In 1999, three years after Hema graduated from Temple University School of Dentistry, we bought a small, struggling practice in New Jersey, which had revenue of about $10,000 per month.

Daunting Challenges

We realized early on that dentistry was a tough and complex business with many daunting challenges:

• Finding skilled staff was difficult. Training staff was time-consuming. Finding good hygienists was particularly difficult, as there were few hygiene school graduates available in the area.

• The insurance environment was bad and getting worse.

• Getting patients to proceed with comprehensive treatment was a challenge. Patients only wanted to do what insurance covered.

• Patients walked in with the notion that insurance would cover everything. This meant that collecting money was never going to be easy.

• The cost of doing business in dentistry was very high, given school debt, debt service on the practice, lease payments on dental equipment, and continuing education costs.

• Competition in the dental profession was fierce, with dental practices literally at every street corner. Managed care practices were all around us.

In response to these challenges, Peter became the Business Director of the practice and took over the responsibilities on the business side, so that Hema could concentrate on running the clinical side.

We were constantly looking for ways to improve. We brainstormed ideas, drew upon our corporate experience, scoured management books, attended conferences, questioned colleagues and consulted experts. We tested a lot of ideas, and many of the ideas failed. In fact, we found that many of the methods and solutions proposed in the literature and on the seminar circuit really do not work for the typical general practice.

Eventually we arrived at solutions that produced significant and sustainable growth, that were practical and easy to implement, and that fit our personalities, life goals, and value system.

These solutions helped us grow the practice rapidly. Just three years after buying our first practice, we built and moved to a new, bigger office.

Results

Today, our practice ranks in the top 10% nationally in terms of net take-home income generated. We have been able to maintain that position for more than 8 years now. We are essentially a fee for service practice, with insurance adjustments less than 5%.

Although we started off with more than $400,000 in business debt, plus school and personal debt, we are now debt-free.

We work four days a week, take two full weeks of vacation a year, and regularly add extra vacation days to long holiday weekends. We are able to spend time with family and friends and pursue personal interests.

Over a 12-year period from the start of the practice, we were able to pour significant funds into retirement savings and are in position to retire today if we want to...but we find ourselves too young to retire.

Our Message

Our message to dentists is that, if you really figure out how to manage and run a practice, it is possible to do very well in dentistry. That’s been our experience.

We did have the advantage of business school backgrounds and prior corporate business experience, but did not have a family member in the business to show us the ropes. And neither did we inherit anything. It was ingenuity, focused action and practical solutions that led to success.

With so much study, testing, and experience behind us, we now help other dentists fulfill their goals as well.

Read more about our credentials.

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