Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap through Practice Ownership

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Dental Practice Management Rules on How to Handle Cancellations and No Shows Sep 01, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of shared practices, hosts Richard and Caitlin dive into the critical world of dental practice management to help listeners navigate dental practice ownership by tackling the persistent operational pain point of patient cancellations.

Caitlin shares her proven dental business strategies for minimizing schedule holes, detailing a framework that leverages a $50 hourly broken appointment fee for no-shows or requiring upfront prepayments for large production cases to ensure patients have skin in the game.

The hosts engage in a strategic debate regarding whether strict financial penalties risk damaging patient goodwill and triggering negative reviews, or if failing to implement firm boundaries under modern dental practice management ultimately leaves the practice owner to suffer.

To optimize your dental practice management protocols and retrain your patient base to respect provider time, this is a must-listen for clinicians managing an associate to owner transition or vetting acquisitions in dentistry.

In this episode:
- Emphasizing the mindset that last-minute schedule changes are completely abnormal.
- Scripting strategies to confront cancellations and uncover the patient's true objection.
- The operational debate surrounding a $50 hourly broken appointment fee versus preserving patient goodwill.
- Requiring upfront case deposits and prepayments to protect high-production blocks.
- Transitioning chronic offenders to a short-call or same-day scheduling list via a three-strike rule.

Whether navigating an associate to owner transition or vetting acquisitions in dentistry, this is your survival guide. Ready to scale your dental practice ownership?

Visit https://sharedpractices.com/ for our "Free Look" service and follow our social channels for roadmap updates. Join the community and turn your clinical skills into a thriving business.

From Overhead to Opportunity: Virtual Teams Boost Dental Practice Profitability for Dentists Aug 25, 2025

Show notes

For a future dental practice owner, the reality of shrinking margins is harsh. With insurance fees stagnant and labor costs skyrocketing, achieving dental practice profitability is incredibly difficult. Richard Low and Cory Pinegar, founder of Reach, explain how an international virtual workforce is the ultimate survival guide. Moving from a stressed clinician to an empowered CEO requires delegation. Elite dental practice management dictates that you can no longer overpay for routine administration.

If your front desk is buried, your dental practice profitability bleeds. Cory reveals shocking data: the average office misses 32% of inbound calls and abandons $2.4 million in unscheduled treatment. To execute scalable dental business strategies, systematically outsource these bottlenecks:

-Insurance Verification: End hours spent on hold.
-Revenue Cycle Management: Delegate claims and billing.
-Call Capture: Use bilingual virtual assistants to secure leads.

Using these dental growth strategies instantly slashes overhead. Replacing a U.S. administrative package with a HIPAA-compliant virtual team member saves $24,000 annually. In financial management for dentists, adding $24k to your bottom line at a 5x multiple raises your practice value by $125,000 overnight. Guarantee sustainable dental practice growth and maximize your dental practice profitability by engineering a highly efficient operation.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Ask George - Practice Management vs True CEO Dental Practice Ownership Strategies Aug 18, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri and Richard Low redefine what it actually means to master dental practice ownership. Many dentists get trapped acting as the lead clinician and the daily manager, constantly playing whack-a-mole with operational fires. However, mastering true dental practice ownership requires stepping completely out of the "Technician" and "Manager" roles to become the visionary CEO. This episode provides a survival guide for the future dental practice owner, showing you exactly how to make the critical leap from clinician to executive.

You cannot achieve sustainable dental practice growth if you are bogged down by routine dental practice management. George explains that a CEO’s primary job is not fixing the day-to-day issues, but effectively allocating three limited resources: time, money, and focus. This means evaluating your metrics to identify the true bottlenecks in your operation. For example, if you are planning an associate to owner transition, your focus must be relentlessly locked on increasing patient flow rather than getting distracted by case acceptance seminars. Elite dental business strategies require the discipline to know exactly what to say "no" to.

We also explore the compounding power of micro-interactions. If you want a team-led office, you must stop answering every question your staff brings you and start redirecting them to your Office Manager. Every time you step in to solve a problem that belongs to your manager, you erode your own dental practice ownership and stall your progress. By utilizing frameworks like Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap, you can align your daily decisions with a long-term vision that serves your life, not just your schedule. Learn how to stop managing and start leading.

Old Hygiene Tactics vs Modern Dental Growth Strategies for the Ambitious Dentist Aug 11, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Richard Low and Alex Sharp tackle a critical question facing every ambitious dentist today: is hygiene-led growth dead? With rising labor costs and shifting insurance economics, many practice owners are reevaluating their dental growth strategies. Is a bustling hygiene department still the key to dental practice profitability, or is it just an expensive headache? The hosts break down why abandoning this model is a massive mistake and reveal why hygiene remains the undisputed flywheel for sustainable dental practice growth.

For a future owner navigating the associate to owner transition, hygiene isn't just about cleanings—it is about delegation, retention, and high-leverage case acceptance. To master dental practice management, you must stop treating hygienists as mere teeth cleaners. They must be developed and calibrated like an associate dentist.

Here is your survival guide to mastering modern hygiene economics:

-Calculate True Break-Even: Measure acquisition costs against the direct and doctor production generated from that chair.
-Empower Co-Diagnosis: Train hygienists to educate patients before you enter the room, boosting case acceptance.
-Implement Clinical Calibration: Host meetings using bite-wings to align the team's diagnostic philosophy.
-Proactive Recruiting: Move beyond job boards to strategies like "lunch and learns" to fuel your dental growth strategies.

By empowering your hygiene team, you protect your time and elevate patient care. Treating hygiene as a strategic pillar is still the most predictable of all dental growth strategies.

Empty Schedules vs Elite Dental Practice Management for the Ambitious Dentist | Alejandro Pt. 2 Aug 04, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of Practice Underwater, Dr. George Hariri consults with Dr. "Alejandro," a solo dentist who has navigated dental practice ownership in the Midwest for over 20 years. Four years ago, Alejandro made the leap to drop Delta Dental and transition to a fully fee-for-service model. While this shift elevated his clinical freedom and defined his dental practice ownership style, it brought new challenges to his dental practice management, including patient attrition and staffing shortages.

For any ambitious dentist evaluating their own dental business strategies, Alejandro’s journey offers a transparent look at the realities of fee-for-service dentistry. With $1.13 million in collections and an active patient base of 875, Alejandro has successfully established himself as a productive solo doctor. However, to reach his stretch goal of $1.5 to $1.6 million, he must evolve his dental practice ownership systems to address his primary bottleneck: keeping the restorative schedule full without compromising his "one patient at a time" philosophy.

Here is your survival guide to optimizing a productive solo practice:

- Navigate Network Drops: Understand the hurdles of requiring patients to prepay for services when going out-of-network.
- Expand Hygiene Capacity: Recognize how relying on a single full-time hygienist mathematically limits your restorative growth.
- Define Your Clinical Box: Maximize dental practice profitability by focusing heavily on the specific procedures you actually enjoy, such as crown and bridge or night guards.
- Clarify Your Vision: Avoid the pressure to build a mega-group if your true passion is performing high-quality restorative dentistry four days a week.

Fee For Service vs PPO: Dental Practice Ownership and Profitability | Alejandro Part 1 Jul 28, 2025

Show notes

Here is your survival guide to optimizing a productive solo practice:

Ask George: Why Team Led Dental Practice Management Boosts Dental Practice Profitability Jul 21, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, George Hariri and Richard Low explore the transition from "muscling" your practice to achieving true team-led success. If you are a burnt-out clinician, your dental practice management strategy needs an immediate overhaul. Stop stepping in to solve every operational problem and start building the infrastructure necessary to empower your staff.

To achieve sustainable dental practice growth, George and Richard introduce the "Crawl, Walk, Run" framework for developing leaders within your office:

Crawl (Clarity): Provide ultra-clarity with detailed checklists, scorecards, and clearly defined roles so your team knows exactly what "good" looks like.
Walk (Delegation): Install a strong Office Manager to enforce accountability and handle recurring day-to-day operations so the dentist does not have to.
Run (Self-Managing): Evolve into a self-managing team capable of downstream decision-making, including hiring, training, and onboarding new staff without the owner's input.

They also discuss why you should only promise career growth based on the "adjacent possible" six months out, rather than making unkeepable long-term promises. Finally, they explain why losing a toxic team member—while temporarily disruptive—almost always leads to better dental business strategies and a stronger culture on the other side. Master these steps to truly level up your dental practice ownership.

Ask George: Financial Management for Dentists and Sustainable Dental Practice Growth Jul 14, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri and Richard Low tackle a dangerous mindset trapping the modern dentist: treating your practice like a stressful job you must escape. True financial management for dentists dictates that your clinic is the ultimate wealth-building asset, not just a stepping stone to fund outside investments. When you rush to sell to a DSO or divert focus to side hustles, you abandon your highest ROI vehicle. We reveal why making the transition from an exhausted clinician to an empowered CEO is the only true path to financial freedom.

If your ultimate goal is sustainable dental practice growth, you must stop sprinting toward burnout. The hosts break down the math behind smart financial management for dentists: a well-run $2.5 million clinic can easily yield over $300,000 in passive cash flow annually. Compare that to the massive effort required to manage 80 rental properties for the exact same return! By implementing elite dental business strategies, you can step back from the chair, practice only one or two days a week doing the dentistry you love, and let your trained team handle the rest.

Here is your survival guide to mastering dental practice ownership and long-term wealth:

- Retain Your Primary Asset: Cashing out today loses decades of compounding cash flow and predictable dental practice profitability.
- Build a Self-Managing Team: Delegate the daily, recurring operations to a strong office manager so you do not have to manage.
- Reinvest Internally: Use coaching, advanced marketing, and scalable systems to consistently break through your clinical bottlenecks.
- Master Your Cash Flow: Implement quarterly profit distributions to optimize your financial management for dentists.

From Dental School to CEO: The Best Guide on How to Buy a Dental Practice Jul 07, 2025

Show notes

Are you wondering how to buy a dental practice out of school? Richard Low and Dr. Andrew Clingan share the reality of early dental practice ownership via Shared Practices. Mastering dental practice management provided Andrew a safety net while his clinical speed developed.

Learning how to buy a dental practice requires looking past shiny equipment. Acquisitions in dentistry hide challenges like deferred maintenance and paper charts.

Execute these dental business strategies:

- Off-Market Deals: Source clinics via networking, mailers, and supply reps.
- Use Representation: Negotiate with sellers logically using data.
- Hidden Costs: Budget for structural upgrades and technology.

Knowing how to buy a dental practice correctly helps skip burnout and build equity.

Ask George - Ready to Grow Practice: Smart Dental Practice Acquisitions Jun 30, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri and Richard Low redefine the approach to dental practice acquisitions for the modern dentist. Instead of buying a maxed-out, highly polished clinic, the key to sustainable dental practice growth lies in finding a "ready to grow" practice. Buying an under-optimized office with a massive overdue recare base allows you to rapidly increase dental practice profitability through strategic hygiene expansion.

If you want to waltz into ownership with confidence, you must evaluate clinics differently than a bank does. Here is your blueprint for navigating dental practice acquisitions:

Avoid the "Ready to Shrink" Trap: Steer clear of practices heavily dependent on complex procedures and aggressive treatment planning that you cannot replicate.
Identify the Vision Avatar: Determine if you want a productive solo practice or a profitable group, and buy an office exactly one stage behind that goal.
Reactivate the Backdoor: Use the overdue recare list to immediately fill a new hygiene column, securing a massive post-acquisition revenue bump.
Lower Your Debt Burden: Purchasing a smaller clinic means a lower bank loan, resulting in significantly higher monthly cash flow as you grow the business.

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