Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
How to Fix the 3 Biggest Ownership Stressors
Ever feel like your dental practice is an endless cycle of putting out fires, managing team drama, and squeezing in "just one more patient"? That overwhelming weight on your shoulders isn't just in your head—and you're definitely not alone in feeling it.
Dr. Paul Etchison breaks down the three fundamental stressors that make practice ownership feel impossibly heavy: team management challenges, operational overwhelm, and the crushing clinical demands that keep you trapped chairside. But rather than offering quick fixes or motivational platitudes, he provides concrete, tested solutions that have transformed practices across the country.
Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
Do you ever feel like practice ownership is just way more stressful than it should be? Like you're constantly solving problems, you're constantly managing the people and somehow you still feel like you're just behind, no matter how much work you put in. Well, you are not alone, and today I'm going to break down the three core stressors that make the practice feel heavy and exactly what you can do to lighten the load. Now for those who don't know me, I'm Dr Paul Etchison and you are listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast, where we teach you, as a practice owner, how to create a team driven office that doesn't require you, so you can get the freedom to do whatever you want and live the life that you want. I'm the author of two books on dental practice management, a dental coach, and I'm the owner of a five doctor practice in the South suburbs of Chicago, and I am here to help you get the practice of your dreams. So thank you so much for listening. Now let's talk about these three stressors.
Speaker 1:Now I remember back maybe five or six years ago. I was working with a life coach and she had asked me what are the things that bring you stress? And I was like girl everything brings me stress. I hate everything and, honestly, that's how I felt at that time. It was really hard. I felt so overwhelmed that, no matter what got dropped onto my plate, whatever question somebody brought me, whatever task I needed to complete, whatever letter I got in the mail whether it be from the IRS or the ADA or just like the utility bills everything was pissing me off, and the thing was it was more or less just because I was just overworked, I was doing way too much and I didn't realize it. I just chalked it up to one of those things. Well, hey, this is what it's like owning a practice. This is how it is. Maybe it's me, maybe there's something wrong with me, maybe I just need to change my perspective. I don't know about you, but changing perspective, I think that helps for some people. It didn't really work for me. So what I did is I sat down and I strategized with my life coach and we came up with a big list of the things that were stressing me out and it was a big list, let me tell you. But we started coming up with solutions for every single one of these things. So I want to do that with you right now.
Speaker 1:Let's go through what I think is the biggest three stressors for a dental practice owner, and you'll see how this ties into my coaching methods, because this is what I believe really makes owning a practice awesome, when you can handle these three things. So number one, I mean the biggest stressor you always have as a dental practice owner, it is always the team, is it not? I mean, nothing wears you out faster than team drama. Sometimes you just want to look at your team members and say, god, can't you just be cool? Can't you just relax and chill out and stop making everything such a big deal? But the fact of the matter is that is life and that's the way it is and that's how it is in management. This is part of management. Now, if you only had to manage your team and that was your sole job, great, maybe it wouldn't be so difficult. But the fact of the matter is is that you're the leader of the practice, you're also the clinician, you're also the bookkeeper, you're doing all these things. So it makes it hard to do.
Speaker 1:So what does this feel like when the team is stressing you out? I mean, it might be those constant questions and guidance what should I do? Some team members not getting along. They don't like the way that somebody looked at them with a tone perhaps I don't know and you just become the go-to person for every fire. So how do we solve this? And a lot of people would say, well, let's figure out ways. So the team, and that they don't ask us questions and they don't do this, and I think that's part of it too.
Speaker 1:But what I think really helps practice owners and I see it with my coaching clients so much is building a leadership team. You've got to build leaders around you that can help you manage your team so that you can focus on bigger things and not get sucked into every little fire that happens. Bigger things and not get sucked into every little fire that happens. So what do you do? You find the people that are respected on your team and you give them responsibilities and you teach them how to lead. This is what we do in all of our coaching. We start to create some structure and give our leaders autonomy so that they can learn just like you learned learn from your mistakes. Then the other thing is we've got to create some structure for communication and accountability, and this is going to be meetings. You've got to meet with your leads. You've got to meet with them as a group, as a lead meeting. You've got to meet with your leads one-on-one. Now they need to be also meeting with their departments one-on-one. And then we need to also be meeting as a team. So we've got to give the team and everybody on it an outlet for communication so that they can discuss things that are bothering them.
Speaker 1:Because, let's face it, every single team drama thing that's happening at your office, I guarantee it, guarantee it, it could be solved if people would just tell each other how they feel about whatever they're feeling about. But where the problems happen is people don't feel like they should have to tell people how they feel. People don't see that there's two perspectives to the story. They just keep it inside and they build resentment, and that's when things go awry. Am I right? Yes, you know I'm right because you've lived it. So when you don't have that leadership team to insulate you from all those little issues, you essentially become the leadership team, and that is absolutely exhausting. It is not hard to set up a leadership team and we've done it with so many clients, I can promise you. I can promise you, we've got it down to a science. You can do this in your practice, all right.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about stressor number two. This is overwhelm and decision fatigue. This is when you're feeling like you're carrying everything on your shoulders and, oh my gosh, is it so easy to martyr yourself just to be that person that sacrifices everything for everybody? And just woe is me. Yeah, I've been there. You're wearing 15 hats, every single decision comes through you, and the worst part of it is that, when you have to constantly follow up with people to make sure they're getting the things done, why is life so hard? I've been there, right.
Speaker 1:So what does this come from? I mean, it comes from a lack of clarity, that no one really knows exactly what to do. You're repeating yourself, you're telling them this and that, and there is no real structure or clarity around who does what or how they're supposed to do it. And you'll see this show up in some team issues, where maybe Susie feels like she's doing so much work than everybody else, and then Jenny is over here on her phone. Well, susie's like well, why isn't Jenny helping me with these things? I'm so busy. But then Jenny's like well, I got all my responsibilities done, so I'm just going to look at my phone a little bit, not even thinking that Susie maybe needs some help, but nobody says anything and nobody's assigned to whose responsibilities or what. So everybody just gets pissed off and thinks that they're doing too much, and everybody becomes a martyr.
Speaker 1:So here's what you need to do. This is where the systems come in. This is why you need to systematize your practice. You got to create the checklist, you got to create the protocols, you got to give ownership to the people that need to do these tasks. You need to have certain people responsible for things. Look at the systems that have failed in your office and ask yourself this who was responsible for this? And a lot of the times, it's that you gave a responsibility to an entire department, and as departments get bigger and they share a responsibility, things start to fall through the cracks you need to talk about. This is what we need done. This is when we need it done by who is going to be responsible for this every week, every day, every month, whatever it is, depending on the task.
Speaker 1:This is where systemization comes in, and this is what the DPH Omni Practice Program is about. We go A to Z. We start at the beginning the most basic checklist and the basic protocols and we get all the way to the most detailed ones, like how do we handle cancellations? How do we handle people who don't want to pay their bill? How do we handle objections from patients? So you can systematize all this stuff and when you do, you don't need to hustle harder, because you've got that structure. Everybody knows what to do, everybody knows why they're doing it and everybody knows that, since we have the structure, they don't need to ask if other things are getting done. If everybody does their part and fulfills their commitment to the team, things run without you following up on it. And that weight off your shoulders, my God, it feels so good to get rid of. And I promised you can do this, but I get it.
Speaker 1:You're being the dentist four days a week and it's hard to find the time to do these things when you're constantly in the chair, which brings us to stressor number three, patient care and the clinical demands. It is very difficult to run your business when all you're doing is being a dentist 100% of the time. You can't step away from the chair without losing income. You might think. You might think you've got to work harder, more hours, or you got to work faster and all these things. You've got this pressure to produce and it takes away all your time from the other things that could really free you and give you the freedom that you really want. So how do you solve this? How do you get away from the chair?
Speaker 1:And this is at the heart of what we do at Dental Practice Heroes is we create the systems, we create the structure, but we start getting creative with your schedule. We install the deep age block scheduling, we set your schedule up in a way that it makes sense that you can have consistent high production days, and then we teach your team how to execute on those. So you set up the schedule, you create all the systems that increase your efficiency, that help you be able to do things faster, and you start condensing that time. You start doing four days worth of production in two days, maybe two and a half days, and eventually you get your business to a point where you can bring on associate producers so that you can cut yourself completely out of the production if you want. But it's all that system and following the process. So one thing you could do with your schedule is limiting the amount of appointments you're willing to see in a day and making sure that a certain amount of those appointments are higher production procedures like crowns. So if you saw at least two crown procedures every single day, I assure you your days will be way more chill and you would make way more money. But the thing is is we don't put any structure into our schedule and then we wonder why we're so burnt out. We see 15 patients and each of them requires three class two fillings and then we want to go home and just drive our car into a tree. I mean, I don't want to do class two fillings. Do you want to do more class two fillings?
Speaker 1:I remember being in Chicago at the midwinter meeting and having a rep show me that like trans illuminator thing where it would trans illuminate the teeth and you could diagnose more class twos. And I looked at him. I said, man, I don't want to do more class twos. And he said so you're more comfortable knowing that they're there and you didn't diagnose them. And I said, hell, yeah, which felt a little weird, but honestly I don't want to do more class twos. Does anyone want to do more class twos?
Speaker 1:You know the way to do less class twos is to grow your practice. Put systems in it. Step back and get associates to do all your class twos. Hell is just doing back-to-back MOD, mod, mod. I am almost positive. I saw that somewhere in the Bible, I don't know Anyway.
Speaker 1:So think about the things that are really stressing you at your practice. I guarantee you, no matter what it is, if you sit there and you write it down and you get curious about it, you can find solutions for every little thing that bothers you and you can create a life around this practice that fulfills you and adds to your life instead of subtracting from it. So, practice ownership, it doesn't need to feel bad when you solve these three stress points. The team issues the operational chaos and that clinical overwhelm that comes from being a dentist. All the time, you start showing up as the leader and not the fixer or the grinder, and that's what I want for you and that's what we help practice owners do every single day.
Speaker 1:We are kicking off this mastermind in September and it's a 12-month program.
Speaker 1:At the end of that 12-month program, I want you to have a leadership team that takes care of all this stuff for you.
Speaker 1:I want you to have systems where you don't need to follow up and ask if things are getting done or be the answer person anymore, and I want you to have a schedule that's so productive you're able to cut back your days, and I can show you a way to create a practice that gives you the freedom that you deserve, so you can show up for your family or just spending a little bit more me time working on the hobbies that you love.
Speaker 1:So please go to our website, dental Practice Heroes, and set up a strategy called me. I will talk you through what this mastermind is all about and what it can do for you, and I assure you this is a group you want to be part of. It is shaping up to be such an awesome group of dentists. I'm so excited for it. We still got eight spots left, so get them in, because I'm telling you they're not going to last long. I assure you these are going to go quick, because this is such a value and what we're going to be doing is so awesome and life-changing. So thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you next time.
