Is a 3-Day Workweek Possible for Dentists?

Can dentists work three days a week without sacrificing their income? On this episode of The Dentist Money Show, Matt, Will, and Christine explore how dentists can rethink their schedules, improve productivity, and create more time for life outside the office. They discuss how to evaluate production and profitability, make the most of existing chair time, adjust scheduling, and decide whether bringing on an associate makes sense. Tune in to learn how intentional planning and a closer look at your numbers can help you build a workweek that works for you.

Related Readings

The Dentist’s Three-Day Workweek: What You Gain by Working Less

---

Podcast Transcript

Matt: Welcome back to the Dentist Money Show. We help Dentist make smart financial decisions. I’m a guy named Matt. We’re going with the lady first, Christine Uhen here joining us. And then the brain,

Christine: I’m a girl named Chris. Yeah.

Matt: Will Gochnour How are you, Will?

Will: Doing great. Wonderful.

Matt: Well share with the people where you’re at. Like are you home? Are you on vacation? What are we doing? What are we doing?

Will: man, yep, hot topic at Dentist Advisors. I am

Christine: Ha ha ha.

Will: on fall break with my children. They got the week off this last week. And so we went a little Jake would be proud like a a cheaper vacation, stay cation, kind

Christine: Mini. Mm-hmm.

Will: of mini vacation to St. George, Utah, with the entire rest of the Salt Lake Valley, it seems. So in Utah. Yeah.

Matt: I was gonna say, along with everyone else in Salt Lake City.

Christine: Did you run into Taylor while you were there? Yeah.

Will: yeah, we saw each other at the Finding Nemo play at Tuacon Amphitheater. Yeah. It was great. Yeah.

Christine: Aw yeah, the big theater.

Matt: Tua Con. Yep. We talked this morning on

Christine: Outdoor.

Matt: a meeting. He said he saw you and that he said that you were impressed with how how nice Tua Con was. Yeah.

Will: Yeah, it was great. Yeah. I’m I’m not as diehard of a theater fan as Taylor, but it was great.

Christine: years they’ve been doing that. They go every year. Yeah. Yep.

Matt: A long time. Tuacon’s awesome.

Will: Yeah. Yep. It was awesome.

Matt: And Chris, you’re not traveling, but you did just get back from a good trip. And also we gotta call out that you live in one of the most beautiful places. You live in vacation like Mecca. So

Will: Her life is a vacation. Yeah.

Christine: I yeah, this is yeah, I will say San Diego has been stunning this fall. A little too warm for some of us, but it’s been beautiful. We survived the two days of the rain, the hurricane that hit, and yes, I recently got back from two weeks in Spain. Buenos

Will: Wow.

Christine: tardes, yes, yes, as we are here. So yeah.

Matt: That’s awesome. I believe they call it Bartholona is the proper Yeah, Bartholona, yeah.

Christine: Bartholona was one of the cities we were in. Yes, that that was how we rounded out the end of our trip was in Bartholona and had a wonderful time. So yes.

Matt: That’s awesome. And I’ve just been here working in my garden, so no worries. So okay. Well, that kind of goes along with the theme of what we’re talking about today: is more time off for the dentist to travel. This is on the heels of it. If you’ve listened, by the time this comes out, the vacation episode will have come out. Some spicy takes on that. Yes.

Christine: The heated dialogue that was fun to listen to.

Matt: Yes, very fun. we wanted to talk about the the three-day work week. And I think the question, Will, I want you to set this up, but I think the key question here for dentists is just being, can you work fewer days without earning less? I think that’s kind of the key question that like overall question we’re going to explore today. But I want you to set this up because you and Christine together, I believe, wrote this article that came out a little bit ago. So just set this up for us.

Will: Yeah, it’s I mean, it’s kind of the theme of the month or flavor of the quarter, maybe, is just how do we how how can dentists optimize their time? And I think the theme of this is with vacations and this is you in a way, a lot of times you have to trade time for money. And that feels hard as a dentist, because you n you kind of know how much you can make in a certain amount of time or day. And so when you do this math in your head on You know, can I work three days a week or can I work two days a week? I mean, I I think everyone would say yes to making the same amount of money or more money and doing less work. but there’s trade-offs there. And so, I mean, this comes up in a lot of our calls, like client calls, where, you know, clients are like, Well, I’m ready to scale back, but I don’t really know how to do that. And I don’t like I wanna work less, but I I I ca I don’t know how to implement it and what it’s gonna do to my income and you know, hit or miss with associates and There’s just a lot of nuance that goes into these decisions. I think a lot of dentists already are working four days a week. Some are five, some are six, some are four, some are three. And I I think it just it matters to understand like the logistics and nuances to either a three day work week. Right now we’re kind of focusing on the three day work week, but I think it could, you know, be applied to two or five or whatever. So And Christine Ewans entered the chat. So this is where we bring Christine in to to talk about this. Go ahead, Christine.

Christine: Yes. th it’s also this time of year to think about, you know, next year, to think about planning. And in mo much of our advice, both personally and professionally, is about being intentional with what you’re doing and knowing what are you trading off and then also being, you know, planning it out. So really put taking the time. And this is that time of year. I’d say 98% of dentists run their fiscal business on a calendar year. So this is the time of year to look back on the first nine and a half, 10 months, measuring success. Did we reach our goals? And then reflecting on where we’re at now and where we want to go next year, setting goals. What’s it going to take to achieve that? And it’s more than just more. There’s quantifiable things that we should be looking at. And one of them is can I be as productive or even better yet, as profitable? We can even look at it that way where it’s not. Just the top line productivity that feels like more work, but how am I, excuse me, top line productivity versus being profitable? And those are different things to look at too. So I think this is the right time to do this and necessary for every business owner that’s looking to balance that I need this is my work, this is my livelihood, but it’s also my life. And

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: How do I live both?

Matt: Yeah, what I’m hearing there, Christina, is just in intention, this idea around proactive planning, intention, and will to your point, a lot of assumptions being made by a lot of dentists of just kind of assuming like, well, if I work less, that means I make less. And that’s again, that’s what we want to address today. But the reason we brought up vacations at the beginning, not only in jest, because this does seem to be the flavor of the quarter and something we’re always talking about at Dentist Advisors, but this has real world implications. Will, how many times do we hear this from a dentist around again this topic of vacationing and this idea of I’m not only factoring in the cost of my vacation, but I have to factor in the cost of what I’m losing in production. And I think that’s you know, in in the real world, that’s not only is that a a a cash flow issue, that’s a real emotional burden on dentists that lead to something. that an another very pertinent topic we just had Dr. Craig Spiel on

Christine: Mm.

Matt: around burnout. And I think this has a kind of a double effect on dentists. Do you want to talk about that, Will, and just how many times you hear things like this in the real world?

Will: Yeah, we I mean, the it’s it goes hand in hand with this, right? Is where I mean, we have multiple dentists that have reached out to us recently, like in response to this, kind of echoing, yeah, it’s kind of hard to take a vacation because, you know, it’s hard to close the office. Not only like am I missing out on money, but then I feel like bad for closing the office for employees that like need paycheck. Like there’s so many angles to this where it’s like hard to take your foot off the gas. because You feel like everyone’s depending on you, your family, your employees, your patients. It’s like all of these people, if you take a time off, all these people you know, have to pay, I guess, for it. So that’s the with this too, like it’s the same decision. Do if I take another day off, I can do I see less patients? Does my staff have less work days? Do I make less money? in theory, like you know, de like I said at the beginning, every dentist would would probably trade. More free time, less work days, right? And so I mean, it just feels like it’s this push and pull in dentistry of like optimizing for making the most amount of money possible, but doing it in the least amount of time possible. And I th and hopefully that’s what we can address today because it f I I I do think the math is is a hindrance or a barrier to this.

Matt: Yeah, for sure. Chris, anything you want to add to that?

Christine: No, this is definitely it is the trade off. It’s it’s a tough job being the solo provider, the biggest, you know, producer, but then also supporting the team, supporting your patients too. What happens? Who’s gonna cover while I’m gone? There’s a lot to this and it deserves, you know, our our guidance on this.

Matt: Yeah, definitely. So just to get specific things we’re gonna cover to help kind of alleviate or or bring to light some to some of these assumptions with actual or maybe answer some of these assumptions. Are they accurate, are they not, where they come from, things like that. But so specifically, I think talking about what actually is the driver of income for a dentist. I think there’s a lot of misconceptions there. specifically levers that the dentist can pull around you know, capacity and days and income and all these things. how things change over time for I think that matters too, the stage of career you’re in.

Christine: yeah.

Matt: and then lastly, just how to test this before before committing. And again, Will and I, I speak for Will, Chris, when I say we are so happy you’re here to answer all this. Will’s here I’m just here to kind of grease the wheels along along the way.

Matt: So Chris, let’s let’s get to kind of the first part of this, which is kind of the the math in dentist brain versus the real math. So kind of sp you know, specifically why dentists feel that every day off means it must have a direct kind of connection to their to their wallet or to the bottom line. Could you kind of you know expand on that a little bit and maybe debunk some of these assumptions?

Christine: Well, and I want to give credit that the doctors, when they think they’re carrying the load, they are, right? Especially solopreneurs. They are when they’re the solo dentist, they’re the biggest producer, they’re definitely, you know, feeling the weight of the biggest production in the office. So they are rightly feeling that. So I want to recognize that. And in certain states, they if they’re not there, the hygienist can’t be there either. So it that might be part of what they’re dealing with. So there’s some truth to that. But that’s also based on thinking that. It’s about being there as often as I need to versus being as productive as I need to. And that’s still only talking about the top line, the productivity. And then we have to think about how much am I working, how the effort to be productive. So that’s how much am I working, how many days am I working? Then there’s the adjustments and write-offs that then affect collection. So what am I actually collecting? Because that’s what pays the bills. And then profitability, which comes after the expenses. That’s their take home. That’s what they’re feeling as you know, that’s their cash flow. So that’s when they’re saying I can’t afford to. That’s probably the number that they should really be thinking about versus the total productivity. So again it’s an it’s a number that’s probably easier to grow that cash flow when we get creative with the number of hours and days that they’re open in their practice. So they’re not wrong, but I believe that really we can do some creative scheduling looking at some of these levers that we’re gonna talk about about how to maintain the cash flow and still take that time off.

Matt: Got it. So when I am hearing all this, I can’t think but how important it is for dentists to know so much more about their numbers beyond usually what they do know, which is collections. But beyond that, I th I’d say the average dentist doesn’t know like the intricacies that you just described. How critical is it to to have those those numbers?

Christine: Well, and I think it is critical to know what my overheads are. There are so and then the variation of the overheads. So I would take this on a monthly basis before we get too far granular into daily and hourly. I don’t want anybody worrying about my overheads for one hour in case a patient cancels. That’s that’s a little too much detail, even for me who loves that. But monthly, what are the expenses that don’t go away? Right? My fixed expenses, whether I’m open or not, I still pay rent. That should be a relief for many doctors, right? So that’s not going to go up or down. So the rent, the overhead, the, the you know, the fixed expenses that don’t that don’t change. Well, those stay there, but when you’re on vacation, there’s not going to be the variable expenses, which are truly dependent on the kind of dentistry you do. So that’s not going to be there if you’re not producing. And then the team is the other big area, you know, the big area of expenses. And again, some may choose to be there while they’re there or not. And I need to know what those are. Because what that total number is is what’s going to be consistent that’s going to affect the cash flow. So I do need to be aware of that. And I would say monthly is the best way to look at that. Cause then we can start changing some of those days and hours within that month and know what my nut is to cover. I’m also going to add in if there’s any debt on the practice. That is a that is a bill that comes due every month, the debt payment, debt repayments on the business. So keeping that in mind, those are also just numbers that should be very understood and pretty easy and quick for a doctor to get their hands on, to know what they’re

Matt: Yeah,

Christine: really at risk.

Matt: you you mentioned the debt, Chris, and I want to bring Will in here to talk about kind of that emotional side of this too, because with that large debt load, especially the first 10 years of practice, not only is that a real like cash flow constraint in reality, but I also think that leads to a again a big emotional part of this as well. so Will, I want to get your take on this of the conversations you have with Dentist every single day around. this topic and kind of the emotional part of even if they wanted to take more time off or shorten their week, how that can be kind of a barrier for them on the emotional side.

Will: Totally. I mean, I think like we see a lot of dentists man, like just approach life from a scarcity mindset. It’s it’s it’s interesting where I don’t know. I mean, we’ll we go through all different types of approaches to this, but there are lots of I don’t know if it’s just a dentist thing in general for some people that they get started late, you know, you get started later in your career and you’re kinda playing catch up and so you’re you know, you’re pedaled the metal trying to get out of debt and drive the nicer cars that your friends have been driving for the last five years. And I I I just wonder if it can feel almost like irresponsible to like take a day off or you know, take a vacation, those kind of things when you’re feeling like you need to either catch up or just keep your foot on the gas or you can’t let off. And sometimes I think they get yeah, it’s more of like guilt than actual math or numbers or what’s telling you. And I’ll go at this from a personal side as well because man, like Everyone can work seven days a week, 24 hours a day if they wanted to, like and make the maximum amount of money possible. But a lot of times the maximum amount of money possible is not what you need to make to have your plan, your financial plan work and have you retire in the timeline that you’re trying to retire on. In my opinion, income should almost be reverse engineered to work with what your personal life demands. So if you can save the right amount of money and spend the right amount of money and cover all your debts and things and taxes. You should make I mean, in a way, like the book Die with Zero would argue that you should make that amount of money and nothing more. And whatever it takes you to make that amount of money is how hard you should work to make that amount of money, if that makes sense. Where

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Will: It shouldn’t just be this like constant income has to go higher and higher and higher. And, you know,

Matt: Yeah.

Will: Sometimes I think we’re treating that a little bit backwards.

Matt: I think you’re right. And I it it’s interesting how many conversations like this come back to just the importance of the work to be done around every single person kind of uncovering their own values. Like what what

Christine: Mm-hmm.

Matt: Is this even about for you personally? And not not in like the woo-woo sense, like the reality, the practical sense of what is all this for? Like what am I actually what’s the what’s the life I’m trying to create and design? And then to your point, Will, I think we have that backwards where the the work, the money, the investing, all of that should support the life that we’re trying to design, not the other way around. I think that’s what we’re getting at. And there’s I think the there’s a higher likelihood of the emotional toll and the feeling of irresponsibility if you haven’t done put in the effort and the work of figuring out again those values and and kind of asking that that why question.

Christine: What what do you want money to do for you? Right.

Matt: Exactly. Cause I do think there are dentists out there that get some other some something else out of working, whether it’s a feeling of impact or or things beyond money. So maybe they want to work six days a week for for other reasons. But I like what you’re saying, Will, of like the kind of reversing the spreadsheet answer of it and kind of figuring out what is that income you need to live the life you want to s not only now but in the future.

Will: Yeah, I just we just have like I have a couple clients who we’ll get to the career phases later, but maybe later end of their career clients where, I mean, frankly, from a financial planning perspective, they ca they can afford to work less and it would be okay. It’s just kind of it just feels scary. It feels like this unknown. And so I I mean to to Chris’s point, it it should be a very clear and easy numbers decision. It should never be a vibes decision. And, you know, I I know that’s way easier said than done, but that’s what I mean, Christine would be an expert at and we you know, we could help with these decisions to make sure that it’s a numbers decision, not a vibes decision.

Christine: Well, and the data needs emotion for action to happen. Hear me on that. But they need you need them both, right? We can’t deny our emotional attachment, good or bad, to money, to working, to prestige. All of our drivers are real. Right. So, and then also that can’t be the only thing. We have to have some data behind it. So, but that’s why this is such a great, you know, relationship with the strategist and the advisors that I don’t make these decisions without input from the personal financial side of things. I mean, it should the business should solve a financial problem, right? So, or if if it’s fulfilling the financial needs personally, that’s what a business should do.

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: Whatever you choose to spend your money on, debt reduction, lifestyle, investing, savings, vacations dare I add, right?

Matt: Well it yeah. Well

Christine: As someone who has a v a vacation fund. So

Matt: and just to that point I I love this part of the discussion, but Will to the examples that you are thinking of, I wonder just how much of this is simply coming back to the idea of this like hustle culture, you feel bad if you’re not working type like you said, kind of this idea of like if you’re not growing your dying mentality. Like we’re told this, I think over and over again. It kind of permeates the the work culture in America, maybe less so since COVID, but I still think it’s pretty especially for high achievers like dentists.

Will: And one thing I’ll add to that is some of the decision is based on, well, I can’t take my foot off the gas because if I take my foot off the gas then and if my collections drop, then theoretically my business value drops that I’ve worked all these years to build, and I can’t sell it for as much money because I’ve slowed down.

Matt: Sure.

Will: It’s this it and that then that’s making it so that for the until I’m ready to actually sell, I’ve got to be pedaled with the metal. And you know, it’s just kind of this like I I and I get that, but you know, the

Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

Will: the dic the discussion today is not necessarily like how can we let your practice tank before you try to sell it, but more around like how can we optimize things so that your practice doesn’t have to tank and you can hopefully reduce the time.

Matt: Love love that will. It comes back to the assumption that if I work less, I’m gonna make less, which is not what we’re saying. Totally, yeah,

Christine: Doesn’t have to.

Matt: love that full circle. so let’s come back to this, Chris. So basically what we’re saying, what you’ve highlighted and talked about in this article that that you guys wrote is that income is purely it’s truly following production. It’s not necessarily the calendar. So can you can we kind of do a kind of a breakdown of how does a dentist tell how can they tell when it comes to capacity, as far as the just the ability for them to cut a day? Like what what what do they have to do to first start there?

Christine: Well, looking at well again, are you cre are you collecting what you want to are you taking home what you want to take? So let’s let’s make that assumption first that I at the four day work week, I am funding my lifestyle, I’m putting money away, I’m savings, investing, putting to debt, that I’m making the right amount of money, whatever that is. So now I’m I want to change time for money. Or can I not have to exchange them, but I just want more time, right? So this idea then is to look at your schedule. And this is really well laid out. We’ll did a great job of addressing this in the article about are there little all those little 10 and 20 minute openings throughout your schedule? Is there a way to condense your production into fewer hours? I’m going to say start off, and this is where you can do it for free. You can, you can, you know, test this out. Take a half a day off. Start taking four hours of productivity out of your schedule. That’s probably, you know, $2,000 of production, $2,000 to $3,000 of production, depending on how much the doctor’s doing. And can you add that to the hours of the rest of the two three and a half days? So looking at your productivity over four days, what is that hourly? Take off four hours, and can I do that in three and a half days? And and that’s about templating. That is about scheduling to a new productive goal, new production goal. Can you do that without changing anything else? Not adding chairs, not adding providers, not adding procedures. That’s a great exercise. And I will tell you, nine out of 10 dentists probably can at least increase, if not all, take all of that, at least a major portion of that. That’s intentionally scheduling to a new production goal.

Matt: So if I’m here so Chris, the the practical test here would be actually do it, at least take half a day, and see if things kind of adjust on their own, essentially.

Christine: First book it, design it that way. This is about taking, you know, colored pencils if you have to, but can I put blocks in where I’m maximizing the chairs I have? If I’m working out of two rooms, don’t add a third, stay with two. If I’ve got two assistants, don’t add, don’t assume I can add another assistant or another provider. And can I rearrange my day that there are it’s tighter, right? That I can do more in the same, do more in fewer hours. within the day. So sometimes that is all it takes to remove those little 10 and 20 minute openings where I’ve got plenty of time. I don’t need as much time to do this. Now what’s gonna stop you is is really physics. You know, composite only sets up so fast, right? You can’t say that you’re going to be able to go faster if the laws of physics don’t allow you to. But intentionally scheduling is the first thing I would look at. Can we design a day that is more productive? without changing our service mix, without changing our hours of work, and without changing the providers. I believe you’ll accomplish a significant amount of that four hour time in the other hours of the week.

Matt: Got it. Will, have you you’ve walked through this with Chris with actual clients, kind of this this process, or i i if you have like what’s been your experience in these conversations?

Will: Yeah, I mean, again, it’s the the this should not be a vibes decision. This this is a great way to test it, is just to take like dip your toes in the water almost and feel how things will adapt over time. But I do think like Chris is kind of getting the point of can we can we compress or optimize what we’re already doing, right? And the there are I think every dentist will have these little gaps in their schedule and how can we fill them? Like, I just think There also the day potentially that you’re dropping could be like overhead that you get rid of if you reduce the amount of ti staff that you have to like you think of all the fixed overhead that happens on a day of of work. And if you’re reducing some of that, it will go along with, you know, overheads going down. Hopefully productions either staying the same or going up. So that’s that’s where I I don’t I mean, Chris is obviously more skilled at talking about this than I am, but I think it’s gonna be interesting to see. I mean how it affects a an actual dentist when you put it into practice like that.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So so again, this comes back to this idea. Like, Chris, what if I’m a dentist out there listening, thinking, like, yeah, that sounds great, but I haven’t done the work, like I don’t even know what those numbers look like. Like I’m just kind of reacting. I’m just kind of working every day. What are some of the key things that specifically a dentist has to start looking at to even start to test this or think about testing this?

Christine: Number one is production per day. What am I doing per day? Is it consistent? That’s the other thing. Historically, doctors are productive one day, busy the next without production. It goes up and down. It’s the roller coaster of the productivity that’s not consistent every day. That’s the first thing we’re trying to accomplish is predictability, consistency. So if I’ve got irregular productivity, it’s because I don’t have a templated schedule or I’m not sticking to that templated schedule. The next, so then it comes down to production per hour. So if I’m doing $500 an hour and I want to cut out half a day, can I do $700 an hour on three and a half days? Right. So I’m looking at the lot, the reduced production in those four hours. Can I put it somewhere else? Then it’s timing of the procedures. How long does it really take to do these things? And can I reduce the time? Andor can I do a better job of delegating to the assistance I have in overlapping some of the procedures. Right. It’s a hundred percent optimization.

Will: Just feels like optimization, right? Like I mean, at the end of the day, like

Matt: Yeah.

Will: and I think a lot of dentists just get trapped in this. This is how we’ve always done it. It’s working. The schedule’s somewhat full. there’s a there’s another level there that if you really want to, you can optimize the schedule around, like you’re saying, procedure mix, you know, things like the way you book hygiene patients and the way you book insurance first fee for service patients and you know, you can re if you can get really intentional about that, you control you control your, you know, your production per hour.

Matt: Yeah, that so I’ll go ahead, Chris.

Christine: So they’re more so they’re definitely a little more intense days, but then I’ve got my half a day off. And if I do that and I like that, am I willing to look at possibly doing that for the whole day off? So this is where again it’s really low risk to give it a try. There’s nothing that you’re gonna win or lose here, productivity-wise. And it’s an experiment that can be that’ll answer some of the questions of what are some of the other things. If this isn’t gonna work, what else can I do?

Matt: Yeah. So that’s what I want to get to because in in the article that was writ you know that you guys wrote, the first thing you talked about, like ways to to actually pull this off, you just hit a good chunk of one other kind of the first thing, which is compress what you’re already doing. something else that you added, I’d love to get your commentary on, Chris, would be bringing on an associate. Where does that come into play here?

Christine: Lot of great reasons to bring on an associate. If one of them is to take more time off and to look at adding somebody else as a provider. So there’s an exchange there sometimes of one day. If you’re going to go from four days down to three, then you’re giving up a day and possibly opening, you know, in the article it says Thursday and Friday for you know those two days that I would bring on an associate. So what I love about that is the fact that The fact that you’re bringing in another provider, which is just de-risking the business, right? By having a second provider there, that it’s not 100% dependent on you. The more you spend time as an as an owner helping that associate be successful, you will have more productivity for the practice. As they get more productive in their days, more profit goes to the business. You have confidence that they’re, you know, doing a great job for your patients, and you may be you know, starting to set this up for a long-term goal of transitioning to partnership and eventually out. Associates are a fantastic way to reduce your time at the chair with the compromise that you are pulling probably 50% of what they produce, what they collect, would go to the bottom line, whereas 100% would go minus the expenses would go to the owner. So whether it’s not in your hands, it still can be cash flow, but about half would go to the business then. So, because the fixed expenses are there anyway. So you’re not adding anything there. You may add an assistant if you’re picking up more days. You’re adding a little bit of variable expenses, but the rest is already paid for because of all the fixed expense benches are stable. So there’s a great reason to bring in another doctor to help with revenue instead of it just being you.

Matt: Yeah, yeah, it’s go ahead, Will.

Will: Yeah. This this is the one. I I mean this is this is the one that we get the most often, I feel like, from clients, where there’s like, hey, when should I bring on an associate? Should I ever bring on an associate? What is it going to do to me? How is how am I going to manage this? I just think there’s so many schools of thought here because you can bring on an associate for growth. You can bring on an associate to potentially like yeah, ha s phase out of your career. I think this is but you have to be careful because it’s something that The numbers really, really matter on this one. I’ve seen people hire associates too early and cannibalize their own production and then their income tanks. I’ve seen I’ve seen people also successfully bring on associates later in life when, like we talked about, dentists were worried about their collections numbers dipping and then the practice valuation dropping. It’s a really, really good solution for ones who are hoping to keep at least the numbers at the practice the same. They’re maybe willing to have their income take a little bit of a hit. But maintain the level of production and patient care at the practice. so there’s lots of reasons to hire associates. This one in particular is can you drop a day at work? Ideally, yes. Like I mean, the most common path would be to hire an associate to take some of the bread and butter work off your plate, potentially. You could potentially do more production with more specialized cases if you have the capacity in less time. and it would mean that a higher, you know higher income for it potentially the same or higher income in less time if that’s the case.

Christine: Yeah, she

Matt: Yeah, could this I mean we’ve seen this right where we the you know the dentist adds the owner adds an associate total days actually increase of the practice while the doctor the owner’s days decrease. I mean that’s really what we’re talking about here. If we’re if we’re you know both things can be true, where you go from four days a week because you’re running four as an owner, single owner, and you add an associate, you’ve and then they go two days, you go three. Chris, how often are you seeing something that like that happen where it might even add production, add to the top and bottom line, but lead to the the owner doc being able to work less?

Christine: We’ll nailed it. It’s it’s about the numbers. There’s a there’s a right and a wrong time to bring on an associate for whatever reason you are. So if you’re looking to if you’re maxed out, you have two thousand patients, too hygiene, booked out, you’re booked four to six weeks, you’re at goal, you’re exhausted, you really new patients are waiting, you’re feeling like you’re putting your patients off too too far because you can’t get them in soon enough. Congratulations, you’re a great diagnostician, you’re Getting patients to say yes, you’re doing great dentistry, and you’re just exhausted. This is where the burnout can really come in. And there’s that’s the time to think about how do I bring in another doctor to help? Because there is enough dentistry. There’s enough patient flow. There’s great, you know, 25, 30, 40, 50 new patients coming in, and I need help with all of that. That’s when you bring in somebody else to help, and it will increase the productivity. Right. But if it’s, but if I did not look and see how much open time is in my schedule, what’s my production per hour? Am I so far booked out because I’m not scheduling efficiently? Have I not maximized my schedule to be as productive as I can? Right. What if I’m really excited about I went to a CE, I want to start doing Invisalign, but I have nowhere to put them? If I get one case that says, yes, I don’t know where they’re going to go. And that’s gonna hold me back from dentistry. I really want to do in a service mix my patients want, then that’s another reason to bring in another doctor who I would have do more of the general dentistry so I can specialize in certain procedures. But all of that, those are all great reasons and successful stories when that associate adds to the productivity and greater patient care. Access to care is a great reason to bring in another doctor to

Matt: Kind of goes back to what Will was saying, which again is one of the themes of this is just optimization. You know, come back to that, knowing the numbers, optimizing for the things you’re trying to to optimize for with intentionality. And then Chris, you’re mentioning two others that were on this list, shifting your procedure mix. And then I you’re also alluding to adding more chairs potentially. That probably goes hand in hand could go hand in hand with adding an associate as well.

Christine: Sometimes it and it sometimes it has to that you have to add, you know, operatories or chairs to be able to bring in another doctor. again, that’s thirty to thirty five thousand per month per chair is a good goal to have out of an operatory. And if you’ve got six operatories and you’re using four and a half, maybe five, there’s another reason to optimize the facility that we already have. Sometimes that and that if you’ve got it plumbed, there that’s a great reason to add another another chair because the provider, whether that’s a hygienist or an associate, that if you’ve got then does the patient base and the numbers supporting growth, then that’s a great way to add productivity is by actually opting up another room.

Matt: Yeah. And then Will, I mean, this goes I think this conversation goes hand in hand with something else that was on your list in this article that I think something we’re talking a ton about with clients, which is rethinking the your insurance model and being in network versus out of network. How often is this coming up for you in conjunction with this kind of capacity discussion?

Will: Yeah, I would say pretty often, right? Because the i if you go out of network, theoretically you could you’re you’re gonna reim well, what you get paid for the work that you’re doing is going to be higher than the what the insurance company is going to pay you almost every time. And so can you maintain the amount, the right amount of patients that you need? Can you do actually less work to get paid more money? So we’re kind there’s all these different avenues you can take, right? Like you could hire an associate and maybe stay in network and increase the amount of patients you have so you can do more dentistry across the board, or you can slim down, you can shift your procedure mix, you could, you know, specialize in implants and do less bread and butter dentistry, you can go fee for service. And, you know, it it’s all about optimization for what you’re trying to achieve. and so yeah, I I do think rethinking your insurance model is something we talk to dentists all the time because of the write-offs that they take from insurance. And so this one way you could easily some in some cases tank a little bit of the pay like like lose a little bit of the patient count that you have, but make the same amount of money and maybe work

Matt: Yeah.

Will: less because of it.

Christine: Yeah. I’ll tell you it’s happening weekly.

Matt: Yeah, we see this a lot.

Christine: Weekly we’re getting questions about this. And yeah, and it’s it’s a big leap, but it can be it’s a dramatic impact when done well. It can absolutely reduce the workload, reduce the time at the chair, and maintain, if not grow the bottom.

Matt: Yeah, we like you said, we’re yeah, we’re having this conversations all the time. And I think Chris, the key point you made there, when done well, when done right, with intention, with a plan, not just as Will said earlier, going off of vibes. I think that’s that’s critical. Will, you mentioned as well kind of throughout this article, and I think it’s important to highlight this is kind of the the trade-off of this, like what is the extra day or Going through this exercise with intention, what is that getting you? What is that getting the dentist? You want comment on that?

Will: I it’s all about intentionality with this. Like it it’s a trade-off, right? But the the what I would say is if you can take more time off and potentially enjoy your life more throughout t the overall time that you’re working your working years, your working life, then you’re gonna be able to work longer over time. And so I would hope that you decide genuinely whether you can like fit more working years and enjoy it more, right? And maybe that means it’s a longer time like longer time that you have to work. But if you’re not working as hard and not getting burnt out and not grinding, then you’re gonna hopefully make more money and not have to run out of money quicker. So

Matt: Yeah. What it’s interesting, Will, because I feel like we’ve come across a lot of dentists who have this idea of kind of opposite of what you’re saying in some ways. where they they when they’re younger, they’re just starting their career, they kind of have this mindset of like, I’m gonna sprint to the finish and get like I want to retire when I’m forty-five and never work again. but what you’re highlighting here, I think in what we’re talking about, this discussion, what you highlighted in this article. Is kind of the opposite of that, meaning let’s optimize, let’s maybe work less, but it but stretch out our career. which makes sense to me in reality. What I guess what have you seen, Chris, you too, from a success perspective, like the sprint to the finish and and retire early versus what we’re talking about here, which is more of like optimize for longevity. Any any thoughts you guys have on that?

Christine: I’ll go first, Will, but that’s okay. Yeah.

Will: Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Christine: So it’s been a I mean, this has been a long career for me, dentistry. And I would say what I’ve seen be the negative side of working really hard and hoping that, you know, I’m gonna work just grind and grind and grind and then I’ll I’ll enjoy life later is that they don’t. The later isn’t there. The physical toil, you know, that this That this career takes on doctors is is real. They’re the physical, the visual, the physical, the the hunch, you know, the body, all of that. But also success, first of all, your world is this big, right? It’s it’s it’s this little dimensional. This is what you’re being measured on. Micro millimeters. Measure your success. That’s hard, you know, just intensely on your brain and thinking about where where success and failure can be, you know. Decided. So it’s hard. It’s a hard physical, emotional, mental career. And if you don’t physically step away from that, I believe it negatively impacts your ability to do this job and to do it well. So to maintain the clinical standards, the joy in what you do, you need to get away. Physically away from the chair, from the business type thing. So I’ve seen that be crazy. Critical. Like when I’m guiding doctors on when they’re taking time off, they put down their CE, but they don’t put down their vacation. And it’s like that’s important to do, which is also where the value of that time off is during the work week. When you’re doing maybe it’s two to three days of intense, but then it’s four days off. Right. So that I can recover and go back to doing what I do, hopefully that I love and doing it well and doing it for longer. So there’s that saying too of you know it’s not work if you enjoy what you’re doing. So

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: Hopefully you’re doing that for longer. That’s been what I’ve say is, you know, what I’ve seen to be more important to enjoy the journey, not just the results of your work.

Will: Yeah, I agree. I mean, we just hear this a lot from clients is like, I’m feeling burnt out. I’m feeling like I need to be done as soon as possible. one of the five regrets of the dying is I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. it’s just an interesting topic. Like it’s an interesting topic to say, can we can we just work the right amount? Can and and it can we optimize it for your life so that you don’t get burned out and there’s trade offs there, but how can we opt I know we use this word. Already optimized and I just said it, but can we make sure that we’re working the right amount so that you can live a happy life? I’ve always said I think it’s backwards how we do things where I think we should almost like work less in these years, these important years, the younger-ish years of your career, and then work harder later when all your children have grown

Matt: Your kids are gone.

Will: up and everything. Yeah, like you’ve got nothing else to do. I I think there’s probably some balance there. Like, can we find a way to work the right amount during the most important years of your life. And maybe that means like I said earlier, you work longer, but so be it.

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: Well, and let’s give and go let’s go smaller than that. When my wife is expecting a baby, I’m taking some time off, right? If I’m if I’m the doctor. So let’s plan that. That maybe the month before you work hard, the month you come back, you work hard and you get some time off. So I’m all I’m looking at 90 days. You know, let’s let’s get into that even. That it doesn’t have to be for the whole 10 next 10 years, but what’s happening in your life to your point, Will, about the balance. Things happen. Things come up. I mean, just today, you know, we had a client fall and break her wrist, her right wrist, her working wrist. It’s like, whoa, we gotta make some changes in the next 90 days, type type thing. And so things are gonna happen like that. And but again, if you can plan for it and work around that and be intentional with the calendar and the hours, knowing what my bottom line is, we can be really creative with. As a solopreneur, again, that’s one of the joys of this, is it’s your business. You can be creative with this. Your team will probably be right along there with you. Let’s do this, let’s do it differently. And if I can get you’ll probably here’s a here’s a wild and crazy thought. If you make the same production and have the same overheads, if you will, in three days instead of four, would you pay your team the fourth day?

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: Okay, well you want to talk about a marketing plan. You can work three days at the chair, take the fourth day to stock your room, call the patients, clean the office,

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: Do your do your thing that you never have time for, maintain all the equipment, and you only have to work at the chair three days. Hmm.

Matt: Hmm. Yeah.

Christine: That’s fun to plan. And we we’ve we’ve

Matt: Yeah, that’s interesting.

Christine: Done that.

Matt: Yeah, you bring up a good point, Chris. I w I want to get to the career stages piece, but the team aspect of this, where does that come into play around leaning on the team, getting the getting help from the team, communicating with the team with something like this?

Christine: No no no dentist works by themselves. Maybe I mean they shouldn’t, right? So it is all about bringing in the team to the decision making. It’s ultimately your decision, but finding out what’s important to them. Would they like to do this? Are they interested in this? Maybe they want to work three tens and and call it good. Three ten hour days, sorry. Three ten hour days and call it good. And maybe work a half day. Let’s get some involvement from the team and help them decide that. The we didn’t even talk about expanding hours, which is another way to maximize a facility capacity, is going, you know, from eight to five to seven to seven. You’re adding thirty percent more productive hours without adding any ops or adding any overheads to that. Yeah, no fixed expenses. So that’s just another lever to pull. But finding out what’s in another

Matt: You’re saying another way to

Christine: lever.

Matt: to cut down days without really adjust or without losing hours worked necessarily.

Christine: I would say it’s more of a capacity, facility

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: capacity opportunity. So

Matt: Care.

Christine: that was yeah, because you are going to change your hours worked. Either you’re

Matt: Sure.

Christine: doing two twelves and a two sixes, that sort of thing. So I think it’s less about the number of hours, but maximizing a facility, this often comes in when you’re looking to add another provider. If I

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: Don’t have room to add another operatory, if I don’t want to do a Saturday or a Sunday. but I want to give more time to my associate, then the split shifts are often an opportunity to do that. And just

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: adding more available hours. But yeah, team loves to to be involved in some of these discussions, if not decisions.

Matt: I’m sure.

Christine: It can be a great attraction strategy too.

Matt: Yeah. Will, how how is this in your experience, how does this change based on career stage? So the the answer for a doctor at thirty-five versus fifty-five or sixty, how does this change?

Will: Yeah. I mean, we alluded to this a little bit where the decision is different based on where you’re at. And I think, you know, in the early years, you probably have a little bit more energy and like working actually five days a week genuinely is kind of like building the machine. You’re you’re building this golden goose of a practice that hopefully is just gonna continue to be this this machine. So sometimes it makes sense to like set the precedent, but then you can’t get caught in that precedent. So in your mid-career, hopefully that’s when you’re starting to optimize and thinking about like, do I want to start dropping insurance? Do I want to bring on an associate that will then be my transition plan eventually? Like I’ve built this machine. It’s it’s working. How can I now optimize? Now I just got to start pulling levers around making more money and less time potentially or continuing to go grow the practice. And late career is more along the lines of what we talked about where it’s like Do c is there an option to take the foot off, take your foot off the gas? And how do we do that responsibly, right? So I I think it totally matters where you’re at, where your practice is at, how how how far you’ve gotten on the personal side, like we talked about. This shouldn’t just be a one sided decision just from the practice side of things. It should also tie in things that you’ve talked about personally. So somebody helping you make this decision should be able to see the whole picture.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, it Chris, I want to get your thoughts on this. But this is where we talk to Dentist a lot, which is, I think, Will, what you just highlighted perfectly is starting like thinking about like the classic Stephen Covey, start with the end in mind. But the second you get into a practice, what I hear you saying, Will, is when the second you get into a practi to practice ownership, you should at least have directionally in your mind what an exit looks like. And I don’t think that’s that crazy to say, because what you just highlighted is. Knowing things are gonna change, but that’s gonna help you kind of step by step figure out with each of these stages what that’s gonna look like. And and again, having that end in mind. Chris, what what are how how would you expand on that?

Christine: Not much more to other than the idea of, you know, the it’s all about growth at first, right? And again, it depends on when you’re are you acquiring or are you starting your own practice? Those those ramp up periods are very different. So that first phase of race to revenue, growth to two thousand patients of record, then we get to the stability stage and we’re kind of riding that super, you know, the super highway of it’s going well. But this is also that cautionary tale of this is where we all hear that, well, what’s next? sort of thing. And as personal financial planners, we get the maybe I should be exploring something else I should do. What business can I get into? That’s what I would call like a rustout period, not quite burnout, but they’re at the point when they’re a little distracted about this thing that they’ve gone to school for, went into debt for, built, and are now should be enjoying with some opportunities to maybe take a vacation, take some time off. They’re thinking about what else is what else is there? Because they’re in this kind of rinse and repeat feeling. So getting, you know, getting to the doctor at this point saying, let’s talk about what’s going to excite you and keep you involved in this. So what’s next should be the conversation, not what else? Right? What’s next for the business? Then comes the opportunity to diversify. Procedure mix, hours, another provider, different location. That’s when the second growth phase should kick in. So Exit begins when we start it, but it should be a serious conversation as soon as we’re at stability. I’ve got a successful practice. What’s next? Not what else.

Matt: Yeah, and Will, Chris just put pointed out something, maybe a fear of ours as advisors, that there is maybe a direct correlation to more time on a Dentist hand and more likelihood of shiny object syndrome. So maybe we should back off this. I’m just kidding. But I I I do think that’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Will: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Now

Christine: This is the voice of experience right here. Right? All of us go, yeah.

Matt: But I think that brings up an interesting point, like jokes aside, that let’s not make the assumption that. We’re we’re only highlighting this as working l three days or working less chair side immediately is for the reason to like you’re gonna vacation more. I think it’s worthy of pointing out that this might mean like even the doctor who’s got bigger goals around building a bigger business, there it there may even be more of an argument to do this, to think about less chairside work, to free up your capacity. brain capacity and and creativity and you know just your energy to focus on building the business. So I I think that’s worthy of pointing out. Well, w any experience on that end of things.

Will: Yeah, t I mean absolutely where we have plenty of clients who are trying to transition into that more CEO role where it’s a more of a growth play, right? And maybe it it allows you to bring on associates and other doctors and other locations and create more of this passive income machine, I guess you could say. And and a dentist office can’t it’s never gonna be passive. We say passive with air quotes, because there’s still work to

Christine: Yeah.

Will: do. You can’t just like plug and play and never look at anything. But it is something where it could be more passive from the aspect of you don’t have as much chair time, but you’re working just as hard on the business, but you also have more flexibility on your hands because you don’t have to actually be in somebody’s mouth to make a dollar. So

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: The direct productivity is less when you’re when you have more providers.

Matt: Yeah.

Christine: So the role changes, like you said, to CEO to chief clinical officer, right? So I’m actually helping the rest of my dentist team elevate their clinical skills, diagnostics, case presentation, all of that. So you become more of a mentor and a leader in that role clinically as

Will: And I

Christine: well as business wise.

Will: and I’ll add like at the I mean, just kind of a little bit more on the career phase. Like that, that is d don’t don’t like try you you have to it’s a crawl walk run. Like you can’t just wave a magic one and get to the thing we just talked about. Like it it’s gonna take a lot of time and a lot of planning and a lot of effort. And so be feel okay with yourself if you’re at the beginning of a career and you’re just like you’re in the crawl phase, you’re in the walk phase. And maybe you decide to stay in the walk phase for a a while, right? And just harvest and be okay with it. And maybe then you decide to turn to the run phase on. And I think trying to get to the run phase too quickly is where the mistakes are made. And, you know, adding loc locations just for the sake of adding them or adding an associate to try to like boost growth. And I I just think like it is a process. It’s not a it’s not a get rich quick play. It’s you know, take your time and it’s it it’ll be okay.

Christine: Well, I think because I’m supposed to is the wrong reason to do anything. Right.

Matt: Yeah, because I can. Yeah.

Christine: Yeah. I th what else am I supposed to do? It’s the thing I’m supposed to do next, or never, you know, the that’s never the right reason to do anything. I also think it’s

Matt: Yeah, it’s so true.

Christine: Wrong to put like a a an age limit or a time limit on it, like Will was saying. What whatever phase you’re at in in your in your career and where you’re at in associateship to ownership to thinking about exiting. You know, there’s there’s ways to maximize, there’s ways to optimize, as we’ve been saying, and to do the right thing for you wherever you’re at in your career.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. What I’m hearing from you guys is just this idea of success being a life that you lived on your terms that you chose, a career that you built on your terms by dis an intentional design. Because it kind of to wrap this up, I want to give you guys the final words, but as I’m hearing this, it’s like the the idea here, the overall idea here I I’m hearing is not even hey, you should work three days or you should cut days back. What I’m hearing from both of you and your experiences is hey, if you take nothing else away from this, it’s let’s live with more intentionality about your career and life. And that may be working less, that like chair side, that may be working more. Who who knows? I’m gonna guess most dentists are sitting there saying, no, it means less days, chair side. Let’s just be honest. But that I think is the overall theme of this. I want to give you guys kind of last word on this, specifically around anything you’d say, like. Takeaway from this discussion and then number two would just be kind of like what next? Like what’s one thing that a dentist out there listening should think about?

Will: I’ll go and then you could have a final word, Chris, since you’re more of the expert on this topic. But I’ll say, it it’s I I think analysis, paralysis is part of this. And so my I think my main takeaway, and Chris will echo this for sure, but it it’s you ha like you you have to know your numbers. And we’ve said that f a ton this but I think part of not knowing your numbers is you never have the time to look at your numbers. So you don’t have an admin day because you’re working four days a week and then Or five days a week. And then the days that you have off, you’re like, I don’t want to be looking at the numbers. So some of it is feels a little bit of like a chicken before the egg or cart before the horse, but working on the business is just as important as working in the business. And you can’t do any of the optimization steps that we talked about unless you sit down and take the time to do it. And we’re not saying that you have to like work nights hustling, grinding to do this, but it does take knowing your numbers in order to make informed decisions. I love your your quote was like how do you tie data and emotion together and and that that’s that’s the crux of this is optimize there there is always usually meat on the bone to optimize. And so find that and that’s the first step I would take is start digging into your numbers and seeing what do I want out of this and how is the numbers tell me what I can do.

Matt: Yeah. Love it. Chris?

Christine: Well, the what I want out of this, that’s where I want to go. Just what figure out what you want from financials, times, and odds are we can help you create the the work environment, time frame, style, type of dentistry, all of that based on what you want to achieve. So I think that’s one of the great things about being a dentist and a and an owner is you can create what you want to have as a result. Also, general advice does not constitute personal advice. So please seek help with this. I’m gonna shamelessly plug our website that has a ton of information about annual planning, about going out of network. This article is there. So we are here to help, you know, just customize what you want to achieve, you can. And that’s a great gift of being a dentist. Mic drama.

Matt: Chris nailing it, doing my job for me, better than me. Shocker, not a shocker. But absolutely, Chris, I mean, if you’re out there listening, you need help with any of this. Chris, Will, our team is here to help. We help dentists all over the country. You can go to dentisadvisors.com, click on the book free consultation button, and we’d be happy to walk through anything we talked about today, or really anything that has to do with things that you’re stressed about with money. or retirement planning investing. We’re here to help. So dentistadvisors.com for now, guys, that was a great discussion. Super valuable. Really appreciate the expertise, Christine and Will and everyone. as always, thanks for listening. Until next time, take care. Bye bye.

Keywords: dentistry, work-life balance, scheduling, practice management, dental income, dental associates, practice optimization, dental finances, career longevity

Practice Management, Work Life Balance