5 Levers That Decide How Much Your Practice Produces

"I just need to get more patients into the office." It's something almost every owner tells themselves, but it's rarely what their practice needs.

In this episode, you'll learn the five levers that decide how much your practice actually produces. The DPH coaches share their own experiences of freezing in front of patients, getting honest feedback from their teams, and coaching associates who want a raise.

Topics discussed:

(00:00) Introduction

(03:02) What to do when an associate wants more money

(06:29) Why chasing new patients keeps you stuck

(08:13) Are you doing comprehensive treatment planning?

(09:46) Five levers that decide what you produce

(12:47) Why so many doctors freeze or hold back

(16:27) The honest feedback your team isn't telling you

(19:05) Setting standards and measuring outcomes

This episode was produced by Podcast Boutique https://www.podcastboutique.com

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Transcript

Why Growth Starts Inside

Paul Etchison 1:09

Every dentist wants to make more money. And honestly, I don't think there's anything really wrong with that. But the problem is where they are usually going to look first. They want more new patients. They want a busier schedule. So they think that they really just need better external marketing. But a lot of the time, the best path to making more money is not outside the practice. It is inside the doctor. You have to ask yourself: are you diagnosing what's actually there? Are you diagnosing everything? And are you confident enough to talk to the patient about it, to talk about these issues that don't hurt or that they can't see? Because if the answer is no, if you're not completely comfortable, more new patients is not the answer. It's just going to give you more opportunities to keep underperforming and have more patients say no to your recommendations. So today we are going to help you capitalize on every single opportunity and help you become more efficient the way you deliver the dentistry so that you can fit more in your schedule. And the good news is these opportunities, they're already there in your practice. Now you're listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast, where we help dentists improve the way they lead, communicate, diagnose, and run their practices so growth does not depend on simply adding more patients to the schedule. I'm your host, Dr. Paul Etchison. I'm a practicing dentist, an author, a dental business coach, and the owner of a multi-doctor dental practice in the south suburbs of Chicago. And one thing that I've seen over and over again is that dentists who want to grow the fastest are usually not the ones waiting for everything around them to change. They are the ones that are willing to take action and they're willing to look at themselves first. Today I am joined by my two DPH coaches, Dr. Steven Markowitz and Dr. Henry Ernst. And between the three of us, we have coached and trained and developed dozens of dental teams and doctors. And we have seen the same pattern over and over again. The opportunity is always there. But the real question is whether the doctor is willing to do the work to capture that opportunity. And that is what we're going to be talking about today. All right, let's dive in. At some level, every question that someone is asking at the root of it could always be traced back to how do I make more money as a dentist? Because let's face it, we're dentists. We don't care about the patients. We don't care about the team. We just care about the money. I mean, obviously, I'm being physically. We obviously we care about our team, but we care about the but the money is cool too. So how do we make more money as a dentist? Because I would say one thing that I am often approached with is associates that say, you know, and I've been here for a while. I've been here for maybe a year or two. It's time for my raise now that the planet has revolved around the sun one time. And, you know, you're paid on a percentage. And it's kind of like, well, I don't know if the world works that way. How does that person make more money? How does an

Raises, New Patients, And Metrics

Paul Etchison 4:06

owner make more money? So let's pull this apart. Henry, I'm going to pass the mic to you, man. What do you see like if we take this really broad topic? What does that mean to you if you zero it in? Like, where does that resonate for you?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

I've had this happen before where associate says, I'm not making enough money. And it's really simple. How many new patients am I giving you? Right? Is that adequate? And then number two, how many people are you getting to say yes, your treatment plan acceptance? And then what are we doing with these patients? Like, are we treatment planning minimal things? Are we treatment planning comprehensively? And I mean, that's as basic as it gets. So, as me, as the owner, I say, well, like I'll give you a specific example that's in my head. Well, we're giving you 42 new patients average every month. Would you guys think that's pretty adequate for an associate? It's amazing.

Paul Etchison 4:53

More than adequate.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah. So, okay, now let's look at the other parameters. Well, your treatment plan acceptance is like 58. You know, and that's based on people saying yes or no, not on money. So we can improve that. Let's pull some levers to improve that. And then let's look at your treatment plan, what you're actually doing. Like maybe this associate's doing nothing but fillings and occasional crowns. And I'll ask them, when was the last case you ever did where you did six crowns or more? And the answer is none. And I know there's tons of patients in the practice that need that kind of stuff. So those are just simple things that you can do. And I always tell associates you don't have to do things you don't want to do. But the more things you have in your treatment on Ethereum, it's your bigger fly trap. If you're referring every endo and you're referring every this and every that, it's a lot harder for you to get started. I know you deal a lot with this, Steve. And I know we may have talked about this before, right? Yeah. Simple levers, right?

Steve Markowitz 5:46

But first, before that, Henry, I just think it's so freaking cool that someone would come up to you and say that. Like most people, at least in my experience, they don't have the relationship to talk to their boss or the manager about things like money or even express that they want to make more. So the fact that someone is doing that, that's not a negative. I view that as I have a strong enough relationship with this person where they're actually sharing with me that they think they want things to be better. And now it's my job to understand what it is. So before I before I even go into like what levers we need to push, the first thing I is, okay, let's look at what you're making now. And I'm gonna ask a simple question what actually do you want to make? And they may not have the answer. I think as we all have evolved, more doesn't necessarily mean better. It can mean better, but you know, that I don't know if I was happiest in my life when I was making the most money, but it is a part of it, and I need to understand what actually is my goal. So when someone says I want to make more money, the first thing I do is I jump up and down and say, Thank F and Lord, we have a good enough relationship that you feel comfortable bringing that to me. The next thing I say is let's look at it. What do you want to make? Is it 10k more, 20k more, 500k more? If they want to make half a million dollars more than they're making, well, I don't know if I'll ever be able to help them achieve their goals. Maybe we need a whole different conversation. They probably should leave dentistry. Maybe they need to go invent Tesla or something. But that's so helpful for me to understand where we're trying to go because my job is to make sure, yes, I'm creating the opportunities for them, but it better align with something that is even possible or something where with that aligns with their skill set and the opportunity that I have for them. And then once we know where we're going, now we can talk about all the levers that are important for us to pull.

Paul Etchison 7:35

So what's interesting for me is we just did a free webinar last week. And what we were talking about is just the I mean, just every where are we losing money in the practice? Where are the profit leaks that we typically see? And one of the slides that I brought up is something that I see often is that there's this new patient obsession. We're so obsessed with me, we need more new patients. And I've heard this even from my associates as well. And I've been guilty of it, like in my career. Like, man, if we could only just get a few more new patients. But I checked hygiene last Thursday for my team. You know, we had an associate out, and then another associate couldn't make it. His whole family was sick. He had to call off, and I had to go in. I didn't really see many restorative or operative patients.

Steve Markowitz 8:15

It's Walser, how many times have you called out in your career?

Paul Etchison 8:19

I have called out 15 years, probably three times.

Steve Markowitz 8:22

And all those times were probably dead.

Paul Etchison 8:24

Like you were actually like it was like, yeah, you know, they always say, like, if you want to know how things are being done at your practice, go see the work being done. Go see the work. So I went and saw the work, and man, I saw a lot of undiagnosed things. Just a lot of, but they weren't the layups, they weren't like fractured cusps, but there was a lot of things. And I said, Well, wow, man, here we are with this new patient obsession. I just need more new patients. My schedule's not busy. And it's right in front of you. And I think there's a reason there's this new patient obsession, is it allows us to, on some psychological level, to avoid having the more difficult reflection, more difficult conversation of, wait a second, I'm probably shying away from conversations that are difficult and not having. I mean, it's everything, like as practice order. We're we're shying away from difficult conversations. We're not wanting to tell the patient what they really have, or throw ourselves out there because we know they're gonna say no. You know, so it's like one thing that I think would be useful to discuss is where are we really failing? Because I mean, you mentioned one thing, Henry, you mentioned comprehensive treatment planning. How do you even know? How can someone say, Am I comprehensive? I picture many associates. I am comprehensive treatment planning.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Are you? How do you even know? I think the thing that's very valuable is just going through cases. And I've had this happen with associates before. And I'll look at cases and I'll say, I mean, there's tons of teeth that I would treatment plant crowns, and I'm not an aggressive dentist per se. If I see something wrong, I'm gonna show the patient and talk to them about it. And I saw so many cases, and like I said, I think that one question I asked before was a good barometer. How many cases have you done with six crowns or more? Because I know in the in this office we have, we have at least 180 new patients a month every month. There's so many patients coming in that do not have not been here forever. So you're treatment planning weekly, right? You're treatment planning lots of little fillings, and even the fillings, like it's number six distal. That doesn't exist unless that's the last tooth there. Like, how do you do just a distal? How is that possible? Make it DFL, right? That's how you get access. I mean, that's a small thing, but that and just going over them, like what is, I don't know. I think it's a failure in the dentistry education system. What is a crown? What is a crown? I don't

The New Patient Obsession Trap

SPEAKER_00 10:37

think people understand that. And you're right, Steve. I am very grateful when a doctor comes up to me and says that. And we just look at the parameters. And first, I always know that the new patients are way above board. So we're giving you plenty of fuel. Now you got to make the most out of that fuel.

Steve Markowitz 10:52

So to build on that, Henry, I I think the levers for me that I look at are diagnosis. Are we able to see everything that's possible to help the patient? Treatment planning, do we have the courage to discuss what we're finding with the patient? Case acceptance, and then clinical efficiency, and then service next. So those are the five levers that I see as far as the ability to make more money. The first, diagnosis, treatment planning, case acceptance are the things that we can go into tomorrow and try and change. When I sit down with our doctors, there's always this place where they start to get uncomfortable in recommending treatment. Maybe it's two crowns, maybe it's four crowns, maybe it's full mouth. I think it's important for that doctor to identify where they start to hesitate in recommending things because that's usually where the patient will smell out like this doctor's not confident, like I don't think I actually need this right now. Let me just accept that filling or just part of that treatment. So I think that is a super helpful exercise to work through when a doctor comes to you or someone comes to you with I want to make more money. The next from there is how much of what I see am I actually sharing with the patient? So, like, yes, that exercise to go through that Henry was talking about of like doing case case reviews is awesome. But what I have found in those, everyone is a perfect dentist in the doctor room. Everyone's amazing. And then they get in front of the patient and then something happens. And I think that is needs to be spoken out loud of like, okay, so in this room, you're telling me that tooth needs an extraction and implant. However, let's look at what happened actually in the room where you said, we can try and save it with a filling, or we can try and do a rookinal, or whatever you tried to do just to make it easier for the patient, those are such good opportunities. And what we talk about that in our group is those are coaching moments. Like there's been something that we want the behavior to change. You have told me you want to make more money by helping the patient, doing more efficient care, you will make more money. It is a win-win for everyone. And I think the biggest takeover from this, and I want all of our doctors to really understand this you can take care of a lot of people and make an F-ton of money, and both are okay. It doesn't mean the doctor that's making 500,000 is greedy, and the doctor that's making 300,000 is ethical, and the doctor that's making 100 is the perfect dentist. That's total BS. Total, total BS. I hope that you are doing ethical dentistry and taking care of so many people that you make millions and millions and millions of dollars and more power to you for doing it, and that should be celebrated, never, never bashed.

Paul Etchison 13:41

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's so true. Is I mean, we see it on Facebook forums when people are almost bragging about how shitty their car is. You know, like, look, y'all, look, I don't need that. I'm a down home, just a blue-collar Joe. The thing is, is I think if a lot of people would just if we look at what are we so scared of of the patient of thinking, like we're scared that they're gonna wonder why this stuff doesn't hurt. We're scared that they're gonna go down the street and someone's gonna tell them they don't need this. We're scared that they might consider that they were just at the dentist maybe a year ago and none of this stuff was mentioned. And I think if we just approach the whole, like, can we address this objection before the patient says it? Such as, you know, you might be asking yourself why this stuff doesn't hurt. You know, or you might be wondering why maybe a previous dentist may not have mentioned this stuff or why this might be more than you're used to, more treatment than you've ever heard that you need before. I don't know like what the proper verbiage is, depending on the situation. But it just seems to me is that's the part we're scared of. And if we could address that before the patient brings it up, it makes it a lot easier to have these conversations and to really, you know, give the patients of a full comprehensive treatment plan.

Steve Markowitz 14:50

Or sometimes with those same doctors, they may not have seen it the first time or second time they saw the patient. So now they're seeing the same patient for the second or third time with the same x-rays, and now they're like, oh shit, I see it now.

Paul Etchison 15:03

Yeah.

Steve Markowitz 15:04

But they are uncomfortable for that reason to not share what they're seeing. And that just makes the spiral even further to not talk about what the patient actually needs.

Paul Etchison 15:14

Well, that's what I saw when I checked hygiene the other day. Like, what am I supposed to do with these patients that have been coming to this practice for two, three years? Not a damn thing has changed. That's like I remember looking at this one patient, I said to hygienist. I'm like, can we go back to like their first photos, like you know, three years ago? They're exactly the same. I'm like, what am I gonna show that is different here? I don't know. Like, I like here I am, they haven't ever, they've never seen me as a provider in this office, and I'm gonna show up here today and treatment plan a bunch of stuff and then say, I can't see you, you got to see the associates. I mean, it makes no sense. But what'd you do? I just watched it. I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. Why? Because I felt like it was just that's it was gonna throw everybody for a loop. I feel like that

The Five Levers That Pay

Paul Etchison 15:52

pattern has already been established, and I didn't feel like I could go in there and say it. I really didn't. I was torn. What was interesting is I went in there with the intention of recording a lot of my exams because I haven't done a lot of exams in a really long time. And I was just like, dude, like this is horrible. Like, there's so many things. There's so much.

Steve Markowitz 16:09

Was it because you were rusty, or you really felt like you couldn't share what you were seeing?

Paul Etchison 16:15

I felt like to share what I was seeing would make the previous doctors look bad. That's what my feeling was. Yeah. And the previous doctors that are at my practice, it wasn't somebody else that's in a place.

Steve Markowitz 16:27

So just let's just take a step back here. You want to you're the doctor, you want to make more money. If you, Paul Edgerson, both Henry and I look up to as someone who can get anyone to do anything, that's why we're sitting here talking on microphones.

Paul Etchison 16:39

Yeah, I talked you into that.

Steve Markowitz 16:40

If you're uncomfortable having that conversation, how the hell is everyday Joe, blue, whatever you said, blue-collar dentist who like how are they ever gonna muster up the strength to do it?

Paul Etchison 16:50

Well, so for me, and that's that's a good question. Should I have been really uncomfortable? Maybe not. But for me, I can handle that as a new patient. I could handle that as a new patient coming from another office, but it was a weird situation. I don't know. I wonder what you guys would have done. Have you guys seen this? That's yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I've seen it all the time. I mean, sometimes I'll pick one thing and say, listen, you know, you're it's kind of like get your foot in the door and listen, this tooth. We've been watching it, and I think it's time to jump into action now, right? That's you're kind of like one way to get the foot in the door kind of a thing. But it is hard. And sometimes you leave the room, and maybe this is what you did, Paul. Like, everything looks the same. See ya, out of here. Dr. Etch, out for two months. See ya. Doing great. Yeah. But one thing came into my mind is that if you're a solo dentist or if you're a dentist part of a group as an associate, right? It's always about evaluating. And I'll give you an example of a situation where just simple mentorship. Doctor came up to me and said, This was like a couple years ago, I'm just not making enough money. And I said to him, I said, Listen, are you willing to be like totally candid and just get the and yeah, sure. So we got P, I got people in the office, just random surveys, like anonymous surveys, to tell me, like, hey, Dr. P, tell me how Dr. P is doing. Tell him, give me some constructive criticism. And I got things that are outside of these levers that Steve was talking about. Attitude, right? My office manager was joking with me the other day. I could be in the worst mood and she can tell. But as soon as I walk into that patient room, like, hey, how's it going? What's happening? What have you been up to? Right? You can't tell, right? This doctor was having emotions on the shoulders. Like, employee to employee, how's it going? Oh, it's going. And then he would bring that same energy into the room. So we had to change that. And number two, we had to change like what's our production per hour goal? Let's say he was doing like 480, which is not very good. And we tried to shoot for 600, and he was treatment planning stuff that was outside of his strike zone. Like two extractions, and they were taking an hour and like two hours or something like that. Hey, dude, this isn't in your strike zone, and it's okay, but just don't treatment plan it, right? Or send it to somebody else who can do it. So a few weeks and months of coaching like that, and he went to over 650 just for changing little dumb things, right? He was treatment planning comprehensively. That was like it's just that people weren't saying yes to him. You know, they didn't feel the camaraderie with him. And, you know, like I said, he was getting into too much stuff that he didn't need to be getting into.

Paul Etchison 19:20

I'm curious with this survey that you did with your team to give this doctor feedback. This doctor was like comfortable with it, like, yeah, please, let's do it. Or was it like, hey, I took it upon myself to survey the team?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I asked for permission ahead of time. I said, I want to, I want to serve you as best as I can. So please, I'm gonna ask for team information. I'm gonna ask for like anonymous stuff, they're gonna tell me, and we'll go over feedback together. Are you willing to you know accept that? And he said yes. Yeah. But you can also, I mean, let's say you're in a single doctor, right? It's okay, right? You could do anonymous surveys today. Listen, I want to get better. Can you I'm gonna send you anonymous, please tell me. Like, because they see things that you don't. The patient, when you leave the room, the patients talk more intimately with the your team members than they do you. So you could, you know, be candid, be open, and you could do that even in a solo doctor office.

Steve Markowitz 21:17

Paul, if someone's coming to you and asking for more money, they're actually asking for feedback. They want to change.

Paul Etchison 21:22

That's what I was saying. Is it so awesome when somebody is actually coming and asking for it? Like, what do we do for the people that don't want it, but we want to let them know. We want to help them. I mean, do you line up all your associates in a doctor meeting and say, who's crushing it? Raise your hand, and you say, uh, Dr. Ox, put your hand down.

Steve Markowitz 21:40

You're nuts. It's in service of them first. And I think you have to one first identify what your what acceptable is. And you can use metrics or hourly or whatever you determine is is gonna be the way that you measure acceptable. So if I walk into my office and and I leave every day with a thousand dollars of production, for me that's not acceptable. And part of it is that I'm not gonna make make enough money, but part of it is also like I'm not doing dentistry that I enjoy. I need to change something. So why is it? Is it that I'm not treating playing enough? I'm not getting people to say yes enough, it's taking me five hours to do a crown, I'm only working two hours a day. I need to identify those things. If this is the problem, something has to change or the solution won't.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

And I had a specific in this coaching

Confidence When Treatment Feels Awkward

SPEAKER_00 22:31

instance, I had a specific, it was really great because in the in the midst of it, I was really looking at everything for like a week. And I gave a specific example. This associate doctor could not get himself out of a room. And I know some dentists are just so laser focused, right? I'm doing this and I can't get out of the room, and the hygienist or the hygiene team is standing outside the door, like telling me you got to get into this room and do this exam. So this doctor, one day, like I got a hygiene slip that said, Oh, Dr. P can't do this exam. He's too busy. And I'm I'm like, in my head, I'm like, Jesus, why? But I did it. I did, and a perfect example, it was a patient I had never seen, which is hard. Patient I've been with us for like 10 years and never seen. And I walked in the room, introduced myself, a little chitty chat, and she needs a crown on number 19. And now she wants to do it. And I was even trying to, she liked me and she wants to do it with me. And I told him, I said, if you got to get out of the room, you gotta make up something, right? Hey, you your mouth has been open for a while. Let's give you a little break. Or, hey, little fib, right? Hey, it's bleeding around the gum line. I'm gonna have you bite on some gauze. Or if you're doing a root canal, put some medicine in there, have them just like you keep some medicine. Get yourself out of the room. That should be your crown. I don't need it, right? I want you to have it. So be more efficient. Learn how to do the juggle of getting out of the rooms and doing hygiene because hygiene is the fuel for your doctor production. Sometimes I wonder if it's like a power thing.

Paul Etchison 23:49

You're right. It's like I want to control, like sometimes, okay. This is my theory. All right. And ladies, this is gonna make me sound like a complete this this is gonna make me sound like a jerk. I'm shaking my head. Watch me shake. This is gonna be good. But listen, listen, hear me out. My wife is always late. Always, like, always late. We're always late to everything we go to. And there is part of me that thinks on deep, some deep subconscious. Level, she likes making people wait. Like you will wait for me and we will leave when I am ready. She denies this. She says, You're absolutely crazy. And maybe I am. But maybe that's what's happening. Maybe that's what's happening with the associates. They're like, no, I will control the dynamics of my day and I am too busy and I will not leave this room.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

But then your trim plan acceptance.

Paul Etchison 24:38

Yes. I know. I I feel like, yes, I could see, I can have seen where I think associates would do that. I mean, I would not put passing. Like some associates are just, you know, they want to be owners.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

But I mean, I think it's reasonable that if you're seeing a volume of, you know, in a big office that has eight chairs of hygiene every day, and you just you go in the hygiene rooms on time. Let's say your tri implant acceptance kicks up five percent. Steve, you're a math nerd. If I'm seeing that many patients and I'm saying five percent more trimplant acceptance, like what's the value of that? What's the value, right? Yeah.

Steve Markowitz 25:09

I don't know. I don't have my calculator for me. Let me start.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

But I'm just saying it like it's a mess, it'd probably be the equivalent of seeing like so many new patients every month. Just getting five percent by just in this case, changing your attitude that you'd never notice that you're a cromungeon in the office.

Steve Markowitz 25:22

Yeah, right.

Paul Etchison 25:23

We know five percent six times is 34%.

Steve Markowitz 25:26

Oh, thank you. I think it's even more important of the doctor not knowing how they get paid. They think they get paid for the procedure they're doing, and that's what's most important, which is not not true. But the way they get paid tomorrow is by going to see that hygiene.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah.

Steve Markowitz 25:41

And connecting with that patient and making them feel cared for and all that, all the stuff that happens. That's the only way that we have recurring revenue in a dental office.

Paul Etchison 25:51

What was interesting is in my associateship, there was always like two or three doctors at once, and there was no rhyme or reason to who was checking hygiene. It was always like who is available. So if you were

Feedback, Attitude, And Clinical Juggling

Paul Etchison 26:01

busy, you'd just be like, I'm busy, I can't. And then the hygienist would go around and then sometimes they'd come back and be like, Everybody else is busy too, can you? And you'd be like, no. It was the worst way of doing things ever. But what I realized is that it was interesting that I would go through these ebbs and flows of being very busy on my schedule, to which I wouldn't check hygiene because I was so busy. And then eventually you'd hit this lull where you have no patience, and then you'd be have available time to check hygiene. Now I'm saying that is the worst way to check hygiene. But yeah, you're right. We've got to understand that that is the foundational part where everything starts. Everything builds off of that. And we need to give it to the time that it deserves, even though maybe it's not as exciting as doing the procedures, but it it needs to receive the energy that it really that it should.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

No, I mean, it's it's exactly right. And that was the biggest low-hanging fruit for this associate was attitude plus I was just not getting into hygiene. And there's so much stuff out there. Every time you walk into a room, there's probably a crown, right? All the time. So use that as the fuel for being busy. And that's gonna get you where you want to go. And don't be afraid to be humble and to take criticism or take constructive criticism from your peers because they have things that maybe they're not telling you.

Paul Etchison 27:11

So, one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that making more money as a dentist is not always gonna be about getting more new patients into your system and getting more opportunities to diagnose treatment. What we really want you to do is get better with the opportunities that you already have because we get it. It is so easy to say, I just need more new patients. But it's so much harder to ask, am I diagnosing comprehensively? Am I sharing with them everything that I see? It is so easy to say, I need a raise, I should be getting paid more for this. But it's much harder to ask, am I producing at the level that I could be or that I should be? And it's also so easy to blame the schedule or our team or the PPOs, but it's so much harder to look at your own methods of communication, the efficiencies you have in your practice, the attitudes, and your willingness as the doctor to receive feedback. That's where the real growth starts. Now, here's what I want you to remember from this episode: look at the levers, diagnosis, treatment planning, case acceptance, clinical efficiency, and service mix. All these things will affect what you produce. And get honest about where you're hesitating. If there's a point where you start softening your recommendations, the patients are going to feel that uncertainty. And don't ignore hygiene. It is so easy to see hygiene exams as interruptions, but really, we know that they are the biggest source of future treatment and the recurring relationships in the practice. We need hygiene. We need to treat it as something valuable. And you need to be willing to receive feedback. See, your team is seeing things that you're probably not seeing, and you have to be willing to hear it from them. That is the feedback that's going to help you grow faster. Now, in this episode, we talked about making more money. But the goal, we know that is not to make more money, it's to become the kind of dentist who creates more value, the one that helps more patients. Now, if this episode made you realize that there's production getting left on the table in your practice, and I guarantee there is, whether it's through diagnosis or treatment plan or case acceptance, or maybe it's just the way that your schedule flows. But I promise you, that is the exact thing that we help at Dental Practice Heroes. We help dentists work through that. So head over to dentalpracticeherous.com/slash strategy and schedule a free strategy call with me. There is no pressure. We will just discuss the status of your practice. I'll give you some recommendations. And if I think that we can help you, I will share with you what that looks like. And if you think these practical conversations that we have on this podcast every week are helping you improve, please return the favor by leaving a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. It is one of the best ways to support the show. I really appreciate it. And it helps more dentists find us. So thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I want you to go to your practice this week and take a closer look at what's already in front of you. Are you missing opportunities? Are there some things that can be changed and improved on if you just take the look in the mirror? I think you're going to find the answer is yes. And I hope that you're brave enough to address them.