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Dental A Team Podcast
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This podcast is here to give dentists and all dental office team members, in EVERY position, TACTICAL and PRACTICAL TIPS to:
- Be more efficient
- Have more fun
- Improve doctor and team communications
- Eliminate frustration
- And make your life easier!
Jump in! We are thrilled you have decided to LEVEL UP and be part of the DENTAL A TEAM!
New episodes every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
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Stop Avoiding Talking About Compliance
Aug 5, 202500:24:20Tap to summarizeTiff and Kristy take a look at patient privacy and the regulatory compliance associated with that privacy, including HIPAA and OSHA. They touch on their own experiences with compliance, how to better educate your practice, what not to do, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I have Kristy on crew with me. We have a slew of podcasts we're recording and just some really, really exciting information. We're gonna make it as exciting as we can, at least, that we wanna get out to you. We are more than halfway through the year, which is pretty massive. And so we're gonna be talking about... a ton about how to end the year, things and pieces to look forward to, things you should be doing now to wrap up for the end of the year, and realistically things to look forward to for the upcoming year, which at this point of recording is 2026. So no matter what year you're listening to us, a lot of this should still be incredibly valuable. Kristy, I am so excited you're here with me today. Thank you so much for clearing your schedule, being here. being open to this and just always coming with some really invaluable information for our listeners. How are you today, Kristy? DAT Kristy (01:00) It's a good summer day and a good day to be with you as well. So happy to do it. The Dental A Team (01:04) Thank you, thank you. And for those of you who may not know, Kristy, Kristy lived in Arizona a long time ago. she originally, like her formative years were here, but then she left Arizona for quite a little while and she's recently relocated back to the desert. And she decided to come right at the beginning of summer, which I used to tell people like, don't move here in the summer, like come in different months. But then I started realizing, I'm like, well, if you move here in the summer, you get the worst of the worst. And then the rest of the year is like icing on top of the cake. So Kristy, I actually think you did it in the right direction. And I keep telling you, I think you brought some awesome weather with you this year because we have not broken record heat this year for like the first time ever. Honestly, we keep breaking records every year and I'm like, these are records we don't need to break. And this year, I think the record has been that it's been so nice. Like it truly, truly has been really light summer. So Kristy, thanks for bringing your weather with you and giving us a little reprieve here in Arizona. So I told you we're going to make these as fun as we possibly can. You guys, we always aim for that fun is actually one of our core values. So it's something we work really, really hard for. I say that today because I really wanted to talk to you guys about some regulatory compliances, which just even in those words sounds like womp womp, right? Like we're just, how do you make that exciting? Well, with the Dental A Team, Dental A Team can make anything exciting. We can have fun with whatever we want in everything. We truly believe that if we're not having fun, why are we even doing it? So it doesn't mean that things aren't hard, things aren't difficult, that you won't have to push through hard things. It just means that there should be fun on the other side. and it shouldn't be, you know, tears of pain the whole way through. So here we are, regulatory compliance. You guys know that this is actually really important in the dental industry. You guys have all heard of OSHA. So we'll dive into a little bit on the OSHA, but you guys have also heard of HIPAA. And I have to say, and Kristy, you can tell me what your thoughts are as well, I have to say that when I was in practice, like physically working in an office, we never talked about HIPAA. We talked about OSHA constantly, like OSHA is going to come in and you've got to have everything six inches from the ceiling and off these certain walls. And you've got to have so many fire extinguishers and the fire escape plans and like all of these, you know, barriers and masks and gloves and don't wear gloves outside the door. All of these pieces for OSHA safety compliance, but I never heard about HIPAA. I knew as a front office team member that patients had to sign the HIPAA forms and that they had to update them every so often, but I didn't actually know what it was. And when patients would ask me like, oh, what am I signing? I'm like, ah, it just says we're not going to give away your information. Right. And I'm like, I don't know if that's what it says or not, but like, that's what I heard someone say. And so I'm just repeating it. Right. So Kristy, I don't know if you had a different experience in office, but I really truly felt like until I had to train people on it until I had to be like, no, you have to do HIPAA in the office. And until as a company, we had to start taking our own HIPAA courses every year. I had no idea exactly what it meant for a dental office. And Kristy, you may have had a different experience, but tell me what was your experience when it came to HIPAA in your dental practices that you've worked in? DAT Kristy (04:36) Yeah, my experience was actually you made me laugh. It was very similar to yours. I think it was what around 2013 that those forms came out and it was pretty funny because when it first started even patients were funny about it. Like I remember this big long form and you'd hand it to patients and say the same thing. ⁓ it just means we're not going to sell your information or give it to anybody and patients would start reading it and they're crossing things out. And then I'm asking my doctor like how The Dental A Team (04:50) Yeah. Yeah. DAT Kristy (05:06) can they just rewrite it?" And he's like, it doesn't matter. It is what it is. It's just a form. And yeah, so really I started the same place you did. And then later years, ⁓ we ended up doing more formal training on HIPAA. But yeah, started in the same place. The Dental A Team (05:23) Yeah, I remember those sheets. They were like longer than it was. It was like a car contract. where was like you had to fold it a certain way, like they were longer than the rest of the sheets and my patients did the same thing. They're like, well, I don't really agree with this. Like, and they just cross it off and then initial it. And I'm like, all right, like whatever, I just need to scan it into your document center. Like that's all I've got here, right? And if it's like in the paper folder, I had to like fold it so that it would fit. yeah, it was around 2013 and it was like so odd. And then every year they had updates to it. And I was like, I don't know what any of this means, except I did know at the bottom. them it said, if we were to release your information, who would you want it release...
Transcribe →What Elite Dentists Are Doing That You’re Not
Jul 31, 202500:21:06Tap to summarizeKiera takes listeners behind the scenes of Dental A-Team, sharing what exactly happens in Doctor Mastermind conversations. This includes unfiltered Kiera and consultants sharing top-level expertise, elite doctors sharing secrets of the trade, wealth diversification conversations, and so much 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 I hope today's just a great day. I really do hope that you're thriving and not just surviving right now. I hope that you're fulfilled and you're not just living there, going along and really disliking your life because I believe we get one life. So let's make it the most fun that we possibly can. You guys today, I wanna take you behind the scenes of Dental A Team. Like let's take you behind the curtain and just kinda let you see what goes on behind the scenes. There's some really awesome things that Dental A Team is doing and I feel like it's really fun to just know like, okay, what does consulting look like behind the scenes? What things do you have in place? And I wanted you to see like what happens behind the scenes. We have Dr. Masterminds, ⁓ what happens in there, what happens with your team meetings? What does it look like? And so if you've ever been curious of what's behind the scenes in consulting, well, welcome. I wanted to take you behind the scenes. So just so you know, Dental A Team was created to help doctors and practice owners ⁓ not just survive, but thrive. to help teams not just survive but thrive, to be able to say yes to more things in your life by being focused on what you as a person want to achieve, improving your leadership, improving your life and like truly your personal life, making sure your business is working for you and not the other way around. We also do it on profitability, making sure you're profitable, that the cash flow is there, that it's predictable, that you understand where your numbers are at and then having systems and team development. We call that the yes model so you can say yes to more in your life. So you, earnings, system and team development. And that's really what our. the whole thing about consulting is. So what we do is we literally take you and we have an introductory call and we look to see what your practice is like, where your gaps are, and basically build a game plan with you of what is this gonna look like over the next 12 months together. And we decide, hey, where are you at? you a practice where we're gonna fly into your practice? Is this a practice where we're going to just do virtual calls with you? What's going to be the best option? And I will say our most popular and what most people want is someone to fly to the practice. ⁓ And so behind the scenes, what happens from there is once we decide what... what type of consulting is going to be best for you and your practice. From there, then you get paired with a consultant. You're like, how do you know the consultants? I'm like, well, my background needs to be marriage and family therapy. Like literally, I'm really good at reading people and 90 % of the time we get a perfect match. And what we're looking for is your practice needs the consultant skills and what they've done because all of our consultants have a clinical and front office experience and they've all had to grow multiple practices. So some come from DSO. All of them have had to come from private practice. They literally have been there, done that, done it successfully. And we're looking for personality types. Are you going to jive? Some consultants are very high energy and some are a little more lower energy, more calm. ⁓ What's going to pair well with your team? What's going to be like, I remember there was one office and they said, Kiera, my team. There I was like, wow, Kiera comes in with a lot of energy. We get. along better with no BS Brit, which is true. Brit doesn't come in looking like she's a hummingbird on Monster. She walks in a calm, cool, collected. She's chill. Some offices need a hummingbird on Monster. Others need a Brit who's more calm, cool, collected. So we're looking at experience, personality fit, and then also what's going to truly drive and get the results you're looking for. So that's really how we match you with your consultant. Then after that, your consultant, you and them, get on calls. We get on calls every other week. So we're really working with you to make sure that there's accountability, but it's not too often and you're not depending on us, but you have time to actually make some headway in between those. So it's set calls. So you always know perfect. I've got my set calls. They're also really good accountability check-ins. So I have a personal trainer and we used to do only virtual and I had a call with her all the time and I actually did better on my workouts than I do when I see her in person because I knew we had a set call and I had to show up with my results because she was going to ask me about them. And that's actually why we have these set calls. So you always follow through on the accountability because we're really big on making sure that what we commit to, what we put into place, we're truly driving results forward. You do not need to be perfect. We just need to make sure that we're getting the results we want. We're tracking our numbers. We're looking at the P &Ls. We're looking at your KPIs. We're looking at your team. And we're also talking about the issues and the growth of where you want to go in your practice. So we've got those two calls. And then in between those two calls, you literally get to texts, calls, emails, whatever you need. At any time you have a consultant in your pocket, any moment. So whatever comes up, because business does not happen on set cadences. at the most random times. So you always have a consultant at your fingertips. And then I think the part that I really wanted to show you behind the scenes is every single month we have a doctor mastermind. It's the first Tuesday of the month and we call it think tank Tuesday. And this is where I ⁓ tell all of our doctors, this is where you're basically hanging out in Kiera's living room, virtually. Right? Like I want you to just like let your hair down. I don't care if you're making dinner. I don't care if your kids are there. I want you as a human. I don't care if you're driving home. I don't care if you're at the swim meet. We have doctors. all over the place because this is your real life. And I want you to just pretend like we're hanging out in a living room, let your hair down. There are no team members allowed at these think tanks because I want doctors to fill a safe space where they can talk about it they can talk about with other doctors of what's going on. What do they suggest? On here we have guest speakers that come in. We also, a lot of times this is my mastermind. This is my billion dollar club group where I just want to hang out and I want to talk about things that aren't talked about all the time. So for example, last month we went through and we did one on a P &L deep dive. And these are things that I do not share on the podcast. These are things that are not shared publicly. These are things that I reserved specifically. So it's the 10 % that's reserved for onl...
Transcribe →Dentistry Innovations You Need To Be Aware Of
Jul 30, 202500:23:51Tap to summarizeTiff and Dana discuss how dental practices are being innovative in 2025, including A.I., apps, and other technologies that will streamline the busy work and help teams focus on being human. 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. Dana and I are back here today. We are really excited. We just did actually a really fun podcast. think that was probably, I think Dana, I don't know. I think that was one of my favorite podcasts we probably ever recorded. I love that stuff. So Dana, thanks for being here. How are you today? Dana (00:22) doing good excited to get you know I always I know I say this a lot but I truly am just excited to have some time. The Dental A Team (00:29) Thank you. Thank you. I know I actually I still have it on my mind. I need to put it in my click up click up organizer. You guys shout out to that. I need to get the soft skills training on there. So I was thinking about that a lot. So you make you make my day Dana. Thank you. I appreciate that. ⁓ You guys virtual teams are weird and they were like It's just weird. But I think the weirdest part to me or the oddest part is how sincerely close I feel to everyone. Like Dana, I feel like we're best friends and we never get time together. Like the last time we had time together, truly the last time we had time together, I guess, was when we did the December, we did the shopping for the kids in December, the give back. Prior to that was like, Disneyland last, that was two years ago, right? Two years ago, I think he's time flies, time freaking flies. So, but I feel like we were just together last weekend. Like it's weird. It's a weird thing that has come really far. So on that note, anyone who's considering a virtual team member, it can work really well. I mean, we've got Josh who's in the Philippines and I feel like I know that man. Like we've hung out together. Dana (01:45) Thank The Dental A Team (01:47) That's so weird. He's in the Philippines you guys it's nighttime when he's working for us And I'm like groggy just starting my day And he's already lived an entire day and his family sleeping like wild and I feel like I know Dana (02:01) We know things about his baby girl. We know things about his wife, his band. And it's like he's not even in the country on the same time zone. It's just virtually over the computer. It's crazy. Yeah. The Dental A Team (02:12) Yeah, it is really crazy. It's insane to me how far things have come. I think it's really cool. think 2020, we're going to call it 2020, not the other word we could call it, did a lot for us in a lot of ways. There is a lot of bad, I will never just credit that, but I think it forced innovation. 2020 forced human innovation. I think it was things that were already like in the works in the background or whatever, but it just pushed it to the forefront. And the innovation that has come in the last five years has been insane to me and the amount and what we've been able to handle and what we've been able to consume as humans is wild to me and working remotely and working on a virtual team is definitely something that came out of that. I remember, I remember Karen and I when everything first started happening. We were like, shoot, okay, it is time to innovate or die, quite literally, innovate or die as a company, because things are drastically changing. Dana, we were in offices constantly, constantly. And then all of a sudden we were like, guess what? You're not allowed to leave the state. Actually, you can't even leave your house. Like don't breathe on anyone. Don't look at anyone. Like it was wild. And that was when, Dana (03:22) Yes. The Dental A Team (03:30) Kiera and I got on a call and we were like, what the heck? How do we continue to help offices? And that was when we switched and started doing so much virtual. And it really spun, like it worked really well. We had so many offices that during shutdown, we're doing a ton of training with us. We were building operations manuals and really prepping for reopening. But it also brought a space of like, holy cow, Tiff and Kiera cannot do this alone. Like it brought on so much. And I think it just like speaks to the spiral of innovation that we've had in the last five years in our company and just in the country as a whole in the world realistically. But Dana, I'm so excited. You came not too far after our 2020 whirlwind of guess what? We're going to do everything by video now. And I was like, ⁓ crikey, here we go. This is going to be fun. And you came on board with us. So thank you for being here. You have changed the game for us. And I know changed the game for so many of your clients. ⁓ And Dana continues to help us innovate constantly. It is something that she is really, really good at. is brilliant and just constantly thinking of another way, like, and then the, the, and then theory, like, yes, you can do that, but then also you could do this. I'm like, dang it. Thank you. So Dana, thank you for being here. ⁓ I don't know if you guys know this or not, a lot of our topics, we choose our topics, a lot of them, or we decide like, what are we gonna talk about today or what practice do we wanna highlight or chat about? then there are topics that are given to us that I can't really say that I don't have a lot of control on that because they're given to me at the beginning of the year, well, the end of the year for the beginning of the year. And I go through them and I'm like, yes, these are fantastic topics. These are going to be great newsletters. Doctors are going to find a ton of value in this. And then as discussed about 15 minutes ago with Dana, I need to layer on top of that. This is the and then and say, how are we going to make a podcast about this? Because we have, we have run into that today. ⁓ but I'm really actually excited. We did our research, we did our due diligence and we've chatted about this a few times and Speaking of innovations, there's been so many innovations everywhere that have helped dentistry just really take a new foothold in the scene of medical. And I think that you guys can all agree with that. Dentistry is one of the top survivors of 2020. And we're really thriving in this world. It's just never, never going away. So tons of innovations. We've talked about the tech. We talk about the tech a lot. actually did one, um, Dana, I did a podcast. not too long ago with Christy about really getting dental assistants involved in the tech and the innovations there. And that was fun. And this one kind of, guess, is dental assistants too, but we really wanted to highlight some infection control innovations and not just like look at, oh, this is so cool. And, know, I don't know, when I started in 2003, we were doing this and now we're doing this. Like, I don't want to just dive i...
Transcribe →How to Know Your Practice Is Ready for the Next Level
Jul 29, 202500:20:06Tap to summarizeGrowing your practice can be incredibly exciting, but incredibly intimidating. Kiera tells listeners how they can scale with confidence by giving specific questions to ask yourself. These include: Are your systems running smoothly? Are your teams aligned and accountable? Do you have a clear data back-growth plan? And more! 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'm super jazzed because I feel like this is such a great question that so many offices ask me of like, okay, Kiera, how do I know that my practice is ready for the next level? How do know I'm ready to add in more team members? How do I know I'm ready to add an associate? How do know if I'm ready to add another location? And I feel like so many of these things sit in our brains and we're always wondering like, how do you know? It's like, how do you know when you're ready for the next baby? but instead of like babies, which like really, how do you really know? There are certain things to know or how do you know if you're ready to get married? Well, there are certain things actually. So let's take some of that guesswork out, make this a little bit more fun and have a great time on today's podcast. I'm excited and I hope you're excited. The Dental A Team was built for doctors. It's built for team members. That's why it's called Dental A Team. It's consulting for dentists and teams. I hate as a business owner where people just teach me and I have go try and take it back to my team. but I love being taught, I love being focused and I love having high level and then I love having implementable things for my team, but from someone who's been there, done that and done that successfully. So that's what we've created. We have a space for doctors and CEOs and entrepreneurs to come and get together like-minded where we're talking high level. This is where I come into play. We have fun, we have business freaking tactics. We call it Think Tank Tuesday and we literally get all together and have a great time. And then we have our in-person mastermind where we're doing the same thing as business and life on purpose. And then we have our consultants, including myself, our consultants then work with your team. We're going to be teaching your team members how to make your vision a reality, how to scale, how to have the conversations. I say we're like little fairy godmothers for your team members, where we literally are hanging out with them to help them know the resources and the easiest path to get the results they're looking for. That's what we're obsessed about. That's what we do for offices. And I hope that we're a part of your office. And if not, I hope we're apart really, really soon. All right, you guys, let's dig into how do we scale with confidence? Because growth is super freaking exciting. Like, oh my gosh, we're growing. But back to me, when I first started, we were 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months in my first location. We bought our second location and you better believe it was fire. And fire is exciting, but it burns hot. And it got hotter and hotter and hotter. And it was because I didn't have a plan. We just were like, sweet, we're at this amount. So let's buy our second location. And it became mayhem and it became crazy. And so it's one of those things of like fires can be beautiful and we can sit there and roast s'mores. But fires can also be very, very volatile. They can destroy, they can burn fast and they can burn hot. And so this is a zone where if we have a plan, we're going to do really well. If not, we get burnout, we get turnover, we get stalled progress. We actually get sloppy. We actually could fall into really scary things. Like for us, it was full blown burnout. I was on burnout or my owner was on burnout. We were working from 2 a.m. till 10 p.m. every single day. ⁓ Our marriages were falling apart. Like everything was bad. Everything. It was not good. and we would show up to work just to feel like we were like barely, like nose barely above water, but you better believe there's water getting into that. And so this is something where I really wanted to come on today of how do you know and how can we scale with strategy? How can we scale and know that we're ready for the next level? Because if I would have known this, I would not have bought my second practice. I would have optimized my first practice. I would have put a few more things into place and then bought the second location. But you know, I was young, dumb, I was reckless. We were just like. We can do this. did the first one, but the first one wasn't like barely hanging on. We had two pending lawsuits on us. Like there were wild things going on, but yet shoot. I think that sometimes it's good to have a little bit of naive, ⁓ but I think it's more important to have a good plan and a good process. So this is the goal. It's not about adding ops and team members. It's truly about making sure our foundation's awesome, making sure that we know what we're doing, making sure we've got a good plan and then executing it. And that does not mean it needs to take a long time. You can scale very quickly, just making sure you have a few key places. And I like to tell people our goal is to get flagship practice number one solid. We stamp it out and then we just stamp it out, map it out. We have a few nuances that we change based on location and demographics, but generally speaking, it's about the same thing. ⁓ $1 million, one practices versus multi millions, multi practices, multi ops, two very different models of business. So on that, this is what we love to do today. This episode is really for owners and offices asking the question of what's next, but scaling smart. not fast and also looking at like the DSO landscape of where we headed. Do I DSO? Do I grow? I have a practice and what they were thinking about doing is they're thinking of selling out to a DSO. And I said, cool, but like, what's your plan? I'm like, I still want to keep doing dentistry. And I said, all right, let's look at the numbers. And what was wild is a DSO is going to pay this practice 5 million. And right now you might be like, dude, that's so much. Like I'd sell in a second, like one more bad day and like give me the DSO's number. calling them. But we looked at and I said, all right, let's expand out a couple more ops, which you've already been thinking about doing. And realistically in the next one to two years, like that's what the DSO is going to do. They're going to come in, they're going to expand this out. So either you can sell to them and live here and do it with them, or you can do it before that. And literally we did that. And this practice in two years is making 5 million net profit. And I think about that because it seems so tempting to sell to the DSO and how it's like, but you're giving up all of this. And if we just had a quick plan. This doctor now is working about two days a week. They have associate doctors in place. They have this beautiful building and they're looking for the next expansion piece. Beyond Happy, this is their plan. And they're literally making more than they would have with the DSO. And so just be careful, because I think sometimes DSOs can seem so sexy and alluring when we're having bad days. You better believe it. There have been days when I'm like, someone walks by and offers me a buck for Dental A Team. They get it, right? We all have those days as business owners. That's not a joke. It's real life. But I think this is where we can like, not make reactive decisions, but actually figure out how we wanna scale. And what I will always say is when we scale and what's next, I want you to always ask the question of what do I want in my life and what do I want my life to look like? Because we can scale. You can have 10 practices and say, only wanna work one day a week. That's totally allowed. It's just a different strategy. Or you can say, wanna be a clinician. I love doing the dentistry. Again, different strategy. I was on an on-call yesterday with a potent...
Transcribe →The 1% Rule for Practice Owners
Jul 24, 202500:26:19Tap to summarizeKiera and Tiff discuss chipping away at your goals and problems in small pieces, and how this can stack habits in a way that’s not completely overwhelming. This can be applied to your personal life or your practice life! 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 it's a special day. Spiffy, Tiffy and I are back together on the podcast. You know Tiff, you love Tiff, you hear her with or without me, but today's a special day. You get both of us, one podcast. Tiff, how you doing today? The Dental A Team (00:15) No, I'm so good. I just love when we podcast together, first of all, and I love that we really well. We roll with the punches well, and this morning has proven that. And this whole week has been a pivot and roll with the punches, and I'm excited for everyone to hear all of the wonderful words we have to say today. Kiera Dent (00:25) you Me too. And it is fun because it's funny when Tiffanie started the company, I feel like we talked to each other all the time. And this morning I was getting ready at 530 a.m. because I was like, sweet, I got a lot of podcasts. We're going to start at 6 a.m. today. It's going to be a great day. And I'm like, you know, I used to call Tiff during this time and we just like chat and talk shop. And now it's like, hey, let's catch up on the podcast. OK, it's like, how's life? How you doing over there? Even though we work together all the time, but. The Dental A Team (00:58) Yeah Kiera Dent (01:04) I think that that just shows the growth that we've been able to have. And it's interesting, something I will say is as you grow and evolve, make sure that you still stay connected to your key players. think Tiff and I have to now be very intentional. Like we call each other or we'll FaceTime each other or like I'll just randomly FaceTime Tiff while I'm driving with Jason, just so we stay as friends in a relationship because work I think can sometimes accidentally, we're so busy ships in the night, even though we're in the same company. So Tiff, good time to reconnect on the podcast. Hi. The Dental A Team (01:17) Thank Good Kiera Dent (01:33) It's been a hot minute, great to see you. I think I haven't seen you all The Dental A Team (01:35) to see you. Kiera Dent (01:36) week, so it's great to see you. The Dental A Team (01:37) That is so true, we haven't, not since our leadership meeting on Monday. Kiera Dent (01:41) and we had like one client call together, which I'm like, hey, it's real fun to be with you here. I'm like, see you later. ⁓ But no, it's truly so fun. And today, and I wanted to just, I think we're seeing it, it's actually one thing that I will say Tiff and I are doing really well that we haven't done is we actually are coaching mutual clients together. We only have a couple and it's been really fun. think Tiff, I feel like it's like our shake and bake, like stocked into Malo, like Tiff to Kiera, like let's just have a good time on it because it's not often other than events that we get to do this. But I think in, The Dental A Team (01:44) yeah, straight. Thank you. Kiera Dent (02:11) coaching clients more together. I think you and I are starting to see this like really awesome pattern that you brought up of a topic of like this 1%. And I know you're obsessed in it and working out, which thank you because every day I think about you and I'm like, yeah, Kieran, just go move your body 1 % more today, like just 1 % today. And so I think in life, but let's also take it to practices and billing. Tiff kind of riffed us on the topic I did and we're just gonna riff for you guys today. Kieran, Tiff, stocked into Malone. If you don't know the jazz, well, you missed out, but. The Dental A Team (02:25) Thank you. Kiera Dent (02:38) Basically we're the glory days. That's what this is. It's a glory. It's a dream team back together doing our shake and bake, rattle and roll, talking all things dentistry. So Tiff, take it away. The Dental A Team (02:48) Yeah, I actually, I think we all know the 1 % rule and we know the compound effect and we know like, we know arbitrarily that these things and these ideas are something we're supposed to do and that they work. And last year, I found myself in this space where I was like, trying to octopus arms a lot of different things in my life that I wanted improvement on. And I had like three, four or five, whatever it was things that I'm like, okay, I'll do a little bit here, I'll do a little bit here, I'll do a little bit here. And it's kind of like, I was just talking to Erin the other day about like paying down debt, right? So like you're paying down debt and you're like, okay, I'll put a little extra on this card, a little extra on this card, a little extra on this card. And that little bit of extra actually isn't making any progress because the percentages, right? The interest on it is actually eating it alive. And you just get to the spot where you're like, my God, I'm not making any progress in anything. And I'm spreading myself so thin, I'm exhausted. And I found myself there with debt and, but with these areas of my life that I was like, I just want to feel 50%, 100 % better in these areas. And I was giving a little bit to all these spaces and Aaron and I had a conversation. I was just like, I'm so exhausted. Something's got to give, something's got to change. And he's like, let's pick one. And so I was thinking, and then we did. Kiera Dent (04:03) I think about your plate overfilling. From the day I met you, had this image of like, you know how people say like their plate's really full? Tiff's like, no, my plate's full and I have like food. I don't know why it is, but it's like cauliflower, broccoli, carrots is what I've envisioned for you. Just sitting on the side of her plate. So it's like there, then she's got like her sweet potato and it's like on the place map, but it's off the plate. And I think that that's like a really good visual of who Tiff's been since I've met you and how I think. All of us live our life. This isn't just a Tiffanie, but like whether it's the octopus arms or the plate over like literally, if it's been like cauliflower broccoli, like I just see like a big like hunk of broccoli on the side of your plate. I don't come with it all. The Dental A Team (04:35) Yeah. Yes, and I actually had somebody in my life, I had a friend years ago, gosh, this was like, I remember the stop sign we were sitting at and I remember being like crying, like, gosh dang it, one more thing and I'm like, I can do it, it's fine, because I'm the person that's like, yeah, I can totally do it, I know I can do it, but what cost is it at is not something I always think of and he looked at me he said, You are like the person at Thanksgiving, that you're just so excited to have some of everything, that you have your plate and you filled it with everything. So you've got your turkey, your mashed potatoes and gravy, and your roll and your sweet potatoes. And then you sat down and you're like, oh, shoot, I forgot. Like this plate, he's like, it's a mounds of food because it's Thanksgiving, right? Which is fair. We all do that at Thanksgiving. He goes, but then you forgot. about like the pie and somebody else put other rolls out. And so then you like started shoving it under your plate. And he's like, that's your one, you just took a piece of apple pie when you already had pumpkin pie. And you said yes to this, which means you said no to the pumpkin pie because you can't eat both. And I was like, holy cow, I love Thanksgiving, that works. Like I get it. And so yes, that was me. And so again, I don't know how long ago was that? Seven, eight years later, nine years. Kiera Dent (05:53) No. Five, six, seven, years later. The Dental A Team (05:56) Like, <p dir="...
Transcribe →#961: Solutions For Practices' Top 3 Issues
Feb 27, 2025Tap to summarizeKiera 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 their problem, keep them on the schedule, figure out what the problem is. Maybe they think it's gonna be too much time. Maybe they just need to scooch down 20 or 30 minutes and I have that availability. But getting them on the phone rather than just the simple text for them to cancel can actually fill your schedule. So when I have practices implement, whether it's the new patient policy of having them confirm their appointment by giving paperwork back, whether it's that we... have patients they have to call you back to confirm their appointment. Otherwise we scooch them off. We utilize the model of not allowing cancellations via voicemail or text message. Practices literally boost their production by at least 15 to 20 % because now we've got all these holes filled and we're actually able to fix the problem. Some other offices implement deposits or different pieces to that. So right now I would recommend review your current scheduling system and figure out where are the gaps. Kiera Dent (04:35.828) what's happening, what's happening consistently, not what we think, but what we actually know. A practice told me we were getting tons of cancellations and I said, fantastic, I want you to track it for 30 days and I want you to let me know what type of cancellations are coming through. And turns out they actually are only having about six. Now, just so you know, a common thing is you will actually have like one to 2 % of your total practice will cancel and that's okay. Like that's normal. We need to not hope and pray every single person. actually shows up for it, let's add a one or two percent cancellation per day. That way our goals are not having to be perfect, but we can actually have that that ro...
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#632: Top Billing Mistakes and How To Avoid
Jan 24, 2023Tap to summarizeEven if you're savvy with billing, listen to this episode. Josh Smith of Dental Claim Support is back to talk all about the main billing stumbling blocks his company is seeing with dental practices. If you adopt the tips he mentions in this episode, your practice will increase income in an organized manner. With Kiera, Josh talks about: The number one mistake offices are making with billing What a healthy cadence for AR looks like How setting a schedule will change the game And more Josh also provides a look into his book, Hanging a Shingle: Complete Guide to Starting a Dental Practice. Episode resources: Learn more about Dental ClaimSupport Read Josh's book, Hanging a Shingle: Complete Guide to Starting a Dental Practice Get in touch with Josh directly: josh@dentalclaimsupport.com Listen to episode 460, Your Billing Playbook Reach out to Kiera Subscribe to the Dental A-Team podcast Become Dental A-Team Platinum! Review the podcast on iTunes
Transcribe →#626: Elite 11 to Read in 2023
Jan 10, 2023Tap to summarizeIt’s time for another book club episode! These books are meant to inspire your professional and personal self, from team members to business owners and every role in between. Effortless by Greg McKeown Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy Any of Patrick Lencioni’s books Ninja Selling by Larry Kendall The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership by Gary Convis and Jeffrey Liker The Automatic Customer, John Warrillow The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon Retire Young, Retire Rich by Robert Kiyosaki Personality Isn’t Permanent by Benjamin Hardy The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson Letting Go by David R. Hawkins Episode resources: Listen to previous book club episodes: Episode 432 Episode 317 Episode 194 Reach out to Kiera Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Become Dental A-Team Platinum! Review the podcast
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#289: Mike Paton, Dentistry in 2020 is a Team Sport
Nov 17, 2020Tap to summarizeLadies and gentlemen, Mike Paton is HERE! You’ve probably heard Kiera talk about ‘traction’ more than once on this podcast, and now, we get to talk with one of the masterminds behind the idea. In this episode, Mike and Kiera discuss Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and how it brings structure and discipline to entrepreneurial companies; ways to keep motivation alive in 2020; and what pivoting and innovating should look like. This year has been challenging, but the world still needs excellent dental care. Don’t forget that YOUR practice, YOUR team, and YOUR equipment can provide that. As Mike says in this episode, the best entrepreneurs will succeed profitably no matter the constraints. You won’t want to miss this latest chat with a Dental A-Team legend! Mike Paton has been learning from entrepreneurs for most of his life. Today he works hard to give back – as an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, Certified EOS Implementer, and as the visionary for EOS Worldwide. Mike discovered the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS) a dozen years ago while trying to take a $7 million company to the next level. Feeling stuck and more than a little frustrated, his search for answers led him to Gino Wickman and EOS. Having helped run four entrepreneurial companies, Mike instantly recognized the power of this simple, holistic “way of operating” a small business. He quickly became a passionate advocate, joined the Professional EOS Implementer Community, and dedicated himself to helping other entrepreneurs get what they want from their businesses. Since then, Mike has conducted more than 1,200 full-day sessions with the leadership teams of more than 110 companies and helped thousands more entrepreneurs by sharing EOS in dynamic talks and workshops the world over. During that journey, Mike wrote Get A Grip: An Entrepreneurial Fable with Gino Wickman and then succeeded Gino in the role of visionary for EOS Worldwide. In that role, he leads a close-knit community of more than 250 Professional EOS Implementers around the globe – each passionate about helping entrepreneurs run better businesses and live better lives. Mike lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Kate. Together they have five boys.
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