Dental Practice Heroes

How to Step Back Without Stepping Away w/ Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan

• Dr. Paul Etchison • Episode 597

Share episode

Ready to get out of the operatory without leaving dentistry? If you’re mid-career and craving more, this episode will help you figure out your next move and how to get there.

Dr. Mustafa Shah-Khan of Simplify Dentistry shares his tips for simplifying your systems, meeting production goals, and avoiding the common traps that keep dentists stuck. Learn how to get out of that mid-career burnout and build a practice that supports the lifestyle you want!

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • Practice models for more flexibility
  • The 3 core competencies in dentistry
  • How to simplify your practice
  • Why you should embrace new technology
  • How to find freedom and fulfillment in your career

Learn more about Simplify Dentistry:
http://www.simplifydds.com

This episode was produced by Podcast Boutique https://www.podcastboutique.com

Use the same marketing company as Dr. Etch!

Get your free demo with Relevance Marketing by Clicking Here

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.

Paul Etchison:

Are you a decade or more into practice ownership and starting to feel unfulfilled? Maybe the clinical side doesn't excite you the way it used to, or you're just craving more flexibility, more freedom or something completely new that will get you excited again. In today's episode, dr Mustafa Chakan joins me to discuss this common mid-career question of what's next. You'll learn how to simplify your day-to-day plan, your next move and finally get the freedom you want. You are listening to Dental Practice Heroes, where we help you to create a team and system-driven dental practice, one that allows you to practice less and make more money. I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, a dental coach, author of two books on dental practice management and the owner of a five doctor practice in the South suburbs of Chicago. I want to show you how being intentional about ownership can create a practice that supports your life instead of consuming it. So if you're ready to create a true business that runs without you, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Paul Etchison:

Welcome back to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I'm your host. Dr Paul Edgison Got a very special guest on today. We've got a fellow podcaster, simplified Dentistry Podcast. It's a Facebook group all about just helping dentists find out what their next path is and how we can be more entrepreneurial and you know like we're all trying to do have more fulfilling lives. So also the founder of a very large GPO in the industry and also a practice owner. So welcome to the podcast, dr Mustafa Chakan. How are you doing? I'm great.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

Really excited to talk with you a little bit and kind of see where this goes.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah. So we were chatting a little bit before we hit record and we were talking about some of the stuff that's going on in the industry and what we see in our peers Maybe not like brand new dentists, but a little bit seasoned dentists that are reaching a point in their life where they're just kind of wondering was this it? Is this all there is?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

Yeah, I mean I think that's a great question. I think you see this all over the place and kind of in the Simplified Dentistry podcast we talk about this a lot. You know kind of what happens when you reach that kind of mid-career point. You know the crossroads of your profession. You've been in it for 10 years. You know you've had your practice, you've paid off your debt. You know you have some disposable income now. Practice finance is over, school loans are over, so what do you do next?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

We have a lot of people talking about do you just kind of keep practicing and just ride that horse off into the sunset or do you do other things? Kind of what we like to think. I've done other things in the profession. My partner, rick Offit, and I, like you said, started a GPO, so we have experience in other aspects in the profession. Rick had a multi-practice group and started a DSO and sold it. So we've kind of touched different things.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

So kind of what we look at is what do you want to do? Do you want to just take your disposable income now and start investing in other things? I mean, when you're in that crossroads you can do anything from just continuing to practice to becoming a entrepreneur in all kinds of different facets. One of them could be an entrepreneur who starts to build practices. You go from one practice to two practice to three practices, or you try to just put your intellect, put your dollars to work in something else, whether you're investing in real estate and building a real estate portfolio that's kind of outside of the dental world or if you start a company doing something else you know, which is dental related or even totally outside of dental world. You just have a lot of opportunities and I think we're seeing a lot of practitioners wanting to do different things. They want to get out from the operatory and that's kind of what we try to talk a lot about is how do you get out from behind the operatory? How do you get success and fulfillment by doing that?

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, I love that because, like you know, the dental practice hero's message is, sometimes it could get mis-typecasted as like how do we get out of the operatory? And I always say to listeners I don't want it to be like. I want you to cut your clinical days to a level that's comfortable with what you enjoy doing dental wise. I'm not trying to say this operatory is this horrible place that we've got to run away from. Some people really love it, and I'd still like it to some extent too, but what I've always urged my clients to do is that set yourself up in a way that you have the freedom to do different things.

Paul Etchison:

I would say one thing that I wish and I'd love to hear what you think about this is I wish when I was before making my transition, I wish I would have realized earlier in my career that I would never retire. I thought I was going to get to this point where I stopped doing everything and everyone said, well, you can't do it, just nothing. I said, well, watch me, I'll show you how to do nothing. And what I've learned is that you're always going to be doing something. And I could have grinded a lot, a lot less if I would have stopped and said you know, I'm not going to stop and hang it up when I turn 40. What kind of options do you see for dentists that maybe, maybe they don't love practicing as much but they're not ready to completely exit their practice?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

So you know. So let's think about for that doc, where does he or she want to be in five years? I think that's the first thing you have to see. So do you want to be still involved in clinical practice and the fact that you are an owner of practices and you may be an owner of multiple practices? So if that's your game plan, then you got to figure out how to get to that point and start looking at how do you plan for that first acquisition. You know, are you building a de novo practice? Are you acquiring a practice? Are you bringing associates in? Are you bringing associates into your practice?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think that's kind of one of the things that you have to figure out. If you want to really kind of be clinically oriented but not practicing all the time, if you want to be more of a leader or a manager of practices, I think that's kind of something you got to think about. But yeah, I think there are other things you know. If you want to do something in dentistry, I mean, do you want to be like a lot of these guys making cloud based softwares? You know, I mean there's cloud based practice management softwares that are going. Everybody I know that's in them are dentists. Dentists have started them. They obviously had tech backgrounds. Then, when they did them, there's the dental app, there's Archie, there's different aspects like that. So is that what you want to do? I think the biggest thing is having an idea of what you want to do and how you want to execute it. I think it's the biggest thing.

Paul Etchison:

Well, do you think if somebody is saying like you know, I'm mid-career, I don't want to practice as much? I don't like the idea that if I get hurt there's nobody here to cover my patients. Does practicing less clinically mean multiple practices necessarily?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

It doesn't necessarily mean multiple practices. It can mean building your practice through associates. So it's not just you. You know, like you said, if I get hurt, I'm a solo practitioner, so I'm a dinosaur. If I get hurt, it's a problem. But when you diversify into having multiple doctors in your own practice, associates and things like that, now instead of creating a practice, you've created a business and you're still involved in the business of dentistry, but it's not necessarily being something that you have to do all of the work all of the time. So I think you can still be clinically involved in one practice, but cut back your hours, cut back your clinical days and bring in other people.

Paul Etchison:

You know, if somebody said like you know, my practice is barely not that profitable to begin with it, what would you say to that person?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

Well, I'd say, if your practice is not that profitable, first you just you got to analyze your numbers. I mean, I think being analytical in the profession is key. You know, I think one thing that I have written a lot about with dental economics and other things like that is kind of the competencies of dentistry. Everybody thinks when you talk about competency in dentistry you talk about clinical competency. Well, clinical competency is one thing. You you cut an MOD prep, can you cut a crown prep, can you scan a tooth so that when you do get the crown it fits. Those are all clinical competencies.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

But to me that's just one part of the profession. I mean you have to have operational competency and you have to have financial competency. So for me, when there's somebody who says, well, they're struggling with their profitability of their practice, I think you have to analyze all three of those competencies. Let's hope that we all went to great dental schools and we're all totally clinically competent and it's not that that's causing the problem. You know, I had a guy talking to me the other day who said that he was buying a cone beam with cash but his practice wasn't profitable and I was like why in the world would you do that. You know, to me that doesn't make any sense. That means you're just financially not competent, you're not making the right financial decisions, you don't have the right financial team to help you do these things. So I think that's my first thing is, let's look at all of the competencies and let's figure out how to get you competent in the other two things.

Paul Etchison:

So, as far as you know, we know what clinical competence means like. Can you expand on what operational competence might look like what you're talking about?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think operational competence is systems. I'm a big systems guy, I know you're a big systems guy. So establishing the right systems in your practice to have an efficient day, to have efficient workflows with your staff, to have things that are repeatable, you know, for everything not to be backdoors. Somebody was saying that if to accomplish tasks you have to do a lot of things that are backdoor, well, you don't have systems, you know, you're just trying to survive every day. So creating the right systems are the foundations of operational competency. I think Having the right team members who buy into your philosophy and are willing to subscribe to your systems and your processes is kind of something else in kind of the operational competency.

Paul Etchison:

And talk about the financial competency. Where does that come from? I mean, is that just as simple as having a CPA in your corner that gives you a profit and loss, or is it more than that?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think it's more than that.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think the first step you have to have is you have to have, in my opinion, a dental-specific CPA.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

You know we can all get you know a CPA who has restaurants and has car washes and things like that, and they understand tax law in general but they don't necessarily understand your industry.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

So having somebody who is a dental-specific CPA in your corner to help explain the nuances of the tax law and actually how operations on a P&L should work in a dental practice, I think is important that they can break down the numbers and overlay your numbers with national averages, regional averages, tell you if you're well out of whack here or you're well in range here, and explain the concept of free cash flow for you. You know, I think free cash flow is a pretty interesting concept because I think dentists don't realize that basically, when you look at everything, free cash flow is how you get paid. I mean, that's what's kind of left before any owner-operator compensation. So understanding what your free cash flow is and how much of that there is, and understanding how much you can really take out of the practice, I think is a key to the financial competency and I think that does come from a dental specific CPA.

Paul Etchison:

Now your Facebook group Simplify Dentistry and same name as the podcast, like what exactly do you find that us, as dentists, are really not simplifying? We're making something. Is there something you can think of that we're making really complicated and it just doesn't need to be?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think dentists make a lot of things more complicated than they need to be.

Paul Etchison:

I think we all know that yeah right.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think we miss on the simple. I wrote an article years ago. It was a great excerpt out of Michael Jordan's book. I'm a Chapel Hill guy, so I'm a Jordan guy, so there was a great excerpt out of his book and it was talking about they said that the only person who kept Michael Jordan under 20 points a game was Dean Smith, the legendary Carolina coach. And I was like well, jordan said well, that's actually not true, because I averaged 22 points my junior year and the Dean Smith was the guy who taught me how to average 32 points a game.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

And what that was is breaking it down. And if you want to average 32 points a game, you have four quarters. You got to get eight points a quarter. Eight points a quarter is not a big deal. So eight, eight, eight, eight, 32, you get that all day long. So I think where dentists miss on, the simplest thing in practice building and monthly production is breaking it down to daily production. You know, if you practice 20 days a month and you want to do, let's say, $400,000, $20,000 a day, you just break it down into those numbers and then you set those targets and you know you don't have to do full mouth reconstructions to do that. I, frankly, am more profitable when I do two crowns every day than when I have these days where I'm doing 12 veneers and things like that. One, they drive you crazy and two, they're just not as profitable as you think. So I think dentists miss really what is the simplest aspect to be successful. I'm more successful now that I do less big cases than when I was doing all the He-Man cases.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, I'm thinking about this. I do a lot of just ortho, band and bracket now, but I have one veneer case. I'm finishing right now and it's going to be my very last one and I have been on the last day seeing this patient at least seven days now, the last seven times I've seen her and we're still playing with it and this case has a zero profit in it. All it has is headaches and I'm going to have four years taken off my lifespan because of this case. And when I'm looking at these 10 units I did I'm like damn, I'd rather cut 10 different crowns on 10 different patients than dealing with what I'm dealing with right now.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I'll do long. You know and I think dentists also miss I'm a CERAC user. I think CERAC simplifies practice. Now there are lots of different ways to do same-day dentistry now but I think CERAC has a lot of data behind it and it really makes it easy. You know you go in there, you know you prep the tooth, you scan the tooth, you mill it, you put it in. Patient looks at it, walks away. You never hear from them again. So that is kind of something that really kind of simplifies your day, your dentistry. You know you realize real quick that people probably aren't looking for the same things that you are. But I think dentists overcomplicate things. They want to have a little bit of. I think that crown should have more cervical stain or should have a little occlusal mahogany stain. Patients don't care. Just don't make it so hard, make it simpler. Patients want to be comfortable. They want to have something that doesn't hurt. They want to have something that looks good and functions and they want to get out of there. They don't really want to see us anymore.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, I think it's one of the things with dental owners is we sometimes we're always trying to reinvent the wheel, not realizing that people have figured out the best way to do things. Previously, and I'm thinking of this one I took a speaking class and the speaker had said that his dad had told him that he was having struggling. He was struggling in his business because he didn't have a big enough army, and what his dad meant was that every time you read a book, you add another member to your army, because somebody has already figured out this problem before you and it has a solution for it. So you just need more knowledge and more before you, and it has a solution for it. So you just need more knowledge and more knowledge to apply to your current situation. So, at Simplified Dentistry like, what do you guys do to help doctors take that next step and figure out where they want to go and how do they get there in their career? Yeah, that's a great question.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

Yeah, I think one thing that we look at is, you know, being accomplished clinicians, being accomplished entrepreneurs in dentistry.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

We've kind of seen a lot of the things and we've kind of been around a lot of the people in the industry. So our goal is to bring that industry perspective to the members of Simplified Dentistry through a couple of different channels. One is obviously the Facebook community, where you're coming from. Things that we post, that we see that is relevant in the industry, that we see that we have kind of experienced and it's kind of been a pain point. And how do we get from the other side of the pain point and create a discussion on those different aspects that we think are pain points for what I would call a experienced, aspirational, entrepreneurial kind of doctor. So you know, it's just simple things like when you have somebody going. Well, I'm 32 years old, I've practiced for 10 years, how do I now start planning for retirement? And then bring industry experts.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

You know what we want in the Facebook community. We want industry experts who are participating in it as well, whether it's CPAs, coaches, consultants, manufacturers, distributors, who can kind of provide different information and insight onto different aspects of the profession. So we're trying to be kind of a repository of information where people can kind of come get it. The other thing is kind of the podcast. You know, I think the podcast is where we talk with people who are the industry leaders and we can bring that educational information to the docs to help kind of advance their career. It's like you're saying it's none of this is new. You just got to lean on the people who have done it before and be able to have vetted, trusted sources.

Paul Etchison:

Is there anything that you can think about in your career that you know now that you really wish you would have known 10, 15 years ago, when you were at this midpoint? That's a great question.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think one thing that I wish I would have done a little bit quicker is embrace technology. I think that I was very caught up in being the best of the best in the clinician aspect. I wanted to emulate what Frank Spear did, you know. I wanted to emulate what Greg Kinzer did. I wanted to practice at that level. I wanted to be one of those guys who, if you looked at my dentistry you were like, oh, this guy's really good, and I was so caught up in that aspect of it that I didn't advance with technology. You know, like I said, I was a CERAC guy but I didn't embrace CERAC till well down the road once it was as proven as it could be. You know, I wish I would have kind of gotten into it early on and been kind of more of a pioneer of that and embraced it and help understand it and kind of bring it to the mainstream a little bit more. So I think that's my biggest regret is not embracing technology sooner, waiting on it to be totally proven before I did it.

Paul Etchison:

What do you think kept you away from embracing it sooner? I?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

mean I felt like analog dentistry at that point in time was better. I felt like we knew what we were getting out of analog dentistry. The guys that were the experts were using analog dentistry, so why should I be different and get out of the analog dentistry? Now I look at you know the guys Mike Scramstad and guys like this who who jumped out of it and kind of where their careers are now. I wish I would have been part of that and I think one. I think it would have been enjoyable and I think it would have been fun and I think that's one of my regrets as far as potentially being impactful on the profession.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, absolutely, and I can relate to it, like the digital printing and stuff. I still have not jumped in on it and I feel like there's part of me that thinks I'm going to be out of this before I need to. I'll be done with dentistry by the time. I need to learn that Someone else will come along and I'll have someone else in my practice. But every year I resist it, the more I think I'm turning into a dinosaur for resisting it.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think you're right and I think I'm 54. So when I was coming through, it was so expensive to embrace technology that I think you had to believe in it wholeheartedly to do it. I think now the big thing is, you know, if we were to enter into it right now like Sprint Ray is doing things with the Midas, where you know I mean you can enter into digital dentistry for $15,000 on a printer that can print different things for you to put in people's mouths I mean, I think it's a different thing. I think if we would have, if we were coming through right now, maybe we would embrace it quicker you know.

Paul Etchison:

I'm curious to see what you think about if there's someone listening right now. They're about halfway through their career. What would you say to someone who maybe is not so like unhappy with where they're at, but words of hope to say someone might do something different their second half of their career than they have the first?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

I think a lot of people get unhappy kind of at that midpoint in their career. You know, I think there is burnout that occurs because they thought that they had to do things one way. And my advice would be everything doesn't have to be done one way. You know, you got to look at kind of what you want and how can you get career satisfaction. Maybe it is, you know, what is going to motivate you.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

We my office went coming out of COVID to an eight to three schedule. You know we don't take lunch because nobody wanted to have lunch and go in and out during COVID. So that's kind of what we embraced. It was a lifestyle changer. Everybody's happier. They get out at three, you can go do things with your kids, you can go exercise, you can go do whatever you want. So what is it that you want? What motivates you? I mean, is it just dollars that motivates you? If it's just dollars, then you got to grind it out and you got to burn yourself out and that's what it is. But if you want career satisfaction and if you want to kind of have personal success, then look at what it is that allows you to have less time in the operatory, to have more enjoyment in what you're doing. So I think that's the biggest key that I think people have to look at is how do you set up a day that is going to lead to personal satisfaction?

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, and I think it's one of those things that we can drive around in our cars and we can think about it. But for me I've never made you know it's like we have those shower thoughts, those ideas we have in the shower that are just really great ideas. I find that so much of my progress life-wise and when it comes to terms of joy and how much I enjoy my life, was me sitting in a quiet room with a blank piece of paper and really writing out what do I really enjoy and how do I do more of it. And it sounds so basic and so simple. But I think you know a listener would be really surprised and that's what I hear you saying is that you're saying, like, what do you really like? Is it just dollars? And I would. I would beg to differ that I think most people are not too into the dollars. The dollars are nice, but when you really think about it I don't think that's a very prime motivating factor for most dentists.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

But when you really think about it. I don't think that's a very prime motivating factor for most dentists, I think. Operate your practice efficiently. Operate it efficiently, so it does. I mean it is still a job and it is still generating your livelihood. So make your practice efficient and but be able to have the flexibility to step away from it, you know when you want to.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

You know I mean I've had many times where you know somebody's like hey, do you want to go play this golf course on a Tuesday? And I'm like well, I can't because I'm practicing. But you know, sometimes you have to kind of go into the direction of. You know you got to take advantage of those opportunities because you'll remember going and playing Pebble Beach or Pine Valley or wherever it is. You're not going to remember that there's two crowns that you gave up that day. So I think having an idea of what motivates you I think is important and I think also, you know, if you're going to have that, you also have to assemble a team that buys into that philosophy, buys into, you know, having career satisfaction while you're at work but wanting to get away and having personal satisfaction. I think one of the big things that people miss is don't just hire the cheapest team that you can have, especially in this kind of environment. You know, hire a team that shares your philosophy and creates satisfaction for you when you're there. Yeah, totally agree.

Paul Etchison:

I got two questions left for you, one of which is where I want you to tell the listeners where they can find the Simplified Dentistry and all that you guys offer. But before I ask you that, yes or no, true or false have you ever canceled patients to go golfing 100%? Yes, yeah, me too. Yeah, it's not what we told them, but we did do that. We've done that a few times. Doc's got to be out of the office. Yeah, something came up. All right, where can the listeners find Simplified Dentistry, the podcast, and where can they find, like the Facebook group, to learn more about how to get these tips and get this information to make their lives a little easier?

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

Yeah, so Simplified Dentistry. Obviously there's the Facebook community which is kind of just look up Simplified Dentistry. The podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, under Simplified Dentistry, and everything is kind of housed in our website, which is simplifiedddscom. You go to simplifiedddscom, you can find the podcast, Facebook group, everything. We invite you guys to all take a look at it and see if we can help simplify aspects of the practice for you.

Paul Etchison:

Absolutely Well. Hey, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your information. Really appreciate it. I hope some people will go check out what you guys are putting out there. I know I am a member of the Facebook group as well and it's been some cool posts. But yeah, it's one of those things, man. We are so blessed in this industry to be in a position, with technology, that we can really learn from each other and get information and different perspectives from people that are in the game doing the same thing as us and have made the mistakes before. We have to make them ourselves and also learn from them. So I think there's so much information to be had out there. We just have to get out there and seek it out, and people like you are putting this all together in one area. So thank you for that. But thank you so much for coming on the podcast, really appreciate it.

Mustafa Shah-Khan:

Yeah, thank you for having me. Paul, Really enjoyed being on it.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Dr. Paul Etchison

Host