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!
Episodes
708 episodes
When Your Strengths Create Dependence
Being the most capable person in your dental practice can feel like a superpower, right up until it becomes the reason everything still depends on you. I’m Dr. Paul Etchison, and I see this pattern constantly with dental practice owners: we’re ...
Why You Still Haven’t Cut Back a Clinical Day
You can have a solid team, good new patient flow, and real culture momentum and still feel weirdly stuck. That’s the trap we dig into today: the belief that you should wait until you feel 100% ready before making a big move in your dental pract...
The Dangerous Part About Having a Good Practice
Your practice is finally in a good place. The schedule is full, the money is good, and you actually like your team.This episode is about what happens when this comfort turns into complacency. The DPH coaches explain why thinking "things ...
Your Team Isn’t Resisting the Change. They’re Resisting This
That uncomfortable moment when you roll out a new system and your team goes quiet isn’t about the system at all. It’s about what they think it means. We’re talking about one of the most common breakdowns in dental practice leadersh...
You Might Be Wrong About Your Worst Team Member
"They're lazy." "They don't care." "This person is the problem." You probably said something like this the last time you got annoyed at the office.In this episode, the DPH coaches break down what to do the next time someone on your team ...
Retiring Early in Dentistry and the Freedom Trap
You can do everything “right” and still feel stuck: work harder, save more, invest earlier, chase a retirement number… then wake up the next day and realize nothing changed. That moment is what we’re unpacking, especially for dentists who are h...
Why Your Team Only Follows Systems When You’re Watching (How to Fix It) w/ Dr. Gina Dorfman
Your team does the right things when you're in the building. Turn your back and... maybe not.Dr. Gina Dorfman has spent over 20 years building practices around culture, and knows exactly what makes a team follow through without being rem...
Your Practice Will Never Give You Freedom Until Your Leaders Can Do This
If your leadership meeting turns up “no problems,” we think you should be nervous. Silence can feel like health, but it often signals something else: people are checked out, nobody is looking closely, or your team doesn’t feel safe enough to te...
You're Spending Time On the Wrong Thing...Focus on This Instead w/ Dr. George Hariri
Whatever is holding your practice back is probably not the thing you worked on this week.Dr. George Hariri, co-founder of Shared Practices and author of Dental Moneyball, went from one practice to nearly 50 and stopped practicin...
Stop Talking Your Patients Out of the Best Treatment
That split second after a patient asks “Can’t you just fill it?” can quietly decide the whole case. If you hesitate, even with good intentions, you can accidentally turn your best clinical recommendation into an “upgrade” and make the compromis...
Simple Ways to Turn Patient Objections Into a Yes
Cost, timing, pain, insurance. These objections don't mean a patient is saying "no."In this episode, the DPH coaches share how they handle the most common patient objections and turn them into a "yes." You'll learn how to present treatme...
The Subtle Trap Undermining Your Practice's Success
Your front desk can look busy all day and still leak production, profit, and patience. When phones, check-ins, insurance questions, and balance collections are treated like one giant job, “urgency” wins every time. The ringing phone gets answer...
Implementation Usually Fails in 1 of These 3 Areas
We break down why the same operational problems keep resurfacing even after everyone “agrees” in a meeting. We share a simple leadership framework that turns talk into implementation so our dental practice keeps improving without constant remin...
How to Train the Assistant Every Other Dentist Wants w/ Kevin Henry
Every dentist wants an assistant who anticipates their needs without being asked. Almost nobody does what it takes to get there.Kevin Henry, dental journalist and founder of Dental Assistant Nation, has spent 21 years advocating for dent...
Your Future Practice Won't Materialize Without Protecting This
We describe the moment every practice owner knows: you block CEO time to build better systems, then lose it to nonstop interruptions and tiny fires. We share how protecting leadership time, setting clear availability rules, and focusing on KPIs...
The Hidden Reason Your Practice Feels So Hard to Run w/ David Maloley
Eight out of ten employees show up disengaged. The other two are doing all the work in your practice.In this episode, Dr. David Maloley explains what's really driving attrition and why a paycheck doesn't cut it anymore. You'll find out w...
Don't Try to Scale Your Practice Until You See This In Your Numbers
Hire another associate, open a second location, drop insurance — or maybe change nothing at all? The truth is, just because your practice can grow doesn't mean it should.In this episode, the DPH coaches will help you figure out what kind...
3 Conversations that Will Keep You from Repeating Yourself
You know the moment: you’re having the same conversation again, trying to stay calm, trying to protect psychological safety, but quietly wondering why the message still isn’t landing. When a team member keeps missing a checklist step, showing u...
5 Levers That Decide How Much Your Practice Produces
"I just need to get more patients into the office." It's something almost every owner tells themselves, but it's rarely what their practice needs.In this episode, you'll learn the five levers that decide how much your practice actually p...
The Doctor-Hygienist Partnership That Drives Case Acceptance w/ Janet Hagerman
Your hygienist spends more time with your patients than you do. That makes them one of the biggest case acceptance drivers you have.This episode shows you how to unlock that potential with the right systems, language, and a true doctor-h...
Stop Hoping and Praying for Your Dream Team, Build Them
If you walked into your dental practice right now and asked one random team member what they’re actively trying to get better at, would they have a real answer or a long pause? That moment tells you almost everything about your culture, your le...
Short Staffed? Here's What to Do
Your dental practice feels like it’s barely surviving, the team is overwhelmed, and the plan sounds logical: “Once we hire one more assistant or one more hygienist, then we’ll fix the systems.” I’m challenging that idea head-on, because waiting...
What Your Front Desk Wishes the Clinical Team Understood (And Vice Versa)
Front desk versus clinical: every practice has this quiet rivalry, but it doesn't have to be that way.In this episode, the DPH coaches break down why these two sides of the office resent each other and how you as the owner might be makin...
Stop Hiring People to Solve This Problem
Your dental practice can feel like it’s drowning even when you’re fully staffed and the schedule looks reasonable on paper. The real culprit is often smaller and harder to spot: tiny steps in your systems that get skipped, “just this once,” and...
How to Hire a Hygienist Fast in a Tough Job Market
Where did all the good hygienists go? You may be asking yourself this question, but the truth is they're out there. They're just choosing someone else.In this episode, you’ll learn how to become the office people want to work at (and sta...
