The My Practice My Business Dental Podcast

Send us Fan Mail How often do we hear dental thought leaders tell us to drop dental plans, or at least the worst ones? Inevitably, someone will ask the question, “which ones are the worst ones?” Or better yet, they ask, “please define what is meant by the ‘worst’ ones, aren’t they all bad?” Then there are the grumblings from all of us on how bad the reimbursement rates are, and how impossible it i...

Send us Fan Mail So many thought leaders in our profession despise this very topic. They cringe at the thought someone like me would even suggest to you that your mission is to make money. But it’s called reality. The mission of any business should be to achieve success, and that success is accomplished by being profitable on all, or as many procedures as possible, which leads us to the term “visi...

Send us Fan Mail In this discussion, I ask them some very important questions. Please allow me to just jump to their answers for now, I’m sure you can figure out the questions, and here are their answers: 1-We are maintaining infection, not eliminating it. This just doesn’t make sense… 2-I’ve always felt that periodontal disease can be eliminated, but not with our current treatment protocols, and...

Send us Fan Mail It seems like every week I see an advertisement from a dental consultant advocating the need to drop dental insurance and build a strictly fee-for-service (FFS) practice. Many of these dental consultants teach their clients what I call a very deceptive tactic, one that loses the patient’s trust right from the beginning every time, and we begin our podcast right there. Support the...

Send us Fan Mail Why do so many solo dentists take the stink bait offers of DSOs without investigating what they are really giving up when swallowing hook, line, and sinker to these predators? The main reason dentists give up their autonomy and business opportunities are because they don’t know what they don’t know. We are going to tell you what the corporate predators are not telling you, that yo...

Send us Fan Mail I read a statement from a dentist on one of the dental networking groups that caught my eye. The comment, for some reason, made me feel bad for that dentist, and my heart really ached for him. That may sound a bit cheesy, but I care about all of you, and your teams. Tracy and I learned so much about the inner workings of dental insurance companies when we got our Utah Dental Law p...

Send us Fan Mail What happens if the office manager croaks, the hygienist calls in sick, or the dental assistant runs off with prince charming? Does anyone see the need for some cross-training? Missing a team member for even one day can lead to chaos in a dental office. Team members feel overwhelmed, which could ultimately lead to a decline in the quality of patient care. It doesn’t have to be thi...

Send us Fan Mail The majority of dental teams have been convinced that if dental insurance won’t pay for it, they have to write it off. Heaven forbid you actually charge the patient directly for services the PPO Plan won’t cover. Dental insurance plans don’t pay for tooth whitening, yet most dental offices charge the patient for it directly. The same applies to electric toothbrushes. In addition,...

Send us Fan Mail Over the last several months Tracy and I have observed “Leaders” emerge from the ranks of every type of dental team member in the dental offices we have had the opportunity to train. Leadership is critical to the success of any business, and it’s why two of our team training modules focus on leadership skills. And it’s why we take a deep dive into effective leadership skills in ou...

Send us Fan Mail You absolutely can if you allow yourself to paid fairly by holding the patient responsible for their dental care, instead of doing it for free like you’ve done for years. Stop listening to misinformation, and lies, from dental consultants, and others who have never read one damn insurance contract, never spoken and asked the “right” questions with insurance managers, never read th...

Send us Fan Mail So many times we see dental teams struggle with charging their patients for the services they provide. They often times feel they are nickel and diming their patients. Nothing could be further from the truth. Layering your treatment plans, being transparent with the codes and services you have diagnosed, and being paid fairly for those services is not gouging, nor nickel and dimin...

Send us Fan Mail How many times do we attend a CE course, a church meeting, or some lecture somewhere, and the presenter says something where our mind says, “oh, they lost me on that statement.” Have you ever thought that maybe you missed what was being said because your mind was off in some delusion of grandeur, or you were on your damn phone not paying attention? Maybe what you thought you heard...

Send us Fan Mail There are times where I wonder if the ADA really knows what is going on with dentists on the front lines. It’s apparent their actions often times do not reflect it.  Many years ago, Tracy and I began research on bundling of procedures by dental insurance companies. We began to build the case against third-party payers with their constant tactics of preventing us from being paid fa...

Send us Fan Mail Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you there are dentists that make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what the hell happened. It’s not that simple. But, could there be a fourth doc? Or is the fourth doc just a unicorn... Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The list is long and unfortunately distinguished. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time we don’t like dealing with insurance plans and their reps either. But we are the only major consulting company that teaches dentists, and their teams, to keep them, because we know how to be profitable with them. So, who teaches dentists to drop their PPO Plans? Individuals who don’t know what t...

Send us Fan Mail Insurances, laws, office manager and front office training, Disney Institute and leadership, ending with DSOs and why you don't need them. To date, there is one DSO that is  showing some promise with how they function and treat their docs, but the jury is still out. If they come through with their promise, we will sing their praises and point you to them if running your own b...

Send us Fan Mail Are we receiving what we are paying for with our dental supplies? Every time I asked my assistant for an A1 shade of my new composite, I would think she was handing me a “used” compule. The A2 compules were not much better. After several months of this happening, it dawned on me. “Could the company be having issues with the manufacturing process of their composite being placed in...

Send us Fan Mail "The title may sound harsh, but after working with hundreds of dental offices, we’ve discovered that nearly every office does the same things that negatively affect the practice. These actions ultimately decrease revenue, patient retention and employee satisfaction. The worst part, many of the things we will mention have been preached in dentistry for YEARS. So, we can’t real...

Send us Fan Mail Never let the patient circumnavigate the front office team members Doc. You gave them a job, let them do it. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail How many times do we attend dental trainings with the hopes of that expensive training making a difference in the performance of our dental practice? It can when dental teams, and the doc, increase competency with knowledge and skills, become motivated to be paid fairly for the services you provide, and can envision opportunity and not obstacles with the training you embark on. Le...

Send us Fan Mail A big "thank you" to all of you listeners and clients. Just some thoughts and a big announcement on training... Support the show

Send us Fan Mail What am I getting at you might ask? It’s simple. The majority of dental teams have been brainwashed into thinking that if dental insurance won’t pay for it, heaven forbid you actually charge the patient directly for services the PPO Plan won’t cover. Dentists and their teams fear telling patients their dental plan won't cover certain procedures. We need to drop those fears an...

Send us Fan Mail Hardly a week goes by that we don’t see an article published, or a diatribe written, condemning dental insurance companies. Or, more specifically, the reimbursement rates, delay tactics, and a list of other topics we all deal with on a daily basis when taking patients who are “dental insured.” When Tracy and I battled the major insurance players against bundling, down-coding, and...

Send us Fan Mail I'm always amazed at how dentists and their teams are completely brainwashed when it comes to business decisions that completely lack fundamental judgement of business skills. No business and thought leaders would ever put up with what we dentists do on a daily basis, let alone make business decisions that are not grounded in profitability so that the company can grow, profit...

Send us Fan Mail There are five steps in battling dental insurance plans. At MPMB, we have this down to a science, and hope all listening will engage to protect the integrity of dentistry. Support the show