Building and sustaining a dental practice is a major accomplishment for any professional.  Growth is an important part of our mission for the future.  But like any surge of growth in a professional practice, the ripple effect of poor direction and management structure can often bleed terrible repercussions into our personal lives.

 

It is important to understand first that your business is a living and breathing entity.  It has a pulse, and it has an appetite.  It needs to be fed.  Your vision, and how well you implement it, determines whether or not it has a massive appetite or reasonable one.  If you are not careful, you can create a monster with an insatiable appetite that will undoubtedly force you to compromise the important values you originally wanted for your life.  Before you know it, you look around wonder why you haven’t taken that much time off.  When asked, you have to stop and think about how many people work for you.

 

“My machine was so big that I felt like I was going to work just so other people could have jobs!” says Charley Varipapa of Alexandria, Virginia. “That is when I knew I had to make a change. I was getting exhausted keeping that thing going.”

 

The energy component to dentistry is an important one, especially as you age.  You either have a practice schedule that gives you energy when you think about it, or you have a schedule that requires you to muster up a few deep breaths before contemplating its nuances.  A lot of dentists forget one important thing to plan into their future: GETTING TIRED. 

 

Let’s face it; you will get tired.  Maybe the kryptonite hasn’t set in yet, but you can rest assured that it’s coming.

 

And while you might have been able to handle a challenging schedule of 40-plus clinical hours per week, working evenings and Saturdays throughout your youthful years in practice, you forget that everything has a lifespan, and that includes you.  If you’re not careful, you may get too busy getting busy and find that the inertia of breaking away from a massive practice monster to be home more is much too difficult a task.

 

Reversing or stopping this trend is an important component to staying sane.

 

But, if you set up a structure in your practice to energize your team and meet their personal visions, you can’t possibly measure its effect on the intangible assets of attitude during your days. Keeping yourself and your staff happy and motivated increases the quality of life not only at the office, but at home as well.

 

This year, we have seen a growing trend in practices that are changing their traditional hours to a more energizing and efficient life schedule. Instead of working 8 am to 5 pm, dentists are seeing patients from 7 am until 2:30 pm or 3 pm with a flex lunch (which means they find time during the day to have a quick break).

 

Dr. Stephen Malone in Knoxville, Tennessee, has adopted an earlier schedule to better accommodate his practice and his life. He and his staff work 7 am – 3 pm with staggered lunches instead of closing shop for a noon lunch hour. Not only has the change energized the entire office, leaving them time to live their lives outside of work, but the change has also been made seamlessly without upsetting patients.

 

“We have received almost no flak from the patients. They have been very supportive,” says office manager Kim in Dr. Malone’s office.

 

“For me, it was a no-brainer,” says Dr. Malone of implementing the schedule change. He adds that working fewer hours means that while his hygienists see seven people instead of eight each day, they get to spend fifteen minutes longer with each patient and they now have three prime appointments (7 am, 8 am, and noon), as opposed to two (8 am and 4 pm).

 

By eliminating the hour-long lunch break. Dr. Malone has seen an improvement in the quality of performance in the office while allowing him to go to his children’s karate practice after work.

 

“If you don’t have to take the break, everybody stays focused,” he says.

 

Dr. Thomas W. Dawson of Arlington, Texas, changed his office hours over 15 years ago in an effort to support young parents who wanted to spend time with their children after school. Instead of working 8 am – 5 pm Monday through Thursday, he works 7 am – 3 pm four days a week, and his team couldn’t be more thrilled.

 

“If you work smarter, you can actually increase production,” he says, adding that this type of schedule isn’t for every practice.

 

For dentists who practice single-tooth, emergency dentistry, they may find it difficult to work less hours because they cut a day out of their schedule that is vital to their practice.

 

“When you are running around room to room, you don’t have time to finish the details, and you’ll have those kinds of problems,” Dr. Dawson says. He suggests that this schedule works best in practices where the focus is on comprehensive, life-long dentistry, and where the concern is centered on the quality of the patient, and not the quantity.

 

Dr. Sean Sinclair of Maryville, Tennessee, in response to suggestions from his staff, changed his weekly clinical hours to from 36 hours a week to 27 several months ago, and he says it’s been a fantastic decision.

 

“We are working less, we have more energy, production is going up; it’s a win-win. I’ll never go back,” says Dr. Sinclair, who now has more time to spend with his family.

 

So, how do we avoid this trend of the arduous practice monster and its responsibilities? 

And how do we change our hours to energize our life?  It all starts with a few straight-forward decisions followed by a visual plan of attack. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Rohn says that, “We must suffer from one of two pains: either the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret. The difference is that pain of discipline weighs OUNCES while the pain of regret weighs TONS. You see, success is nothing more than just a few simple disciplines practiced every day. Failure, on the other hand, is just a few errors in judgment practiced every day.” 

 

Your hours and schedule tell me everything about you.  I can see what you believe about dentistry.  I can see what you believe and value about life.  I can see how healthy you are. I can see what is important to you.  I can see how optimistic you are about the future of dentistry.  It doesn’t lie.

 

If you find yourself seeing patients after hours and working on weekends when you could be home with your family, you send out the message loud and clear that you don’t value your time. And if you don’t respect your time, you can’t expect your patients to give you that courtesy. If your practice has become a seemingly untamable monster, don’t be discouraged. Grab it by the horns by reevaluating your practice’s values, and align your daily activities to attain your goals. Get everyone involved in the process.

 

Make sure you are currently engaged in the disciplines that help you end up with the life and practice you’ve always dreamed about.  Make sure they show me a well-designed life. It just makes the journey that much more enjoyable.

 

 

 

Stop TRYING….and start TRAINING.

 

-Kirk