Casey and Jarrod navigate the transformative journey of perception within dentistry. They discuss how attitudes towards the profession evolve from the early days of education to the realities of owning and managing a dental practice. By sharing their own experiences and observations, they offer a unique perspective on the changing landscape of dentistry and the personal growth it entails.
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 it 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 with cohost Jarrod Bridgeman, the birthday boy.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, it is my birthday!
Casey Hiers:
Happy birthday.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you.
Casey Hiers:
So, let's talk about dentistry. What do you think?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That seems like a topic we don't really talk about very much.
Casey Hiers:
Right.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. One of the things... That's why I brought this up. One of the things I had mentioned to you before this, and you said, "Hey, let's save this for a podcast," We talk a ton about what to do once you have your practice, once you're doing the stuff. I kind of wanted to know, since you're out in the field, you're out there talking to dentists and practice owners on a daily basis, why? What started them on the path? Why was dentistry on their mind?
Casey Hiers:
I love that question and we ask that in our presentation, our continuing education on the business side of dentistry is pretty much in any room I'm in. Why dentistry? Why did you want to get more debt than your friends at an early age? Why did you want to go to school longer? Those are two things typically young people don't seek. And so I am always fascinated to hear why dentistry. What are some of the reasons you think people might want to be a dentist?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I would say scheduling. Working four days a week, setting your own schedules, and possibly, I mean there's money to be made.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, no, you've hit on a couple of really key ones. Almost everyone I speak to, the prestige of being a doctor of dental surgery or a dentist or a specialist, there's something to that. And associated with that is what, money. Financial gain. That's in the equation. Now, for a lot of people, that's a secondary. A lot of people truly want to help people. They want to work with their hands. They like the artistic value of dentistry. A large percentage out there, they have friends, family, uncle, who-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Someone who's already in the field.
Casey Hiers:
Correct. They were exposed to it and they have a good feeling about it. One reason, I think we've mentioned for another topic, but there's a lot of dentists out there that thought they may want to be a surgeon and they shadowed or spent time with a surgeon, and the surgeon said, "If I could do it over again, I wouldn't be a surgeon. Don't do this." There wasn't a lot of joy watching them. And then they would shadow a dentist and they would say, "Wow! You get to see all these people. There's variety. There's a lot of joy." And so some people get into dentistry or they thought they would be some sort of surgeon and they end up being a dentist. And man, they do love the freedom of the schedule and all of those things.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You mentioned that they know family members who are dentists or specialists. Dentistry does seem very generational, I've noticed.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, there's a legacy component to it I think as the practice owner gets older. We talk to a lot of folks and they say, "When do you want to retire?" Well, I want to wait until my youngest child is of age where they can decide if they want to be a dentist or not. There's a legacy feel to it. Yeah, I think you've absolutely hit on it. And again, the 34-year-old or the 56-year-old dentist, those reasons and more are typically in play.
Casey Hiers:
I may have told this before, but I had an older alpha in the room, alpha male, and he shot his hand up when the question was asked, why dentistry. And he basically said, "I was 14. I was going through puberty. I started liking girls. I grew up in a small town. I liked my dentist. He was funny. He was cool. I knew he had a big house. He had a nice sports car. But again, small town. I knew he had a beautiful wife." And so he associated all of those good things in his mind to dentistry and he said, "I can probably trace back psychologically, that was the first domino to get me thinking I want to be a dentist. I want all these things." That's a funny answer. I've had somebody, a female say, at age 12 they had a bike wreck. Destroyed their mouth, confidence, all that stuff, demolished, and so working with dentists and specialists who get their teeth back was so impactful to them-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Really restored their confidence.
Casey Hiers:
Restored their teeth and their confidence. They said, "I want to do that for other people." So the why dentistry, there's fascinating reasons.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Do you feel though sometimes it might be overly idealistic?
Casey Hiers:
What do you mean by that?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
People get into school and even start... As soon as they finished up school and start going out there, is it not what they thought it was?
Casey Hiers:
Well, there's what you think there is and there's reality, right? And so those reasons are good reasons to get into dentistry. Then they look up and they've graduated. Then they're the associate. Then, what do you do? Well, it's time to go buy a practice. They buy a practice. Next thing you know they're 42 years old and they're busy as heck. They've got a full staff. They've got overhead. They've got payroll, and dentistry isn't quite what they thought it would be. They're not making the money they thought they would. They're not saving the money they thought they would. The helping people thing is still enjoyable, but it's kind of wearing off because your team or your staff is wearing you down. You take a lot of insurance. You're overworked and underpaid.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And you're spending half your time, roughly, let's say, I don't know for sure, but doing all the admin stuff, right?
Casey Hiers:
Well, the question I ask people is, "When you got into dentistry, what did you think it would be? And what is it now and what's holding you back?" And so a lot of times in the practice, there's a handful of factors that are holding them back. Most of the time, financially, they're not where they thought they would be. If you look from an income, retirement savings, what they're tracking for, for net worth, most of them are unsure and that's never a good scenario. But they're not where they want to be. And so I typically just ask why. What is holding you back from being all that you want to be in dentistry? Clinically, they're probably there. They've taken the CE. They're excellent dentists.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
All the pieces are there, they're just not put together correctly maybe.
Casey Hiers:
In a lot of cases, there's a lot of things left on the table. And we've talked about that, right? How to capture more. I think that's the word. How to capture more. But a lot's left on the table. They've got too much on their plate. They're great dentists. They got into dentistry for good reasons. It's not quite what they thought it would be. They're not sure what's holding them back. It's uncomfortable to think about it so they just keep on keeping on.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. Just like the kids say. Keep on keeping on. Keep on trucking.
Casey Hiers:
You keep on trucking. Frank the Tank forgot his birthday, but you did not forget your birthday. That's-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's great.
Casey Hiers:
That's good. And so I've asked some dentists if you could do it all over again, what would you do different? And some say, "Well, I would've been an associate longer." Some say, "I would have been an associate shorter." Most say, "I would have tried to do a fee for service practice from Jump Street." But that's telling. Because that's an obvious answer, but what that's telling us is well, why? So that their production and collection is closer together.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That was, they owe the money to the insurances.
Casey Hiers:
They're able to capture more. Again, our benchmarks, if you have a million-dollar practice you should be making 400. You should be saving 80 to a hundred thousand dollars a year. That's what people thought they could probably do in dentistry, meaning, be that top 1%, not of American wealth but beyond that dental, be the top 1% of dental and they're just not there. When I talk to these folks making less than $300,000 a year in dentistry, I mean, that's just not good enough. And that's not what ideally they anticipated is my thought, but they realized it's a lot harder.
Casey Hiers:
So the why dentistry is always a fun question to ask. What the challenges are and what's holding you back, that starts to get a little bit closer to the core of what's going on and that's ultimately a lot of what our podcast is about. That's what our firm's about. That's what our continuing education is about. What's holding you back? How much is it costing you? Are you committed to fixing it? The committed to fixing it is really hard for a lot of practice owners because they've typically been able to fix everything. They're the high achiever.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
On their own.
Casey Hiers:
On their own. And so that's where there's some separation that I've found with a lot of practice owners is, the true commitment to identify what's holding them back and to get it fixed.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And if you're the type of person that is always able to handle fixing things on your own, sometimes it can be a hard thing to then turn around and either ask someone else for help or to even have them point out to you what the issue is, the pride-
Casey Hiers:
Jarrod, we should ask. Oh, for sure. And I'm transitioning here a little bit. We should ask our audience if anybody has a really good why dentistry story we'd love to hear it. Is there a way for them to communicate?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Actually, yes there is. If you go to fourquadrantsadvisory.com/whydentistry, all lower case, no spaces, there is a little form on there you can fill out and you can leave it anonymous if you want to, but for you not to. But there'll be a little comment section there and you can fill out your story and I think it'd be kind of fun to read through those. And if we read through those, we're not going to say anybody's name.
Casey Hiers:
How about this? Let's-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
There'll be a link on this though.
Casey Hiers:
The funniest or most unique, why dentistry, and the most compelling or the one with the most depth.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So one that could be, again, my dentist when I was a kid had a very attractive spouse. I was into that. Or someone who really wants to know-
Casey Hiers:
Had a bike wreck and-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, but he wants to help children.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
I would love for the audience to tell us why dentistry.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's actually a lot of fun.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Yeah. And if you want it anonymous, we can keep it anonymous for sure. But those stories are entertaining and typically there's a lot of really good reasons. I always say for in this room and you don't know why dentistry, then you might want to identify that.
Casey Hiers:
Let's jump back into if dentists aren't where they want to be, if it's not exactly what they thought it would be, then what do they do? They want entrepreneurial fast money. They're-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
They're going to be looking for the get-rich-quick kind of scene.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, they're doing these environmental easement things. They're buying a bridge in New York. They have a target on their back and the reason is because all the things we've talked about. But then they want to make it up and so they get into some interesting investment side businesses. I keep hearing that a lot. And the ones that are honest, ultimately, it's because they're not getting out of their practice what they thought they would. They say they love the entrepreneurial challenge. Most likely that's part of it. But they're getting into some interesting quote-unquote "investment" schemes.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. If people were happy with the money that they had, they would stick with the job they're at, or they would stick with things that are more low risk, possibly.
Casey Hiers:
Well, there's always good opportunity. But that's one out of 80 is an actual good opportunity. And about one out of four practice owners are in something unique that's not helping them get the real wealth they want. I hear somebody talking about investing a couple hundred thousand dollars in this, that, or the other, and maybe they made 20 or 30%. But ultimately if you do dentistry right you can have $10 million at retirement. So you're not talking about the quick hitters, you're talking about the big hitters. Are you doing what you need to, to capture everything out of your practice, to have the wealth that you expected you would? Most look and say, "I'm not there yet."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And so in fixing this, if you're in a situation where you're not making what you want to make, but you're busy, all the pieces are there, there isn't a quick way to fix this, right? I mean, there's kind of basic level, low hanging fruit that can be plucked that can help-
Casey Hiers:
The first thing is, why is your overhead high? Why is your income low? What can be done? And truly having a passion to fix it. Yeah. There's ways to fix it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And then just keep on keeping on with it. You have to keep doing it year after year.
Casey Hiers:
Just keep on trucking.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm trucking, man.
Casey Hiers:
No, the why dentistry question's a lot of fun and I would love to hear from our audience about it. But most of the time, again, to put a bow on this, noble reasons, funny reasons, quirky reasons.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, anyways, Casey, I thought this was an interesting topic to touch on. I love the idea of someone giving us their story so again, fourquadrantsadvisory.com/whydentistry would be a great place to do that.
Casey Hiers:
Thank you, sir.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you.
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.
