are the

A lot of practices are concerned about keeping their team members on board right now. In this episode, Kiera lays out 3 effective ways to create a workplace that employees want to show up to, leading to a happier office crew and happier patients. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I hope that you're just having the best day of your life. I hope that you are just truly, truly, truly remembering why you're even doing this. I hope you have a strong why. I hope you have a strong commitment. I hope you have just the best honest day-to-day. Dental A Team's purpose is to truly make your life better, to make running a dental practice easier, because I don't believe that being successful and profitable has to be hard. I don't believe that having like great patients and great teams has to be a hard journey. So our job is to give you tactical tips that are able to implement immediately and make your life and your job even easier. Today, I wanted to pump you guys up because I believe that stronger teams, happier practice, this is where we're at. How do you actually boost team morale and job satisfaction? This is something that I feel is super common right now. People are like, Kiera, how do I get more team members to stay? And we just had an in-person. event where doctors, we had doctors and leadership, so office managers there, and the doctor like, please just tell us like, what do you want? We will try our best to do this for you. And so the reality is a happy team leads to truly a thriving practice. And I don't believe that happy means you have to give everything to them. And so really how do we create a work environment where your team loves to show up every single day? This truly impacts patient care. It impacts efficiency. It impacts the practice success. And so really I'm going to give you guys three of the most effective strategies that I've seen with hundreds of practices to truly boost job satisfaction today. You guys, we are the dental team. We are the experts and dentists and team training. We love to do this. We love to help you in your practice. And the reality is we have been able to help within our consulting, boost team morale, boost doctor morale, which ultimately leads to greater patient satisfaction and happiness. So today, number one, it was interesting. were like, literally at this event, we were listing off all these things and asking the team members and the doctors were like, my gosh, like, just tell us. And one of the office managers raised her hand and she said, you know, a lot of these things are important. But the number one thing that's important to me is when my doctor says, hey, you did a great job. And I like, there it is again. Like it shows up constantly of creating a culture of recognition and appreciation and when team members feel valued, I remember like the best thing my doctor could have told me was, Keri, like you did it, you like crushed it today. Like, I'm so grateful for you as my assistant. And I think like, we think that that doesn't matter, but when it's genuine and sincere, this is what our team members are craving. And so figure out a way where you can like recognize your team members, figure out a way where you have peer to peer, so it's not just leaning on you doctors. So office managers looking for this. And then having personalized appreciation. And this is something where I really emphasize this heavy in our company, in our team, in our culture. So for example, you guys have heard me probably talk a million times about our morning huddle structure, where every Wednesday is core value shout out and every team member, it's kind of like popcorn. So if I'm going to start today, I'm going to shout out a team member for one of our core values. And then I choose that team member and then they'll shout someone else out. And even if like it's someone else, then great, no problem. We're just going to make sure that every person shout someone out and it doesn't matter who got shout outs. But what the goal is, is that peer to peer recognition where we're looking for each other's strengths, we're looking for each other's greatness, We're looking to elevate and celebrate one another. We have every Friday 5 where we highlight different team members of great things that they've done, things that have gone really well. And I will tell you, this is one of the greatest ways to foster a great culture. And then other things that you can do is on you can personally Shout out team members of what they're doing well and highlight them But really being genuine and I know some doctors like really struggle with this I even had a doctor who had like 17 members and they had seven little rocks in one pocket and Every time they would compliment a team member. They'd move one rock to one pocket So by the end of the day all seven rocks had to move

Today's case acceptance focus is all about presenting the treatment plan and sequencing. Kiera shares language to use and the kind of confidence to adopt when discussing game plans with patients, and why it will stop objections in their tracks nine times out of ten. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team Listeners, this is Kiera and I am so excited to welcome you back to part two of Treatment Planning Masters, increasing that case acceptance, getting you guys into the tactical, but you better believe if you have not listened to part one, get your booties back to part one and go listen, because if you don't fix your mindset, if you don't work on those items, everything I teach you today is going to be a little bit better for you. I promise you it will be a little bit better for you, but the real secret sauce to treatment planning is the words that you speak. Words create worlds, you guys, and the words you're saying and how you're saying it how you're presenting it and the sequence you're doing is ultimately impacting your yeses, your nos, your full schedules or your not full schedules, helping you realize full case acceptance versus partial case acceptance. It's all within mindset. And I have literally a hundred percent done this for so many offices. So I can sit here confidently telling you, guys, you've got to do that. So if you're new to the podcast, welcome. I promise I don't usually start podcasts out this way. I usually tell you, I hope you're freaking loving your day today. I hope you're having the best day and I hope you remember we are truly so blessed to work in dentistry. Dental A Team's mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and we do that through expert consulting for dentists and teams. Honest to goodness, I can say very confidently that Dental A Team consulting is second to none. We are truly experts. We drive production. We drive overhead down. We drive teams to be incredible leaders and we do it in such a freaking fun, positive, easy way. We help doctors get the lives of their dreams. Yes, you have to show up. I can't just do it for you, but I can promise you that Dental A Team Consultants are truly people that have passion, that have grit, that have solutions. And it is so fun to hear client success story after client success story after client success story, increasing their production to numbers they never thought that they could do, decreasing their overhead, having dream their vacation homes being built when they didn't even know how to take home a paycheck. Just the life, the business, the teams, team members telling us that we have literally changed their lives, that we've helped them financially, that we've helped them personally, that we've helped them help more patients. This is why Dental A Team exists. This is what our mission is. And I hope that we can help you in your practice. If it ever resonates with you, I hope it does. DM us. We're on Instagram, Dental A Team. Also pop onto our website, TheDentalATeam.com. Click on a call. I'm happy to do a... a complimentary practice assessment where we actually look at your whole practice and I'll kind of help you see the gaps and our team will help you see where are kind of the areas within your practice that you can exponentially improve. We have six proven areas that we know if you will tackle those six areas, you will truly find success with ease. And it's something where it's not hard. The secret to success is not hard. It's simple little changes, but being consistent and staying accountable. And I think our team does it. in such a fun way. add the confetti, we add the sprinkles, we make you giggle. I have a client and we are always giggling and we have expanded him to multiple, multiple, multiple growth beyond anything this client could ever could imagine. And we do it with giggles and ease because honestly, business is a fun, it's a fun game if you allow it. So reach out if any of that resonates with you. I'd love to have you be a part of our Dental A Team family. I'd love to help you. Live the life you deserve and to live the life of your dreams and get there even easier So with that here's part two of case acceptance treatment planning. Like I said, here's a tactical so I've got you're in the right mindset We're not planting weeds in our flower garden. If you have no clue what I'm talking about go listen to part one And if you are ready, you're like, okay care. I've got the mindset. I was practicing it all day yesterday and Like crazy it just happened patients are saying yes to me like Wow What do you say? next up is going to be, all right, so now a patient has come. I am in the right mindset. This is going to be, doctors, I need you to be freaking comprehensive. Do not use little league words for major league problems. Tell them what's really going on and have conf

Case acceptance is 80% psychology and 20% skill. Kiera gives tangible tips on how treatment coordinators and doctors can get in the right frame of mind for that successful case acceptance, including no more assuming someone's financial capabilities, understanding people's motivators, and learning the art of silence. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you are just having an incredible day today. I hope you are so jazzed and you are so excited about dentistry, because I'm excited about dentistry. You don't call us the Dental A Team for nothing. Our job is to help you in your practice become the A Team of dental offices. Honestly, I love this. I love what we do. I love talking to you. I love helping you and your team just become everything and more that you've ever hoped to be. So today, I hope you are ready. I just did a really incredible team training with an office about case acceptance. And I realized, hey, maybe that's something where I can help you in your practice. I love doing this with teams. I have a couple of practices where I help their treatment coordinators. And we've actually been able to add multiple millions. And that's not an exaggeration, multiple millions to their practice. And the thing that I just love is when we increase our case acceptance from doctors and team members, we're able to help more patients. And that's what I tell everyone. are. so blessed and so lucky to be able to be treatment coordinator masters and to be able to help more patients and to give patients this incredible life, to be able to give them the confidence, to be able to give them the smile, to be able to help their longevity. And I always enjoy hearing the objections. So it's a fun time. So we'll do a part one, part two of this podcast where I'll kind of break down case acceptance for you of kind of how I get team members into this mindset. And then what I'll do part two of all the objections and how you can overcome objections and treatment planning. I think one of our greatest wins was when I had an office who literally was able to sell an electronic, like an electric toothbrush, which we all know is better than just a standard one to an Amish family. I was blown away. And it was because this treatment coordinator was able to provide so much value of what this patient actually needed and to help them have the best dental health. And I just... I love treatment planning and case acceptance so much because to me it's helping more patients have healthier smiles, healthier mouths. And I just think it's one of the greatest gifts that we could ever, ever, ever, ever give our patients and our team. So I hope you're excited. I'll break it down for you in a couple of simple steps. These are some of the things that I do to get treatment coordinators and doctors in the right frame of mind. Because what I found is case acceptance is truly 80 % your psychology and what you're thinking and 20 % skill. So I'll give you both. But really just wanting to break it down for you that so much of case acceptance is about Literally what you're thinking about. if you're new to the dental a team podcast, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent I'm your host I love all things dental and so much so that my last name is actually dent I created the dental a team consulting years ago when I left Midwestern University's dental college and working with so many of those dental students shout out to all of them and Realizing those students that I loved so much. We're going to go out into this big bright world of dentistry and they were gonna need an advocate, someone who could vet companies for them, someone who could help guide them, someone who could help them understand what a P &L was, understanding what cashflow was, understanding the business aspect and the team aspect of dentistry, and that's how Dental A Team was born. So my first practice we took from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months and opened our second location. Dental A Team is a miracle grow for practices. We're able to increase. your production, decrease your overhead and honestly decrease your stress and get a full doctor team experience. So that way doctors, don't just have to do this on your own. So that's a little bit about what Dental A Team is about. If you are part of our actual consulting dental family, welcome. I love you. I'm so grateful for you. It is truly one of the highlights of my entire life is watching offices succeed. Like we shout out office wins every single day in our team huddle. And when I hear offices who have broken a million or hit a hundred thousand for the first time or took home a paycheck for the first time or got their team on board for the first time, literally, I light up, our team lights up because that's what we do. Our consultants are truly experts at what we do and we truly do love seeing your wins.

Tiff and Kristy look into re-care and re-activation in practices, including adopting a healthy mindset about patient outreach, encouraging medical readiness out of those patients, and steps your team can take today to ensure scheduling happens every time. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back at you today. I have Ms. Kristy back with me today in the, we'll call it the studio. We're each in our own studio. We are here just so excited to bring you guys more value and more information and doctors who. Kristy (00:02) you The Dental A Team (00:19) Listen to us who come every week, who diligently are here supporting us. love you and appreciate you and Teams exactly the same. love you and appreciate you. Doctors, if you find value in this one today, I am super excited for you to have information today that you can share directly with your team. We are talking re-care and reactivation today. And Kristy, how are you doing today? Let's start there. How's Kristy's world? Kristy (00:45) my gosh, wonderful. It's been a good day. The weather's nice, had lots of client calls, being able to help people. And then ending up in the studio with you today. So it's a good day. The Dental A Team (00:57) Awesome. It's a beautiful Wednesday. I appreciate that. And I think it's a little, I think it's just cloudy. I can't say gloomy because you know, I'm in Phoenix, so I'm quite positive there's no actual rain coming. I think it's just a little cloudy, which is making me think I need to be outside later because it, you know, 96 might feel a little bit better with some cloud coverage. We'll see. We'll see. So I'm excited for you, Kristy. And I'm really excited for the clients that you've been able to help already so much. You've had, you got Kristy (01:16) . The Dental A Team (01:27) a handful, two handfuls even, clients under your belt and they're just seeing some incredible progress and I want to give you some massive shout outs and some massive kudos. You have built really strong relationships really quickly and made some massive impacts on personal and professional lives all the way across the country. I know you've even got right now a client as far as New Jersey. and we are West Coast, you guys. So Kristy, thank you for everything that you pour into our company and into our clients and to the people here listening that you pour into our non-clients as well. So Kristy, kudos to you. Thank you for being here today. Yeah, I am really excited, you guys, to chat re-care and reactivation with you all. Really, the thought process here is like patients slipping through the cracks and... Kristy (02:04) Thank you. The Dental A Team (02:17) and patients that are maybe forgotten about. And they're forgotten about, but we still love them. So patients that listen, that just every now and again pop into dental podcasts, we love you. But really just talking about this from a standpoint of team and doctor perspective, and What can we do to ensure that these patients don't slip through the cracks or when they do, that we catch them again. And I have to say, been in the dental field for quite a while. And I was really young when I started in the dental industry. And for a long time, I worked for a really amazing, amazing man. He was, he's just one of my favorite human beings in the world. And this doctor was just incredible, but he is a bundle of energy. guys may have heard me talk about him before. He has so much energy and he's go, go, go all the time. And he is literally your true entrepreneur, right? Your true in... just like visionary, right? Not integrator. He's your visionary. I was his integrator and constant idea factory and constant like fix this, let's do that, let's do this, let's implement. And I remember he harped on re-care constantly. He's like, we're not fucked out six months, then we're not doing our jobs right. And I used to, when I was young, be like, give it up. Like for the love, just let me live my life. Like stop telling me to make more re-care calls. And I really just didn't understand. And I don't think he knew how to articulate, you know, the reasons behind it. And I think this comes up in a lot of practices for a lot of doctors and a lot of teams of making sure that we are making recare calls and docs. I have to tell you a little secret. it's a kept secret front office teams and back office teams alike. We like to keep it to ourselves, but we hate making calls. Nobody likes. to make phone calls, okay? It's not fun. And we will do it for the right reasons and we will do it because we want you to have a thriving practice. But it's not like, gosh, guess what I can do right now? I have a couple minutes, I'm gonna pick up the phone, I'm gonna call some people. It's really the last thought. So I know it's shocking, I know it's hard to hear, but I think we have some tips and tri

Kiera guides listeners in an activity that will help each person be more purposeful in how they're going about their lives, and build a path toward ultimate fulfillment at life's end. 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 (00:00.844) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope you are just having an incredible day. I hope things are going so well for you. I hope that you just, I don't know. I hope that as you look at your day, as you look at your life, you just remember, man, you are so lucky to be alive. You are so lucky to be here now during this time. I know things can be hard. It was really interesting. We always have a team huddle every single morning. You can tell Dental A Team was created by someone who worked in a dental practice. and one of our team members said that she was really grateful for trials and challenges. And I just thought how, what a great mindset, that person has to just think of like, no matter what's going on in life, it's a great day. It's a great possibility. And I think that really ties into what I wanted to podcast about today is, living life on purpose rather than on autopilot. And it's something that has been, on my mind. It's something that we just did with our in-person. event when we met with clients in person, which was super fun. If you weren't a part of it and you want to be a part of something like that, be sure to reach out. Hello at the dentalateam.com. If you are new to this podcast, welcome. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Kiera Dent. I love dentistry so much and I love helping dentists and teams align to have the best team experience, to have the best overall practice experience, to really help you just flourish and thrive and be living life on purpose. And so today, I'm just really excited. This is something that I've been working on. It's been like a little labor of love because when we're bringing clients in person, I wanted it to be something where it was different. I wanted it to be something where it's not something that they've been privy to a lot. I wanted it to be something where it was getting them out of their norm and working on their life and also working on their business. So the theme of our in-person event was life on purpose and business on purpose. What I kind of wanted to walk you guys through is just like a little snapshot of what we did in purpose in person and kind of like mapping your life on purpose. And I recently have gotten into Joe Dispenza in meditation. If you haven't gotten into that, rock on. Welcome. Joe Dispenza has been awesome. I feel like I understand meditation on a level that I never have understood. I went to a two day in person retreat and I feel like I started to learn. Kiera Dent (02:24.736) a lot about meditation and about how to get rid of depression and anxiety. And he talked about how we have depression when we're focused on the past and we have anxiety when we're focused on the future. And a lot of times our mind tends to live in the known, which is the unconscious mind rather than living in the conscious, which is the unknown. So known means that we predict what our patient schedule is going to be, what the patients will say, what our day is going to be. We get in our car, we drive home, we're on autopilot, we don't even remember driving home. We wake up, we do the same routine and to kind of shake ourselves out of that and start to live life on purpose. And so through meditation and also through some life mapping that I kind of wanted to share with you today, to start to live life and to have fulfillment in business and to figure out how can you just be living your life on purpose. what we found out was like language really, really matters when you build this. And when I started looking at my life, I started realizing like, When I look at my week, a lot of times my week is just filled with things that I have to do. And I feel like that's again, living my life on autopilot. So all these things get put upon me. I put them in my schedule. You've got patients, you've got work, you've got kids, you've got soccer, you've got dance, you've got making dinner. And how can we see and add the fulfillment or the sprinkle or the sparkles to our world? And so what we did with our clients is we actually took our lives and we put kind of the the categories of our life. And so what are the categories? What are the things that we're working on? What are the pieces that we would be like in a day and day out? what I want you to do, I just grabbed a notebook. What I want you to do is I want you to start to look to see how am I going to actually build this out? How am I going to, what are the categories of my life? What, like when I look at my to do and my week to do, what is that going to be? And you kind of just like dump it all out. Like what are those categories? So you've got your h

Tiff and Kristy give tips on how to catch up on those collections fast, including a day-ahead assessment and treatment plan presentation. The advice given in this episode isn't only effective for offices concerned about collections, but any office, regardless of what their bank account looks like. 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 (00:00.738) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you are just having an incredible day today. I hope you are so jazzed and you are so excited about dentistry, because I'm excited about dentistry. You don't call us the Dental A Team for nothing. Our job is to help you in your practice become the A Team of dental offices. Honestly, I love this. I love what we do. I love talking to you. I love helping you and your team just become everything and more that you've ever hoped to be. So today, I hope you are ready. I just did a really incredible team training with an office about case acceptance. And I realized, hey, maybe that's something where I can help you in your practice. I love doing this with teams. I have a couple of practices where I help their treatment coordinators. And we've actually been able to add multiple millions. And that's not an exaggeration, multiple millions to their practice. And the thing that I just love is when we increase our case acceptance from doctors and team members, we're able to help more patients. And that's what I tell everyone. are. so blessed and so lucky to be able to be treatment coordinator masters and to be able to help more patients and to give patients this incredible life, to be able to give them the confidence, to be able to give them the smile, to be able to help their longevity. And I always enjoy hearing the objections. So it's a fun time. So we'll do a part one, part two of this podcast where I'll kind of break down case acceptance for you of kind of how I get team members into this mindset. And then what I'll do part two of all the objections and how you can overcome objections and treatment planning. I think one of our greatest wins was when I had an office who literally was able to sell an electronic, like an electric toothbrush, which we all know is better than just a standard one to an Amish family. I was blown away. And it was because this treatment coordinator was able to provide so much value of what this patient actually needed and to help them have the best dental health. And I just... I love treatment planning and case acceptance so much because to me it's helping more patients have healthier smiles, healthier mouths. And I just think it's one of the greatest gifts that we could ever, ever, ever, ever give our patients and our team. So I hope you're excited. I'll break it down for you in a couple of simple steps. These are some of the things that I do to get treatment coordinators and doctors in the right frame of mind. Because what I found is case acceptance is truly 80 % your psychology and what you're thinking and 20 % skill. So I'll give you both. Kiera Dent (02:19.79) But really just wanting to break it down for you that so much of case acceptance is about Literally what you're thinking about. if you're new to the Dental A Team podcast, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent I'm your host I love all things dental and so much so that my last name is actually dent I created the Dental A Team consulting years ago when I left Midwestern University's dental college and working with so many of those dental students shout out to all of them and Realizing those students that I loved so much. We're going to go out into this big bright world of dentistry and they were gonna need an advocate, someone who could vet companies for them, someone who could help guide them, someone who could help them understand what a P &L was, understanding what cashflow was, understanding the business aspect and the team aspect of dentistry, and that's how Dental A Team was born. So my first practice we took from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months and opened our second location. Dental A Team is a miracle grow for practices. We're able to increase. your production, decrease your overhead and honestly decrease your stress and get a full doctor team experience. So that way doctors, don't just have to do this on your own. So that's a little bit about what Dental A Team is about. If you are part of our actual consulting dental family, welcome. I love you. I'm so grateful for you. It is truly one of the highlights of my entire life is watching offices succeed. Like we shout out office wins every single day in our team huddle. And when I hear offices who have broken a million or hit a hundred thousand for the first time or took home a paycheck for the first time or got their team on board for the first time, literally, I light up, our team lights up because that's what we do. Our consultants are truly exper

Kiera shares a ton of fun ideas on ways to attract and engage with potential patients in your community. These range from a killer referral program, to considering the locations of where you're advertising, and more. 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 (00:01.752) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am just so excited to be chatting with you. I hope that your day is just going incredible. My day has been incredible. I have the opportunity to work with clients and just a fun coaching call day. And I always enjoy it. I enjoy helping clients. I enjoy helping you. I love to get on a podcast and I love to share. And with summer approaching, I thought it might be kind of fun to give you a quick tactical podcast where I talk about maybe some summer marketing ideas that maybe you haven't thought of. know For a lot of practices, summertime can get a little bit slower or different things can happen for you. And so just maybe a quick tactical for you about maybe some ideas that you hadn't considered to grow your new patients during the summer. If you're planning and preparing now, that way you can have a more filled summer for you. As always, the Dental A Team, we are here to give you tactical practical tips, helping dentists and teams. have an easier life, helping you have a better patient experience, helping you just have more fun in dentistry. That's what we're about. And that's what I hope you're about. And I hope you remember that you are truly in the best, most incredible profession you could ever be in, and that's in dentistry. If you love our podcast, I hope that you rate it, you review it, you share it, and you are able to just help us positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So in today's episode, it will be short. It'll be technical. I'm gonna break it down for you of just like I said, some summer marketing ideas that I think are a little outside the box thinking. So one thing to think of whenever we're going into marketing is we always wanna make sure that we're looking to see who is our patient and where are they located. So if you're trying to attract for pediatric practices, they're trying to attract moms, that's their ideal patient. I know you might think it's kiddos, but guess what? It's actually the mom. In some of my other practices, their patient base is more of a geriatric patient base. For others, it's a transient. So you've got more new families moving into your area. And so when you're looking at that, paying attention to what is your patient base and where are they going to be hanging out, that's gonna impact some of these summer marketing ideas. So I think one of the easiest things is having a really, really great referral. I see this in the waiting rooms, I see this in practices, but making sure it's targeted to your patient base. I have a practice and I think this is just a huge shout out to this practice. They picked a KitchenAid. Kiera Dent (02:19.562) That was what they're giving away to their patient base. And the reason why this is so impressive is because they know their patient base and their ideal patient so well that one of their patients was actually at their child's birthday party telling every person who came to please become a patient because she wanted to win this KitchenAid so bad. This patient A is a raving fan, B took it to their child's birthday party and C this practice picked up a ton of patients because what gift they were giving away actually resonated with their patient base. So I have a practice in there in like upstate Washington and it's like more of a outdoorsy area. So like a Traeger or a Blackstone works really well in their area. A practice in Texas, concerts were really big. So they gave away these very limited concert tickets. It was like one of the top best ones. A pediatric practice gave away some like Lulu or Aloe gift cards. So that was something that was super, super powerful for another practice. but really just knowing your patient and what's going to resonate with them. But I think like something to really know is making sure that your practice is focused on internal and external marketing efforts. So when we do referrals and raffles within our practice, that's more internal. Yes, we're attracting external patients, but what we're doing is we're only able to connect with the patients that are coming to our practice. So we really wanna make sure that we're not just like... only focusing on the internal and then looking for some of the external opportunities. So I thought like that would be something fun, a referral program, bring a friend, share a friend, having cards made so that way people can get really excited. And with some of the practices we work with, a lot of them are like, gosh, I wish I just had a card as the dentist or as team members, because when

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 ast

Kiera is a guest on the Dentalligenstia Podcast, hosted by Nick Zagar and Remy Isdaner. She talks about the connection between success and knowing your practice's numbers for the following: Production Overhead Collection New patients Case acceptance Kiera also gives tips on streamlining workflow, working through scratch starts, startup versus seasoned practice needs, and more. 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: The Dental A Team (00:00.16) Hello Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and today I am so excited. I did an incredible podcast and I just thought it'd be fun for you guys to hear it, to listen to it. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast. Welcome to the Dentalligentsia podcast. I'm Nick Zager and we have Remy Isdaner, my partner, and we are Mirlo Real Estate Partners. Today we have a special guest, Kiera Dent from the Dental A Team. Welcome Kiera. Thanks guys. I'm super excited to be here. I love what you guys are doing. I'm just jazz. And I'm glad that I didn't have to say the name of your podcast because I would have totally botched that. So thank you for taking that on for me. I love what you guys are doing. And I'm just super, super excited to be here. I love geeking about dentistry and business and all things. So thank you guys. I'm really honored to be here. We appreciate that. you know, our favorite clients are typically early to mid-career dentists. And we love what you do to support. our mutual clients and really want to know a little bit more about you and why you do what you do. How did you get into this? Yeah, for sure. Well, luckily for both of us, we love the same type of clients. So it's really fun. I actually started my career in dentistry in high school. I was offered an opportunity to either go into nursing or dentistry. And I thought, hmm, I want to wear scrubs. Like that was my end goal. And I thought, learn the whole body or learn the mouth. I'm surely going dental route. So that was honest to goodness. The reason why I got into dentistry. I was a dental assistant for years and then became office manager, treatment coordinator, scheduler, biller, you name it. I have not been a hygienist and I'm not a dentist, but my husband, he went to pharmacy school at Midwestern Arizona. And during that time, I'm a little hustler. I found out if I could work at the college, I'd get a discount on his tuition. And so I knew there was a dental college and so I found out, got a job at the dental college. And I was super blessed, super fortunate. And I worked there for three years with dental students. And one of the students asked me while we were in school, she said, hey, Kiera, do you want to come help me open my practice in Colorado? And I was like, heck yeah. Dental assistant to practice owner. Like, this is a great plan. I never knew how I'd be able to do this. I'm not a dentist. And I'm like, I see what you guys do in dental school. Yes, I want to say yes to this. So I went and helped her open the practice in Colorado. And we took our office from 500,000 to 2.4 million. The Dental A Team (02:25.773) in nine months and opened our second location. And what I found from that was I learned a lot. We built a pretty big group of practices and I learned so much from that of what not to do. My marriage was about in shambles. Her marriage was about in shambles. My health was deteriorating. I was working from 2 a.m. till 10 p.m. trying to make these practices grow and I thought, well, shoot, one, if I could help her grow a practice, I wonder all my other students that I love. Could I help them grow their practices and give them the confidence as well? And two, there's got to be a better way to do this than what I've been doing and what she's been doing. Like, yes, we have success on paper, but behind the scenes, we're deteriorating as human beings. And so that's really what spurred my passion. I never worked with a consulting company. Everything that Dental A Team's consulting is are things that I wish I would have had when I was a practice owner, things that I wish I would have known. things to help all of my dental students. It's fun because it's becoming full circle. A lot of those students are now buying practices and coming and working with me, which is super fun. But really the passion comes from how can I help these dentists live their best lives, get the profitability they want, but also get their team bought in because most consulting companies work with just the dentist or just the team. And I thought, but if I can get the team on board, these dentists lives become a lot easier. And so it's really fun to talk about both sides of the coin. And shoot my last name is Dent. So I think I was destined for this career path. It's not a stage name It's just the third fiance finally like I didn't get married I just t

Tiff and Kristy give listeners examples of different practices that have different definitions of 'thriving.' They then provide questions each practice owner (or even team member) can ask themselves to identify what success looks like for them. 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: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. My name is Tiffany. If you've never heard me on this podcast and you haven't been listening for long enough, then go back through, sift through. We've got so many episodes with so much amazing content and information for doctors and teams alike. There are very doctor-specific ones and very team-centric ones, but I do tell you this. Doctors, listen to them all because I want you to always know what your teams are doing, what they should be doing, or what they could be doing. So there's a million different ideas in here. Please make sure you listen to all of them. We love you for that and we value you as a listener, client, prospective client, or just listener. Thank you guys so much. Kristy, I've got you back here today. I have stolen you today for quite a few episodes and I am so, so thankful for you carving out this time in your calendar, making sure that we could be here together. I know we both really love this time together and I'm just super appreciative of it. So Kristy welcome and thank you for being here. Yeah. So I'm excited for today's podcast. One, because there's not a lot of structure to it. So it makes it fun for me. Cause I, you know, I just like to ramble sometimes. So just be here with it. Kristy (01:05) Thank you. The Dental A Team (01:19) I'm just kidding, but I am excited for today's podcast because I really love telling stories and I really love to utilize experiences that we have had, and teachings that we have done with other clients or things we've learned along the way. love utilizing those things to just provide more valuable information to the world. And today I want to, Kristy, just have conversation about the difference between surviving. and thriving in the business owner world. And these two words, I love them because you know, they almost rhyme and that makes it fun. And I think our marketing department enjoys that. But I really love it because it's such a wide definition for anyone, right? Just surviving could be someone else's thriving. And someone else's thriving could be someone else's I'll never get their dreams. Right? I think it's really interesting to chat about a subject like this because it is so in like independent, right? It's so dependent on the individual's dreams and what it means to them specifically. And Kristy, I think you have a really wonderful ability to articulate yourself really well. and to see into spaces of life for people and with people. And I just think it's really cool that you can take a statement and really see further into it than maybe your average Joe might be able to see. And so I want to pick your brain a little bit on this and the idea of thriving or surviving. And it kind of makes me think of, you know, our onboarding call when we get a new client and we ask them, you know, what does success mean to you? and what are your goals? mean we take them through this goal build out and Kristy what is this thriving or surviving like where does it take your brain? What do you think of and how do you think it relates to just dentistry right now? Kristy (03:26) Yeah, I'm with you. It is a vast subject, if you will, and it can mean different things to different people. Surviving could be that they just worked really hard and they're kind of burning out. They don't see the spark anymore, right? Yet, it could also mean that they're fearful. They don't know or they're unknowing of the next step. They don't know what's next. for them. They feel like they want to do more, but they don't know how to do it. I think asking more questions when we get on these calls. And I love that you say that onboarding because they obviously come to us for a reason, but sometimes I think they are just surviving and they don't really even know what they're looking for yet. And same with thriving. mean, thriving, it almost sounds like it has a little more positive spin on it, but yet sometimes The Dental A Team (04:16) Yeah. Kristy (04:25) Our docs don't feel that way when they're thriving. They feel burnout as well. So it is a big topic on both sides. The Dental A Team (04:29) and Yeah, I agree. And I think the difference there, right, or the space to find is the definition. And so, Docs, I think... Figure out what thriving means to you. What is it that you're going for? What is it that you're here for? If we don't have a purpose driven behind us, right? We don't have anything driving us to our goals, then you could make that $300,000 this month that you wanted and it

Have you noticed signs of apathy in your practice? Does your job feel insurmountable? Kiera talks about telltale signs of burnout, how to help people bounce back from burnout, and ways to avoid burning out in the first place. 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 welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I am so happy you're here. I'm so happy that you're spending your time with us, that you are truly here committed to making your practice, your patient experience, your team experience that much better, which ultimately impacts your life. It ultimately impacts your profitability and it ultimately impacts the success that you have in this world. This is one of the greatest opportunities for you to truly live your dream life, to truly have everything and more. And that's what I love and I'm so passionate about. And so today, I just wanted to talk about some telltale signs of burnout and what to do if you are a practice experiencing burnout or what to look for to avoid burnout. know burnout is one of these hot topics and I was talking to an office today and I thought, you know what? I need to podcast about that because offices feel alone. Offices feel like I'm the only one who's experiencing this. I'm the only one who feels this way. Like, gosh, I don't even know what to do. And so I feel like it's just a really... important topic that I'm super passionate about that I am excited. So today, it's going to be a quick tactical one of what to do for burnout. What does that look like? What are some symptoms and then what to do to help with that? Because I think all of us can be in that space at one time or another. And so just noticing being able to have it, I've done some other ones. There's been some other doctors that have been guests on here. But I realized that today when I was talking to this office, I realized, my gosh, this doctor is just struggling from burnout. And I don't think that they even realized that. And so just giving you some quick, like, these are some things to be aware of. But then in addition to that, I always love like, but what's the solution? How do I get out of this? Because burnout, think is a little bit of a buzzword. What are truly the steps out? So I'm really excited that you're here. If you're a part of the Dental A Team family, I'm so glad you're a part of it. I love our clients. We are a consulting company that works across the nation. I'm really trying to bring. dentists and team members together because I think it's so tricky when doctors are consulted but the team's not or the team's consulted and the doctor's not but getting both parties on the same page to where we can really truly thrive we can gain a lot of traction and momentum within our practice having the best team and patient experience because I honestly believe that building a dental practice should be easy building a practical building a practical and profitable practice should be easy so with Dental A Team that's what we do that's what we're here for we're the masters at team and and practice success. And really we've been there, we've done it, we've done it successfully many times and I hope to be able to help you in your practice. So today talking about burnout, this doctor called in and they were saying, Kiera, I need some help. I was like, all right, great, let's talk. And this doctor, what I started noticing was there was a lot of apathy. As they were talking, they just said, I know I should be doing this and I just don't. I know that I... Like these are some issues that I'm struggling with and I've just said it a lot of times and I've just kind of given up asking for it. Like when I have patients there, like I know I should be diagnosing this and not that I'm not diagnosing, I'm diagnosing, but maybe I'm just not presenting all of it because I honestly don't want to tell the patient like you've got seven crowns. So you know what? This one, I could watch it. I started hearing and I know some of you were like, my gosh, I don't want you to judge this office. Because guess what? hear this from a lot of practices and I'm not sitting here judging. I never sit here and think, wow, that doctor's crazy. I think, wow, that doctor is burnt out and we need to figure out why. Doctors at the end of their careers, they get this way too. Doctors when they are at different areas in their life, they get these things. And I really hope that today we come to this with love and empathy and no judgment and no judgment of yourself. and no judgment of these offices. I'm mixing and mashing a bunch of offices together so that way you can't figure out who I'm talking about because I hear this from so many practices. But it's apathy. It's saying like, gosh, I just feel like I can't find the energy. I'm tired of just asking for this to be done. I

Tiff and Dana walk through different dental departments and share ideas many practices have used to keep things green, including reconsidering which items actually need to be disposable, reducing paper, reusing plastic, and more. 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: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I'm so excited to be here with you again. You know that I am just always so happy to bring Dana on the set with us and be here with you. We love sharing our tips. We love sharing our tricks. We love sharing our, I don't know, workout gear with you and all of the pieces and just sharing our lives with you. So we are both so excited to be here today. Dana, thank you for always being on board, for hopping on, for jumping in on any conversation. I know I spin you. and throw you in some directions that you're not always expecting. So thank you for keeping up with me and knowing how to roll with the punches. How are you on this fine, fine afternoon? Dana (00:42) Doing good. I'm excited to be here. You know you're right. You keep me on my toes. I never really know what you're going to throw at me, but I leave with a smile on my face and having loved it. So I'm excited to be here too. The Dental A Team (00:48) That's true. Perfect. And now clients and non-clients and listeners here, you guys know that this is truly unscripted from our brains. We come up with topics, but we do riff here and we really pick each other's brains and really come up with solutions for things just the same as we do on your coaching calls. So when you guys bring stuff like this to us clients, this is how we roll. And for anyone who is wondering, We do have conversations like this outside of the podcast world as well, as consultants are constantly talking to one another about things that we're seeing in practices, things we're experiencing when I need something, maybe I don't have an answer for it. Cause you guys, I know this is going to sound crazy and wild, but we do not know everything. I know it's a shocker. It's a shocker, but combined between all of us, we've got it pretty well handled. So if there's something I don't know, or have questions on, I definitely, definitely throw it to my ladies and get those answers for you guys. So rest assured everyone, we're constantly collaborating just like we tell you to collaborate and we're constantly growing and learning ourselves. So Dana, thanks for being one of those beautiful ladies behind the scenes for me on so many occasions and I'm excited for today's topic. I... I just barely prepped you with it, but it sounds like you've recently had a conversation like this with a practice and I'm excited for it. So think it's really something that has been coming around the dental scene for probably the past 10 or more even years, but really strong recently. listeners, we're going to talk today on some eco-friendly dental practice methods. And that doesn't just mean dentistry, but really a lot of the products and just what are we doing? new out there right now to really go green and a lot of the practices and Dana with your conversation that you've just had with your practice recently I know you've got a lot of hot tips and tricks and there are other practices out there we both talked to as well but what do you have for us today on on that like what eco-friendly things did you guys chat about on that call? Dana (03:04) Yeah, and I think that it is just coming up with ways any ways that we can reuse, reduce and recycle things right When it comes to eco friendly offices And the biggest thing in dentistry is our disposables, right? So what are the things that we have that are disposables? Can we find a recyclable option? Or that we can reduce the number of disposable items that we're using or eliminate them altogether if it is, you know, The Dental A Team (03:10) Yeah. Dana (03:31) I'm all about sanitation, infection control, all of those things. But I think COVID put us in a little bit of like a redundancy mode in some of those areas. And so I feel like in the last 4 years, our disposables have gone up a ton. And our infection control, while those standards are great, I think even above and beyond what is really needed. And so I think it's just finding ways to navigate those things. And we tend to like put plastic over everything and just use things that aren't super eco-friendly to keep like sanitization standards. And so we don't want to give up on those things, but there are a lot of new products and new technologies and things that we can use that aren't necessarily disposable like we're so used to them being. The Dental A Team (04:19) Yeah. Yeah, I love all of that. I totally agree with you and I hope everyone got the 90s child reference, the late 80s 90s child reference there, reduced, recycle. If everyone could see the commercial and hear the song,

Kiera and Dana chat about ways dentists can go "beyond the chair" with passive income streams, including real estate, investments, speaking gigs, and more. 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 (00:00.802) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today, man, it's been way too long. I have the one and only Dana from our team. If you've known her, if you're here as like an OG, you know Dana from Donuts with Dana. Gosh, Dana, that's like way back in the archives. But if you're newer, you may have heard her as Dainey. I don't know if she loves that one. And then Dana, what was the one that I heard? I think it was like Dynamite Dana was the last one that I heard come through for you. So those are kind of when you're like morphing over time, but Which one do you prefer, Dana? And welcome to the show. Dana (00:32.799) I I think the OG of donuts with Dana is probably the one that like will continue to stick. Kiera Dent (00:39.342) It's true. A lot of people like even at events and they see you, they're like, oh my gosh, it's donuts with Dana, which is so fun and so cute, but super happy to have you. Welcome to the show today. So grateful. You actually brought up a really interesting topic that I thought it'd be fun for us to dive into from a lot of your clients that you've been talking to of like, what are maybe some passive income ideas for dentists beyond the chair? Now let's just clarify. This does not mean that you have to actually like give up dentistry that you're not working, but I think we have a lot of entrepreneurial minded dentists that are just starting to like get creative, want some ideas. So today, Dana and I are here to like pick your interests, just how you start thinking in different ideas. But Dana, give some more background. know this came from a lot of your clients. What are some of the things you've been seeing and hearing? Dana (01:26.34) Yeah, I do think that you're right. I think that if you are a business owner, right, if you're a practice owner, that just naturally comes to you. And I think that people that own businesses and people that have gone and graduated dental school and become leaders are just always looking for opportunity too. I think it's just a mindset thing in that group of people. So it's come up just on calls, like, what can I do? What are some things that I can do outside of the chair? And some interesting things that some of even my clients do that I thought would be really fun to share, to help brainstorm and give some ideas. Kiera Dent (02:02.542) I love it. I love a good brainstorm session like this, Dana. So this is gonna be a little different podcast style for all of you coming on. Today it's more of a rift. It's more of a like, oh gosh, I think these are like a good think tank. My husband and I, we go hot tubbing and we call it our like tub talk. So it's not Ted talk, it's tub talk because that's where a lot of our best ideas come. today is a, it's donuts with Dana and Kiera. It's like dabbling in dentistry. Like, but I want it to be better than like, dabbling outside of dentistry, maybe that's what it will have this brainstorm such as, because I agree with you, Dana, and I also think sharing some ideas that some of our clients do, obviously we mash and mix, so you can't really figure out who we're talking about, because I like to keep that private and confidential for them. But I think like, again, let's spur some ideas. So Dana, I've got some ideas, I know you have some, but let's take it on of what are some of the things that dentists can do for this passive income? But wait, before we go there, I also feel like it's important to say why. Dana, you mentioned about like a lot of these offices, these dentists want something beyond just dentistry. I also think for me, it becomes an insurance policy. Like dentist, if these little hands right here, if they break, well, that's your livelihood. So I do think for some dentists having passive revenue, passive income, coming through generating different ideas means you're not as dependent upon your hands, but more able to do that out of like desire rather than necessity. So I think it's a good morphing and it doesn't have as much stress and pressure from what I've seen from doctors that do it. But again, those are maybe just a few ideas within our dabbling in outside of dentistry talk today. Dana (03:42.022) Yeah, I think it's an exciting one and I will usually always preface the conversation with like make sure you have a good financial advisor too because some of the things is Make sure that the money you're currently making can also potentially make you money. So just really connecting with a strong financial advisor so that you can maximize the money that's coming into you from your practice, whether it's in investments, whether It's in bonds, anything like that. Connect

Kiera shares exactly how Dental A-Team helped a practice with over $2 million in accounts receivable break even — and learn how to never fall behind again. 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 (00:01.848) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to the podcast. I hope today you are truly just so happy. I hope that you are honestly just living your best life and I hope you know that you're truly doing better than you think you are. So you guys, this is where we are. We're here to help you. Dental A Team is obsessed about helping you and your team thrive. To be able to give you guys the guidance that you need to navigate the challenges that we have in dentistry. so welcome. This is what I'm obsessed with. I hope that you just know that I I truly love and adore this podcast family. I'm so grateful for you. I'm grateful for you sharing this with your friends. I love, love, love seeing you tag us when you're driving to work or listening in the car or taking us on a road trip. And my goal is to be always something of value for you on this podcast that you can go and implement immediately to make your life and your practice even better. For those of you new, welcome. For those of you who are OGs, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here. As always, please. like and subscribe and leave reviews for our podcast. That way we can reach all the practices truly out there. Right now we have impacted several, but I know there's thousands of other practices that we could reach and guide. And the only way I can do that is through your help of sharing this. So as always, if you've shared, thank you. I just gave you a high five or a hug to say thank you. And I'm so glad that you're here. All right. Today I'm going to give you some quick tacticals on some billing help. how to handle old balances. think old balances are just annoying and I help practices with this all the time. Just to give you a little story, I kind of like stories on podcasts. I'm usually I'm here to rattle and roll and today I want to just take you down a little bit of memory lane. But there was a practice who reached out to us and wanted us to be a consultant for them and asked us to help them with their billing department. And I was like, all right, sure, like we do this. I'm more than happy to help you out. Let me know what you need. And this practice said, Well, Kiera, our over 90 and our total amount is about 2 million. And I was like, that's all right. It's not the worst I've ever seen. Tell me a little bit more. And they said, we literally have no handle on what we're doing with billing. And I was like, fantastic. So we got on. We started working with, they had a few different practices, 2 million. Could you imagine? Like, this is why I get paid what I get paid. Because we go and we find these little money holes in the practice and we patch them up. Kiera Dent (02:20.622) and we're able to add all this money back into your practice and to help you put systems into place so this doesn't happen again. I think that's the biggest thing is let's make sure this does not happen again. And so with this practice, what we ended up doing was we started checking in Trulie every single week with this billing team. We created spreadsheets. We had them download the AR. We prioritize which balances for them to go after first. And then we started like just chipping away at it. And we were heavy on our accountability. You better believe that I was hot to try on this practice. And it was every single week I was getting a report and update how many claims that they worked through. We looked to see, I think we had over 5,000 accounts to go through. So what we did is we said, all right, I'm gonna grab my calculator. I don't know off the top of my head. We said, all right, 5,000 accounts. We are working 20 days. That means we need to get through 250 accounts per day. We had three people working on it. That meant 83 accounts per person. Now that's not realistic, right? And so what we did is we took those 5,000 accounts and we did that over three months before we ran a new AR account. That way they could feel like they could get through that because then you have 5,000 charts. We have 60 days to work, right? 20 days times three. And then we had three people working on it that broke it down to about 25 to 30 accounts per day. that felt a lot more doable. Now remember, a lot of these accounts just needed to have a resubmit from insurance. It was a denied insurance claim because we didn't attach an attachment. Others, we just need to call and collect from a patient. Others, there was more work that needed to be done that we had to dig into. And then there was the dun-dun-dun-dun, old accounts. Like, what do I do with these old balances? We can't collect on them. And so that's really where we started to work. And so with this p

Kiera gives listeners a "choose your own adventure" challenge for planning practice growth. She touches on comparing your growth to others', how and what to expand, taking advantage of opportunities (or not), and more. 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 (00:00.856) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I hope you are just having such an amazing day. I hope that you remember why you went into dentistry. I hope if yesterday was a bad day, today's a better day. And I hope that Dental A Team podcasts truly boost your spirits, lightens your mood, and gives you tactical tips that are gonna be able to make your life incredible because at Dental A Team, we're obsessed about making your life happy. So today, I wanted to get on of a choose your own adventure. This is kind of fun. I think it's fun to just kind of like... dabble in where can our practice go? What are some ideas? What are some things to think about? And we do this with our clients. And I just got jazzed about this one today. It was a really fun one that I chatted about with another office. And I thought, I think our Dental A Team family needs to have this. So if you are new to our Dental A Team podcast, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent. Dent really is my last name. I just make the joke. That's not really a joke. It's my real life. I had to just get three fiancees to get this last name. I didn't marry any of them. I just married the last one and I love dentistry, I love helping practices, our team loves helping offices. We truly are experts at what we do of helping doctors and teams come together to have the best practice, the best opportunities. We fly to your practice or we do it virtually. Both are super incredible. We also have an in-person doctor community that we go to as well, which is really magical. And really our goal is to make sure that you are living your best life, that you are profitable and that your team is thriving. And so really, and we're the experts. that do this. We have been team members ourselves. Every one of our consultants have been team members. They grow multiple practices, to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars. So we, are experts at doing this and we love to just share resources to help you and your team be absolutely the most incredible that you possibly can be. So with that today, I wanted to just dabble on a choose your own adventure, giving you a short tactical choose your own adventure. So there's a practice. So this is kind of an office autopsy, if you will. There's a practice and they started out kind of small. So they had a few ops and don't worry for all of you listening, I do smash a few practices together so you'll never know which practice I'm talking about. And I do that intentionally to keep practice confidentiality. So with that, this practice they started out kind of small. They had four operatories and they were in that practice for about five years. The doctor was taking on about 1800 patients solo. That's a lot of patients. And they were just booked out. Kiera Dent (02:25.72) They worked four days a week and they knew they wanted to expand. So they expanded to 10 operatories and within about two months of expanding, this is not an exaggeration, they had basically outgrown their space. So they had another associate that they hired. They brought in more hygienists. So they had four hygienists and they had an opportunity to add another associate and also another hygienist. And it kind of was coming to a crossroad of what do we do? And so I want to just place this for you in practices and I'm going to bring a bunch of choose your own adventure because I think a lot of times thinking outside the box really becomes something we don't do. We feel like we're living in a day in and day out. And so this practice made me think of like, let me bring to the table some options that I've seen with other practices for you to not compare, but to create a What do I want my practice to look like? What do I want my life to look like? So step one is that I'm really, really pro whenever we work with an office is A, we've got to know what you want to do. And I usually like to do it in 2-5 years stints. thinking about your kids, thinking about your age, thinking of who you are, where are you gonna be in the next 2-5 years? So when we look at that, But then I also wanna take it and expand you out to 10 years. Reason being is because decisions you make now actually might impact where you wanna be in 10 years. So for example, with that, if you were choosing your own adventure, let's say in the next 2-5 years, you're like, gosh, I really wanna scale back, I wanna be home with my kiddos, I wanna do some different things, that's really what I'm looking for in the next 2-5 years. Well then kiddos get older, they're in school or maybe your kids are graduating and you're

Dentistry has a unique space in the medical world when it comes to building relationships with its patients. Tiff and Dana discuss effective ways to create trust with your patients, including the critical foundations your practice can't do without. 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 The Dental A Team (00:01.08) Hello, dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I have my gal, Dana, on the cast with me today, and I am just so excited. Dana, how are you today? How are you enjoying this heat that we've got coming through? I know up here in Phoenix it's hot down there by you. It's gotta be warm too, but how are you? Dana (00:19.955) I am actually enjoying this weather. I was out a lot this weekend for sports. I have some wacky tan lines, but I am loving the sunshine and the extra warm weather we've got. The Dental A Team (00:30.958) I it. I keep getting the like bottom of my legging to my sneaker little I got a nice tan right there on my leg and I think it's the only spot on my legs at all that even knows how to tan anymore. So I feel you. Dana (00:45.779) Yeah. The Dental A Team (00:47.086) Today we have a really fun one, docs and teams that are listening and today's just all about relationship building. I really wanted to pick your brain today, Dana, and really see what you're doing with a lot of your practices, what you've done in practice, and very specifically maybe even like our pediatric practices that we have. What are we doing to keep the relationships? with our patients to keep the patient. So how are we investing in those relationships from a doctor's standpoint and really from a team member standpoint as well? I know a lot of my doctors out there, we definitely focus in really heavily on the team side. What can the team be doing? How can the team build the relationships? And that is super, super, super important. But I want to stress the fact that this is for you guys today too. It's very important also that you're building those relationships and that you're showing your team the kind of relationships that you want to have built so that they know what the heck you're looking for. So Dana, I'm excited for this one. I know we've got quite a few pediatric practices between the two of us and Christie's got some pediatric practices as well. So that's a space that I think is really fun in the relationship building area. And it does translate to GP, to oral surgery, all those pieces as well. So if you guys are not pediatric and you're listening, don't fret, this is for you too. But I thought it would be fun actually to pull in some of that pediatric side because it's just so cool, in my opinion, what they do, right? First of all, that they are just serving so many amazing little humans and creating an experience that these patients are forever going to love the dentist, which I think is amazing. but also they've got their hands kind of tied, especially when it comes to this relationship piece, because they're not, they are building a relationship with the patient, but their focus really is making sure that the parents are happy, that the parents understand what services are being rendered, why it's different, why their kids are getting such excellent treatment. The Dental A Team (02:45.666) Dana, how are you right now? You've got, I know one pediatric practice in general I'm thinking of, you've got quite a few, but one pediatric dentist in particular right now is really working on the new patient acquisition side. And a lot of that comes down to this patient relationship piece. So what do you suggest for your pediatric practices and really your general practices to really get that going and get that spearheaded for those? Dana (03:10.299) Yeah, I love this part of dentistry. think it's something that is like unique to dentistry as far as healthcare because we tend to see these patients multiple times for years and years. And so it's a unique space for dentistry and it's something that I think is so fun. And you're right with pediatric. I think that it's twofold right they've got the kiddo and they've got the parent and because pediatric relies on volume of patients they've got to build relationships really really quickly too right because they are churning and cranking through patients and parents all day long and the first thing that I always say to any pediatric practice is you have to The Dental A Team (03:39.192) Yeah. Yeah. They are. Dana (03:50.877) build the trust to be able to build the relationships. So as much as you can focus on the comfort pieces, the showtell do the walk them through everything. I love a pediatric practice that will pull the parent over and hey, let me show you right like, yes, we want to talk about flossing technique. Let me actually show you as I do it to your kiddo. Let me show you that spot that I'm talking about. Le

Kiera is joined by Dr. Robert DiPilla to talk about his world of dentistry, including the transition from cosmetic to holistic services, how he educated his patients, lessons learned during his multi-practice ownership, and more. About Dr. DiPilla: Dr. Robert DiPilla studied dentistry at the University of Detroit-Mercy, and then went on to attain a Fellowship for Dental Implants at the Harvard Club. He was quickly recruited to Manhattan, where he honed his dentistry techniques, and had the opportunity to work on many high-profile clients. Dr. DiPilla became a partner at the renowned Rosenthal Dental Group on Madison Avenue, and earned the title "the dentist's dentist" by his peers in the industry. Dr. DiPilla has had the privilege of perfecting the smiles of celebrity clientele such as Kathie Lee Gifford, Wayne Gretzky, Steve Duchesne, and Sarah Ferguson among others. While Dr. DiPilla maintains a Manhattan office, he now focuses on the location where his career began in the Detroit Metropolitan area. He contributes regularly to nationally circulated trade publications, and continues to be recognized as a leader and expert resource in aesthetic dentistry. 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 (00:00.768) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera And today I am so jazzed to have an incredible guest. We have been following this man. We've been wanting him on our podcast. He is incredible. And I feel like what he's doing is changing the way dentists are doing dentistry. I think he's kind of in this new age, new era, adapting with the times. And so was so excited to bring him on and have his knowledge. So welcome to the show, Dr. Robert DiPilla. How are you today? Dr Robert DiPilla (00:25.484) I'm doing well. Thank you very much. I'm excited to be on your show. There are so many great things about you and your show. I I once again, I went back to some of your podcasts and you some great, great guests on. Kiera Dent (00:37.376) Well, thank you. am quite shocked. Dental A Team is about to release their thousandth episode. And I was thinking, I cannot believe I've been on this microphone a thousand times. So I'm super honored that you are a part of that journey. And really everyone who listens to the podcast knows our ultimate goal at Dental A Team is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. so bringing guests on like yourself, people who are passionate about dentistry, making sure that we keep the passion alive in dentistry, making sure that people realize I believe we're in the best industry we possibly could ever be in. And so I'm super excited because I feel like you're taking a new edge spin to some things in dentistry. So before we get into some of these fun topics, Dr. DiPilla, why don't you take us through kind of your journey? I know you have a pretty interesting route of how you were able to go from where you were and where you started in dentistry to where you are today. So if you kind of want to take us on your journey, that way the audience gets to know you as well. Dr Robert DiPilla (01:31.854) That journey starts 36 years ago. I graduated at the University of Detroit, Mercy in 1989, and I did a residency at Harvard at the Harvard Club for doing implants. And from that, I really was interested in the cosmetic realm. So you got to think about in the early 90s. And it was kind of like touched upon. And I was very fortunate. to take a course with Bill Dickerson and Larry Rosenthal. And this is the first time they were together in doing these particular courses. And my first patient for my aesthetic course was my sister, believe it or not. when I mentioned this, it was an amazing journey. She was very appreciative. It was a great case. And from that, one interesting point. Kiera Dent (02:16.68) Wow, that's brave, an aesthetic course. Dr Robert DiPilla (02:30.828) when I was in the lecture and they were talking about different materials, different processes, the way to do things. I know once again, I just graduated, I did like a little surgical residency and I thought to myself, mean, the auditorium was packed, there's probably like a hundred students. And I'm like looking around and I'm thinking myself, am I the only dumb one here that doesn't know this? I said, this is insane. And they're going over these seven different steps to do bonding and veneers. I'm like, my gosh, did I learn this in school? you Kiera Dent (03:05.28) Did I skip that day? I promise I didn't miss too many, right? That's what you're probably thinking, like I was there. Dr Robert DiPilla (03:10.237) I would promise I was there. But I promised myself since then, it was like a real, not say a low point in my life, but it was a low point in the sense of how come I didn't know this? And I kind of pride myself in understanding things and certain process and proced

Tiff and Kristy share not only how to cut down your accounts receivable, but also how to develop systems that will keep your AR low. They discuss time management, clear job descriptions, protocols, and more. 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: The Dental A Team (00:01.752) Hello, Dental A Team. I am so excited to be here with you. I have Kristy back here with me today, and we are excited to talk to you about a really fun subject today. It's not always the top of the fun list. think billing gets pushed down in the fun category, and a lot of people put a lot of stress on it, which I totally understand. But Kristy and I are here today. to bring some fun to the billing department and to bring some fun around how to make billing work within your practice. Kristy, thank you so much for being here with me today. How are you? Kristy (00:34.658) Good! It's a good Monday! The Dental A Team (00:37.955) Good, I know. Our Mondays get busy here at the Dental A Team. They are our meeting days and our project days and they just, they get chock full of so much stuff every single week and we absolutely love them. We get to spend a lot of time prepping for our client calls and our client visits. A lot of us have client visits coming up soon and just getting all the things together. So Mondays are always a little chaotic. Kristy, in your... In your experience, you've got a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience behind you. What was your favorite position or your favorite space to work when you were in practice? Kristy (01:16.704) interesting. Favorite Space was probably really helping getting patients the care they deserve, filling that patient advocate role. here's the thing, I know we're talking about AR today. If we If we aren't cognizant of a patient's budget, we're really not doing good by them. So being cognizant and finding a way to fit it, you know, the care they need within their timeline and their budget is, it's rewarding. The Dental A Team (01:50.047) I love it. I totally agree with you. think making sure that we're giving them the best experience all the way around, no matter what is the best space to live in within a dental practice. can get homes fulfilled us. It gives us a purpose and a reason to be there. And on those notes, I think you're absolutely correct. If we don't know what the patient wants, what their desires are, what they can do, and we end up down a path. that might not be the right fit for them and ends up not being the right fit for us because we end up in situations where we have high AR, outstanding claims, outstanding bills, all of those pieces. I also know one of the biggest reasons that people leave a dental practice or write a bad review, I have so many practices that are like, don't put me on swell, I want to have control over who gets reviews and who don't. And I just think everybody should get a link for review. So I love advocating for that company and for within our marketing. But I know that the biggest reason that we're afraid of something like that and that people that patients leave their practice is for billing inconsistencies or billing issues. So really having standards and protocols and just everything wrapped around the billing department is so imperative and so important because even down to that patient advocate space. When you're that patient advocate, which is also sometimes, you know, patient coordinator, front office check-in, like all of those are kind of wrapped around similar spaces within the practice. But when you're sitting in that space, Kristy, so many times you are walked into a really hard conversation because there was confusion over previous billing or you're the one that's responsible for collecting today's balance that's due or outstanding balances. And so you kind of walk into really uncomfortable situations because you're not sure what it is sometimes, the patient doesn't know what it is, and sometimes that patient comes in upset. So knowing how to diffuse those situations too, think Kristy is a really great space and just builds that relationship as well. I think I love your answer. Kristy (03:50.149) Thank The Dental A Team (03:51.193) That's my wrap up there. So today I've brought Kristy here to talk with me and chat with me for you guys today about really cutting your AR down and hopefully building systems that keep it so that your AR doesn't get high. And just so you guys know, doctors, your AR is your accounts receivable. So this is money that's supposed to be coming to you, but hasn't made its way through the door yet. And so we're trying to get that money through that door into your bank account to help your overhead ultimately. and by increasing your collection. So we really don't want a lot of money sitting out in that AR, in the accounts receivable, that outstanding collections. We really don't want a lot of m

Kiera gives listeners 3 tactical tips on exactly how to find and put a stop to cash flow leaks and grow your practice exponentially. 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 (00:00.824) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to today's show. You guys, I'm so excited to have you here. I absolutely love podcasting. I can honestly not believe that we have created as many podcasts as we have and thank you for being a part of this journey. So today, you guys, I wanted to just ask you that like, are you struggling with cashflow leaks in your practice? I think this is such a big hot topic for you that I cannot wait to go into it because honestly, Every dollar leaking out of your practice is a dollar not reinvested into your growth. So really there's a few couple quick cashflow leaks that I see in tons of practices that I wanted to share with you. These small little changes, tweaks are going to add up to exponential amounts of cash in your practice just by stopping these small few cashflow leaks. We did a webinar on this the other day and it was super, super popular. So I thought I'd bring a few of those highlights over here to the podcast. As always, you guys know we are the Dental A Team and our job is to help practices optimize profitability, increase their happiness and fulfillment and truly make teams and doctors get on the same page to be able to live the best life that they possibly can. That's what we're about, you guys. Honest to goodness, I do know that cash flow is the lifeblood of a practice and the way that we prevent these leaks and the way that we're able to grow our practices is by being great stewards over the businesses that we have. This is gonna be a short actionable podcast for you. guys know I like tactical practical and I'm super happy you're here. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. If you've been an OG, which stands for original gangster, I used to think it was an oldie but goodie. I found out that that's not the case. If you're an OG, I'm so glad that you're here and that you've been on this journey with me. Please, please as always, leave a review if it's helpful for you and make sure that you're sharing this with friends because the reality is our goal is to positively impact the world. in the greatest way possible. And the way we do that is through expert consulting for dentists and teams. So we are the Dr. Seuss of systems. We are the gurus of making practices, like truly be simple, living at profitable practice and making it simple. All right, are you ready for these three simple tips? I hope you are. Number one, I want you to, like I said, we just did this of how to stop these cashflow leaks. And what you wanna do is you wanna look at some numbers. So you wanna look at the last six months production. Kiera Dent (02:18.902) You want to look at the last six months collections. And then you also want to do your collection percentage per month and also your collection percentage over the last six months. The reason it's important for this is some months will actually have a lower collection percentage. That's okay. So for example, a lot of practices in December only worked 2 weeks. And so then you have to think that money rolls 30 days. And when it rolls 30 days, then what's going to happen is we're going to collect that money. So if in December we only did 50,000, then in January we did a hundred thousand. Well, I only have 50,000 over here to collect to then be able to go into my 100,000. Well, that's going to be low collections. But over the course of the year, we should be averaging a 98 % collection amount. We also want look at our patient AR, our insurance AR, our adjustments, claims not sent to insurance, procedures not attached to insurance, P &L revenue matching collections, because a lot of times maybe we're not collecting even though it looks like we're collecting. So making sure money in the bank actually matches the money that's coming into the practice. And then doing an overhead deep dive, are there things that we could cut, subscriptions we no longer need, things that we've been paying for forever, just like in personal finance, right? Like when you go look and you're like, my gosh, we're paying for all these subscriptions, we're not even using half of them, that's a cashflow leak. So a lot of common causes of cashflow leaks are going to be unnecessary adjustments in your practice, claims and procedures not sent to insurance. Literally this one report, have literally... brought 50,000 into a practice in one simple report. So it's a huge, huge zone to take a look at. Over-the-counter collections, maybe those aren't up, they're not high enough. And then not having a good claim follow-up, insufficient AR follow-up. So claims are one thing, we're sending out those statements. And the other side is

Block scheduling can transform your productivity into profitability. Kiera makes the implementation as easy as 1, 2, 3: Identify your practice's production goals. Design your ideal block schedule. Implement, train, and track. 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 (00:02.36) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today, I just really wanted to dive into, are you truly tired of missing production goals? Because if you are, block scheduling is honestly the secret to hitting them consistently with ease. And I know this is something that's talked about so often. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to break this down into three easy steps to make sure that you're able to do this with your team in a fun, effective, and just like overall amazing way for you. Block scheduling can truly transform your productivity into profitability. And it's something as simple as doing a quick puzzle in your practice where we're able to add the pieces, have an incredible patient experience, incredible team experience, incredible doctor experience. And to me, that's a win-win-win. So for that, these three steps are going to really make it easy for you and your team to... chunk this down into a tactical practical way. You guys, I'm Kiera Dent, owner and CEO of the Dental A Team, a consulting company where we are committed to not just understanding you, but actually being you. All of our consultants have worked in every position in the practice where we're able to understand what it's like to not be able to hit productivity goals, to schedule with no frustration, to have cancellations that are dropping off on us, to where we know what it's like to lose team members. All of those things are something that our Dental A Team consultants are experts at and something that I'm really really proud of as a company because I know that when we understand you we're not just coming to you with theories and ideas but actual tips that have been proven, tried, consistent across hundreds of offices in all the states in multiple different countries to make sure that we're giving you guys efficiency that helps your team stay focused. So this is gonna be able to help you guys out and today it's gonna be short and actionable because I want you guys to able to take what we talk about and implement it today. So step one is going to be identify your practices production goals. Now that what we got to do is we've got to look to see what did our practice produce last year and a healthy standard benchmark is that we want to actually be increasing a minimum of 10 % year over year. We also want to make sure that we've increased our fee schedules every single year and most practices go up about 5%. Now, if you're concerned about that with your fee for service patients or your out of pocket patients, I want to just remind you that this is standard across the board with most businesses to increase 5%. Kiera Dent (02:14.402) And if you wanna keep those preventative ones out, by all means go for it. I just wanna be able to remind you that by doing so, when we actually send our statements out to insurance and we bill out to insurance, it actually helps the insurance companies determine what the fee should be within our area. So I wanna make sure that we're not missing opportunities and possibly a membership plan could actually help our patients when we're concerned about those preventative services. So make sure that we know what we need to do for that 10 % growth. make sure we understand how many days we're off in the practice. So I like to go through every single month. What are the vacations? What are the holidays? What are the times off? What are our high and low months across the board? I know for some pediatric practices, our certain months in the year are actually not great, but our summer months are incredible. I know for other areas based on where they are, they get a lot of snowfall in February. So February actually becomes a terrible month for them. There's also other offices where there's a notorious, suck timber or slam dunk September. where we actually have a dip right after school gets back in session. So knowing those trends are actually gonna be able to know your practice's production goals to be able to hit them successfully. And while yes, this might take a little time for us to go through, map these things out, what it What it it does is it actually helps us go through and see what does our production need to be? How can we realistically hit it based on the days that we're working? What does each day need to be? What does each provider goal need to be for our doctors and our hygienists? And then we're able to actually bring all that information together. and make a perfect puzzle for us. And then we start to place it into place. So when an office does this, usually I'm seeing a minimum of a 10 % incr

Kiera touches base with doctors on how the first quarter of 2025 has gone. Ask yourself: Are we tracking key performance indicators? How's the team efficiency and morale looking? Do we need to adjust and refocus our annual goals? 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 (00:00.908) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you're having just an incredible day. I hope life is incredible for you. And today, I just wanna highlight that Q1 is almost over. Can you believe it? We're almost a fourth of the way through 2025. And today, I wanted to ask you, are you on track for your best year yet? Because I wanna make sure that we break this down to ensure that you are thriving in 2025 and that success is predictable for you rather than just happenstance. So today, you guys, if we go through... that reviewing our Q1 of what we did well, what we missed, how we can improve, are we on track, are we off track? This is gonna really be able to help you find the opportunities for growth to make sure that you are thriving in 2025. Today, I'm gonna break it down into three simple steps for you, tactical, practical, as always. You guys know I'm Kiera Dent, owner and CEO of Dental A Team, where we are a consulting company founded upon making your life easy, more fun, and more fulfilled. We do that through you as a person. We also do that through making sure you're profitable. Let's cut the stress. Let's make sure you're profitable. Aiming for at least 20 to 30 % true profit, post everything else. And then we also do it with system and team engagement and top to bottom systems for your team to thrive. Truly, it's what we're about. We love working with teams. We love working with dentists. Our consultants are experts in the field. They have been in every single position in the practice, making sure that your life is easy. fun and that you feel like you have someone in your court with you that has the answers for you, has the solutions for you, and ensure that you are successful and profitable. So today, you guys, we are going to go through this. is going to be a concise action packed episode. cannot wait. So let's dive in. Step number one to make sure you are on track through Q1 is I want you to actually go back through and assess how do we do based on our metrics this year. If you are not tracking KPIs, key performance indicators, today is a great day to start that. Your team should be tracking. We should be able to look at Q1 and see where were we on track, where were we off track, why were we off track and what's going forward. I love to be doing this every single week and then really assessing every single month. If you haven't gone to do that, rock on. It's the time to do it. You still have three quarters left. Let's make sure that you're super successful for that. So things that I like to look at are production, collections, new patients, case acceptance. We wanna make sure we've got our hygiene reappointment. What's our hygiene percentage? Kiera Dent (02:16.354) We wanna make sure we're looking, those are like the main key things. And then I really always dig into profitability. I, like I said, we aim for our offices to be at a 20 to 30 % profit margin, post paying their doctors. I like you to have free cashflow in there. And so really looking at that, but also if we can dig into the nitty gritties of how's our AR, how are our cases coming across? What are we presenting? What are we closing? How is our hygiene team producing? How are we doing with our new patient count? Are we getting those raving fan referrals? And if not, what's the one area that we're gonna highlight or two or three in Q2 to make sure that we actually get on track. Also, we look at our annual goal, which I hope that you have said, because it gives us kind of the benchmarks. To me, these are like the mile markers. Q1 is a mile marker, Q2 is a mile marker, Q3 is a mile marker. To make sure in Q4, we actually hit where we were trying to go, we are at mile marker one of the year. Where are we at? What needs to be adjusted to make sure by Q4, we actually crush our goals and we do it with ease. Did we maybe get hit with some snow? Did we maybe get hit with some sick days? What was it? Let's not make excuses. Let's learn from it and project and move forward. So right now I want you all to block out 30 minutes this week to go look through Q1 metrics and compare them to where we wanna be by the end of the year. I recommend doctors and office managers do this. Go and look at it separately and then come together collectively. You can also do this with your leadership team. It's a really great time for you to block that time out right now and make sure you're on track. All right, step number two. evaluate our team's efficiency and morale. Why? Why? because if we don't have a team that's synergistic, we actually ar

Tiff and Britt discuss how a practice that was upside down financially picked through their systems with a fine-toothed comb to find success — and how you and your team can avoid this scenario. 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: The Dental A Team (00:02.146) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back again. I kept Britt today. If you've listened to the other one, that it was a beautiful Friday morning. It's still a beautiful Friday morning. I made her stick around so I could do even more with her today on this podcasting adventure. I know you guys love hearing from Britt and I love chatting with her. So Britt, welcome. Welcome. How was your day? We're rolling into the weekend. How much fun are you excited to have? You're feeling better, you were sick, you caught what everybody else has had, and I think you get a true weekend, right? Britt (00:29.812) everyone. This weekend should be better than last weekend. Let's just say that. And it is gorgeous out here. So I mean, I might have been slightly annoyed at the birds chirping and I'm like, really? Like waking me up? That's what you're going to be annoyed about. Get over it. It's a nice day outside. The Dental A Team (00:47.151) Oh my gosh, okay, Cinderella. I love that. I love that. It is like, it's a week. I keep thinking, gosh, it's like unseasonably warm and like it's not, it's supposed to be 85 degrees next week, FYI, but this time of year, last year was cold. That was the abnormality. This is actually normal for Phoenix. So I keep having to remind myself of that because it is warm, but the birds are chirping. The dogs are barking across the street. Britt (00:49.486) I know. The Dental A Team (01:14.987) There's people walking by and they they get angry. It's all here and we're here for it. And so if you hear the birds, you hear the cats, you hear the dogs, just know we are a company that fully encompasses the animals. We love them and they're here with us today. So I love it. Well, today's content I'm actually really excited about. wanted to I wanted to take like an excerpt from Britt (01:28.136) you The Dental A Team (01:41.68) practice that I've worked a ton with over the last few years. are near and dear to my heart. Some of my favorite human beings in the whole world. Trish was on a call with me with them, consultant Trish, and she just, she texts me on the side. She's like, he is the sweetest man. I'm like, he really, really is. They are just such a sweet, sweet human and individuals, but I've taken some journeys with them financially. And with a lot of their, their team members and doctors and stuff. And I wanted to kind of highlight a piece that we found that I don't think I even like always thought about. And I think those are the spaces that I actually love about consulting is one, a challenge. I always love a challenge and decided like we're doing a steps challenge. I'm like, I'm to win. Like I was already doing it, but now I'm like, I'm for sure doing it. So you challenge me and it's going to work. Britt (02:28.029) We're going to Britt (02:34.419) Game on. The Dental A Team (02:35.088) It is, it is. It works every time. Ask Kira, she says it, she screams it from the mountaintops. It really does work, I don't know why. So I love a challenge, I love learning, and I really love when it's like, oh my gosh, that was so obscure from the normal, and it's so cool to see what we were able to create and figure out. And we all know at this point in the game that we need 98 % collections across the board. And we all know it's not always that way. And doctors, I really wanted to bring you this information and this story, right? Storytelling time. This story from something that I've witnessed, experienced and worked through because I want you guys to be able to take some tools back to your own practices and implement some things that are actually really easy that not everyone is always doing. So, Britt, you're here with me for this journey and I'm excited because it brings in some of those business pieces. that I know we love chatting about. So we're gonna chat through some of it and then I wanna bring in your brain on like, how can we implement these things in every single practice? So biggest space walking in to this practice was their overhead. Like their overhead was out of control and they were making massive production for a single doctor to hygiene. They're at like 140 to 160 consistently. And their hygiene department, let's do through some like, digging, right? I find their hygiene department is like 11 to 15 percent of their production. So this doctor is exhausted. He is just like not able to sleep at night because he's stressed. He's working really hard and their overhead is really high, like almost 80 percent when we started working together, almost 80 percent overhead. You guys, that's before paying him. That's b

Kiera walks listeners through five steps to understanding a profit and loss statement: Know the structure Follow the revenue streams Track your spending Calculate the ratios Set financial goals 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 (00:03.726) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I just wanted to empower you with, if you're in the boat of struggling to understand your P &L, struggling to understand how to truly master your dental finances, you're not alone. This is common. This is what I'm obsessed with helping dental practices truly understand. And today I want to break it down into five simple steps to give you clarity, control, to really be able to understand your dental practice finances. So today, I just wanted to let you know that when you understand your PNL, which is a profit and loss statement, it helps you just be able to know which metrics to move to understand how can I actually create better decisions to feel more empowered with my numbers. And so I want you just to know that there's five simple steps that I've learned that I wanted to bring to you to really help you understand this and to this year maybe embody the identity of I am a. money master or I am a finance master or whatever it is where you really take control because at Dental A Team when we consult our practices we have hundreds of offices and we work virtually we work in person we work one-on-one we work group style but I found that like one of the biggest stressors for dentists is not understanding like how does the money work we understand the dental we don't understand the team per se front office is like I don't know but it's really like where is my money and how do I actually make my money work for me And so understanding that, what does it mean to be profitable? We have overhead calculators, we have profitability scorecards for you that I really love helping our clients with. But really it's like, let me just break it down into the nuts and bolts. I am not a CPA. I will have that disclaimer out there. I just am going to break it down of like, how do I become a financial master? So today let's break it down into step one is understand the structure of your PNL. So a PNL is broken down into basically like our, our revenue, so our collections, and then our expenses from there. and then that breaks it down into profit. Now, something that always gets a little funny is debt services. And if we've got loans or student loans or practice loans, sometimes those are associated with our P &L, other times they're not. And what we really care about as owners is cash, right? We want the cashflow, we wanna understand where that's at. And so if you understand that it's broken down into this where we've got money coming in, so those are our collections, we need to make sure our collections sit at 98%. So we produce, we collect money. Kiera Dent (02:21.654) those collections and then we spend money of our expenses. So payroll, rent, utilities, supplies, all of that paying you as a doctor as well. And then from there we have what's called our profit. And then after that we have our debt services and then that's our cashflow, but also cashflow then there's taxes that come out of it. And I think when you understand that instead of it being like, I don't have any money. We just understand that this is where it goes. And so if we're not tracked, if we're not tracking it, what happens is we're spending money. We're spending more than we need. Like I had an office and they weren't tracking their supply spend. And so what happened is they were spending about 30,000 a month in one location. They're spending about $5,000 a month in another location. There's a discrepancy, but they didn't even realize that they were having this discrepancy until we started looking at their PNL. So once you start to monitor it, then we can actually get our supplies into more of like a 4 % of total collection. So if we're collecting a hundred thousand, 4 % of that would be $4,000. That's what we're allowed to spend for that month on supplies. Well, now we have the budget. Now we can get it in alignment. We can actually track it and lean it down. Another officer looking at their P &Ls are doing it. They were at an 85 % overhead at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, they were coming in at a 53 % overhead. So to me, it's just a math equation. One plus one equals two. How do we, we have money coming in, subtract the things we spend. We have profit leftover from there. We have our debt services and our tax that gives us our true cash at the end of it. So then number two is we got to focus on What are the ways that we actually bring production and collections to the practice case? We've got our PNL. We understand how that's broken down. I also want you to know there's a chart of accounts that you can chang

Even if retirement is a long, long way off, it's important to have an exit strategy ready to go. Tiff and Britt discuss both the emotional and business sides of things of making sure your practice is in order, including debt awareness, numbers in different scenarios, passive income possibilities, and more. 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 The Dental A Team (00:01.588) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I'm so excited to be here this morning. I don't know what time it is while you're listening here, but today it is a beautiful sunny Friday morning that I'm recording here with Britt. The one and only when I get her on these podcasts, I just soak it all up because I don't schedule her often. It's few and far Between. She's a busy lady. So, Britt, thank you so much for being here with me this Friday morning, and we are just kicking off the weekend in the right headspace. And I'm so excited to chat these contents with you today. How are you, Britt? Britt (00:33.486) I'm doing great, Tiff. Thanks for having me on. You know, it's always like hangout time for us consultants, even though, yes, hopefully are providing value to all our listeners. That's our ultimate goal, but it's fun for us to get to chat about these things. The Dental A Team (00:46.145) I agree. I agree. had asked Kristy yesterday, I just messaged her, I'm like, how are you doing? Our consultant, Kristy, you guys know her. And I'm like, how can I support you? Like, how are things going? And she's like, I just missed my Tiff time. And my response was, we've got podcasting soon. So. Britt (01:01.518) Exactly. The Dental A Team (01:07.913) I like our one on ones. You guys, tell you to do monthly one on ones just so you know, we do monthly one on ones in our company. And then our podcasting time. I'm like, gosh dang it. actually, for a virtual company, I think we do fairly decent, but I love these podcasting hours. I'm excited today because just in case no one understands or knows this already, if you know, no BS, Britt is gonna call you today. Britt (01:09.537) you The Dental A Team (01:34.209) You know, Brit, you know that she's got a, like this business sense that she just knows. Like, you know, there's just things in life you just know. You just intuitively know, you're like, I don't know, it just makes sense to me. That's business for Brit. And I love watching you just work in that zone for our company, but then also for the clients that you've worked with and helping us consultants just learn so much more about that business side. And today, your idea was so brilliant. That's what I'm saying, like your business. I'm like, leadership. And she's like, actually, let's talk about this. And I really wanted to bring Britt on today to pick her mind on how you doctors, you practice owners can really start preparing for your exit. know Dana and I've talked about this before and really talked about, even if you don't think, you're like, Tiff, I'm not. I'm not leaving, like I just started. You're like fantastic, but you should always be prepping and planning for your exit because you just need never know when you're going to be like, I want a sabbatical and you're up and I don't want to my practice anymore. So you should always be prepping and planning for that. And my ideas, know, Britt's like, no, let's talk about this. I think it's brilliant. So we really, really want to take a look at the business side and how you can not only prep emotionally with your leadership team with your ops manual. We already talked about a lot of that stuff on another podcast and Britt here is gonna bring us some information on really how to prep the business side. How do you prep your finances? How do you make sure that your practice is sellable? What are the pieces that that actually entails? And how do you make sure that you have it in order? I love to tell doctors all the time, evaluate your practice constantly, because you just wanna know. It's like never knowing the value and the worth of your home. I know my... My lending team and my realtor team, they send me evaluations of my home every six months by email. And it's just really cool to see where the market's at. And so I think taking that mindset and applying it to your business is also really fantastic. So Britt, I'm excited for today. I know the listeners are excited today. I actually, know personally because I hear it and I think you need to hear this today. Britt (03:20.834) Yeah. Britt (03:41.358) Thank The Dental A Team (03:41.983) I actually hear from a lot of our listeners and a lot of my clients who listen how excited they get when you do come on. So I do want you to know that. I know it's not your favorite space. know you don't love that on a public forum, but I think it's really fantastic and you just bring such a wealth of knowledge. what do you see being like the biggest pieces

Bringing on an associate is a big move for any practices, and while the benefits fill out a long list, the way it's done will have lingering impacts, for better or worse. Kiera gives three actionable tips on how to make the transition a smooth one for all involved. Find an associate who fits your clinical and cultural model Schedule a team meeting with the associate Establish regular check-ups with doctor feedback 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 (00:00.45) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today, you guys, are you struggling to onboard a new associate without team tension? I know that this can be a tricky problem that a lot of our offices faces. And so these three steps will make the process smooth and successful. Honestly, onboarding an associate is such a critical piece. You're bringing on this new doctor, they already love you, they already know our existing team, and now we're bringing someone new in that's gonna help us help serve more patients. It's going to help our team be able to get those hygiene checks on time. going to be able to help us expand our clinical suite. So whatever the reason for onboarding an associate, it oftentimes comes down to that team buy-in, not having the team tension, getting the patient retention. And so the goal is today, I'm going to walk you through really three simple steps for you to be able to onboard this associate with ease and success. I am Kiera Dent. Dental A Team was created to really help give you guys wisdom and knowledge out in the field to have a trusted expert, someone who's been there, done that, done that successfully multiple times. Honest to goodness, our consultants are incredible. They really have real life experience. Every consultant on the Dental A Team has to have real life experience in the practice. clinically and for an office. They've had to grow multiple practices exponentially. They've had to work through these kinks. So when we give you tips and advice is not because we're just here talking about theories and what we hope works. It's because we've been there, done that and done that successfully. Honestly, onboarding an associate is going to affect your long-term harmony. This is where it's going to be amazing for your team with harmony, but also productivity. And so today is going to be short, actionable episode. And honestly, you guys are going to want to wait till the end because I walk you through the three steps. And then at the very end, I'm gonna wrap it up for you of exactly how you can do this with simplicity. So step one is you need to actually find an associate who fits your clinical and cultural model. This is really paramount because a lot of times we just want an associate. We just think, let's bring someone in. But what we forget is these patients have been coming to us as a clinician, as a practice, as a culture, and that's what we've actually built. So there's a lot about branding in other companies. Well, in your dental practice, you have to realize you as the dentist, you as your clinical skill set has actually been built. Kiera Dent (02:08.034) to be able to be a culture that your patients are accustomed to. So it's crazy because we just think we just need to hire an associate. No, actually looking to see are they clinically the same as you or adding to your skillset and also do they fit your cultural model. It's wild because if you'll just take the time to find this person who fits not being desperate but actually using the time to find them is really going to help. Now people ask me, Kiera, where actually can I go to find these associates because it can be tricky. And what I say is let's start talking with the community. Talk to the dental colleges that are around you. Talk to your Henry Schein rep or your Patterson rep. Start talking to different offices because they might know someone. Get to the country club. A lot of deals have been made on golf courses that I've heard. Go to yoga studios, different places where people will be and start talking and networking and letting them know who you're looking for. Also let your team know, hey, we're looking for this. This is who we're looking for. Do you know anybody? Because your team can really be an advocate for you. In addition to that, I like to build pipelines. So if you know family members that are going to dental college or you have friends, but somehow getting really intertwined into that, that dental college around you, in addition to being able to work with residencies and G, your, your practices that way, that's going to help you actually exponentially become stronger to get this pipeline of people there. So really looking for someone who fits your clinical and cultural model is going to help you exponentially because they're going to subscribe to the models like you do. They're going to act like you do

Kiera reminds dentists to prioritize wellness and support in their day-to-day. 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 (00:01.006) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and happy National Dentist Day. I felt like today would be such a great day for us to highlight how we can support dentists on mental health, wellness, and excellence on National Dentist Day because I believe that dentistry can be a lonely profession. I believe that I've seen so many dentists feel alone and isolated like they're on their own island. And so today I just wanted to highlight and celebrate. how much dentists do and also how dentists can help themselves, but also how your team can help support our doctors that do so much for us. So today, you guys, honestly, dentists face unique challenges. And so today I just wanted to have it be a powerful reminder that prioritizing wellness and support in our profession is necessary. It's needed. It's such a lonely profession in so many ways, if we choose. And I don't want us to choose that. I want us to choose a vibrant, a happy, a fulfilling space in dentistry. And that's honestly what Dental A Team is about. We created this podcast to positively impact the world of dentistry. Our mission is to truly impact the world in the greatest way possible. And we do that through expert consulting for dentists and teams. And so really helping you see that there's two sides to this coin. There's ways that we can see that it's a lonely field and we can also see that it's a very fulfilling field. And so today I just really hope that you take some tips from today. I'll give you three simple steps of how we're able to really take care of ourselves through self-care. through mental health and also team collaboration in dentistry. I'm really a big proponent of mental health, especially in dentistry. And so today I just wanted to walk you through, you guys know the Dental A team, we're here to support you. We have consultants that are truly in every position in the dental practice. We come into your practices. We coach you virtually. We help you. are your advocates in dentistry. We're your advocates in business. We're your advocates for having the life on your terms. Like I've said many times, life is my passion, dentistry is my platform and helping you truly be the fulfilled dentist that you were created to be. I love focusing on you as a person, on your profitability of your practice and then on systems and team development for your practice and really making that be an achievable piece for you. And so today, you guys, I do believe that there is a balance needed between professional success and personal wellness. And I don't believe that it has to be one or the other, it's an and. And so really giving you some quick tips today. Kiera Dent (02:19.418) of some concise value-packed information that hopefully will be able to help you as we celebrate National Dentist Day. So number one, step one is to prioritize mental health and stress management. And I think the word prioritize in choosing that I am someone who does prioritize mental health and stress management. There've been studies that have been done that show that the workforce used to be one where it was more physical labor and so really taking care of our bodies. And now we've moved into this space where it's a very mental world where so much of it is in the mental cognitive constantly running and it never shuts off. And I believe for dentists you have the mental where it never shuts off, but you also have the physical exhaustion of truly doing dentistry all day long and your bodies and making sure you've got the ergonomics. so being able to have that mental health and stress management where we have some shutoff time, where we do build the muscle of our brain. I remember I was in therapy and I said like, I can go and I can work out, but what can I do for my mind? And that's where we we start to create the, if you will, the workout or the, the mental strength building through meditation and through silence and through some of that downtime shut off to allow ourselves to actually have that calm, have that space. so some key strategies for better mental health are mindfulness and stress relief practices like meditation. I'm a big believer. I read Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. So if you're interested in a book, I love some tacticals for you. That wouldn't really help me see how I could have a miracle morning of meditation, journaling, taking some time for me. And I really would encourage you to schedule 10 minutes a day or even just one minute a day for you to have mindfulness and reflection starting today. Do yourself a favor. It's National Dentist Day. Buy yourself the gift, the gift of time, the gift of mental clarity, the gift of of really taking care and honoring yourself. And for me, I was able to do a shif

Tiff and Kristy explain how viewing claims as stories can improve how practices can streamline that process. They touch on doctor-led language to use from start to finish, how artificial intelligence can improve the process, safety protocols to implement, and more. 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: The Dental A Team (00:01.881) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here with you today. I have the one and only this Kristy back on the podcast today. She has done at least one other podcast with me so far. Kristy is a consultant here on our team. If you have not gotten the chance to meet her yet, please hop on over to our social or hangouts. We've got our Doctor Collab that we do every single month and our doctor and team kind of round table get together that she's at every single week. So if you're a current client, you know where to find her. I hope that you've had the chance to meet her. If you are a listener and not yet a client and you haven't met Kristy yet, Kristy, welcome. We are just so excited to have you here. And I know I probably don't say this enough, but I'm just so happy to have you on the team and Dental A Team is so happy and so proud. to welcome you into our team and our family. You've been here now for, it feels like forever, like you started with us seven, eight years ago, but you've been here now for, gosh, I'll go on your fourth month and I'm so excited. You've got so many amazing things under your belt and your wealth of knowledge is massive. So, Kristy, how are you today? Thank you for being here, but how are you doing? You're pumped? Kristy (00:57.848) Thank Kristy (01:15.502) Yes, Mary Pump. It's a subject that is near and dear and and help benefit doctors and teams. So I'm excited to be here. Thank you. The Dental A Team (01:25.134) Good, you're welcome, you're welcome. And I do kind of try to make sure that when I do pick the topics that we're going to talk about and who's going to talk about them with me, I do kind of choose based on your passion because I know all of us can do most of the things. Like all of us have been around a block of time or two, but I know we all each have our individual passions set aside of things that really, really drive us or areas where You've seen incredible massive results and Kristy, this one today, I actually think you've seen massive results on a client already that you've been working one-on-one with when it comes to this subject matter. So I think it's really cool. Thank you for being here with us. Doctors who are joining us today and team members alike, I'm really excited for this one. Our main goal at Dental A Team is to produce results for you. We want you to have a thriving. Wonderful practice and business that supports a lifestyle that you want to live. So our goal is always to increase profitability, increase joy and happiness, and make sure that your business is supporting that life and it's working for you, not you always looking for your business. So our subject matter today, I want you guys, doctors, and then team members who are listening to it that maybe your doctor sent it to you or hasn't listened to it yet. Make sure that you guys actually truly do listen to this one. The title. is going to be, it's going to say something, I don't know yet around optimizing claim results. And I don't want it to just get shuffled over to your team because docs were actually speaking to you guys today. Team members can pick up the bits and pieces as well, because I think you are going to be able to do that in tandem. But docs, these are areas actually where you can help hold some accountability lines and where you can help provide a ton of value and information back into optimizing your claims for the best results. The reason that we talk about this, reason it's so important is because, gosh, a lot of your money's actually tied up in claims processing. Even if you're a fee-for-service practice, if you're sending claims on behalf of the client, on behalf of the patients, by any means, you're getting a lot of money wrapped up and tied into the claims. And then you've got a whole human, a whole body, who's wrapped up in not only sending those claims and like doing their best to get as much money as they can in as possible, but they're also spending a lot of time on the phone with insurance companies. The Dental A Team (03:48.763) with the claims departments trying to get that money into the practice. So if we can streamline a lot of those places and spaces and just get that money returned as soon as that claim's received, I think it just helps to reduce a lot of the overload, reduce a lot of the work and overhead in a lot of spaces. So today is all about how you guys, doctors, and your back office support team can help optimize those claims. so that your billing department can just shoot them off easy peas

Kiera shares a secret weapon to high morale in the office place: celebrations. There are three steps to maximize the fun while keeping everything running smoothly: Create a birthday and celebration system. Incorporate monthly team events. Make recognition public and consistent. 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 (00:00.792) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I just want to ask you, do you really want a happier and more engaged team? Do you want to be able to know that they're going to be incredible with you? I do believe that celebrations are the secret weapon to building a positive culture. And today is a special day because it's Dental A Team's podcast fifth birthday. And so I thought it was just such a special time. You guys, this podcast has been running for so long. I am so grateful for you for being a part of it. And I just thought, hey, Well, one of the greatest things is while we're celebrating Dental A Teams podcast birthday, let's teach you the secret weapon to building that positive, effective team culture. So you guys, the reality is when we acknowledge milestones, when we acknowledge celebrations, when we acknowledge things that our team is doing well, what that does is it puts our focus on the things we actually want our team to do. We put a focus on them as a human being. We put our focus on them actually being more of what we want them to become. And so what that does is it actually improves morale. increases retention and that ultimately equals overall productivity. What's really awesome about this is people are looking for like, how do I hire? How do I bring on a team? Well, if it's a great place to work, people want to work with you. And a lot of times these celebrations are that secret weapon because it becomes fun. It becomes life. It becomes the things that we want to do. So in celebration of Dental A Team's fifth birthday, I cannot believe we've been doing the podcast for this long. Kudos and appreciation to all of you for being here. I just want to say thank you for being here. And let's roll in three quick steps where you're able to use and maximize these celebrations to boost the morale that your team wants. Dental A Team was created for you. This podcast was created to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. I try to create this in a quick tactical, practical way for you to be able to take this, celebrate your team, have the fun with your team and be able to truly live life. My passion is life and my platform is dentistry. And so that's why we've created this podcast and our goal in our dental consulting company is to make your life easier. to make it easy to implement systems, to make it easy to achieve the life that you desire to be, to make it easier to have a team that's rallied around their doctor and it's truly supporting and serving their team, their community, their patients with ease. So that's what Dental A Team's all about. This is gonna be a short, actionable episode where honestly you can go take these tips and implement them today. So step one is. Kiera Dent (02:17.53) create a birthday and celebration system. I know this sounds so silly, but the reality is I love to build things on systems because they're automated. We don't have to think about it just like our morning routines. I don't have to think about how I'm going to do my hair. I don't have to think about how I'm gonna put my makeup on. I don't have to think about if I'm going to brush my teeth or not. It's a system that we've automatically done and by default as humans, we love to create automations. We love to simplify because it's less brain power. So let's create this into a way where it's a system. that we can then add the sprinkles, we can add the intentionality behind, but we have the system for success. So birthdays and milestones matter for team connection. It's something where when people feel recognized, they feel special. And some people like to be recognized in public, other people like to be recognized in private. But as human beings, there is a need for us to be significant, to be recognized, to realize that we have purpose in this world. And so some key elements in the celebration system is... we have to actually have a calendar with the team birthdays and work anniversaries on there. And then someone needs to actually be accountable for overseeing these. And then we need to personalize the experience for each person. So for us, we actually have a Google calendar called birthdays. Our client birthdays go on there. Our team birthdays go on there. Our work anniversaries go on there. And then what we have from there is we actually have a built into on their one to three year birthdays. This is what we get on our one to three year anniversaries. This is what we get. three to five and so on. And it's actually built

Kiera shares the most common problems dental practices face — scheduling inefficiencies, high overhead costs, and patient retention — and how to fix them. 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 (00:00.93) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today, I just wanna come in here. I've been kind of doing a little bit of research out there and I wanted to help you see that every practice is facing challenges. And really the key is knowing how to turn those problems into opportunities. I love just thinking about, we've got to find ways to turn these problems into opportunities because it can be a problem or an opportunity, depending upon how you choose to view it. And so today I wanted to just kind of dive into the most common problems that dentists face and actionable solutions for you to actually overcome them. Because reality is if you can know what they are, you can game plan with it. You then are gonna be able to help serve more patients, help your practice, help your team, which is what Dental A Team is all about. Dental A Team was founded to help dentists and teams truly bridge the gap to have more fun, less stress, more profitability, serve patients on a higher level. and to be able to do it with ease and fun. I love to think about it as like popping confetti when we're coming in to help you with systems. We are not your traditional consulting company. So many offices have told me, Kiera, you guys literally have revolutionized how consulting works. My team loves you. My team's excited for you to come in and you don't just help us with dentistry, but you actually help make us better people. And so that's what we're all about. And I believe honestly that while problems are common with the right systems and the right mindsets, you can actually solve them pretty quickly and effectively. You don't actually have to struggle with it. So, super fast, actionable episode three of the top problems and how to solve them. So problem number one that I see consistently are scheduling inefficiencies. This is, think, one of the biggest bulk, the biggest beast of all of dentistry is that people really truly don't know how to schedule and schedule effectively and scheduling is an art. It's not a science, but why do we wanna have like unicorns out there when we can just schedule it effectively and efficiently? And what we actually found are... A lot of offices, when we did deep dives, they missed their financial goals. They missed their production goals, not because they actually weren't able to, but because of open time within their schedule. True. So we've started tracking open time and schedules and realize if we would have just filled those effectively, you would have hit your goals with ease. And so how do we actually get our practices to look at the unproductive gaps, last minute cancellations, overbooking, not scheduling strategically. And the simple solution is block scheduling, also confirming appointments 48 hours in advance. Kiera Dent (02:18.338) And then also what's our cancellation policy within our practice? A lot of offices we have changed our model to when we call a patient, we want them to confirm their appointment. And if they haven't confirmed within 48 hours, we literally have a voicemail and let them know we will be moving your appointment. Now we actually pull it off the schedule. We can still see them when we come in. Fantastic. If not, we have solutions for that. But literally we start to retrain our patients. And then also our cancellation policy is if they call me to cancel today and it's less than 48 hours, they get moved out six weeks. and then we move them forward. But everybody following this policy starts to retrain your patients so we stop having these gaps. I want you to think about your practice as are people so committed to coming to your office just like they do their hair appointments, their nail appointments, any of those like their doctor appointments where they know it takes months and months to get into. Do we have that high level of customer service, high level of customer care? Now, of course, if they call us within 48 hours, fantastic, they're an incredible patient. But otherwise we are going to make sure that we start to train them. And we also do this with our new patients when they call us. So we're training our new patients at the beginning. They have to send their paperwork in 48 hours before their appointment to make sure their appointment's confirmed. These little things will actually fix the problem. Now cancellations, I don't allow cancellations via voicemail. I change voicemails. I also don't allow cancellations via text message. So we train our teams that these are things that we can't have happen. This is how we respond to the patient. The reason being is if I can get them on the phone, I can usually find a solution to

Kiera and Britt continue their conversation from episode 958, Hiring Hygienists in Today's Economy, by discussing the shifting landscape of hygiene. This includes the pros and cons of assisted hygiene, shortened appointments, practices without hygienists, and more. 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 (00:00.73) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and the one and only Brittany Stone coming back for part two of our hygiene conversation. welcome back. How are you? Britt (00:09.332) It's always fun when you start off with my full name, so I'm like, alright, let's go! Kiera Dent (00:12.304) It is funny. You do range from Britney, Britt, like no BS Britt to B. B has recently come in. How do you feel about just B? I hope it comes across as like nice, but then I realized like, B could be taken wrong. So I never say the, hey B. Britt (00:28.75) You're not the only one. I'm fine with it because it's easy and I'm like shoot you grew up with the initials BS like what are you gonna do? Kiera Dent (00:37.904) Well, I never want to like sometimes when I call you and I'm like, hey B and I'm like, I hope it lands as like, like love. Yeah. Yeah. It's not meant for any other letters. But Britt and I, if you didn't listen to our other podcasts, Britt and I were chatting shop about how to hide like hire hygienists in today's economy. And with Britt bringing a hygiene perspective, if you don't know, Britt used to be hygienist. Britt (00:46.83) It's Brett. stands for Brett. Britt (00:52.748) Yeah. Kiera Dent (01:07.3) Great. How long has it been since you graduated from a hygiene school? Let's just give people your scene. Britt (01:10.05) Kiera. You're gonna age me a little bit here. Kiera Dent (01:16.162) Okay, don't feel age. The only reason I asked for it, so before you answer, just know my reasoning so you don't have to answer. I was just thinking because I wanted people to know you've been in the field for like enough time to give weight to your answers. But maybe we don't need to do that. Maybe it's been there for longer than five years. Shut, I didn't even know. All right, well, you have been in it for a long time. Britt (01:31.512) That's fine. Eighteen, Kiera, eighteen. Britt (01:40.378) I'll say this, was a young graduate from high school, so I'll give you that. That pushed me a year ahead, but 07 is when I graduated, so this year we'll make it 18. Kiera Dent (01:49.111) No way. Kiera Dent (01:52.996) Dang girl, I didn't even know. Okay, so Britt really has a lot of weight and you did hygiene for, and then Britt went from hygiene to then office management of a pretty large DSO and then came consulting and now does consulting and operations. So. Britt (02:06.38) Yeah, I did full-time hygiene for a decade. So I'm like a solid, five full-time, full-time, 40 hours for a decade. Kiera Dent (02:09.21) Did you really? Wow. Man, I really like there's some moments that I just see you as a hygienist. Like I can just picture you walking up with your like, it's not a swagger, but you have a can't that you definitely walk. And I can see you walking up, getting your patient. Hey B, how's your swagger? But. Britt (02:28.11) You can call it swagger, I'll take swagger. don't know what else to Kiera Dent (02:35.736) Yeah, so I'm like, just, could imagine you being a hygienist sometimes, but then you're like, Britt the consultant, Britt operations, Britt, my yin and yang. So anyway, well, that's fun. That's a fun. Okay. So to give Britt credit, she did hygiene for a decade. I won't say anything about loops, Britt. We will not discuss that on this episode. We will. Britt (02:56.238) I mean, I just changed myself a little bit. you know, we talk about it. I would have to know if I was a full-time clinical, for sure. Kiera Dent (03:01.752) Of course. Yeah, of course. I know you would. You don't, you stay very current. I do appreciate that you stay very current with hygiene. You attend hygiene CE all the time. So what we were talking about in the last episode that this would be part two of was we talked about kind of like, do we, how do we work with the compensation pieces of hygiene? And then talking about it from a business standpoint and a doctor standpoint and a hygienist standpoint. and really bringing those two perspectives to the table, which is what the podcast has been built to do is bring different perspectives. And something I just want to reiterate today, if you missed the last one is that the things Britt and I talk about today are going to be perspectives and never meant to weaponize. So doctors, can't weaponize it against hygienists and hygienists, can't weaponize it against doctors. And so really just setting the stage today of let's have an open conversation around where are we at the dynamics. there's no. there's no like hiding the fact that it has been hard to hire hygienist

Tiff and Kristy talk about how doctors can get to that point where their practice can function with and without them, including taking a good and hard look at your numbers, dialing in your BAM, encouraging delegation and accountability, and more. 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: The Dental A Team (00:01.676) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. my gosh, I'm so excited for today. I know you guys diligently listen constantly that you're here, that you're here for us, and we just love you and we value you and we appreciate you. We recently had some virtual events and it's just been really cool to see the masses show up in such incredible support for who we are, what we do for this community, and just all of the outpour of love. So we want to say thank you guys for being listeners for always showing up for us. We hope we do the same for you, that we always show up for you. And I'm just so excited for today. I have with me today the one and only Miss Kristy. She is a consultant here on our team. If you have not gotten to meet her yet, you are doing yourself a disservice. I'm excited for you to hear from her today. We've got a really great conversation we're about to have. And honestly, guys, Kristy is just this incredible wealth of knowledge. She has been such an asset to our team. such an asset to the consultant team alone and her clients that she works one-on-one with are just already raving about her. So we are so excited. Kristy, welcome to the platform. I know this is our first podcast and you came in, you know, late to the podcasting game, I'm going to call it, where it's video too. So it's like not to be, you know, overwhelming or put you on a pedestal or anything here, right? But I'm just super excited to have you here. And I know that the Doctors who are listening today are just going to get so much valuable information. So, Kristy, thank you for being here today. Thank you for carving out the time in your schedule for this. And gosh, how are you? You're in Idaho right now, but soon, guys, she will be with me in Arizona, don't you fret. It is down the pipeline for her, but you're in Idaho right now, so what's the weather like? You know, it's drastically different from here. What's the weather like? How are you, Kristy? How are you on this fine recording Friday morning? Kristy (01:38.274) Yeah. Kristy (01:52.95) Love it. I'm happy to be here with you. Nervous for the first podcast, but we're going to do it because it's all about serving the doctors. actually, I'm excited to get to Arizona. It's snowing this morning. So yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready for some warm weather. The Dental A Team (02:11.754) Good. I'm excited for you to be here too. Phoenix has no snow. I don't know that Flagstaff even has real snow right now. I have no idea. But Phoenix has no snow and it's a brisk, like, I don't know, probably 60 degrees. It was 38 this morning though. Anyways, I'm excited you're here, Kristy. Thank you. And doctors, team members who are listening, leaders, office managers, today is going to be super fun. I've probed some tips and probed Kristy's brain today. on a subject matter that I think she's actually really smart on. I think we all work really hard with our doctors to help you guys work yourselves out of the business. Like that's the ultimate goal. Whether you work out of the business or not, whether you're like, gosh, no, I actually really love this stuff, Tiff. I want to do the admin stuff. I don't care. But I want you to have that opportunity to be able to say yes or no, I want to do those things. So building and creating a business that can work without you is our ultimate goal. Like a profitable... survivable business that works for you, that you can take a step back and say, gosh, you know what? I want to go to Aruba for a month and I think my team's going to be fine and my business can survive. I want you to be able to make those decisions. So today, that's what we're going to be talking about you guys. How do we create a sustainable business that can survive with and without you? Not or with and without you so that you get to make that decision. And Kristy, I know we have a ton of clients that we work with this every single day. And I think both of us, both you and I kind of have that mindset of like, cool, these are the places that we're going, but forever more, like I want you to always be thinking. Forevermore, I want you to always be thinking, how do I work myself out of the business? Like, how do I make sure that I'm ready to go and I can take that vacation or whatever? So I know, Kristy, that's something that we work on a lot. And I have some ideas, and I know you do too, and I want to pick your brain some today. So first and foremost, I think one of the spaces I want to start with is really the overhead and the profitability. That's a huge focus of DEML-A team for

Kiera and Britt have a deep discussion on the ins and outs of hygiene right now, including what's on hygiene grads' minds, the right ranges for skill sets, how different practices are staying scrappy amid the dearth of hygienists, and more. 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 (00:00.822) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I have Brittany Stone, the one and only No BS Britt. And today I'm asking her to play Hygiene Britt. If you didn't know, it's actually fun. It is. And it was funny because yesterday, Britt and I actually like had, we were heavy in Dental A Team mode. And then I called Britt back probably like a minute later and I said, Hey Britt, can you be Hygiene Britt for me? Cause I have a hygiene question. Britt (00:26.988) you Kiera Dent (00:29.102) So Britt, welcome to the show today. How are you? Britt (00:32.308) I'm good, how are you doing? Kiera Dent (00:34.23) I'm great. How does it feel to be hygiene Britt? Like go from, mean, you're Dental A Team's operations manager, you're also consultant, like all the things. How does it feel like go back into that clinical space sometimes? Britt (00:45.678) I mean, hygiene are roots, man. Like that's the beginning. So it feels to me, I know you guys haven't known me as like hygienist. Like, yes, I know hygiene stuff, but you never worked with me clinically as a hygienist. But to me, I'm like, yeah, that's me. Kiera Dent (00:54.872) true. Kiera Dent (01:00.91) I'm glad because it is fun. I actually was talking to Jason last night after you and I had chatted and I said, Jay, it was actually really fun to talk to Britt about like where we started. I mean, I'm dental assistant, Kiera, office manager, Kiera, treatment coordinator, Kiera. No one's known me as that in Dental A Team. And so I'm just going to throw it out there because you never know who's listening to the podcast and who would ever like take me up on this idea. But if there's someone out there, that would love to allow Dental A Team to come in for one day and go back to our roots. So Britt, we probably have to do this in Arizona, because I think you're only licensed in certain states, right? Okay, so Arizona offices, if you know someone in Arizona, all of our crew will be there in March and there might be a few other times, but I think it'd be funny to see a Dental A Team take over. Like how would it be for Tip to be an assistant? Britt (01:35.318) Yeah, currently still just Arizona. My OG state over here. Kiera Dent (01:52.462) me to either be an assistant or a treatment coordinator, and Dana to go back into hygiene and just see like how it would run. if anybody's open to letting us come back into our, like put the scrubs on and just see like, shoot, we'll cover for a day for you guys. Britt (02:01.198) . Britt (02:06.358) It would be like a good and wild time all at the same time because I think we're all a little bit more maybe assertive than we might have been in some of our olden days in those positions. Kiera Dent (02:14.038) Hahaha Kiera Dent (02:18.316) I agree. And this is why I want to see like what would Dental A Team do if we were all put into one office at one time. So anyway, if you're interested, email me [email protected] This isn't a passive ask. This is like, I really think it'd be so fun. We've talked about it so many times, like what would it be like? So, Hey, if you're ever interested in Dental A Team. Britt (02:23.046) Yeah. Britt (02:35.982) Usually what we do is we say if we could all only be one role, so no doubling up on roles, this is the game Kiera likes to play, who would be which role within the office is usually how this goes. yeah, not to say we don't get along, we would have a fantastic time, but you'd get a lot of ideas that they would run quick, I'll tell you that. Kiera Dent (02:45.118) I do. Kiera Dent (02:49.762) and Kiera Dent (02:55.608) Thank Kiera Dent (02:58.99) Well, and I'm like, believe it or not, I would actually not go for office manager. So I'm out on that. Shelby will probably take on office manager role, even though she's never done it, she'll do great. But it is kind of funny, Tiffany, we were talking the other day and I said, Tiff, I remember being a dental assistant and I had hours of time sitting there like root canals, crown preps, where I just thought of all these ideas and Tiff's like, I would like, I literally would hate if you actually went back to that and had that much time to think of ideas. Britt (03:08.014) Thank you. Kiera Dent (03:26.904) Fair enough. anyway, throwing it out there, Britt and I have a good time, but truly I do think it'd be fun if an office allowed us to come and just like see what would happen if all of us went back into it. You might hate it. Don't worry, doctors. You can still keep like one or two main assistants. Like we won't fully do it, but

It's time for a Dental A-Team office spotlight! Dana shares with Tiff how she's worked with a practice that started off with room for financial growth, and began adding in auxiliary procedures without losing control of the business. 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 The Dental A Team (00:01.415) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here. This is, I think, Dana and I, we get our like, alone time, our us time when we come in here to podcast. So I love, and I love that it switched to videos, however long ago that was. I remember in the beginning I was like, dang it, I can't wear my like, comfy leggings anymore, but whatever. Here we are, we gotta have our hair done, we gotta have our makeup done, it's great. But Dana, I love getting the time with you, so thank you so much for being here with me today. How are you on this beautiful Friday? in Arizona. Dana (00:31.822) doing really good. It's a little bit chillier, but I'm learning to like, you know, find some happiness in that even when I'm freezing outside of softball games. The Dental A Team (00:34.928) No! The Dental A Team (00:41.702) Yes, yes, and you're colder down there than I am up here in Phoenix. But I had a client the other day, well, actually it wasn't, was Eve, our marketing gal. I don't know if you were on that call, but she was like, I was like, it's cold, because honestly, in the mornings here in Phoenix, it's like 35 degrees. And that's cold to me, right? And she's like, you can't complain that it's cold. It's eight degrees here, whatever it was. And I was like, actually, this has been my whole week. I've been saying this to people. I decided, I chose, to live somewhere that's supposed to be warm. So when it's not warm, I get to complain. I don't complain when it's 120 outside and I'm like, I chose this. I wanted warm. So when it's freezing cold and I'm getting breeze warnings on my freaking phone, that's when I'm going to complain. Same with Florida right now. I saw it snowing recently on the beaches in Florida. anyways, thank you. That's our Arizona Girl Tangent. Dana (01:27.896) I The Dental A Team (01:38.169) We like the heat, that's why we're here. And Dana grew up in the cold. So I feel like if you're saying it's cold, it's freaking cold. Dana (01:45.9) I will say, you know, I always use the excuse that like, you know, my body acclimated to the heat. So now 32 degrees is in fact freezing for me. The Dental A Team (01:55.466) It is. It is. It is. And my son always says like the Arizona, the desert, like there's just not a lot of insulation in the desert. And so desert nights are freaking cold. They are wild and it drops so quickly. As soon as that sun gets on the other side of the mountain, it's freezing cold. So he's always like, yeah, it's the desert nights. That's fair. I appreciate it when it goes. when it drops the 30 degrees in the summer to 90 degrees at 8 p.m. I appreciate that, but the 30 degree swing in the winter, a little bit rougher. So happy Arizona girls. So I'm excited Dana today because I really wanted to client wins, client pieces. And I feel like we're always dedicated to systems and I love that. And we're dedicated to growth, which I think this conversation falls into both of them. But really, you've had some really impressive growth with a lot of your practices, all of your practices. But one in particular we were chatting about earlier this morning that I think would be a really fun conversation for a lot of our doctors because the growth that your doctor has seen within this practice and practices has been really, really fun. And I think what we chatted about earlier, you hit on a lot of different areas that I think a lot of practices are actually in. at the same time. know what you were speaking on. I had some practices there and I really want to just pick your brain on some tips and some tricks on that. So Dana, your practice, I think you mentioned a few things, right? But one of the biggest pieces I wanted to like hear from you, one, obviously like financial wins. has that grown? Because I know that was a really big space for profit. The profitability of this dentist was fairly low and you were able to help that increase, but then also this specific dentist has added in a lot of auxiliary procedures that I've seen a lot of doctors going to courses for Botox and tongue ties, lip ties, all of those different pieces and separating those out from our GP stuff, which I think also helps the profitability. The Dental A Team (04:05.878) So the way you guys have done this practice and taken those spaces, always focusing in on the profitability and the growth of the practice, but figuring out how we can create it into like quote unquote departments to increase the value and to increase that profitability is really cool. So slew of questions within that, but take us through Dan

Kiera walks listeners through easy but critical accounts receivable systems to implement in your practice so you never have to face a financial crisis again. 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 (00:00.932) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I just wanted to ask, are you struggling with cashflow because of overdue payments or you don't know how to do your AR or billing just fills out of hand? Well, great news. Healthy AR is an incredible way for you to keep your practice profitable and successful. And today we're going to dive into it and give you some really incredible systems to help you actually keep this on top so that way you don't ever feel like you're in a financial crisis again. So hooray, hooray. I'm so excited. I hope you're ready for it. I hope you're just having an incredible day today. I know talking AR is not always super fun, but honestly having a well-managed AR system, being able to track to follow up to figure out where the gaps are really can give you confidence. So I wanna give you guys three quick actionable tips to be able to take this and have a healthy AR. You guys know the Dental A Team's all about practical tactical, making your life easier, making you super successful and happy. doing it with ease, having a fun time with doctors and team members. So we are able to possibly impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So let's kick it off you guys, because honestly, AR is one of the most overlooked areas. It feels taboo. feels like we don't really know. So what are we even going to do? So like, let's just dive into this and really get it there. So number one is to set up clear payment policies and make sure that we're upfront with our patient. And if you don't have this, adding it onto your treatment plans, adding it into your practice, Don't worry, everyone has this. So it doesn't need to feel scary or daunting or my gosh, like we're changing everything on our patients. You're not, we're just being very clear upfront. And what this does is it actually makes it easier for your front office to be confident with their treatment planning, to be confident with their scheduling, because now we all know the rules of the game. We know what we're doing and we don't have to be rude about it. We don't have to be mean about it. We just need to be crystal clear so people know the rules of the game of our practice. So a couple of quick tips are. we do require payment at the time of service. I know back in time we used to not, but this is something that we do for routine procedures. And yes, we estimate and we go in, we try to maximize everything that we have within our practice by getting insurance estimates. But the reality is sometimes we aren't gonna be able to get that correct. Insurances aren't even accurate until we bill out. And so we don't crutch on that and bill out and then collect money. We collect, we estimate the best that we can. We collect at the time of service. Kiera Dent (02:18.604) and then we're able to let them know if they have a balance or if they have a credit. Hopefully we're getting close. I'd prefer credits more than I'd prefer balances. I don't like to chase money, but you choose how you want to do that. And then making sure we have really good payment options like Cherry or Sunbit or some of those other ones are really great ones. We actually have some offices that have a really beautiful spreadsheet where we have all the different payment options that we can offer. I only like offering one, two or three max of payment options. but for your practice to know all the different carriers, like I said, Cherry and Sumbit, Cherry tends to be really high right now of a great financial one, Care Credit always is the top one, but having some of those options so that way we as the practice aren't carrying the bulk of this debt, but we're able to have options for our patient can help you get that better case acceptance and also keep us out of that financial pickle. So, and then also helping our patients have a clear financial policy and I actually have a practice that worked on this and They were saying like a couple of things like they had six steps on it. And I really loved this of one is like no future scheduling until the payment, their balance is paid. And I think that really helps because then we're not just adding to the debt and we help our patients know like we've got to get this taken care of before we're able to schedule you for more treatment. Then we expect full payment on the first day or we're able to go like two payments half and half. So sometimes for crowns we'll do 50 % today, 50 % upon crown seat. Those are some great things. I don't go beyond two payments within the practice. Otherwise they go into third party financing. You also, if you are struggling with this for larger payments o

It's not difficult to enter a practice and feel whether a team is synergistic and they love each other versus if they have animosity and do not get along. Kiera gives advice for spreading love to team members and patients, and establishing a culture of appreciation beyond Valentine's Day. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01.23) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it is the season and the month of love. And honestly, Valentine's Day and February isn't just about hearts and chocolates. It's truly the perfect time to show appreciation to your team and patients if you desire. So today we're going to teach you some simple, impactful ways to spread love in your dental practice, because why not? One of my favorite quotes is to spread love like confetti. And I think in today's world and in Dental A Team's mission to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible, Why not spread love, spread kindness, spread joy to our team and our patients. So just wanted to give you guys a couple quick tips on how you're able to do that. You guys know that this is something that I'm really passionate. I'm really passionate about you loving your job, you loving your life, loving your patients, impacting your community and your team to ultimately live the most fulfilled and impactful life. Showing love and appreciation increases our morale in our practices. It increases retention and the overall practice culture where patients feel that love. crazy because when I walk into an office when consulting, you can feel if a team is synergistic and they love each other versus if they're animosity and they do not get along with one another. And so really just something for you to highlight that people can feel the energy. And so let's spread that love in a quick action packed episode for you today on the season of love. So number one, step one is show love to your team. I do believe that it comes from when we recognize and appreciate our team's hard work when we show that love to one another. That's really how we're able to highlight and enhance in some quick easy ways that I think are love appropriate within the workforce, our right personal thank you notes to each team member, maybe once a quarter, we we bust out the thank you cards and we write them. It's crazy how a little pen and paper can really make a big impact for people. You guys could also have like around Valentine's Day, maybe have a Valentine's Day themed lunch or treat where We really do maybe exchange Valentine's Day gifts with one another, like go back to the time where we wrote Valentine's for one another. And also like we've talked about in other times of creating a shout out board where you can write kind notes to each other. I've seen offices where they just have a whiteboard there where people just write a quick note of like, here you crushed it today or Sarah, you crushed it today and we just leave it. And it's almost like our wall of love. And you can even create a wall of love where we just like stamp them up there or on shout out jars. We post those up there because again, showing love to one another. Kiera Dent (02:25.7) It creates a habit, creates a pattern. creates a way for us too of how we operate. And so just again, thinking of that. And so my suggestion for you is pick one of those ideas. Are we going to do thank you notes to one another? Are we going to have a lunch of a Valentine's themed? Are we going to get those little Valentine's boxes back out? Are we going to have a shout out board for one another? What are we going to do to implement kindness and love within our practice? And then step two is now we've done it to our teams. We've taken care of ourselves. Now we're going to spread this to our patients. And so what can we do to show love to our patients? And what's crazy is when people feel loved, they're actually very bound. There's a retention piece. There's a loyalty piece because people feel that love and that genuine appreciation. And so little things for them that we can do of you can send heartfelt emails or text messages to patients. We could even have little hearts this month and write little love notes to our patients of how much we appreciate them. You could highlight one patient. that you just every day to have them be the patient of the day. We could actually create a social media post highlight, make sure it's a HIPAA and you've got consents for it. A patient appreciation and highlight the patients to like why we really love them and why they love their smile. So lots of different ways where we can show them. But I think that intentionality, there's a book called Unreasonable Hospitality. And I loved in there where they had like this whole little like craft kit is how I imagine it. I've never been there. But where they were allowed to, they really encouraged their team to create magic moments for their

Kiera talks about the power of 'state of the company' meetings, how to set them up, how to roll them out, and how to continue having them quarter after quarter. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00.802) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I just wanna ask you the question of does your team know where you're going and what you're trying to achieve as a practice? And if the answer is not absolutely 100 % yes, if you came into our practice, Kiera, and asked every person, then today this episode is for you. And it's something beautiful that we've just recently learned that I'm so excited to share with you to make your life easier, to get your team aligned, to get them all rolling in the same direction. and I just tested it on my team and we're testing it with offices and the feedback has been outstanding of better team buy-in, more clarity and easier ability to row in the same direction. Dental A Team is here for you. We love to support you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And I'm so honored that you're here as part of our podcast family. All of our consultants, we work with you virtually or one-on-one, in person. or on the screen, we make sure that you are thriving and that you are living your best self. It can be hard, it can be lonely, but it doesn't have to be. And that's what Dental A Team was created. And that's why we created the podcast was to give you tactical tips to make sure that your world is easier, more efficient, and that you're able to feel not alone, but supported in the world of dentistry. All right, so today we're gonna rock this out. This is something from Traction. You know that I'm a huge fan of Gina Wickman and I'm gonna break down three simple steps of the state of the company. The state of the company is something to do after your quarterly meetings. So you go as a leadership team, you meet, you have a quarterly meeting. We do this with our clients. We work with this within our mastermind group. It's so fun. And I'm so excited to help people really deep dive on the businesses. I've done a lot of research over the years to make sure that I'm able to deliver the best of the best to you. So we meet with our leadership team. We work on our action items. We're able to figure out what's the focus. What are our annual goals? What are our quarterly goals that we need to do? And the leadership team gets crystal crystal clear. We're able to have the uncomfortable conversations, solve the issues. That step one is you've got to have your annual meetings to make sure that you are then focused on where are we going? And then also breaking it down into our quarterly meetings. So step one of the state of the company, getting your whole team rowing in the correct vision is number one, leadership team needs to meet annually and quarterly to set the vision, to set the focus, to say where they're going. Kiera Dent (02:13.454) I love it to be leadership teams because I feel like that's where we can really get to the nitty gritty, the juicy. I have an office and they're truly remarkable and I absolutely love them. And what's really fun is the leadership teams able to come hash it out. What does hygiene want? What did dental assistants want? What does front office need? What did the doctors need? What does the practice need from all those different perspectives? And it's been amazing to watch them go from a $3.5 million practice up to a $6 million practice in one year. by simply getting their leadership team aligned and then rolling this out to their departments. So step one is leadership team needs alignment annually and quarterly. Step two is now you prepare for what the team needs to hear and this is called the state of the company. The state of the company feels like I should have a top hat on and that I should be Abe Lincoln and it felt really funny to me. But really what it is is it's a snapshot of where is the company at? What has happened? Where are we at and where are we going? And it was crazy because as I was doing it, it's a one hour meeting with your team. but you need to prepare for this. So that step two is prepare for the state of the company meeting. And on that, what we do is, like I said, where have we been, where are we going, and what do we need to do to change? What are updates on the company? Where are our goals? What were the quarterly rocks that we just set in traction terms that we then are going to be able to take to our team and deliver in a clear, concise manner? This is usually done by your office manager. Office managers prepare it, they put it together. Doctors, you're going to be the one who presents it or whomever the lead of the team is ultimately. So for me and my company, I'm the one who gets to deliver the state of the company. So step one, leadership team needs to work together. They need to cre

Tiff and Dana share common pitfalls that scale back your practice's production — and what to do to address them. Included solutions are Dental A-Team's scorecard and a fixed cost spreadsheet, which you can reach out to the DAT for help on: [email protected]. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01.967) Hello, Dental A Team podcast listeners. I am so excited to be here with you today. This is Tiffanie. I never introduced myself, which is weird. Hopefully there's like some sort of intro that goes to that. just thought of that. Anyhow, here we are. Another day, another podcast. And first and foremost, I want to thank all of you guys who listen. I know we get a lot of practice assessment. schedules from people who listen to our podcasts. That's how you guys are finding us. And it just means a lot to us that you're here, that you're with us, that you're supporting us. We want to support you and we are doing forever. As far as I can tell, we're doing new free practice assessments for practices all over, all over the country, all over the world. Sometimes we get Canadian practices and it's super cool. I know we've worked with practices all the way in New Zealand and it's just really cool. And these complimentary practice assessment tools. are fantastic because we really are helping you deep dive and figure out where your focus should be or could be to get you to the results that you're looking to gain, whether you're gonna work with us one-on-one in a group fashion or just continue being a listener no matter what. We love doing these complimentary practice assessments with you guys. And it's just really fun. It's so cool to see where dentistry is at and where you guys are at. wins and the struggles you guys are having and it's just, it's super awesome. So thank you to everybody who's here with us today. We are excited to take you on this journey with us and doctors and practice owners, leaders, whoever's here today. I really wanted to chat here. I've got my girl Dana with me and I wanted to chat about projections, scheduling, reaching goals. I think that's a huge focus. for everyone always needs to reach goals, right? But I think in 2025 so far, Dana, like we need to heavily focus on this because 2024, there was a lot that happened in 2024. It was a weird, it was a wild year, right? Like was so weird. It felt like, okay, we're getting momentum with everyone. And then it was like two steps forward, one step back, five steps forward, three steps back. And it was like, gosh, we're getting momentum. But it was an uphill battle in 2024. I don't know what happened, but holy cow, this year feels cleaner already. It feels different. Dana (01:57.805) wild. The Dental A Team (02:17.795) And I think everyone's kind of shifted their focus to the areas to be able to see what's the most important. So I'm excited to chat with you about that today, Dana, and I hope our listeners are excited for this one. I wanted to just have a conversation around what impacts production from a schedule standpoint, not technical scheduling, right? Not our blog scheduling. We've done a million freaking podcasts on that. Dana and I are not doing that today. Dana (02:45.276) No? The Dental A Team (02:47.601) But really those other pieces that impact it and how doctors can and practice owners can look at these factors and project. It's still early enough in the year that if you haven't done this yet, get on it. It's totally fine and look for those pieces. So I wanted to pick your brain a little bit Dana and I think let's take it in the space of let's talk about the things that can impact and then let's talk about how we can. project that and fix it and work it into our goals. So what are the spaces Dana that you have, your clients, and I think we likely do this the same, but what spaces and what do you have your clients look for when they are getting prepped for that next year? We're into the year and we're trying to figure out what's going on, what things impact production goals from a scheduling standpoint like that that you guys are taking a look at. Dana (03:37.388) Yeah, I love this topic because I do think when we think about production and impacts on production, we go right to scheduling, we go right to those pieces. And so I love that today is a little bit different. And I think that sometimes we just forget that like taking a vacation is going to impact production, having holidays in there, holidays will sometimes fall on work days and sometimes not. you know, yearly, they're different. so looking at how many holidays do we have in there looking at, if we're going to take CE, how much of that is time away from the office, team meetings and quarterly meetings and admin time, knowing all of those things, right? All of those things impact your production because then that isn't necessarily time spent taking care of patients. It's defin

Kiera is joined by Mike and Stephanie Walton of Walton Family Dentistry in Bardstown, Kentucky. For the past almost year, the Waltons have not had a hygienist in their office. They talk with Kiera about why they were struggling to keep one staffed, what led them to stop having one in the first place, and how they efficiently and profitably operate to this day without a hygienist. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:05.844) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and today is such a special episode. I am so excited. I am being joined by our incredible clients. I've got Mike and Stephanie Walton. They are running such an incredible practice. They are doing something so different, so unique, and I just wanted them to come on and share just about themselves. I think they're just a great example for so many offices out there. So Stephanie and Mike, welcome to the show. How are you today? Mike Walton (00:30.602) Doing great, doing great. Thanks for having us on. Stephanie (00:33.948) Thank you so much. Kiera Dent (00:35.114) Yes, absolutely. And I'll do better. I'll ask like Mike this, Stephanie that, because I know when there's three of us on here, can get a little funny, I'll just have Mike, I'll have you kind of kick this off. You two are incredible. I finally met you for the first time. We've worked together for so long. Tiffanie's your main consultant, but it was really dreamy when I got to meet you in June at the Dennis Money Show with Dennis Advisors. Stephanie (00:39.209) . Kiera Dent (00:59.07) So super fun, I'm excited to see you guys in person really soon too, but Mike, I'll have you just kick us off, kind of tell us a little bit about your practice, where you guys are at, kind of the dynamics of what you guys do in your practice. So the audience gets to know Mike and Stephanie Walton's office. Mike Walton (01:11.809) Great. So we are central Kentucky, little south of Louisville. So we're in a town called Bardstown. That's the bourbon capital of the world and the most beautiful small town award that we've received as well. Stephanie (01:27.244) In America. Kiera Dent (01:28.69) I agree. And you also bring the best candies and treats with you. Like they loaded us up when they came and met us. Bourbon Central, it was amazing. It was great. I was so like, it was so, the Carmel Stephanie, top notch, incredible. That was my favorite. So thank you. Mike Walton (01:43.318) Well, and Kara, have to say, you know, when I first saw you there, you know, of course we've seen each other on the think tank and, I saw you across the room and I was like, Hey, there's Kara. And I was like, she probably don't know who I am. We've never met before officially. Stephanie (01:44.759) You're welcome. Majestics. Kiera Dent (01:46.961) Exactly. Kiera Dent (02:01.086) I did it. Well, cause you know, you guys can see Mike, like there's video of him, Mike always, so we have, meant in think tank, which is our doctor mastermind every the first Tuesday of every month that we have. And Mike always wears his Yankees hat. Always. He always has a hat on. So even tonight I'm like, Mike, what are you doing? I'm not even going to recognize you. And you're right. I was like, where's your Yankees hat? That's fair. All right. So you guys are in Kentucky. Mike Walton (02:19.4) I'm saving it for next season. Kiera Dent (02:27.103) Tell us kind of the dynamics of your practice. How long have you been practicing? What does this practice look like? Mike Walton (02:30.026) So I've been practicing, it'll be 22 years in June. Started out in partnerships and then went out on my own about six years ago. So we are a small office where you are about five operatories. It's one doctor. And then right now it's four assistants, two front desk and then office manager. Stephanie (02:35.246) you Kiera Dent (02:56.552) And did you hear there's no hygienist, which is what we're going to lead into of how Mike went from a hygiene practice where he had hygienist to the shortage. was crunch time. Like he couldn't figure out how to, like it was so hard to hire. And so that's what I'm super excited to talk about. There was literally four assistants, no hygienist. Stephanie, tell us about your place. How are you in the practice? How did you get involved? I mean, you must really love Mike to be working there. You're even like scrubbed up over there, girl. It's not like you just shop. Tell us kind of how you. Stephanie (03:07.129) you So I could tell that he was kind of unhappy at the last place and I was like, you know, it doesn't have to be that way. And so we started doing some research about how to open an office because they don't tell you a lot of business in dental school. And I had my own career and we had three little kids, but I wanted him to be happy. And we found ideal practices and they helped us open the office up and it was well worth the money. And so that

Artificial intelligence is steadily growing as a presence in our personal and professional lives. In this episode, Tiff and Dana talk about how AI can be used effectively in practices, game-changing technology in recent years, and the never-out-of-style human interaction among it all. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:01.681) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited. We are second month of a new year, and that means you should be tracking your goals. If you're a Dental A Team client, you have this amazing new scorecard that we've introduced that my personal clients have freaking loved. And being able to see where those goals are so quickly in the month and being able to track along and see what we need to do to pivot or change or continue growth has been really cool. So welcome to new month, new year. knew you. Dana, thank you so much for being here with me. I know you have a ton of clients that have been onboarded with that scorecard and doing super well as well. How is this new year treating you? This 2025, how's it going, Dana? Dana (00:46.03) Oh, it's going pretty well. Happy New Year to you and everyone listening. Yeah, I'm super excited about the scorecard. Clients seem to really like it and I think it'll just be a game changer for 2025 to keep everybody just intentional and focused on the things to move forward. So I'm really looking forward to 2025. The Dental A Team (01:04.136) Yeah, me too. Me too. I have a client that I talked to actually this morning that was like, well, we needed to make some adjustments to the scorecard to fit their practice, which is why we say that we're customizable because anything that we do, it's got to be custom fit to that practice. So we had made some adjustments in there and then. I was like, you know, you guys, know that you're tracking everything. Like this office manager is meticulously tracking everything in the practice. So I said, this is like an overview. Like my meticulous tracker is like an overview for you guys. So make it your own. Let's figure it out. But I told her there's so many practices out there that don't know what to track or how to track it or how to see the trends within the numbers. And her mind was just blown. She's the wife, they've owned the dental practice for years and years and years and years. They've been in dentistry forever. So she's learned all of that along the way, but she was just mind blown at how some people just don't know. And I didn't know when I first started managing, I was like, what do all these numbers mean? And we all have to learn somewhere. So it's just been really cool to watch everyone continue that growth in the new year and really, like you said, track along with those goals and see. what can be done to manipulate and change the results to create something magical. Whatever it is that you want, can change those tracking metrics and change those results to create something really cool. Within that conversation, I'm excited about today, because today, Dana, we just prepped for this. And I think your track that you're thinking for this conversation today is so beautiful. We talk a lot about new dental tech is what I'll air quote it as. kind of like new things on the scene. And it's really easy to talk about scanners and lasers and all of those CBCTs and all the different things in the practice that we can implement kind of in the clinical aspect. I really love what you are talking about now with all the other pieces. There's so much AI coming into play. And that's what you had mentioned Dana. And I really want to chat about that because it's so cool. The Dental A Team (03:06.342) I know I chat GPT, especially on my personal side. like, I create and think of so much stuff, you know, for Dental A Team, I'm sure you do the same, you create so much for us and our content. I know on my personal side, I'm like, Ben, chat GPT, tell me what to do. that, like, AI has really come into play strong, I would say in the last year. And this year, even a month and a half or whatever into the year feels like Like it's a do or die. Like you're using AI. There's just no two ways about it. So how have you seen in your practices currently, the AI bots come into play and all those pieces aside from chat GPT that can help with the patient response. But how have you seen those AI tools really be being implemented? And then I want to think about how do we see like the future, what that's going to look like as well. Dana (03:58.528) Yeah, I think it's actually pretty incredible some of the new like dental AI stuff that's coming out essentially now you can use AI to be almost like a receptionist or a part of especially your front office team. Lots of dental tech companies coming out with They can, you know, the chat bot or the AI bot can take care of missed calls or after hours calls. So now patients can have communication with you