Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap through Practice Ownership

Most ambitious dentists are taught that dental practice ownership success is a linear climb from one location to three, five, or ten. In this episode, Dr. Megan Timm joins Caitlin Embree to pull back the curtain on the "sexy" allure of the dental empire and explains why she made the difficult decision to offload two locations to return to a single-doctor model. If you are currently navigating the...

The transition from clinician to CEO is often paved with unexpected roadblocks: wage inflation, shrinking insurance reimbursements, and a staffing crisis that makes 2026 feel like a battleground for private practitioners. In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri breaks down why traditional dental practice management is no longer enough to stay profitable. If you are a future owner, you mus...

The leap from clinician to CEO is the most significant hurdle in any associate to owner transition. Most dentists enter ownership with world-class clinical skills but find themselves practicing blind when it comes to the business side of the chair. In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. George Hariri sits down with Dr. Aditi Agarwal, co-founder of Practice by Numbers, to discuss how...

Are you the primary force rolling every "boulder" up the hill in your office? In this insightful Ask George episode, George and Richard explore why building leaders is the non-negotiable secret to exponential growth and true leverage. Most future owners struggle with the transition from clinician to CEO because they fear the "drop-off" in quality when delegating. However, effective dental practice...

Transitioning from a skilled clinician to a successful CEO requires a fundamental shift in how you view dental practice management. Most dentists enter ownership to focus on patient care, yet they quickly find themselves bogged down by the "human" element of human resources. In this episode of Shared Practices, Richard Low sits down with Jill Hasselmann from HR for Health to dismantle the myth tha...

Are you choosing the wrong candidates because you’re afraid you don't have the time to train the right ones? In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Richard and Caitlin unpack why dental practice ownership often feels like an uphill battle—and how to fix it. We discuss the mindset shift required to move from "panic hiring" to building a continuous candidate pipeline, much like you would f...

Think you could grow a suburban dental practice from $700K to $2.5M in four years without burning out? In this high-stakes episode of Practice Under Water, George sits down with "Thor," a high-intensity owner who has done exactly that. Thor shares the raw numbers behind his explosive associate to owner transition, revealing how he moved from 15 new patients a month to over 90 by mastering Google r...

Scaling a $2.5M practice while only working two clinical days sounds like the ultimate goal, but it often brings you face-to-face with a massive facility bottleneck. In Part 2 of Thor’s return to Practice Under Water, George and Thor break down the logistical gymnastics required to maintain sustainable dental practice growth when your building is bursting at the seams. Thor is currently managing 9...

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri guides you through "The Ownership Reset," a strategic process designed to align your dental practice ownership with your long-term life goals. As we head into 2026, George emphasizes that successful dental practice ownership requires more than clinical skill; it requires a clear vision and a refined sense of direction. Whether you are a productive s...

Richard and Caitlyn Embree discuss why effective dental practice management begins with a clear, articulated vision that the entire team can buy into. They break down a four-part framework for dental roadmap success, covering practice anatomy, philosophy of care, team culture, and the owner's desired lifestyle. By implementing better dental practice management systems, owners can identify bottlene...

In this Ask George episode, Dr. George Hariri and Richard Low explore the ultimate cheat code for dental practice management: Artificial Intelligence. Moving from a clinician to a CEO requires scalable systems. If you are navigating dental practice ownership, AI is a mandatory survival guide for streamlining operations and writing SOPs. George argues that building Custom GPTs will vastly improve y...

In this episode of Shared Practices, Richard Low sits down with Clint Johnson to unpack high-level dental business strategies and the core metrics driving true dental practice profitability. They dissect the exact financial impacts and administrative burdens of heavy PPO participation, revealing how properly organizing fee schedules can add $330,000 to a two-doctor bottom line over an 18-month tim...

Welcome back to Practice Underwater, where Dr. George Hariri sits down with Scuba Steve to unpack the operational hurdles every dentist faces when transforming a chaotic clinic into a thriving enterprise. Despite growing collections from a $500,000 baseline to a $1.3 million yearly pace, this dentist's journey into dental practice ownership reveals aesthetic challenges, missing systems, and team m...

Welcome to Practice Underwater, where Dr. George Hariri kicks off part one with Scuba Steve to explore the gritty realities of becoming a practice-owning dentist. Despite buying a messy, former Medicaid DSO-managed building, this ambitious dentist successfully transitioned into dental business ownership by immediately boosting collections from a historical $500,000 average to a $1.3 million yearly...

In this episode, Richard and Caitlin dive into a unique scenario within acquisitions in dentistry, focusing on the strategic and operational breakdown of chart mergers. They explore a case study involving a solo doctor with five operatories and 1,000 active patients looking to purchase 1,000 charts from a retiring dentist, offering tactics for acquisitions in dentistry like paying $125 per convert...

In this Ask George segment, Dr. George and Richard explore essential dental practice management for a multi-location, fee-for-service clinic navigating new patient bottlenecks. Analyzing specific metrics like a 72% pre-appointment rate and a $616 average diagnosis per exam, they reveal how current dental practice management might be adding friction to the hygiene schedule. The core strategic debat...

In this episode of the Shared Practices podcast, Richard Low speaks with Richard May from Mango Voice to explore how AI phone solutions can help the modern dentist capture more leads. They discuss the staggering statistic that average practices miss over 30% of calls , illustrating how an AI receptionist and automated call summaries can drastically improve sustainable dental practice growth and ov...

Welcome back to Practice Underwater, where Dr. George Hariri helps Tom map out a plan for sustainable dental practice growth. After scaling his clinic from $1.1 million to $1.65 million , Tom realizes that true sustainable dental practice growth requires optimizing dental practice management rather than working grueling 10-hour days and half-staffed Fridays. They debate the merits of expanding his...

Welcome back to Practice Underwater, where Dr. George Hariri helps Tom map out a plan for sustainable dental practice growth. After scaling his clinic's collections from $1.1 million to $1.65 million, Tom realizes that continuing this sustainable dental practice growth requires optimizing dental practice management rather than working grueling 10-hour days. They discuss the heavy toll of a $10,000...

Dr. Richard Low welcomes back Dr. George Hariri for an "Ask George" episode focused on the painful underside of dental business ownership. The duo discusses why acquisitions in dentistry often fail when buyers lack due diligence, leading to negative equity and the stress of "building on top of broken" systems. Using Practice Underwater principles, George explains how to fix dental practice managem...

In this episode of shared practices, hosts Richard and Caitlin dive into the critical world of dental practice management to help listeners navigate dental practice ownership by tackling the persistent operational pain point of patient cancellations. Caitlin shares her proven dental business strategies for minimizing schedule holes, detailing a framework that leverages a $50 hourly broken appointm...

For a future dental practice owner, the reality of shrinking margins is harsh. With insurance fees stagnant and labor costs skyrocketing, achieving dental practice profitability is incredibly difficult. Richard Low and Cory Pinegar, founder of Reach, explain how an international virtual workforce is the ultimate survival guide. Moving from a stressed clinician to an empowered CEO requires delegati...

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri and Richard Low redefine what it actually means to master dental practice ownership. Many dentists get trapped acting as the lead clinician and the daily manager, constantly playing whack-a-mole with operational fires. However, mastering true dental practice ownership requires stepping completely out of the "Technician" and "Manager" roles to become...

In this episode, Richard Low and Alex Sharp tackle a critical question facing every ambitious dentist today: is hygiene-led growth dead? With rising labor costs and shifting insurance economics, many practice owners are reevaluating their dental growth strategies. Is a bustling hygiene department still the key to dental practice profitability, or is it just an expensive headache? The hosts break d...

In this episode of Practice Underwater, Dr. George Hariri consults with Dr. "Alejandro," a solo dentist who has navigated dental practice ownership in the Midwest for over 20 years. Four years ago, Alejandro made the leap to drop Delta Dental and transition to a fully fee-for-service model. While this shift elevated his clinical freedom and defined his dental practice ownership style, it brought n...