THE MILLIONAIRE DENTIST™

Fantasy Football and Your Dental Practice

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

Announcer:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentist you deserve to be. Please be advised, we do speak with an honest tongue and may not be safe for work.

Casey Hiers:
Hello and welcome! This is Casey Hiers, back at it at The Millionaire Dentist Podcast. In-studio, I have co-host, Jarrod Bridgeman.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey! Hello.

Casey Hiers:
Fresh haircut, looking sharp.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you.

Casey Hiers:
And we have a special guest today, Stacy, Mr. CFP Phillips.

Stacy Phillips:
Afternoon, gentlemen.

Casey Hiers:
What should we talk about today? What's on your minds?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Actually, I wanted to talk about this. You and I are matched up right now in fantasy football for the week.

Casey Hiers:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And you're beating me by, I think half a point. One of my kickers got a negative point for me, so that was nice. I need some injuries and warmups. I'm going to Nancy Kerrigan some of your players, I think.

Casey Hiers:
No, this is the time of year for Fantasy Football, right? And I never got into it at all until I joined Four Quadrants Advisory. That's something we do around here as a little fun, little healthy trash talk while we're helping dentists be rich. We do fantasy football. And my team's terrible, but I won it a couple years ago, so I'm going to make sure everybody remembers that.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I think your team was terrible the year you won it, actually.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, it's called strategy. Can't peak too fast.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But, thinking, the whole thought process on fantasy football and all that kind of stuff, it made me think of, Is there a way to relate that to dental practices? Real football, fantasy football, there are a ton of components and variables that must be aligned well for success. I bet we can figure out how in a dental practice, you can't just have a good quarterback. You can't just have a good running back, but you need a full team that's really, really good. Does that sound like something we could talk about?

Casey Hiers:
Seems like that's pretty accurate.

Stacy Phillips:
Yes. I think it's kind of about setting your lineups.

Casey Hiers:
Ooh. Okay. Well, so if my fantasy football team were a practice, I would have some serious problems. I think that's probably the best way to put it. If I looked at my lineup, and I've got some significant holes. So let's pivot from the fun topic of fantasy football to the scary and real topic of dental practices with a lot of maybe issues or holes or problems. Stacy, what are some areas within a practice that can be challenging?

Stacy Phillips:
Well, right now, the whole setting your line up, in other words, your staff, is a huge issue nationwide in dental practices right now, with the fabulous government handouts that have been going out and it's really disrupted the workforce. So we're having a lot of issues with people finding good assistants and hygienists to work in their practices.

Casey Hiers:
Adults believe in Santa Claus and want the free stuff. Isn't that cute? You know what, Stacy, I talked to practice owners for over five years and I've always heard them complain about staff...their team, their staff. And a lot of times that was just their easy way of bringing up something that wasn't on them, that maybe made them feel better and it wasn't necessarily the case. Over the last year, it is absolutely the case. This is a very legitimate issue nationwide.

Stacy Phillips:
Absolutely. Every dentist I talk to has an issue with staffing right now, in some form or fashion.

Casey Hiers:
So what's the answer?

Stacy Phillips:
Well, there is no great answer, necessarily, but we do have to be aware of the environment we're in currently. So we have these conversations right now with dentists. Normally in a fantasy football team, you want to have the deepest lineup possible. You want to keep all these extra people on the bench. Well, in a dental practice, as a dental advisor, we're trying to keep people from overstaffing in a normal year, but this is not a normal year, not normal times. So we have actually told people to try to overstaff right now, just because there's so many issues out there of finding people, retaining people. And then we have the COVID issue, which applies to both fantasy football and a dental practice because there will be players in fantasy football this year that are out because of COVID, no different than a dental practice. We have a lot of employees that are affected by COVID and are out and with a typical, very small staff role in a dental practice, there's nobody to fill in. So we've told people this year, look, we have to-

Casey Hiers:
Be bullish on hiring.

Stacy Phillips:
Absolutely. If you have to carry an extra person or two, this would be the time to do that.

Casey Hiers:
You see what I did there? Tied to topic, bullish, stock market, financial. That was gold, like next level.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Look at you.

Casey Hiers:
But when you have to explain it, then it's not as good.

Casey Hiers:
So most people will not have even heard be bullish on hiring as a practice owner. And you said, not normal times, not a normal year. I have a feeling it's going to be not a normal decade. That's just my speculation.

Stacy Phillips:
I have that feeling, as well. I don't think this is going away anytime soon. We're going to have to deal with it and it's not fun, but-

Casey Hiers:
How do you know if you're understaffed, appropriately staffed or overstaffed? Is there a metric or what does that look like?

Stacy Phillips:
That's a great question, Casey. Actually, there is a metric that we use and we don't want the staffing cost to be more than about 20% of revenues.

Casey Hiers:
It's funny, when I have this conversation with people, everybody has the most unique staff. They're frustrating, but they pay them probably closer to 25-34% and they know that that's not great, but they're like, Well, but you don't understand, they're all amazing. They're not all amazing.

Stacy Phillips:
That's correct.

Casey Hiers:
No, but, so the metrics 20%, that's great, but how many practice owners when they come to us are at 20%?

Stacy Phillips:
Very few.

Casey Hiers:
Very few.

Stacy Phillips:
Most of the time, people are over that a little bit. Again, that's a guideline. Not everybody's going to be at that guideline all the time, but it is something to go by to keep you from getting way out of whack, obviously. If we're at 25-30%, then we know we have a major problem and we need to work on that moving forward.

Casey Hiers:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So, when you're encouraging people to potentially hire more right now, let's say, and you want to come keep it around 20%, is there an extra leeway you're kind of guiding this by? Like, if you're at 15%, then you have enough room, but if they're at 20% and they still need another person in there, is there like, Okay, well it's another X amount that we're kind of-

Stacy Phillips:
Yeah. Another part of that is there's actually a shortage of staff right now across the country. So we have to think about that, as well. And what that causes is, the people that you do have are finding out. They can kind of go to the employer and say, Hey, I want to make more because they may be looking around, they're getting higher offers at other locations. We're having to fight that, as well, to where a lot of dental practice owners are paying more than they normally would for a position just to retain their staff.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Kind of holding the owner hostage?

Stacy Phillips:
In a sense, yes.

Casey Hiers:
I'm glad we intertwined hostage, a hostage situation at our dental practices. Our clients don't have hostage situations, call us!

Stacy Phillips:
Well, and back to this parallel of fantasy football and dental practices, too. I mean, with injury and COVID, that's going to be very hard for football teams, in general. And the parallel was exactly right with the practices. Somebody gets sick. God forbid somebody sneezes, they're out for a week because you just never know and you got to keep people safe. But yeah, those unexpected occurrences, if you are "overstaffed" a little bit, at least you do have some cushion.

Casey Hiers:
What do you hear about the hygienist temps, those temp firms? I've heard very good practice owners, who normally wouldn't consider them, they're trying to get some temporary hygienists and even that's hard.

Stacy Phillips:
Yes, I think in a pinch, if that type of thing is available in your area, that is definitely something to look at and at least have that on the back burner. Obviously, they're not cheap, but the way that we look at it here is, paying a little extra for an extra employee or maybe for a temp is actually better in the long run than just losing that production in the practice. That's going to cost you more.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and losing clients or patients, I should say.

Stacy Phillips:
Correct.

Casey Phillips:
Is now a good time to cut an insurance plan?

Stacy Phillips:
Possibly. We're always looking at insurance plans and that's one of the other things, when we talked about setting your lineups, is the insurance plans in the practice. You have to decide which plans you're going to be in-network with, which ones you're not. A lot of times, people don't really have a good handle on the plans that they do have. Some people have umbrella plans, which kind of pull numerous insurance plans into one. And then they get in a situation where they might have more than one umbrella. They don't know which one is picking up this insurance carrier, which one is picking up this one, becomes a huge mess. So there are third-party companies, which I think Casey has talked to someone on the podcast before, that can help you sort through what your insurance lineup is going to be. They help you renegotiate insurance rates and they'll help you decide, Okay, could we possibly drop this carrier and go fee for service instead of that?

Casey Hiers:
Well, some practice owners would say, Oh, it's never a good time to drop an insurance plan because they're scared that patients won't come to them, which is false, for the most part. Others say it's always a good time to cut one. But right now, if you're short-staffed, if your hygiene department is short-staffed, now might be a time to look at something of that nature. Because if you're worried about patients per day, production per day, how far you're booked out, being able to clinically service everybody. Well, if you're having a hard time getting your hygiene taken care of, then maybe this is the time to be looking at the insurance and something that's painful that you've put off for a long time.

Stacy Phillips:
That is a great point, Casey. And it's a absolute correct way to look at it. If you can't fill the schedule, then you're right. It might be a great time to drop an insurance carrier. And that kind of frees things up a little bit for the practice.

Stacy Phillips:
Another thing that might be helpful to some dental practices is if you're having problems with staffing, and this could be in a non-COVID arena, as well, but we have some people now that go out, and if you live in a large enough area where you have dental assisting schools or hygiene schools, get in contact with them, ask them about the potential of doing intern or externships to get some people into your office, introduce them to your office. And hopefully, that leads to some employment opportunities down the road.

Casey Hiers:
Well, here's the last parallel. As a practice owner, it's all on you. As a fantasy football owner, it's all on us. You have to look at your lineup. You have to figure out what that you need. I've got people on the IR injury reserve list already. Injuries, people are out, you go and you, I have to go pick new players. We have a large league. The talent pool is not great. But I've got to find some people to fill in some holes and there is strategy and you have to look at it in its totality, but ultimately it's coming down to the practice owner to make sure your team, your office, and your practice are functioning high on all levels. And the same is true for the old fantasy football manager. And while it's a little cliche and we had a little fun with it, there are similarities here and you can't just blame everybody else as a practice owner. It's on you.

Stacy Phillips:
I've got a question for Casey. Does a dental practice owner have time to be worrying about staffing, 24 hours a day every week?

Casey Hiers:
No.

Stacy Phillips:
That's the correct answer.

Casey Hiers:
No, that's a good point. Again, we pound this drum a lot. A practice owner should be providing great dentistry and from a high level delegating to really good players, really good people, all the areas that they don't excel at. The head coach can't go throw the ball like the quarterback, the quarterback can't block. You have to know your role. And as a practice owner, you need to make sure you have a complete team, that is an internal team and an external team. And the external team is what we are to many practice owners around the country. And the importance is only magnified in times like this, where there are issues with staffing and there's four dozen areas that practice owners have to worry about. We take care of that for them.

Stacy Phillips:
So far, in two weeks in my fantasy football, I've managed to score 180 points week one, down to a mire 98.88 points in week two. So that's some pretty severe volatility and we want to try to avoid that type of volatility in our daily staffing lineup.

Casey Hiers:
Well, how about those track management reports, and you have a good month and a bad month. And man, I have those conversations and people had a record month and then they'll have two bad months. And it gives people anxiety.

Casey Hiers:
Jarrod, best of luck tonight. That was insincere.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you, I appreciate it.

Casey Hiers:
And Stacy, please score double digits when you play me and not 182.

Stacy Phillips:
We'll see what happens. I have no control over my lineup.

Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information. And thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist Podcast is brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. To see if they might be a good fit for you and your practice, go on over to fourquadrantsadvisory.com and see why year after year, they retain over 95% of their clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you next time.