How Sustainability Can Improve Your Dental Practice

On this episode of The Dentist Money Show, Taylor sits down with practice owner Dr. Jackson Boone to discuss how implementing sustainable practices in his dental office has helped reduce waste, improve efficiency, lower overhead, and strengthen patient loyalty. From going paperless and upgrading technology to rethinking everyday office waste, Jackson shares practical changes that have made a meaningful impact on both his practice and the environment. Whether sustainability is a personal passion or you’re simply looking for ways to run a more efficient business, tune in for valuable insights for any practice owner.

Related Readings

Why Do We Feel So Bad Financially?

---

Podcast Transcript

Taylor: All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Dentist Money Show. I think for the first time ever, I am the host today, ⁓ Taylor Sutterfield. So you’ve probably heard me before on the show, but this is my first time ever putting on the big boy pants and stepping into the hosting role. And ⁓ today’s guest I’m really excited to have on. I’ve known Jackson for a few months now and just really impressed with everything that he and his wife have done so far together and really excited to have him on the podcast. So Jackson Boone is his name. He told me just before we jumped on that this is his first ever podcast. So hopefully this goes well but we’re excited to have Jackson on the podcast today. So just to give you guys a brief intro to Jackson, Jackson is famous internally because Jackson came on board with us a few months back and in his discovery questionnaire, I pulled this up. ⁓ Just to give you guys background, everyone listening out there, the discovery questionnaire is something we send out to prospects before they jump on with us. And we ask them a bunch of questions just to get some background. And one of those questions that we asked is, as you consider your option for wealth management, what is it about dentists advisors that interests you? And Jackson responded, I really appreciate your approach to financial planning and advising compared to other advisors. Plus, I trust Rabih to manage my portfolio. Guy is a walking, talking cash GPT. So as many of you know, Rabih has gotten a new nickname in our firm and that is cash GPT. And Jackson is the reason. Jackson is the one that coined this. So I don’t know if we like, you royalties or if we, you know, slap this on a t-shirt and we have some type of partnership deal, but this is, this is Jackson. Jackson is the one that gave Rabih his nickname. So we’re, very excited to have Jackson. I just want to start Jackson. Tell us a little bit about your story. ⁓ you know, why first and foremost, did you want to become a dentist and then tell us about your kind of journey into practice ownership?

Jackson: Yeah. ⁓ and again, I, it might be the only reason I’m here because of cash GPT, but I’m thankful. I listened to a lot of podcasts, including Dentist money show. and it’s wild to be on the other side of the equation. ⁓ yeah, for me, starting into dentistry, I’m the first in my family to be a dentist. I wanted to do something in the healthcare field and I didn’t want to just diagnose and write prescriptions. I really like working with my hands as most dentists do. And we do more procedures on a daily basis than many other fields of medicine. And I just think it’s a really cool intersection of being able to create relationships with patients and, you know, get in there and work with your hands, still diagnose. And I just think that even if you don’t like chair-side dentistry, there is something for every single person within dentistry. ⁓ dentistry is…

Taylor: So you said you’re the first in your family. So were you considering other areas of healthcare before you settled on dentistry?

Jackson: Not at all, really. My dad is an engineer and I think I do have kind of the engineering mindset, but dentistry is kind of like engineering in the mouth in a lot of ways. And he and I find a lot of parallels in what he does and what I do.

Taylor: That’s awesome. So decided to go to dental school, decided to brave the hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, right? And you’re still pretty young. Jackson, you just had a birthday, right? We just hit 33, right? So a lot of dentists by this age haven’t even purchased a practice yet, but you are thriving as a business owner already. Why were you so motivated coming out of dental school to purchase and own your own dental practice?

Jackson: I did foresee myself as a business owner, but it wasn’t my initial idea. My wife and I moved to Cincinnati in 2022 and I was fully interested in just being an associate and kind of getting my feet underneath me. And there was a doctor here in Cincinnati who had become ill recently and he just needed someone to fill in for that time. And I stepped in and honestly fell in love with the location, with the team. And, ⁓ at some point he said, Hey, I am not going to be able to come back and I would love for you to buy it. And it honestly sounds crazy, but it fell into my lap. And I went from having no interest of being an associate here in Cincinnati to being my own business owner. And, now we’re, as you know, kind of looking to find a larger location and hopefully help more people at some point.

Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, it’s crazy how life throws you curveballs. You know, I’m sure I’m sure Cincinnati, Ohio was not on your bingo card when you first started this. Yeah, that’s great. Well, now we have a practice we have a new, you know, recent baby, you know, life’s just happening all at once for you to write.

Jackson: 100%. It was not, not at all.

Taylor: And on top of that, you’ve done some really interesting things with your practice, right? Which is why specifically, I wish I could take credit for it, but it’s honestly Jackson’s doing. He reached out and was like, hey, I’m doing some interesting things at my practice. I don’t know if this would be something that you guys would be interesting highlighting. And we were like, yes, please, right? So Jackson is really, really interested in sustainability honestly didn’t know learn this about his dental practice. I learned this when we started talking investment philosophy. And Jackson’s really passionate about, to use your own words and you can correct me if I’m misquoting you, Jackson. But what I recall you telling me is like, I invest how I want to see the world become more than, you know, trying to necessarily make a profit, right? And it’s worked out so far. Right? The hope is that it is profitable, right? But, you know, that’s since day one, something that I’ve learned about Jackson is that he is really passionate about sustainability. And because of this, you have implemented things and done things at your practice that are pretty unique, right? And it’s not something that we come across that often, even though we work with hundreds of dentists across the country. And we really wanted to share your story with other listeners because there’s probably other people out there that have similar views, but more than that are also interested in different things that they can do to market their practice and or be more profitable, right? But let’s start just kind of with your passion behind this. You’re young, you’re an associate, you kind of get thrown into this role with this doctor that’s sick and then eventually you end up buying your own practice. And for a lot of people, that’s overwhelming in and of itself, right? Let alone to do and implement some of the things that you’ve added. So let’s back up and just talk though about the sustainability piece of this. What got you interested in sustainability and all the things that you’re doing now?

Jackson: Yeah. ⁓ I’m going to step back too, cause I think what you said with, ⁓ my investment and that sort of mindset, think a lot of dentists specifically do try to align their spending with their ideology. that’s something you guys talk about on the show as well, kind of auditing where your dollars are going and making sure whether it’s how you’re spending your money or how you’re investing hopefully does align with your ideology, with your worldview as well. For me, I grew up in North Carolina and just was in awe every time I went to the Appalachian Mountains in Western North Carolina, whether I was trout fishing or hiking. I started to learn the names of the plants and the fungi and just everything out there. And my wife and I were talking actually, because our son is 15 months old. And it’s wild that when you’re raising a kid, a lot of times they know the names and sounds of things like zebras and lions that they’ll never actually see here in America, other than the zoo, but they can’t name the trees in your backyard. ⁓ And so I just, I think it’s really interesting as you learn more about nature and the world around you, you come to appreciate it more. And so I grew up in a beautiful part of the world and it helped me want to protect that world as well. ⁓ So as I looked into practice ownership, realized just, and I think anybody inherently just knows dentistry is a wasteful profession at times. There’s a lot of ⁓ plastic waste. There’s a lot of just trash in general. ⁓ and it’s no fault of our own, but I, I didn’t know where to start because there is no playbook for how to make dentistry more sustainable. ⁓ so I’m still figuring it out and I don’t think it’s perfect science, but we have done some things that I think could help. Uh, most people just not only maybe feel a little bit less wasteful, also hopefully increase the practice value and their overhead and a lot of other things, other things as well.

Taylor: Yeah. Well, and that’s, you know, I like that you mentioned that because that was something I was thinking about prepping for this is like, just didn’t, when I think of sustainable professions, dentistry doesn’t come top of mind. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, there’s reasons for it. think any healthcare, it’s like you first and foremost want to make sure that your patients are healthy and protected and that you’re being safe. And a lot of that means, you know, having single use plastics and you know, washing your hands a lot and paper towels and everything that you’re using every single day. It’s a very wasteful profession, so to speak. Right. so sustainability is not top of mind, I think for most people in this profession. And it’s a unique thing, which is, really glad, really why I’m glad that we’re talking about it today, because I think this will be really insightful and helpful for a lot of practice owners out there listening about things they can do to improve. So let’s start with your journey. Obviously, sustainability was really important to you. You’ve mentioned that you grew up in the outdoors, just having a natural love of nature. You and your wife have done such a phenomenal job, even though you guys were young. I mean, it’s really, really impressive what you’ve done so far. Jackson is not just saying these things. I’m telling you that he practices what he preaches done a phenomenal job being intentional, as he mentioned, with aligning his spending, aligning his investing with his values and what’s important to him, right? And so how did you start and what prompted you to look into this in dentistry and like what resources were available and are available? Like how did you get your foot in the door and start this process?

Jackson: Yeah. ⁓ I mean, I think I started listening to the Dentist money show right after buying my practice because I didn’t have that guide to say like, this is what you’re supposed to do with your practice. This is how to make sure you’re not gonna just dig a hole for yourself immediately. ⁓ it’s scary when you buy a practice and you’re young and, ⁓ you don’t You know, come from a family with a huge safety net of resources in case things do go south. ⁓ so for me, it was there are two levers, levers you can spend, whether it’s, ⁓ your business. Finances or personal finances. You can either try to make more money or you can try to spend less money. ⁓ and so I wasn’t positive that we could grow the practice of time. I just didn’t know. I thought we could, but I wasn’t positive. And I said, well, let’s see where some of the less efficient sustainability practices are and see if we can maybe reduce our overhead there. So we did, we kind of looked at that. My wife and I were again, pretty intentional about looking at the types of things that the practice could improve on. And I think there are a lot of different tiers you could look into when thinking about sustainability. I think there are about three buckets to both lower your overhead and not only that, increase the attractiveness in case you have a future buyer. ⁓ the first year that I thought about was pretty much a zero or low cost immediate ROI type things where there’s no financial justification needed. ⁓ for us that meant going paperless right away. ⁓ this was an office that had been around, gosh, 50 years, I think between multiple owners and they were still working with paper charts at the time. So for me, that was a no brainer trying to go to a paperless system with both charting and

Taylor: And you’d be shocked Jackson how many dentists out there still using paper charts, right?

Jackson: Yeah. And it was really scary for the team too. ⁓ they had been doing that forever and they were like, I mean, are you sure this seems like a huge change? and they, 100 % every single person is so happy and they don’t even remember how they did it before.

Taylor: Well, it also just, I mean, outside of the sustainability piece, just makes, it allows you to run your practice more efficiently, right? You don’t need the paper charts.

Jackson: It does. Absolutely. ⁓ we have templates where the we have templates on our chart, our charting systems where now the hygienist can, you know, just make notes specific to that patient and save time where she’s not having to write down every single thing multiple times a day. ⁓ the E statements and E prescriptions save all of our team members a ton of time that can go towards other things in the practice so that’s one, and then we also switched to led lighting throughout. ⁓ the payback for that typically is going to be one to two years. we did a smart thermostat. These are all just simple, cheap and quite meaningful savings on utility bills. we did do, and I don’t expect every practice to do this, but we did a trash audit where we kind of looked at the types of things that were being put into the trash bin. And we thought, Hey, and we get rid of maybe one or two of these plastics a month. And over time, you’ll be amazed at how much less you are wasting once you’re actually paying attention to what is being wasted.

Taylor: Have you tracked any of these savings, Jackson? Like by switching specifically to like LED lighting or cutting back on these plastics, have you been able to see any actual savings?

Jackson: And then trying to buy in bulk, that sort of thing. I did, yeah. I didn’t know the actual numbers until preparing for this, but I was looking back at some of the early utility bills. And on average, we have saved roughly, depends on the time of year, obviously, but I would say annually, probably 15 % on our electric bill, which is quite considerable actually. ⁓ The thermostat was going all hours of the day and LED lighting is a huge improvement that not a lot of people think about either.

Taylor: Yeah, and I don’t know, again, we were doing some research for this as well, and I’m not, I can’t, don’t quote me on these, but from what we can tell online, I mean, it looks like you can save yourself anywhere from three to $10,000 if you look at the annual savings over a five-year period doing this LED switch just with your lights, right?

Jackson: Yeah, doesn’t surprise me at all.

Taylor: And so it sounds small, but if you look at it, and yes, there is a little bit of cost initially to this, but the savings can be anywhere from three to 10,000, depending on your office size, which I don’t know about you, that’s a family trip right there that you’ve just added. Because again, as a business owner, any savings that you implement go right back into your pocket, right? And I’ve seen Dentist

Jackson: Yeah.

Taylor: bend over backwards for less in tax savings than $10,000. So that’s such a small thing that you’re mentioning, which again, I bet no one ever thinks about. They just turn the lights on without ever thinking what lights do you put in at your practice. That alone, 10,000. The paperless going from paper charts to digital workflow, we’ve got numbers, this is anywhere from two to $6,000 and just supplies postage digitally, and that’s annually. So we’re talking two to $6,000 a year annually in savings, switching from paper charts. And again, the hidden gem here, which you mentioned, is the staff efficiency, and that is estimated anywhere from five to $15,000 a year. So conservatively, switching from paperless to digital, I mean, five to 12,000, switching the lights, three to 10,000 over five-year period. I mean, we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars of savings over five years with two simple changes.

Jackson: Yeah. And like you said, some of these things, don’t just, it’s not like a one-time thing. You’re reducing your monthly overhead in a compounding way. unlike staff costs or supply inflation, it’s relatively predictable and honestly durable once it’s there. And it’s like locking in a lower fixed expense for 20 plus years if you do it early enough in your career or anytime for that matter.

Taylor: That’s awesome. So I cut you off there. I just wanted to give, I’m a numbers guy, as you know, Jackson. So I just wanted to bring a little bit of numbers into that.

Jackson: Yeah. I’m glad you did, yeah.

Taylor: So third thing, you were talking trash audits, right? So this one, again, they mentioned this in what I was doing research for, but that one’s really hard to quantify, right?

Jackson: Mm-hmm. It is, yeah. And I won’t get into the details necessarily because I’m sure that it’s so personal as to what each office is doing. But for us, were that was a really straightforward way to look at what we were wasting and kind of decide what that looked like for us in terms of and we actually replace these single use plastics or are they there for really no reason? It’s just because we’ve been used to doing it this way for so long. So that’s something that hopefully, offices may consider.

Taylor: Was there any that were like shocking to you that you thought and there’s no chance we’ll be able to cut back on this or get rid of this entirely that you did and now you don’t use it all or use differently?

Jackson: Well, it was actually that that was one of things I was going to touch on later. ⁓ my team has really surprised me because I thought this was more of a personal thing that may not be as interesting to other people, but our, our team is made up of people ranging from all points of their career. ⁓ we have a few people who are right on the cusp of retirement and some who are brand new to the working world. And they’ve all gotten really excited about it. ⁓ They are now looking for ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint and just, you know, try to save on overhead, surprisingly. ⁓ And so we had one staff member who said, well, all these paper towels in the bathrooms, can we just have ⁓ rolled up individual towels that I can throw in the washing machine at the end of the day? And that way we have reusable cloth in the bathrooms rather than individual single use paper towels, because she saw how much waste was going into that trash bin. So we now pretty much don’t use paper towels in the office as much anymore. And it’s little things like that. If somebody steps up, can go a huge distance and make a real impact.

Taylor: Yeah. And so you you’ve noticed even a difference in the culture of your office, they’ve kind of bought into this.

Jackson: Absolutely. Yeah. I was not expecting that going into this, but, ⁓ you know, especially younger dental professionals, whether it’s an associate or whoever it is, I think, ⁓ they increasingly want to work somewhere that aligns with their values, or at least they feel like is doing something bigger than dentistry. And I think this is a great way to get people fired up.

Taylor: Yeah. So these three things, would you classify them as like baby steps, intro things that you can do without having to make any major investments or major changes at your office that people can do if they just want to get started?

Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. I think that, ⁓ it’s, really overwhelming to think about doing all of this at once. And for me, like I said, I didn’t know where to start. we started with those very low cost interventions and then kind of worked up from there. ⁓ the second bucket that does have a little bit more investment, I think are things like, going digital. So digital radiography, control, oral scanners, in-house fabrication of any lab work. Those sorts of things are huge for long-term ROI, but immediate environmental savings.

Taylor: Yeah. So has this, yeah, as you know, this is tougher to calculate, right, and add numbers to, but how have you felt the impact of that just managing this at your practice? Has it made you more efficient? Has it allowed you to do more dentistry? Like what benefits have you noticed anecdotally?

Jackson: Yeah, that’s a good question. would say both. ⁓ for me, it was kind of a no compromise type thing because I knew that I wanted to place dental implants. So the panoramic X-ray we were using that was the traditional, ⁓ you know, take it to a dark room and expose it with all the chemical baths and everything. I actually had no idea how to do that stuff. That was just all my team members running that. so we got a CBCT and, Immediately time savings without staff members having to ⁓ post-process the panoramic images and that sort of thing, but also just higher quality of care for the patients as well. ⁓ one other thing that I’ll mention is we got a refurbished CBCT unit, which not a lot of people think about either, but I asked my sales rep if they had any refurbished options and our CBCT, ⁓ was one that you would see at like a trade show on the floor where people can just mess around with it and see it. So it had really never been used and I still got the exact same warranty and it was considerably cheaper just because I asked if they had any refurbished units. those types of things, just ask if there are refurbished options and oftentimes you’ll be surprised at the cost savings for an essentially brand new unit.

Taylor: Yeah, that’s awesome. So that’s kind of the next step. If you want to kind of go through this is to invest in more energy efficient equipment, more digital face, you know, as you mentioned, going digital, trying to buy refurbished versus brand new, right? What any other steps that you’ve taken along this journey?

Jackson: Well, yeah, I think like, like you said, intro oral scanning is huge, not only for the lack of transportation waste, you know, if you’re taking PBS impressions every single time, that’s material waste, and then you’re having to ship it to the lab. And if there’s a remake, there’s a lot of back and forth. So these transportation and material waste costs do add up over time. ⁓ plus just a patient experience. If they’re not having to get the goopy impressions and you can just take an intraoral scan, they think that your office is just top of line. ⁓ And again, I think it is becoming the standard of care for intraoral scanning, but for those offices who are scared to take that jump, I think it’s worth looking into for a lot of different reasons.

Taylor: Yeah, that’s great. Well, and I want to know, have you felt, you we talked about the culture, but has this been something that you’ve been able to incorporate into your marketing and just putting yourself out there to, you know, your patients and potential, you know, patients coming in the door? Have you been able to market around sustainability? Have you noticed any difference? Is this something that patients have cared about and enjoyed about your practice? What’s been your experience there?

Jackson: It is. Yeah. ⁓ we have not really been in growth mode. We are again, looking for a larger location at some point because of where a smaller office, it’s only four operatories. ⁓ I do think for, as you’ve talked about on the podcast before, with the increasingly difficult and competitive landscape of dentistry, especially with corporate offices and DSOs. Unfortunately, I don’t think corporate offices and DSOs are as likely to embrace a sustainability model. And therefore it is something that I think a lot of practices, especially with solo practitioners or even smaller groups could really lean into and kind of identify yourself, set yourself apart from some of these larger organizations and help patients realize that, you know, there is more to it than just, you in network with me or not? So if you can identify yourself and help the patient understand that you care about both their health and the health of the planet, ⁓ you know, that might be something that people are more likely to see you for.

Taylor: Yeah. Well, and I want to just qualify something you said there and you said, Hey, we’re not in growth mode because we’ve only got four ops. And that’s just downplaying the fact that you are so busy that you can’t see more patients in your four ops and that you need to grow and you’ve outgrown your space. And so you’re not trying to actively bring in more patients. Right.

Jackson: Yeah. Yeah, we have not been able to see new patients for quite a while because of the good retention that we have with patients. And it’s a fortunate place to be in, but I have not really been able to market it to answer your question the way that I probably could.

Taylor: Yeah. And to add on that, the way that you’re managing just your quote unquote four ops in a very efficient manner and have the collections and the overhead that you do, you have an above average profitability rate, right? And that’s the thing that I love about this is because sometimes people, you talk about sustainability, they just begin to tune out and it’s like, those are just the tree huggers and

Jackson: Absolutely. Yeah.

Taylor: You know, people that care about their environment. I’m gonna call out Jake Elm, but ⁓ in Utah, we have a big water problem. And Jake says, well, why does it matter? We’re gonna find more water. I’m gonna water my lawn however I want. Like there are people out there that just don’t care when sustainability comes up, right? But the thing that I love about your specific journey and situation is

Jackson: Okay.

Taylor: You’ve been able to do this because it’s important to you and that’s why you’ve taken the leap again. You’re really young. You’re new into practice ownership. Taking these risks, there was no guarantee that you were actually going to see an ROI, but you did it because you were passionate about it. But you have seen ROI, right? It has been profitable. You have reduced overhead. You’ve been able to increase retention you aren’t able to bring on more clients because you have so many clients that are loyal to you and stay with you that we’re outgrowing our space. And that’s what I love about this is the numbers have backed up what you’re trying to accomplish because you’re passionate about it. Right.

Jackson: Yeah, like I said, I was surprised by it and it’s something that I cared about sharing because whereas for me it did seem to be more of an ideological decision. I realized at some point that it was the exact same decision. Oftentimes that if I had a CFO of my dental practice, they would have recommended the exact same thing. So it’s, ⁓ it’s just a really unique blend of both ideology, but also it does make sense for most practices, I think.

Taylor: Yeah. Well, and I wanted to, again, I look at the numbers all day every day and I love numbers, right? And I don’t get into the weeds as much in the actual dentistry. So I’m gonna go off and left field, I’m gonna ask you a question you may or may not know about. But I was curious, I came across something about the dry vacuum system versus using a wet ring vacuum or a dry vacuum system. Have you heard about this before?

Jackson: Yes, so I actually had that one written down but didn’t mention it earlier because I didn’t know if that was getting too much into the weeds So

Taylor: No, I like it because at least my, know, the numbers I’ve got here, there’s a whole lot of savings to be had doing it this way versus another way. So again, I don’t know what the heck a wet ring vacuum is versus a dry vacuum system, right? But I’m assuming that most dentists would know.

Jackson: I think so, yeah. Especially if you’re looking into Vax, you probably have gone down these rabbit holes and know exactly the difference. But we’re talking thousands of gallons of water waste per year if you are getting a wet vacuum versus a dry vacuum system.

Taylor: And do you know like what the differences in cost of installing that and the savings if you looked into those numbers?

Jackson: So we are not in the market right now for a vac. So I don’t know those up to date numbers. That is not something I can really speak to.

Taylor: Okay. Well, I wanted to bring it up. So from my research, it looks like it’s eight to 15,000. Again, these numbers always have a range because it depends on the model and what you get. But the cost savings are in the tune of $2,500 to $4,500 a year. So again, it’s gonna cost you eight to 15. It’s gonna be two to four years to pay that back. But then moving forward, you’re going to save yourself anywhere from $2,500 to $4,500 a year.

Jackson: See, that’s why you’re amazing. You can actually put the numbers to these things.

Taylor: Well, and so I was curious, we did a little bit of research. We went through and we said, okay, let’s say you did a bunch of these things that we’re saying and we’re gonna do a baseline assumption. We’re gonna say, hey, we have five ops, so a little bit bigger than your practice by only this much, right? We’re gonna have annual recurring revenue of about 1.2 to 1.6. We used 1.4 million, right? As I’m describing this, the hope is that this is describing a lot of listeners, right? A lot of single location sole producer owners are going to be in that range of four to five ops, anywhere from 1.2 to 1.5 million in collections each year, right? And if you decided that you wanted to do these things that Jackson has discussed, number one, putting in dry vac system, making the switch from your current lights to the LED lights, ⁓ going to a paperless digital workflow, waste reduction, right? All of these things, the upfront investment is gonna range anywhere from 15 to $35,000, right? So there’s going to be some initial investment getting all these things set up. And it’s gonna take anywhere from six to 18 months to pay it back, right? the 20 to 60,000 is a combination of increased revenue and reduction of costs and the five-year financial impact of all of these changes are in the ballpark of 75 to $180,000 over a five-year period.

Jackson: Yeah, I think that’s the numbers should speak for themselves. The, the thinking behind sustainability I realized is and wealth building, they kind of use the same mental model. have delayed gratification, compounding returns, systems over willpower. All these things really do add up over time. And it, when you look at it and within one year, it doesn’t seem to make sense. But if you look at it in the longterm. I think it really does pay off.

Taylor: And the numbers say that not only does it pay off, it pays off to the tune of $75,000 to $180,000 over a five-year period.

Jackson: Wow. Yeah.

Taylor: So it’s a decent chunk of change ⁓ that again, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen Dentist bend over backwards for much less in tax savings.

Jackson: Yeah. Yeah, and maybe you could use that to pay down debt or reinvest in your practice or just use it to ⁓ increase the valuation and prepare for retirement.

Taylor: So I’m curious, know, a couple of questions I wanted to ask you as you started this just because you were passionate and you didn’t know where to start and so you just kind of got your feet wet, right? And started doing things. But as you’ve gone on this journey, have there been any resources or things that you found that have been helpful that you can share with listeners? Of things that you’re listening to, consuming, reading, seeing things that you subscribe to that would be helpful for them that they may not have to put in the heavy lifting that you have.

Jackson: Again, it’s, it’s a little hard to make personal recommendations because each practice is so different. ⁓ like you said, I think the beauty of it is the larger your practice is, the more this could potentially impact. ⁓ with us as a smaller, smaller for our practice. ⁓ if you did all of this for something that has seven or eight operatories or even more, ⁓ I think it wouldn’t make exponential changes for your practice over the longterm there aren’t a lot of resources out there, unfortunately. And that was part of my reason for wanting to have this conversation today, hopefully to give people a place to start. ⁓ you can obviously Google what is out there and, ⁓ try to look for yourself, but a lot of it is fairly general advice. ⁓ but I think just getting your feet wet and trying is the best place to start. So we’ve, we’ve covered a lot of the big things. think that should get people more interested in it and, you know, just figuring out what works for your personal situation.

Taylor: Well, I love that you, how you’ve organized these because it truly is like, some of these are really simple changes, right? Simple changes that can have immediate returns. You actually see it happen in the bottom line and you don’t need a ⁓ huge investment if you don’t want to. Two, and then that ranges to, you know, some fairly significant investments in equipment and other things. And if you’re really passionate about it, you can really move the needle from a sustainability perspective, but also from a cost savings and overhead reduction perspective as well.

Jackson: Yeah. And I think one of the limitations for our practice in particular is that I don’t own the building. ⁓ for someone who does own their practice building, you really have just whatever you want to do at that point. If you want to really invest in the space itself to make it more insulated or even consider solar panels, the incentives from a federal standpoint are still in effect for commercial properties until 2027, I believe. So you can get 30 % off of that from a tax rebate standpoint point. ⁓ and then one other thing that I would do if I did own my building, ⁓ I would have a battery backup system because in the event of a power outage, that is immediately lost revenue. So it’s almost like having an insurance policy that you could be the only dental practice in town. That’s open, ⁓ that could actually provide people with care in the event of power outage. So, ⁓ things like that. If you actually on your building, I think you could take this even a step further.

Taylor: Well, it sounds like if and when that happens for you, Jackson, we can do a part two to this podcast and bring you on and talk about all the fun things you’re doing at your own building. But before we let you go, I would love to just kind of get some final thoughts or, know, if you could share one thing with other dentists or things that you think would be helpful for them to know, any like words of wisdom as we wrap up here.

Jackson: Sure. You know, I think we’ve covered a lot and this would have helped me tremendously if I had had this podcast to listen to when I first bought my practice, because I would have at least had some idea of hopefully what I could do to maybe make a small impact that could go a long way. ⁓ but really just, I think the most financially responsible thing that a dentist can do right now could also be the most environmentally responsible thing. And hopefully today we’ve shown why those things are not in conflict.

Taylor: Yeah. Well, we appreciate you being willing to jump on. I feel like it was a great first time ever podcast. we’ll have to have you on again, Jackson. But we’ll see. We’ll see what people think. But we appreciate all of your insight and the real world. Hey, you’re actually doing this. You’re putting this in. You’re seeing the benefit.

Jackson: Yeah, you crushed your first hosting.

Taylor: Blown away at number one, how young you are and how successful it’s been for you so far, right? And I just think that there’s a lot of other dentists that could benefit from these things that you’re doing from what we’ve discussed, but also just from a marketing differentiating standpoint. And so I hope there’s listeners out there that can implement some of these things and this is a benefit to more people and hopefully accomplishes some of the things you’re hoping to do, Jackson, which is just making a little bit more of an impact, being a little bit more sustainable and helping others to, ⁓ joining the cause.

Jackson: Yeah, I’m limited in what I can do for the planet, but if I inspire one other office to do something, then I mean, my job here is done.

Taylor: So for everyone that’s watching us on YouTube, you can tell that Jackson and I are in different clothes than we were previously. So we jumped on the first time we recorded an episode, we, you know, again, pat ourselves on the back, said it was great, and then almost immediately after, we were like, shoot, we forgot something. So we wanted to hop back on, get this recorded, and get this out to you guys, just to give you another tidbit if this is something that you’re interested in when it comes to sustainability in your dental practice. And this is something really cool that Jackson’s been doing and has implemented and we want to make sure we recognized it. So I think on the podcast, we talked a lot about, know, ROI, dollars and cents. Here’s why it makes sense from a cost perspective to think about sustainability in your practice. But we didn’t focus too much on just the reason and the main purpose behind why Jackson you’re doing this and that’s because you care and you want to make a difference. And so you had emailed me and brought up this really cool point about, you know, ⁓ something that you guys are doing and implementing. That’s not necessarily giving you any cost benefit, but it is bringing your benefit to your own life because you feel like you’re making an impact. So can you just share with everybody else what you’re doing and your practice that you and the benefits you’re seeing?

Jackson: Thank you. Yeah. As we did the trash audit, like we were talking about, ⁓ we discovered that I’m sure a lot of other dental practices can relate. Our two biggest points of waste had to do with gloves and then the waste products associated with sterilization of instruments. That ended up being almost 50 % or more of the total trash that we were disposing of on a daily basis. So those were two really big sticking points for me. I was trying to figure out what we could do to at least reduce that waste flow. And I came across a kind of neat product called Enviro pouch. So those are autoclavable pouches that you can put either single hand pieces in or entire packs of hygiene instruments. And that allows your staff members to continue to use these over and over again. And I think I don’t have the data for this just yet, but I do think even though they do have a higher upfront cost given enough time, I may see an ROI with that, which is pretty cool. But definitely for me, the most important thing is we have cut back on our sterilization waste immensely. And then outside of that, gloves was a big one. ⁓ There’s no really easy way to just get like a biodegradable glove and know that it’s going to go away in the landfill eventually. But I did find a company called Polycarbon that works with laboratories around the country. And we are the first dental office in the country that has partnered with them to ship off all of our nitrile gloves and then have those recycled through polycarbon. So, ⁓ they, they are awesome to work with. They do charge a fee, but that includes the shipping of all the gloves and, ⁓ kind of depends on how much you’re generating, but for us, it’s really not been that huge of an expense. And, ⁓ we’re on average, you know, recycling at least 50 pounds of gloves a month. that’s, that’s a lot that really adds up over time. They’ll give you a report of what the impact looks like of your recycled gloves. So they’ve been great.

Taylor: I’m shocked that you’re doing 50 pounds of gloves even at your size. mean, you guys are doing amazing at your office, but you’re a single producer, single dentist, Couple hygiene. I mean, this is not a massive, massive operation and just your operation alone is doing 50 pounds.

Jackson: Yeah, which tells me if other offices would work with them, I mean, the impact could be outrageous.

Taylor: And you, and the cost you said, and you mentioned, you know, it hasn’t been too much. I mean, is it a lot more expensive? Is it just kind of marginal? Like what’s the difference that you’ve noticed implementing that?

Jackson: Yeah, well, again, it’s going to be different for every office. think these are rough estimates. I think for every 200 pounds of gloves you recycle, ⁓ it might cost like five to six hundred dollars. ⁓ you know, not it’s not going to destroy your budget and hopefully some of the savings with other sustainability things you’re doing far offset any cost of going sustainable with your gloves as well.

Taylor: Yeah, that’s crazy. I had no idea that you could throw out 50 pounds of gloves in a month.

Jackson: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think most of your listeners will be surprised by that number because it’s insane how many gloves we go through.

Taylor: You have that’s insane. Well, yeah, I mean, just cool that, you know, this is not just, I wanted to save money, so I’m doing these things. But, you know, as we mentioned, this all stemmed from something that really mattered to you. And now you get the benefit of, hey, I’m actually making a difference. I’m actually putting less waste into the world. I’m recycling. And some of it has been profitable and some of it, you know, you’re paying the difference for. But I think there’s a lot of people out there listening that for their own sustainability practices on their personal life, let alone their business life, they pay a little bit of cost for that as well.

Jackson: Yeah. And also we put those polycarbon recycling containers right at the entrance. So patients see it and they feel great about it. I mean, they will constantly bring it up. You patients will say, you’re recycling your gloves. That’s amazing. ⁓ so it’s, it does make even the patients feel a lot better about coming to an office that has that little extra care in touch. So

Taylor: Yeah. Which just, you know, as we’ve talked about, just brings people back, right? It’s establishing loyalty to you and your practice. And hopefully you’re going to see an ROA on that long-term.

Jackson: Yeah.

Taylor: Well, thanks Jackson for jumping back on. I know it’s not lost on us, just you taking the time out of your day, busy day, and your schedule to jump on and share all of these amazing things that you’re doing and the things you’re learning. You know, we’ve talked off air about bringing you back as you buy your own building and go through the process of what other things can you do when you actually own your building and your space and you have more control on more than just what you’re doing in the building, but also the building itself.

Jackson: Yeah, I’m definitely excited to see when, see what’s next.

Taylor: Okay, well, thanks again for jumping on and till next time.

Jackson: Appreciate it, Taylor.

Keywords: dentistry, sustainability, practice management, cost savings, eco-friendly dental practices, dental innovation, practice ownership, dental marketing, environmental impact, dental technology.

Practice Management