How to Coach for Better Patient Outcomes and Profits – Episode #654

Dr. Vivek Solanki from Polaris Healthcare Partners joins Matt this week on the Dentist Money Show to dive into the vital role clinical management plays in the success of dental practices. Sharing his experience, Dr. Solanki unpacks the impact of poor clinical leadership on both patient care and business outcomes. He talks about the balance dentists must find between clinical excellence and business strategy. Tune in to hear insights on the challenges of shifting practice culture and why collaboration and support are crucial to sustainable growth.

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Podcast Transcript

Intro: Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show, brought to you by Dentist Advisors today we have a great show for you today. where I get the chance to interview Dr. Vivek Solanki. He’s a Polaris Healthcare, partners clinical coach. He’s also a multi-practice owner. He’s the CEO and co-owner of a group, and multi-specialty practice in Tampa. He also co-owns a dual oral surgery and periodontic based practice in Maryland and Virginia. this guy is unbelievable. Don’t know how he does everything he does, but we have a great conversation today where Vivek, brings his expertise in really upping your game in clinical dentistry and, clinical mastery and how that kind of leads into all the other, key metrics you’d want in your practice, whether it comes to profitability, ebitda, just all the business aspects of your business can be improved just by focusing and being a better clinical manager. So we appreciate Vivek and all the wisdom he brings and, and all the wisdom and expertise that Polaris brings. Really appreciate them being on the show. we hope as always, you get something outta this and we hope you enjoy the show.

Matt Mulcock: All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Dentist Money Show. so excited to for today to have, Dr. Vivek. Solanki, I, I got that right, right.

Vivek Solanki: Yes

Matt Mulcock: Correct. Okay. Uh, we’re so excited to have you here, the clinical director, from Polaris. Super excited to have you and, and today we’re talking about really one of the most expensive I.and, and really the, like, a hidden problem of dentistry is just poor clinical management and how that all ties to systems and EBITDA and, and profit margins. There’s so much we could go with this, Yves. So really, really excited to have you. Um, I want to, I want to start with, um, something we were just talking about. I would be remiss if I did not mention when I was reading your bio, the word Philadelphia as a lifelong Eagles fan. We have this, we have this connection. You lived there for a few years, right?

Vivek Solanki: I did, I did, uh, dental school was in DC at Howard after dental school. I did a two year general practice residency in Philly at Einstein Medical Center. So Philly has a, has a nice, uh, warm place in my heart. You know, it’s, it’s such cool city, great food, really easy to get around. Uh, it was a great time for me. I love, I love Philadelphia.

Matt Mulcock: That’s awesome. I wish I had the same reason you do to be an Eagles fan, which is living there. I will continue to be a, a, a poser, but, I still, love that connection that we have, especially with the recent Super Bowl win. I had to, at least, I had to at least mention it. So, let’s jump into the actual content though, the actual value here. Um, so you, you lead currently still, Maybe the first question I need to start is like, how do you do all this? But, uh, you lead multiple practices across different states. I’m curious just kinda like, what, what is your biggest kind of lesson, kind of overarching lesson that you’ve learned about, running and scaling practices and, and, and scaling clinical teams?

Vivek Solanki: Yeah, that, that’s a great question. So in a nutshell, I’d say we could start with poor clinical management. Is gonna destroy a business, right? And so many in, in order to scale, we’ve gotta have associates, right? And so typically, you know, let’s just say this is an acquisition, right? We’re looking at a practice that that has enough chairs for multiple doctors in it. Primarily my focus has been group practice. General dentistry and then bringing in the multi-specialty model. So I, I’ve been a little bit different in my career. You know, I did residency for, like we had mentioned Philadelphia was a two year general practice residency and in LA I did my per residency for three years. So when I left Perio residency most. Specialists in LA just travel out of their cars. It was so super common. We are the independent contractor. We come in, we travel to 15, 20 offices a month, and it’s really common. You just go in, do your your cases and you leave. But what I found early in my career is that I was just growing everybody’s practice for them because if I really wanted to have. Stay busy and productive schedule. It wasn’t just about me showing up and saying, Hey, feed me, feed me. It was about, well, how are we treatment planning? How are we talking to patients? What’s happening in hygiene? You know? What is the, the, the financial coordinator, treatment coordinator, I. So you would be touching, an individual would be touching almost every aspect of the business, which then made me think like, okay, I need to be just doing this myself because I’m adding so much value into a business. So to answer your question, I. If the clinical processes and, and there is a repeatable process for clinical excellence, that doesn’t mean that somebody coming in needs to get, uh, an all on four every single time, you know, some high end $50,000 dentistry. Somebody could get a denture and still be fine. But in, in the clinical world, if there’s a way. To train the team so that they’re focusing on the best quality of care, and then they go down their hierarchy. If the patient truly can’t afford those outcomes and they just help them get concise plans that are efficient, and it’s still the dentistry that we could get in our own mouths. You’ve just changed the dynamic of a dental practice because what ends up happening is when something comes in complex. Usually these doctors or these associates are by themselves in these offices and they don’t know what to do, so they’ll say, okay, refer to the specialist, or send them to hygiene for some cleaning, and then they’re just, they’re just in this uncomfortable place where they’re trying to figure out what to do when.

What we should be doing is helping the general dentist, who’s usually the quarterback in all, all of these restorative cases. We should be helping them know how to navigate simple to complex. Then if we can do that, there’s always control of the, there’s always control in how the patient care is executed in an office, which leads to predictable outcomes. You have predictable clinical care, you have predictable collections. You have wins like we talked about. Patients are happy with the quality of care. Doctors are getting that experience without being in residency. Right. So it’s just a, a constant level of growth. And then you, it rel it really never taps, you know, because here’s a general dentistry office that’s doing well and they now we say, okay, well we need to bring in a periodontist now to clean up periodontal disease in a practice. So maybe it’s time we look at an oral surgeon who can come in or a periodontist or maybe an to go more of a group practice Now. And maximize what we can do as a team together and and minimize the referral outside. And now you just have exponential levels of EBITDA in the practice and, and it’s free EBITDA because it’s in the practice. It’s just never been tapped and there’s never been a way to help the patients get that kind of care.

Matt Mulcock: There’s so many different ways we could take this. I, I think it’s so great. Tell me Vivek. Where along your journey did you kind of discover this? It, it sounds like what you’re describing, I think in some cases is like, uh, I don’t mean this negatively. I mean, it’s, it powerfully like almost a simple and obvious truth of like, here’s where you start. But I don’t know if a lot of dentists are necessarily thinking that, or maybe it seems too obvious or simple or whatever it may be. Where along your journey, like what, what mistakes have you made or what things did you learn? Where, where was this point in your career that this like epiphany happened?

Vivek Solanki: Yeah, that, that’s great. The, the best, uh, teachers, right? My mistakes, my best teachers were, You know, I had this test in la I had an office that I owned, uh, Polaris helped me on, on sales side. And, um, we actually recorded a podcast on it at, at the end of, uh, 2021, early 2022. I wanted to take, a large practice. I acquired it, changed the clinical outcomes, phenomenal clinical dentistry. Uh, basically 80,000 in EBITDA to 600,000 in EBITDA in 16 months, and then a strategic partner, right? I needed proof of concept. And so you can go as fast as you want to, or you can go as slow as you want to. There’s no timeline, but all of the resources are there. When you say that, it’s, it sounds so simple, you know, it really is. There has to be, there has to be a, an a, a very strong clinician. Who’s in the driver’s seat with what the vision and the clinical philosophy of the practice is? See, when I got out into ownership, like I knew the terms, what EBITDA was and how collections and production, and I think most docs now coming out of residency and school know these terms. But they can’t look at the trends and see, well, we haven’t closed many cases in the last month. Our stats are gonna crash next month. What’s our new patient count like? Facility fees are going down, staff payroll is going on. That’s just a byproduct of revenues for clinical care, right? We wanna learn to do this high-end dentistry, and that’s gonna change the entire p and l, right?

It’s gonna keep our staff payroll between 20 to 29%. It’s gonna keep our associate pay where we need to go. So I learned all of those things after I kept touching businesses and seeing top line grow, right? Why is it that we, we touched a practice and top line grew every time, three x five x, 10 x an office. What caused it? The patients were there. We didn’t, we didn’t do insane marketing campaign to drive patients into the practice. But what was it that caused it? It was looking at the quality of care that they were doing there. And then, and it’s asking real questions like, do you guys enjoy doing this stuff? maybe, you know, what do you wanna do? We’d like to do implants. We’d like to do higher end dentistry. Okay, well, where’s the disconnect? Is it that the doctors are just afraid to talk about it? Are they afraid to do it? Maybe they’ve got some experience in residency, but they don’t wanna be, you know, they don’t wanna be in a situation where patients feel like Guinea pigs. So when, when you have somebody like myself, there’s a lot of clinical mentors, there’s a lot of docs who are in positions that, that I’m in. When you have somebody that’s very confident in the way that they can run a clinical process in an office. The other doctors just kind of fall in place. You need TLC, you need to drill them.

You need to make them uncomfortable. You need to teach them firm, firm teaching so that they grow. Right. And it’s kind of like, I want them to fall. I want all my docs to fall, but I won’t let them hit the pavement. I’ll catch them before they do, but I, I’m gonna make them fall.

And they’re not going to hurt somebody. So we do simulations, we do drills, we do things to help them do surgeries better, but all this time they are not thinking in their head that, okay, here’s this owner or this principle that’s just pushing revenues. And that’s what creates the culture for sustainability. Because you can come in and say, Hey, we need to do this on every patient arrest and all these things that we have heard in, you know, larger organizations. But if that’s not the memo. If the memo is, let me help you guys do better dentistry. Let me be a mentor for you. Let me help you grow in your professional career, and now let’s have fun with it. Let’s change some people’s lives. Let’s you know, let’s see the patients get these phenomenal outcomes and let’s put them on camera, put ’em on the website. The focus away from money is just naturally happening and and the doctors are understanding that it’s just. The revenues are a byproduct of now busy schedules and you helping your patients get the care they need. And so that’s what these building blocks are, and then we just keep growing on them. What does the business need now? What can we do? What can we supplement? You know, are we getting, are we maxing out? What is, you know, what is the pathway for the principles now? Are they doing it so they can create JV structures? Are, are they doing it because they’re looking at a future transition? Are they looking to bring in a strategic partner? So there’s so many different reasons why somebody would want to do this, but in all honesty, every practice needs to be performing at their best clinical care, because that’s what’s going to give the bottom line. A healthy metric to look at.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like, again, you’re almost, you’re almost kind of, it sounds like you’re almost flipping back to. kind of trying to restore us back to kind of this middle ground of what’s happened with dentistry where it’s become, again, for, for good reason focused on the business side.

Right. I think the days of being able to just like, hang a shingle and, and just bring patients in, like those days are quickly dwindling if not already gone. Like, you do have to be a good business owner. But it sounds like what you’re saying, Vivek is like, let’s not lose sight of the core. Thing that we’re doing, which is patient care, high quality, patient care.

What do you say to dentists out there? Maybe listening, thinking like I, they’re saying to themselves, I’m a, I’m already a damn good clinician. I’ve got this, this, damn, my patient care is great, but I struggle on the business side. Like, can you speak a little bit more like to the connectedness of these two things?

Vivek Solanki: Yeah, that, that’s a great question because I think when we’re already great at something, we become greater when we have to teach it. And so it doesn’t really matter that we might be the, the rockstar. A dentist, a principal might be a phenomenal clinician. Now, if that business is built around them and they’re the solo provider, then fantastic. I’d say that it’s hard to do both. Well, you had asked me a question earlier about, you know, at what point did I, those failures, those teachers give me a chance to understand. I had this capability to, to scale and grow practices, you know, and it was fun. I learned early on that running a business is a full-time job. And being a clinician, I. Is a full-time job and sometimes like a teeter-totter, you have to go back and forth. There may be periods of heavy management and there may be periods of a lot of clinical, right, but the clinical, if you’re, if you’re a principal, you’re, you’re an owner and you’re trying to scale an organization, there’s gonna be times where you have to be in the chair, but it has to be purpose driven. you have to have, being in the chair. Should be for a purpose to mentor and teach the younger generation to bring associates in that could then free up that time to allow you to focus on the business. Because if you’re, if you’re doing both, they’re both gonna be done mediocre really well. One’s gonna suffer and one’s gonna succeed. And so for me, I would say that it’s always a little bit of a back and forth where the more mentoring I do. If I’m not doing de Novos and I’m not bringing on acquisitions, then maybe I can focus 90% of my time on the business. But if I’m in expansion mode, then a lot of my time is gonna be in the, and focusing on growth and, and systems and business.

And then here comes an acquisition de novo, and I may have to jump back in the chair. You know, we have a team now of clinical people here in Florida. We may have to jump on the chair to help. Mentor and help, which then we start bringing that time back to focus on the business un, unless it’s come to a point where, you know, in a, in A DSO or in a multi-group practice where you have a CEO who’s running the business side of it, and then maybe they have a partner who’s like a clinical director. That’s where maybe two people could both do both at the same time and do it well because everybody’s had it and they’re doing what they do best.

Matt Mulcock: But you’re saying leading up to that point, you, you’d say, in most cases, the dentist is gonna have to kind of play both of those roles for a period of, for a period of time.

Vivek Solanki: Yes. And it’s a transition, right? If, if the dentist is looking to bring somebody on and bring some associates into the group and, and mentor them, I. It’s gonna be a lot of time and mentorship, and then they need to maybe set those two days a week as as admin. Maybe there are days in the office where they can watch and mentor the docs and then now they start carving back some time for themselves to focus on the business. We typically see when we’re at, when we’re doing clinical coaching with Polaris, we typically see owner docs who have good associates and the early associates that came into the organization. They have a incredible amount of training, but as these owners and principals started expanding, the newer associates got less and less training because they didn’t have the time to spend with them, and now they got in a place where the owners are still in the chair, they have associates, but now they don’t even have the time to focus on the associates, nor do they have the time to focus on the business itself.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, they’re just spread too thin.

Vivek Solanki: Very thin, right? And that’s why clinic, that’s why what we’re doing at Polaris is, is helpful because you can still be in the chair. And then bring in a coach, bring in a director to help, right? Somebody’s gotta help the doctors and the business grow, and that’s where the lift will come from. The big, the big lift in a practice.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s, that’s great. Um, I want to come back to the mentorship and leadership piece, but first I, I wanna move on from, when you think about like, clinical coaching, you mentioned earlier, Kind of a multi-specialty approach. so is it your belief and your approach and like polaris’s approach here that, like, like how, how, I guess, how custom does this get from your perspective? Based on certain practices, based on personality or based on desires for the, for the dentist themselves? Like, do you guys have kind of like a, here’s where we should start and then we can kind of tear it up from there? Or is it kind of just a custom for every single person?

Vivek Solanki: It’s great question. I think what’s unique about this program is. We wanna see where every group is at baseline. so one group may need something completely different from somebody else. And so what ends up happening is we, when we go in, we do a deep dive to see where their business is at from a clinical lens and, and what can be done to help them grow. , I could say it’s a custom approach to, to answer your question, it’s a, it’s a custom approach. We wanna come in and see where the business is at clinically at day one. Now, one group may have completely different set of needs than another group, but the foundation and group practice is always going to be general dentistry first. Right. And because if we look at the average. General dentist, maybe let’s call them like a 400 or $500,000 a year producer. An extra $1,500 a day in production is going to be on a four day work week. It’s gonna be an average of $300,000 a year in production, so that’s gonna be about a hundred thousand dollars a year for a take home for a doctor. Our operational expenses stay the same for staffing, and that’s about another a hundred grand going back in pure EBITDA in the business. Two grand. We’re be at 400,132. So just off of one associate doctor, we’re looking at a hundred to 132,000. If we say like at a 5 0 6 X enterprise value, you’ve just added half a million dollars back of enterprise value in a business. So the first step is we need to see where the general dentists are at. We may approach a group that has phenomenal general dentists. We refer to some of these dentists as super gps. They can do surgery, they can do a lot of what they do. They may need help bringing in a multi-specialty model, right where they’re we’re now multi-specialty can do what they do on the perio oral surgery, endodontic side, and the general dentist will then compliment together and you’ll get like a massive impact in the business. So it just really depends. We’ll talk to the principals, we’ll talk to the teams and see what their goals are, but also connecting with the associate doctors and see what their goals are, to see how we can help them achieve that meaningful lift without it coming from like a profitability standpoint, right?

So it’s all gonna be clinically driven, like how can we help you succeed and how can we help you get the patient outcomes that you want? Because then six months down the road, we’ll see the numbers change in the practice.

Matt Mulcock: Got it. And, and with that being said, Vivek are, are these doctors that are engaging, you guys do, is that what you’re mainly hearing? Like are they coming to you with like patient care issues or is that something you’re almost having to like. Kind of convince them of, of their main mindset? Meaning are you getting a doc coming to you being like, I gotta get my profits up, or, and then you’ve gotta kind of shift their mindset? Or is it usually the other way around or just kind of across the board? I.

Vivek Solanki: It’s a, it’s a mixture of both. It’s like, really good question. It’s a mixture of both. Some docs will know their numbers and they will be looking at a strategic in the next three to five years, and they are trying to get ahead of the curve. They, they want to strength, they have good assets, they wanna strengthen their businesses, and they just know they don’t have the time. That’s the first one. other doctors will say, you know, straight from the associate standpoint, well, my associates aren’t doing X, Y, and Z when the, there’s a mirror. Now let’s pull the mirror out and are you doing what you need to do to help them? What’s your process like? How are you teaching them? How are you empowering them? What are you doing to inspire them? Then we find that maybe their systems are not as effective as they could be or they don’t have enough time to put the TLC in. So there’s a mix mixture of both. Um, but we do, we do come at it from that clinical lens because I think if the principals who are docs or the owner doctors, that’s where we can speak the same language. We, we have to, we have to get them to see, especially with associate doctors. They’re responsible for the majority of revenue in a lot of these associate driven practices, right? So if there’s not systems for how clinical things are done, if there are not pathways to continue to close cases and help the office do great production, we have to first establish those and then kind of watch them and keep su supplementing, keep, keep mentorship there because they’re gonna wanna keep growing.

Matt Mulcock: Definitely. Totally makes sense. You’ve mentioned this a couple times. I want to, I wanna get back to this, of this mentorship idea and this leadership. I would imagine There’s probably some deficiencies from a leadership perspective that these dentists don’t want to acknowledge, and that’s probably a difficult message to get across. Like you said, kind of pulling the mirror out, but what are the challenges that you’re seeing around getting the associates on board or getting the team on board with, it sounds like what you’re describing is just a higher standard of care, like a higher level of care, higher expectations. What are some things that people can be thinking about when it comes to maybe.

Like, I’ll just give a a maybe a, a, a a a more specific example. You, I’m guessing you work with dentists who are multiple years, maybe a decade or more into their practice. They’ve set kind of some expectations, maybe some cultural things. What are maybe the first one or two or three things that dentists need to be thinking about, to kind of shift the culture there? And, and, and maybe second part of that would be just challenges you’ve seen when it comes to this stuff.

Vivek Solanki: Yeah. Usually the challenges are for all of us, including me, is that we only know what we know, right? And so why? Why is it perio myself as a periodontist? Why am I a periodontist going into a general dentistry practice and focusing on general dentistry first? Into the Multispecialty model. The reason is that perio is so close to general dentistry, and the second part of that is that. So many general dentists are placing implants now and they’re doing a lot of surgery, and so there’s so much overlap in what we both do. But the, the commonality and the bottom line there is that general dentistry and younger doctors want to do more surgery as it relates to their own treatment plans. So unless they go to residency or unless they go to Brazil and do a course, these cadaver courses, unless they’re very diligent on these things. They’re gonna get limited to what they know how to do, and their toolbox only has like three or four tools in it. So when we come in, what I do is I help them bring those extra tools into their box first, right? And we, we get them comfortable and we do this in a safe way. A lot of times I’m assisting for them. And that’s where getting the adoption from the owner side helps because they see the process. They see sometimes that they don’t even do these things. They don’t take the time to just assist their docs for a day of surgery because they don’t have the time.

It’s not that they don’t want to, but some of these people don’t have the time. So when we come in, we try to help them understand where the value adds are and how to get their doctors. It’s not as easy as, okay, well just go do implants. I sent you to this course. Just do it. So we need to give them a pathway that they can feel safe and comfortable to do it, and then we can help them succeed. That’s what’s going to change the business. So that’s the first scope that’s taken. It’s why I come at it from a perio standpoint. It’s because a lot of what I do revolves around general dentistry and a lot of what they do revolves around perial being healthy in the mouth. That’s why we’re able to do this in such a strong way in getting such a lift in the practices that I own. They’re multispecialty practices, but also these group practices that are predominantly general dentistry, bringing in more surgery, bringing in advanced dentistry, implants, and then eventually multispecialty. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Totally makes sense. How do you generally see. I would imagine that a lot of this has to be kind of like put in terms when it comes to like associates specifically, like how and why it’s better for them. I would imagine number one, it’s probably like you’re gonna make more money, but, like that’s as like you said as a result. But what of things that you maybe, maybe what are things that you’ve seen, has there been pushback you’ve seen within these practices from associates? What, what are the things that you hear as like pushback? Is it just fear?

Vivek Solanki: The pushback is mostly fear.

Matt Mulcock: Got

Vivek Solanki: It’s it, it’s fear of failure. It’s fear of unknown and it’s, it’s fear of, of, uh, just making a mistake. Fear of asking for help. Right. And so when, when we come in, when I come in, you know, one of, I, I talk about this a lot because he’s phenomenal in my organization. When I first came to Florida, I had a doc who was very uncomfortable with any surgery. I mean, anything that was surgery in the mouth got referred out and he was a 300, 400. Max $500,000 a year producer, and he’s now 1.3. He does his own implants, he does, he’s mentoring other people and, and just to see his growth in his clinical career, just be seeing, watching him become a leader. It’s been so great, you know, gratifying. And so I’m just so amazed at him because he’s still growing. So once we get past that level of. Fear and we can actually have a real conversation and they can talk about their vulnerabilities. And we let them know that, Hey, I’m here to help you. I’m going to actually assist you.

We’re gonna do simulations and drills and egos are left at the door. I’m your colleague. I’m not a periodontist. I’m not a huge specialist head here. I’m just another dentist man just like you. And I’m here to help you. And if you wanna do these cases, which I, I believe you do, I. Let’s start looking at the CT scans. Let’s start talking about how you’re gonna talk to this patient. Next. Let’s do a drill. If I was the patient, how would you talk to me? You learn a lot in that five minute conversation and it’s just like, wow. You know? You know? Why would you say these things it and it’s okay. Here. Try, try it this way, because when I’m the patient and you say that to me, here’s what I think. So if you’re trying to convey this point. Why don’t we try to address it this way with the patient, there is a higher chance they might say yes to you, but that fear of unknown, that fear of failure, those things prevent the doctors from saying what they need to say. Patients lose confidence in them cases don’t get closed on what they need to do, and they go back to doing the same thing they were doing the last year to two years. Something has to change that cycle. So that they can say they, they need a win. They have to get quick wins. They have to see somebody like they’re in the operatory and they turn and they smile. I’m like, that, that patient is still there because for the first time, somebody is saying yes to, to this treatment that they wanna do, but, but they don’t look at the doctor as being like inferior. You know? The doctor’s like, oh, we, we have the specialist here. They’re gonna be assisting us in the surgery. That’s it. That’s all you have to say.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Vivek Solanki: Oh, wow. I get two docs for the price of one. Fantastic.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Vivek Solanki: So there’s a million different ways to spin it, but we have to empower these doctors in the groups, and I think after these first drills, and that’s when we build that relationship. So after that first win, it’s a completely different office. It’s a completely different organization, right? We brought up those numbers before about, let’s just say an extra a hundred thousand in EBITDA for a 1500 to $2,000 a day producer. Well, if you have five docs in an organization, now you’re looking at 500,000 in ebitda, right? Which you’re looking at two and a half to 3 million enterprise value. You’ve significantly changed. The valuation of this group and how somebody else is gonna look at this group in a strategic, all from what? Just helping doctors get comfortable and helping them execute better care. Right? So that’s way end of the spectrum to how that translates onto bottom line and enterprise value.

Matt Mulcock: So cool. Vivek of, of just, again, you’re meeting doctors where they’re at, you’re, you’re telling them they don’t need to do, I mean, they need, they need to up their game, but it’s not like you need to become some like business guru expert on some other level. It’s like, no, you just gotta become a better dentist and we’ll help you figure that out.

Vivek Solanki: Right. And it’s not demeaning,

Matt Mulcock: No.

Vivek Solanki: It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s empowering. It’s, it’s okay to ask for help. It’s like showing them like, here’s a PowerPoint of all of my failures. These are my surgical failures for the last 10 years. I want, I’m proud of them. There’s my book of teachers, I show them, right? So the the, the hands, you know, white, white flag is out, the guard is down. I’m your colleague. Let’s learn together. And by the way, when you’re doing these cases, I’ll be here to help you. And so that’s where these onsite visits really help us because. Unlike weekend visits, clinical coaching is on site, so we do two days on site a month. We’ll do treatment planning sessions through the week.

We’ll try try to get them to get comfortable treatment planning, thinking outside of the box a little bit more complex. The more we play in the complicated arenas, the easier general dentistry becomes, that’s where you start to see bigger lifts because their treatment planning more efficiently. They’re doing more for a patient in one visit rather than bringing them back five times to do something. Right? So it’s just so many different pathways to get there, but it has to come from this level of care, just like we care for our patients, we care for these docs, and some may not wanna do implants. Some may wanna do other things, right? We have, uh, ortho and with Dr. Steve and clinical coaching. There are other endo, there’s other ways to get where they need to get. Not everybody is on this path, but what I would say from my experience of running so many group practices, that I have rarely met a general dentist who says, I do not want to learn implants. I do not want to learn surgery. I do not want to grow in my professional career and, and get out of this box of being $150,000 a take home doc. Like I aspire to do more, but they just don’t have the means to get there.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you used the word empowering. Uh, I think that’s, that’s huge. Um, in the current landscape, we are in vivec of, let’s be honest, DSOs and consolidation. it’s changed so much in the last, even just five years, it’s drastically changed. How much of this, like I, again, I love this word empowerment. How much of this have you seen empowers dentists to almost give them maybe another path of being like, oh man, like I don’t have to sell out. Like I can just do this and, and grow. Like what impact have you seen there and like almost defense of the consolidation kind of trend that’s been happening?

Vivek Solanki: I think in so many different levels. Great. You know, it’s a great question. We see docs maybe get like a newfound passion. You know, some of the CEOs, some of the principals, they’ll look at their organization in a different lens now and they’ll see like, wow, where I was looking at getting burnt out and where I was looking at an exit, uh, I see that I have less stress on my plate. My stats have gone up. The culture has changed in my business. My doctors are happy. They’re asking me about a JV structure. They kind of wanna be a partner of mine. It changes the outlook on the business. It really does. and so many people have different goals, you know, but what I would say is if somebody’s goal is to transact or bringing a strategic partner, PE or maybe even a DSO. You need to show growth, you need to show five, 7%, 10%. You need to show the businesses organically growing year by year. So this will help them get set up for that. But the other side of it is this new passion. They say, I wanna go do another de novo. I have all this free time. My associate doctors who I was mentoring, and they are now at a place where they can mentor. I can now do another acquisition. And I can maybe acquire the real estate and I can start building more wealth. And they, they start playing this game of of which is fun for them. Instead of being, tied down on the clinical side of things, mismanaging a business, which is not what their intention is, it was the byproduct of not having enough time to dedicate to either the business, the associate doctors, or even their own clinical outcomes themselves.

Matt Mulcock: Such a good response and answer there, Vivek and, and we see this personally. You give that kind of framing of. how many dentists are out there just feeling burned out almost, or, or too reactive or just like they feel fear, like fearful. Talk about fear of like, man, like I have to do something. And again, coming back to this word almost, maybe the theme of this is like the, the empowerment that you’re sharing and, and bringing to them, we’ve seen this so much when dentists can get a better handle, a better vision, better clinical skills, better, more intention behind their approach to their business. Like you said, all of a sudden it’s like it becomes fun again. They’re like, oh yeah, like I can do this. I can be, I can, all of a sudden, my passion’s almost back as opposed to just kind of being run over by corporate consolidation. So I, I, I guess I just don’t want to, I don’t wanna brush over that, the power that that can bring for dentists that you guys are bringing with this approach.

Vivek Solanki: If you’re having fun with it, it’s less likely to be perceived as work. And so if we can make it fun, you know, if patients can get good care. That’s gonna change. The revenues in the practice team can bonus, associate doctors are happy. What, what more do you want from a business? You know, it, it’s, it’s, it’s doing what it needs to do and people are happy and the treatment outcomes are good. Now it just depends on what game are we playing. do, do you wanna bring a specialist in now? Do you wanna, do you wanna, do you, you wanna do more de novos or acquisitions or? No, I’m happy where I’m at. I still have all this space in this business. Okay, great. Maybe you should start looking at a multi-specialty model.

Become a one stop shop. Right. And here’s, you can go from three, five to seven in revenue now so that the game always changes and, and it can always change. There’s no ceiling in dentistry. There’s only a ceiling when the clinical care and the creativity on what we can do for our patients. When that light bulb turns off, you’ve now hit a ceiling and you’re gonna de and you’re gonna decline. So as long as somebody is there driving clinical outcomes, inspiring others around them, you are never gonna have a ceiling. You’ll always have ways that you can grow a business.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I love that. Uh, it’s crazy how much everything you’re talking about vibes, again, with how we approach clients and how it’s probably why we’re here Vivek, um, of having, having this conversation. And I love that you keep using the term business because we cannot emphasize this enough from our side of you are running a business and, and what you just said there was so great of saying. As long as you are running a good business with quality patient care, customer, patient, you can inter use those interchangeably. You’re getting creative, you’re getting intentional. There is no ceiling to that. Even with the consolidation movement that’s here, you are running a business. It’s so great. And so again, empowering what you’re bringing here. Um, Vivec help, help people out there listening, understand, uh, maybe get a little bit more clear on. People out there listening. What stage of career, ideally, and maybe it’s all of ’em, but like for, for you guys, like what do you think is the ideal stage or place of career, that someone would be out there listening, thinking, I gotta engage these guys? Like where are they in their career, whether it be location numbers, or whether it be age or, or whatever it is. What is an ideal kind of scenario for you guys to be able to add the most value?

Vivek Solanki: Sure. Great question. I’d say that starting 0.2 to three, two to five practices. And then we certainly work with larger groups in the five to 10, five to 25 locations. You know, if it’s a, usually this program is designed because there are associate doctors in the business. There’s a good grasp on a baseline of dentistry and they want to grow. And a solo, solo doctor office with one provider. You know, we can certainly help them, but they haven’t grown enough to see a, an impact. So I would say at least two locations. And on age-wise, no restriction. Right? It just depends on, Warren Buffett is still going. Right.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah.

Vivek Solanki: You know, age-wise there’s no, there’s no limit there. But I would say two to five practices, we see very meaningful outcomes. Because they’re at a place where the owners and the principals can still spend time within their business and still work with us as a coach. When we get bigger than that, when we get to the five to 10, 10 to 25 locations, what we start to see is we start carving out pieces of their business. Which are areas of their business where they don’t have too much access to and they’re struggling the most. We start targeting low hanging fruit and start turning around things that they perceive that was not possible. And then when that changes, we can start working into different areas of the business and working with, a lot of these groups have multi-specialty models, oral surgery and perio coming in. Maybe we help them streamline that and strengthen those processes. That gets better. So it just really depends. But I would say to, to answer your question, at least two, two locations, a two to five group, if they’re looking to grow, if they wanna help their associate GP doctors grow, if they’ve ever thought about bringing in a specialist, I don’t know how to do that. How would I even incorporate in that? What do I structure that like with the, with the specialist and who does what? How do we get them patients? How do we work together? It’s easier because they’re smaller, but then there are also things that are easier with the larger groups as well. So to anywhere from two and up, we, we work with everybody.

Matt Mulcock: Got it. Totally makes sense. What would you say to a young doc? Maybe a couple years outta school, maybe a practice owner, let’s say single location, they’re still kind of getting their feet underneath them. Um, maybe clinical skills up, but they have aspirations to get to that 2, 3, 4 location that they’re just pre that group or pre that kind of, that, uh, that person. What would you say, like a couple, like one thing even that, that you’d say they should be focused on to get there?

Vivek Solanki: Yeah. I would say step one, become a great dentist First, we have to clock in the hours. We can’t buy the experience, so become a great dentist first, and then in order to become a great teacher, you’ve gotta start teaching. So that’s where you would bring your first, first associate into your practice. And if you can duplicate 70% of yourself, massive win, right? If you can bring somebody in and you can create a process for them where they can be duplicating what you do and 70%, and you have a pathway for them to get there in six months, or you have a pathway to get them there in a year, phenomenal. Do it again. Shorten that timeframe to eight months. Do again, shorten that timeframe to six months. At some point in time, you’ll, your distributions should match or exceed your clinical income. So this is how they can do this without taking a hit. You still be in the chair while you are mentoring. Help your doctors grow. Then as you keep growing, you can start pulling back and focusing a little bit more on the business and the mentorship side, or work with a coach or somebody else, somebody who can help you bring bigger clinical and more fun clinical outcomes into your business. Where now you’ve gotten to a, I’m a two practice owner. I do some days in the chair if they want to, if they don’t want to. They’re focusing on their business, but I would say they have to start with one person. They need to be able to teach one person how to become at least 70% of them, and that’s a win.

Matt Mulcock: Huge, huge. And I love that advice. You can’t buy that experience. I love that. Uh, and don’t, again, I love that you just said this. Don’t lose sight of like, you gotta become a good dentist first. That’s, that’s huge. And I think in this wave of like business efficiencies and EBITDA and consolidation and scaling again. We agree that that’s critical, but it can’t supersede or come before just becoming a really, really good clinician. I love that you can’t buy that experience so good. Vik. Um, tell me, I think probably we should do a part two, uh, at some

Vivek Solanki: Yeah, happy

Matt Mulcock: So many, so many more places we could take this, um, for times, uh, for times’ sake. Vik, uh, I want to end with this. How do people, they want to know more, they want engage you guys. Uh, how do people, what’s the best way people can engage, uh, you and, and Polaris?

Vivek Solanki: Yeah, so my email, it’s, it’s Vivek VIV as in Victor, IV as in Victor, vivek@polarisclinicalcoaching.com. And I’ll respond to you. Um, you can reach out directly on the website at@polarishealthcarepartners.com. There’s a clinical coaching tab and you can reach out directly to Polaris and that’s where we’ll have a call. We’ll understand what your goals, what your needs are, and how is this something that we can help you get where you wanna go.

Matt Mulcock: Awesome. yeah, that’s when you know you’re a real one when you’re giving out your own personal information, uh, on a, on a podcast, honestly. so much good stuff here. Vivek, honestly, I really do wanna do a part two because of the mindset you guys have, the value that you’re bringing. Just it’s, it comes through like the, the attitude you have. It’s, it’s incredible and, and really, really valuable to listen to. So. Really appreciate you coming on the show. And, and if you’re listening and you got something out of this and, and it’s helpful, please share this with someone. Please share this with the dentist out there that you think maybe you’re out there and you’re not there yet.

You’re not to that two or five location or above. but you know, someone that is, I think this would be super helpful. So please share this episode, with your friends or anyone that you know that you think it could be helpful. Reach out to Vivek, reach out to Polaris. really appreciate the time. Vivek, we’re, we’re gonna do this again for sure. everyone. Oh yeah, go ahead. Anything

Vivek Solanki: Yeah. No thank. Thank you so much. You knows. Thank so much on podcast. In dentistry, guidance and support. We only know dentists. We know clinical stuff so well, but you know, the wealth management and how to manage the money and taxes and all of this 401k everything is very applicable to what we do. So I really, uh, we appreciate you having me on the show.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Appreciate you being here. You’re right. They’re so interconnected here. We’ll do this again for sure. Much more to come from Vivek and from Polaris and the collaboration with Dentist Advisors. So appreciate everyone for listening. Till next time, bye-bye.

Keywords: clinical management, scaling practices, mentorship, leadership, dental coaching, multi-specialty model, EBITDA, clinical coaching, practice growth, fear management, financial outcomes, mentorship, multi-specialty practices.

Practice Management