Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap through Practice Ownership

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri tackles the most common myth in dentistry: the belief that an endless stream of new patients will magically solve your growth problems. While marketing companies will gladly sell you on the promise of fresh leads, George explains why throwing cash at loss-leader marketing is often the quickest way to ruin your dental practice profitability.

If you want to achieve true sustainable growth, you must stop undervaluing the patients who already know and trust you. A highly effective ownership strategy prioritizes retention before acquisition.

Here is why you should focus on your existing patient base first:

Avoid Loss-Leader Marketing: Offering steep discounts (e.g., $89 new patient specials) attracts bargain-hunters who have no intention of accepting comprehensive treatment, severely damaging your dental practice profitability.

The Value Gap: In George's practice, an existing patient on a recare exam accepts an average of $200 in treatment, whereas a low-quality, cost-driven new patient only accepts about $90.

Understand Your Baseline Flow: Before you spend money on marketing, track how many new patients find you organically each month (e.g., via location or referrals) so you only pay marketing companies for the extra patients they bring in.

Raise Your Floor: Existing patients are the predictable, stable foundation of your practice. Reactivating overdue patients costs nothing but your team's time and ensures you cover your fixed monthly expenses before relying on unpredictable new patients to hit your financial goals.

Track Reappointment Rates: Your existing patient reappointment rate should be 90% or higher, ensuring that at least 70% of your total patient base is current on their six-month recare to sustain long-term dental practice profitability.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, or click "Free Practice Assessment" to let our team objectively identify the specific bottleneck holding your practice back. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, coach Caitlin Embree sits down with her long-time client, Dr. Katelyn Miller, to unpack a remarkable dental practice ownership success story. Opening a startup in December 2019 right before a global pandemic is no easy feat, but Dr. Miller scaled her practice from just two employees to a 12-person team generating $2 million in annual collections with over 3,200 active patients.

The key to her rapid growth in dental practice ownership was a crystal-clear vision: she never wanted to remain a solo clinician. By maintaining a 90%+ hygiene reappointment rate and intentionally hiring an associate, Dr. Peiffer, Dr. Miller was able to reduce her clinical schedule to just three days a week while the business continued to thrive.

Here is how to evolve your dental practice ownership strategy as you reach maximum facility capacity:

Communicate the Vision: Tell your early hires exactly where the practice is heading so they expect change, embrace growth, and buy into the long-term goal.

Empower Your Associate: Schedule overlap days to handle administrative tasks and team mentorship, but give your associate days where they are the sole doctor so they can build autonomy and team trust.

Protect Your Boundaries: True freedom in ownership means empowering your team to operate without you; stop answering non-emergency texts after hours and commit to taking your scheduled days completely off.

Drop the PPOs: When you completely run out of physical chairs and provider time, the best way to grow is to tactfully drop in-network insurance plans to increase your production per procedure and selectively retain patients who value your care.

Leverage EFDAs: Utilize Expanded Function Dental Auxiliaries (EFDAs) to place fillings, drastically increasing your daily patient capacity while freeing up the doctors for higher-value procedures like implants, cosmetics, and Invisalign.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this vulnerable episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri pulls back the curtain on the lonely, difficult realities of dental practice ownership that most doctors refuse to discuss publicly. Despite years of rigorous preparation, George found himself battling severe imposter syndrome on day one as a 25-year-old boss managing staff 30 years his senior. He openly shares his turbulent dental practice ownership journey—from hitting early financial milestones to a devastating nine-month "rock bottom" where he worked four days a week with a 100% overhead, taking home zero personal income.

If you are currently struggling to achieve sustainable dental practice growth and feeling completely isolated in your dental practice management, this episode is proof that you are not alone.

Here is your guide to avoiding the hidden traps of early dental practice ownership:

Beware the Honeymoon Phase: Early clinical success often comes from diagnosing the untreated needs of a legacy patient base. Once those existing treatment plans are completed, your production will crash unless you have intentionally reinvested in new patient marketing as a core part of your dental business strategies.

Identify Your True Bottleneck: Stop throwing money at random ideas. George was losing money because he was paying for a bloated, multi-doctor team while only serving a solo-doctor patient base. Identifying patient flow as his primary constraint was the only way to right the ship.

Profit Requires Intention: Scaling your collections will not automatically fix your dental practice profitability. Generating true profit requires intentional cost control, especially when fighting against modern inflation and stagnant insurance reimbursements.

Do Not Isolate Yourself: The isolating struggles of the "messy middle" are incredibly common among growth-minded dentists. Plugging into a community of peers and utilizing objective coaching will drastically shorten your learning curve.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, or click "Free Practice Assessment" to let our team objectively identify the specific bottleneck holding your practice back. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. Andrew Clingan sits down with Steve Steinbrunner from Provide, Inc. to map out the financial realities of dental practice acquisitions and long-term dental practice ownership. Understanding exactly how a bank evaluates your risk profile is a critical piece of dental practice management, whether you are buying your first clinic or investing in a multi-doctor commercial real estate project.

Master Your Initial Financing
Do not aggressively pay down your student loans at the expense of your personal savings.

Banks care significantly more about your liquidity—your cash on hand minus any revolving credit card debt—than your total student loan balance when funding dental practice acquisitions.

General dentists should aim for at least six months of associate experience to prove clinical production capability, though specialists can often secure funding immediately out of residency.

Include consulting or advisory fees in your initial loan request. Banks view professional business coaching as a core part of your dental business strategies that reduces risk, and they will gladly finance it.

Leverage "Ready to Grow" Clinics
If a target practice is underperforming and lacks traditional cash flow, ask your lender about a jumpstart loan to drive sustainable dental practice growth.

These unique loans treat the acquisition like a slow-growth startup, potentially offering up to $500,000 for the purchase alongside additional working capital and interest-only periods to boost early dental practice profitability.

Scale with Commercial Real Estate
Never prioritize owning the real estate over the health and location of the actual business during early dental practice acquisitions.

Once your practice is established, you can leverage the equity built up in the business to secure 100% financing for commercial real estate or ground-up construction without needing a massive cash down payment.

Navigating the complexities of dental practice ownership requires a specialized team. Surround yourself with dental-specific lenders, attorneys, CPAs, and advisors to ensure you make objective, data-driven decisions at every stage of your career.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Disclaimer: Provide, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fifth Third Bank, National Association. All opinions expressed by the Provide employee participant are solely their current opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Provide, its affiliates, or Fifth Third Bank. The Provide employee participant’s opinions are based on information they consider reliable, but neither Provide, its affiliates nor Fifth Third Bank warrants their completeness or accuracy, and they should not be relied upon as such. This content is for informational purposes and does not constitute the rendering of legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice, or other professional services by Provide or any of its affiliates. Please consult with appropriate professionals regarding your individual circumstances. All lending is subject to review and approval. https://www.getprovide.com/

Are you currently focused on building liquidity for your first acquisition, or are you exploring real estate expansion for an existing practice?

In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. George Hariri interviews Dr. Paul Etchison, founder of Dental Practice Heroes, to uncover the secrets of elite dental practice ownership. Dr. Paul shares his incredible journey of growing a 2012 startup into a highly efficient dental practice, hitting $3.34 million in revenue out of just five operatories by 2017. He achieved this by mastering schedule efficiency and identifying the ultimate rate-limiting step in his dental practice: himself.

As your dental practice scales, relying purely on clinical hustle becomes a liability. Dr. Paul explains how dropping down to three clinical days a week allowed him to step into the CEO role, eventually expanding his dental practice to 11 operatories and building a business that thrives while he only sees patients two days a month.

Here are the crucial strategies to optimize your dental practice ownership journey:

Implement Split-Shifting: Maximize ROI and lower fixed costs by keeping your dental practice open 13 hours a day with staggered provider shifts.

Prioritize Proactive Leadership: Effective dental practice management requires freeing your office manager from reactive daily fires so they have the time to proactively solve team issues before they escalate.

Use the CVI Method: Address dental practice team friction by getting Curious about the problem, offering Validation for their perspective, and extending an Invitation to collaborate on solutions.

Don’t Fear Turnover: Never let toxic attitudes run your dental practice; confidently let go of legacy staff who refuse to align with your core values.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this solo episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. Andrew Clingan reflects on his three-year anniversary of practice ownership to share exactly what he wishes he knew during his first 90 days. For any dentist stepping into ownership, mastering the fundamentals of dental practice management is far more critical than chasing the latest trends. Andrew warns against the “shiny object syndrome” of immediately investing in 3D printers, mills, or aggressive marketing schemes before securing the foundations of a healthy practice.

Sustainable growth in dental practice management comes from doing the predictable, repeatable things right every single day.

Here is your playbook for surviving your first year of practice ownership:

Play the Long Game: Do not let the pressure of your new practice loan force you into a scarcity mindset. Leave breathing room in your schedule during the first six months so you can focus on building relationships and becoming that patient base’s new trusted dentist.

Fix the Leaky Bucket First: Before trying to add new patients, leverage your existing base. Focus on closing the “back door” by drastically improving your reappointment rate, which is the most reliable way to boost your dental practice profitability.

Master the Basics Before Specialty: Get highly efficient at everyday quadrant restorative dentistry and patient communication before attempting complex specialty procedures. You cannot successfully sell a high-dollar case if you lack the communication skills to properly educate the patient.

Live Like an Associate: While it is tempting to upgrade your lifestyle after closing on your first practice, start conservatively. Live below your means and build up your cash reserves; having liquidity provides you with the flexibility to eventually invest in new CE, equipment, or associate doctors.

Move Slowly With Leadership: The hardest skill to master in dental practice management is leading your team. Do not make massive changes immediately. Take time to observe your staff, identify the top performers, and build leaders who will row the boat with you.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. 
You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri tackles one of the most common questions from listeners: Is coaching right for me? If you are an ambitious dentist trying to master dental practice management alone, you are likely hitting a severe bottleneck. George breaks down the fatal flaw of the DIY mentality: an owner typically has only four hours a week to manage the business, while their team clocks in 240 labor hours executing operations. Without a data-driven strategy to focus those four hours on the highest-leverage constraints, owners end up wasting time chasing random ideas they saw on Facebook.

Shared Practices coaching bridges this gap by combining strategic analytics for the owner with tactical, hands-on training for the team. The result? A proven track record of growing client practices by an average of 37% to 39% annually for four consecutive years.

Here is your guide to evaluating if dental practice management coaching is the right investment for your sustainable dental practice growth:

• The Early Ownership Fast-Track: If you are in your first 18 months of ownership, a coach is the ultimate cheat code to quickly scale a "ready to grow" practice and avoid the costly trial-and-error phase.
• Fix Stalled Growth: If your revenue has flatlined for the past two to three years despite your best efforts, you are no longer focusing your management time on the correct bottlenecks.
• Solve Team Inefficiencies: When you feel burnt out because you are doing everything while your team underperforms, a coach steps in to directly train your staff on crucial systems like revenue cycle management and case presentation.
• Calculate the ROI: Coaching is an investment, not an expense. Adding just $50,000 in top-line revenue covers the annual coaching fee and the cost of additional supplies, meaning the explosive growth you achieve by months 9–12 is pure profit.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of the Shared Practices, host Caitlin Embree sits down with Dr. Aditi Agarwal, co-founder of Practice by Numbers, to discuss how analytics can completely transform your dental practice management. Dr. Agarwal shares how she evolved from pouring over confusing spreadsheets to creating an all-in-one dashboard that allows dentists to instantly diagnose bottlenecks, monitor team performance, and maximize their dental practice profitability.

Relying on "gut feelings" is a dangerous way to run a business. Effective In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, host Caitlin Embree sits down with Dr. Aditi Agarwal, co-founder of Practice by Numbers, to discuss how analytics can completely transform your dental practice management. Dr. Agarwal shares how she evolved from pouring over confusing spreadsheets to creating an all-in-one dashboard that allows dentists to instantly diagnose bottlenecks, monitor team performance, and maximize their dental practice profitability.

Relying on "gut feelings" is a dangerous way to run a business. Effective dental practice management requires a fact-based approach that empowers your team with clear, actionable metrics rather than overwhelming them with unnecessary data.

Here is your guide to using KPIs to drive sustainable dental practice growth:

• Track the Pre-Appointment Rate: The most holistic indicator of practice health is the percentage of active patients who have a future appointment. Aim for an 80% pre-appointment rate to ensure your retention, scheduling, and case presentation systems are actually working.
• Balance Your Production: A healthy hygiene department should account for 30% to 35% of your total practice production. If hygiene exceeds that threshold, it reveals a severe breakdown in your doctor-driven restorative diagnosis or case acceptance.
• Analyze Treatment Rejections: When a patient declines treatment, your team must track the specific reason (e.g., finances, fear, timing). Reviewing this data allows you to tailor your case presentation and better train your financial coordinators to overcome common objections.
• Master Insurance Metrics: Do not drop a PPO plan based on a single low reimbursement code. Use your insurance dashboards to analyze the overall profitability of each plan and identify patterns in claim denials to drastically reduce your reimbursement cycle.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.requires a fact-based approach that empowers your team with clear, actionable metrics rather than overwhelming them with unnecessary data.

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri addresses a critical issue facing the industry: selling your practice early simply because you are tired. While the administrative and HR burdens of modern dental practice ownership drive many doctors to sell to DSOs, doing so prematurely cuts off your greatest wealth-building vehicle. George explains that burnout is not just a qualitative issue—it is a massive quantitative financial threat because the highest return on your investment in dental school comes from operating your cash-flowing practice for the longest possible time.

If you are feeling overwhelmed in your current stage of dental practice ownership, you haven't failed—you simply haven't "nailed" the systems required for that level of success yet. By proactively identifying and solving the specific bottlenecks causing your exhaustion, you can secure your equity, reclaim your time, and maximize your income.

Here is your guide to extending your career and maximizing the financial return of dental practice ownership:

• Audit Your Exhaustion: Track exactly what drains your energy over a two-week period, whether it is a specific type of demanding patient, a stressful clinical procedure like surgical extractions, or daily HR headaches.
• Delegate HR Burdens: If managing staff causes you severe stress, hire an office manager to handle schedule requests and team accountability. The cost of their salary is a small price to pay for the longevity it brings to your career.
• Design a Sustainable Schedule: Restructure your clinical days to prioritize rest, such as working an alternating three-day week that allows for a six-day weekend every two weeks without dropping your operational hours.
• Find Outside Outlets: Once your practice stabilizes and no longer needs aggressive growth, channel your entrepreneurial ambition into hobbies or fitness rather than constantly disrupting your business.
• Protect the Cash Cow: While outside investments like real estate are important, never fund them so aggressively that it ruins your personal lifestyle and causes you to burn out of dentistry.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this rare and highly anticipated episode, Dr. George Hariri sits down for an exclusive roundtable with pre-owners Elijah Dunlap, Ben Vickery, and Josh Ward from the Business-Minded Dentist podcast. If you are a dental student or associate looking to transition into ownership, this conversation is packed with proven dental business strategies to help you avoid the common traps that cause 30% to 40% of new owners to make less money than they did as associates.

George unpacks the exact dental business strategies Shared Practices uses to help clients achieve 37% to 39% growth in their first year of ownership. This roundtable with pre-owners dives deep into the realities of the modern dental market and why the days of simply "hanging a shingle" are over.

Here is what you will learn from this essential conversation:

Target "Neglected" Practices: The most explosive growth happens when you acquire a clinic from a retiring doctor who has underdiagnosed their patient base for years. These established patients essentially become a goldmine of new, high-value treatment needs.

Prioritize Facility Size: A single-doctor, three-operatory practice is a dying model. You must buy a facility with at least six (preferably seven to twelve) operatories to successfully implement group dental business strategies.

Leverage Access to Care: The easiest way to succeed without spending a fortune on marketing is to open a practice in a rural or semi-rural area where patient demand vastly outweighs the supply of dentists.

Master Speed and Specialty: Before buying a practice, use your first four to six months out of dental school to build clinical speed and master endodontics and surgical extractions. Referring these cases out kills your profitability and damages patient goodwill.

Don't Fear Staff Turnover: Retaining a legacy team is important, but not if it prevents you from establishing your own modern clinical culture. Establish your expectations on day one and let patient retention fund the transition of staff who refuse to adapt.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com
to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, host Caitlin Embree interviews Josh Wallace, president of IT Harbor, to discuss why specialized IT support is a critical component of any successful dental organization. Josh shares how IT Harbor naturally transitioned into the dental sector after assisting with new practice builds, choosing to remain vendor-agnostic to provide the best, most future-driven recommendations for their clients.

Because modern dental practices rely heavily on nuanced technology—such as 3D modeling, CBCTs, and specialized scanners—relying on a generic IT company can lead to mismanaged data cabling, outdated systems, and massive operational overwhelm. Josh breaks down how a remote-first IT approach can resolve 98% of backend problems before the clinic even notices, while still offering robust, nationwide on-site support.

Here is your guide to protecting your practice and leveraging the future of dental technology:

Defend Against Phishing: Humans are the biggest vulnerability in any network. Protect your dental practice by utilizing high-end firewalls and conducting ongoing training to prevent staff—and doctors—from clicking on masked emails or fake login prompts.

Leverage AI for Productivity: Stop letting your technology gather dust. Implement AI-assisted charting and voice-dictated perio notes to speed up your workflow and save your clinical team hours of administrative frustration.

Build Trust With AI Imaging: Patients can sometimes be skeptical of a doctor's treatment plan, but utilizing AI software to analyze radiographs provides an objective second opinion that builds instant patient trust.

Prioritize the Patient Experience: The modern consumer expects high-tech, fast, and frictionless service. Failing to update your dental technology over the next five to eight years will likely cause patients to leave for a more advanced, spa-like competitor.

Demand Better Support: Ensure your IT provider offers a dedicated engineer (e.g., IT Harbor assigns one engineer per 30 clients) so you are not forced to call a random 1-800 number every time your dental systems crash.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey?
Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision.

For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, we explore what it truly means to step into the role of CEO of Your Dental Organization. As a dental provider scaling from a solo operation to a multi-practice group, your leadership leverage increases significantly as you multiply your impact across a larger team. However, elite dental leadership requires shifting your mindset away from strictly clinical work and focusing on three distinct horizons: long-term vision, medium-term strategic planning, and short-term execution.

To achieve sustainable dental growth, your business vision must be rooted directly in your personal life goals. Because the CEO of Your Dental Organization ultimately serves the practice owner, every strategic decision should align with your desired income, clinical schedule, and vacation time.

Here is your framework for mastering dental business strategy and leading your practice:

Design Your Life First: Define your ideal schedule, target income, and preferred dental procedure mix (such as focusing heavily on surgical implants). Let those personal goals dictate your dental practice's long-term destination.

Focus on the Bottleneck: Adopt an Elon Musk-style approach to daily dental management by identifying and spending your administrative time solving only the single biggest constraint facing your business each week.

Play the "Whac-A-Mole" Game: Understand that solving one dental growth constraint—such as hiring a third hygienist to improve patient flow—will immediately trigger the next bottleneck, like needing to fill that new hygienist's schedule.

Translate Vision to the Team: Convert your personal dental ownership goals into a team-centric mission. Emphasize how adding an associate doctor improves patient access to dental care and provides the staff with more flexible schedules.

Enforce Core Values: Establish a shared set of actions to define your dental practice culture. Use these core values to ensure your team's behavior stays on course, allowing you to quickly identify and correct toxic team members.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey?
Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision.

For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this solo episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. Andrew Clingan tackles one of the most insidious threats to sustainable dental practice growth: a lack of clear vision. Using a real-world example of a highly successful but directionless young practice owner, Andrew explains how relying purely on talent and willpower eventually leads to spinning in circles. When you lack clarity, it becomes impossible to make sound decisions about marketing, PPOs, or multi-practice expansion, ultimately stunting your long-term success.

To excel as a dentist today, you must understand that the "floor" has risen; succeeding requires more intentional business strategies than it did a decade ago. Andrew emphasizes that you cannot simultaneously optimize for elite clinical mastery, aggressive scaling, and perfect work-life balance. Achieving sustainable dental practice growth requires picking a path and maintaining a disciplined clarity of vision.

Here is your guide to finding focus for your practice:

• Ignore the Extremes: Do not let social media highlight reels push you into building a 30-practice DSO or becoming an elite cosmetic dentist if those paths do not align with your true desires. The "middle of the road"—such as a profitable group model with two doctors and four hygienists—is often the sweet spot for sustainable dental practice growth.
• Audit Your Time: Regularly sit down and write out everything you do throughout the week. Identify the tasks you hate (like managing staff drama) and delegate them to leadership, while doubling down on the things that actually fire you up.
• Build Optionality Early: Be highly conservative with your personal finances early in your career. Living below your means and aggressively investing in your clinical and business skills provides you with the freedom to pivot your career path in your 40s or 50s.
• Read "Traction": Implement the principles from Gino Wickman's EOS framework to align your team and ensure everyone in the practice is rowing in the exact same direction.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri breaks down the pros, cons, and brutal truths of running a fee-for-service dental practice. While dropping insurance is a dream for many in dental practice ownership, George explains why going out-of-network is often like "swimming upstream". It becomes significantly harder to attract new patients and retain existing ones when they face higher out-of-pocket costs.

However, if you are committed to this model, it can be incredibly rewarding when executed correctly. To achieve sustainable dental practice growth without relying on PPOs, you must deliver an experience that justifies the premium price tag.

Here is your blueprint for operating a successful fee-for-service dental practice:

• Simulate the In-Network Experience: The best out-of-network offices are extremely insurance-friendly. You must submit claims on behalf of the patient and avoid charging extra for preventative care whenever possible to reduce friction.
• Leverage Rural Markets: The most predictable path to fee-for-service success is in rural or underserved areas. When there is a severe lack of access to care, patients have no choice but to tolerate out-of-network fees.
• Create a Unique Value Proposition: If you are operating in a highly competitive, urban market, your patient experience—from the doctor-patient relationship to the physical office environment—must be undeniably superior to the in-network clinic down the street.
• Transition Slowly: If you are acquiring an in-network clinic, do not abruptly transition into a fee-for-service dental practice. Build your patient base first, establish goodwill, and then gradually drop the lowest-paying plans one at a time.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of Coach's Corner, Caitlin Embree interviews Paul Lowry, co-founder of Dental Menu, to solve one of the biggest bottlenecks in dental practice management: failing in-house membership plans. While dropping insurance is a common goal, data shows that unmanaged cash-pay patients only have a 12% retention rate over five years, compared to 64% for insured patients.

To achieve sustainable dental practice growth, practice owners must treat their membership programs like true subscriptions (e.g., Netflix or Amazon Prime) rather than one-off "Groupon" discount bundles that cause renewal gaps. Poorly administered plans not only create massive administrative headaches but also artificially lower your practice valuation by forcing you to zero out production or write off massive adjustments.

Here is your blueprint for upgrading your dental practice management through a properly structured membership plan:

Stop the "Discount" Mindset: Shift from selling a bundled package of cleanings to an auto-renewing subscription model to prevent patients from lapsing for months at a time.

Fix Your Accounting: Stop adjusting membership preventative care to $0, as it destroys your KPIs. Dental Menu uses a separate bank account to process monthly fees and generate internal EOBs so production flawlessly matches collections.

Protect Provider Pay: Proper dental practice management requires accurate ledgers so associate dentists and hygienists receive their correct collection-based bonuses when treating membership patients.

Incentivize Your Team: Drive dental practice profitability by offering your front office staff bonuses (e.g., $25 per sign-up) to consistently present the membership plan to cash-pay patients.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. George Hariri answers listener requests to strip away group practice bias and focus entirely on elite solo dental practice management. Many practitioners mistakenly believe that a multi-provider clinic is the only route to high-level profitability, but optimizing a solo model can create an incredibly low-stress, high-income asset. George outlines the precision growth pathways and details how transitioning from a standard solo dentist to a "productive solo" or "smart solo" can elevate your take-home pay to $400,000 and beyond.

To break out of the low-revenue trap, you must learn how to manipulate the core levers of dental practice management.

Implement these critical solo growth metrics and systems in your practice:

Build the 2-2-2 Operational Balance: Scale your patient base to seamlessly support two full-time hygienists, two front office team members, and two dental assistants to perfectly balance your diagnostic and administrative workflow.

Master Hygiene Benchmarks: Understand that there are roughly 200 active patients per day of hygiene. Target a base of 1,600 active patients to completely fill two full columns of hygiene working four days a week.

Hit Case Acceptance Targets: Elevate your presentation style to consistently achieve an 80% patient acceptance rate (patients saying yes to at least one treatment item) and a 30% to 40% total dollar value treatment acceptance rate.

Lock In Diagnostic Consistency: Develop clear, research-backed clinical diagnostic protocols so your hygiene team can confidently co-diagnose and tee up treatment plans before you even enter the room.

Maximize Time Efficiency: Unlike group practices that focus heavily on analytical data points, a solo practitioner must treat their personal clinical time as the most valuable asset in the building by delegating every legally allowed task to auxiliaries.

Transforming your solo office requires moving past basic survival and adopting highly intentional dental practice management strategies.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Caitlin Embree interviews Max Dempsey, the rockstar office manager for Dr. Jaspreet Parmar’s two growing practices. Max provides a rare, behind-the-scenes look at dental practice management from the perspective of an elite team member navigating an ownership transition. With 29 years of experience, she shares how she evolved from a lead dental assistant into a multi-practice manager by mastering front-office billing, insurance communication, and team leadership through targeted coaching.

For any dentist evaluating dental practice acquisitions, this episode highlights how crucial it is to establish a unified culture from day one.

Here is your masterclass in team-driven dental practice management:

Establish Core Values Early: Do not let your team wallow in uncertainty during a transition. Dr. Parmar took his team out on day one to collaboratively define the clinic's core values, instantly proving his commitment to structured leadership.

Master Fee-for-Service Verbiage: Running an out-of-network practice requires flawless communication. Train your team to respond to insurance questions by offering to verify benefits and calculate estimated copays, ensuring a "wow factor" patient experience.

Delegate and Trust: True dental practice management scaling requires the owner to step out of the daily administrative weeds. Dr. Parmar built trust with Max to the point where she now handles major HR issues independently, allowing him to focus strictly on clinical production.

Hire for Personality: Never make desperate hires. Prioritize candidates who fit your culture and exhibit a strong desire to learn, as technical skills can always be taught through effective dental practice management systems.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri shatters the industry myth that achieving more than 10% same-store growth is impossible. For the modern dentist, transitioning from an exhausted clinician to a strategic CEO requires executing targeted dental growth strategies. Rather than forcing generalized systems onto your team, true leadership means diagnosing your clinic's unique bottlenecks. To scale efficiently, stop treating every operational issue equally and focus your administrative time on the constraints that generate massive dental practice profitability.

This episode serves as your survival guide for mastering dental practice management. George reveals the four operational levers that guarantee sustainable dental practice growth:

- Patient Flow: Implement the Retain, Open, Fill method. Lock the back door by mastering hygiene reappointment rates, then open new columns.

- Case Acceptance: Empower your staff to co-diagnose. When the team leads patient education, doctor production becomes completely predictable.

- Consistency: Close the performance gap between your best and worst clinical team members to instantly elevate the practice floor.

- Efficiency: Play "Whac-A-Mole" with your metrics. Identify massive operational leaks, like a high missed call rate, and resolve them immediately.

Elite dental business strategies require you to leverage your time. If you only spend a few hours a week working on the business, you must direct that energy toward your weakest links. Customizing your dental growth strategies to target these precise inefficiencies guarantees predictable expansion year after year.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode, Caitlin Embree and Cory Pinegar, CEO of Reach, dive into integrating virtual support to elevate your dental practice management. With operating costs rising roughly 87% since 2001 and insurance reimbursements remaining stagnant, the modern dentist is getting squeezed. To maintain dental practice profitability, owners must rethink their traditional staffing models.

Cory explains why conventional outsourcing fails and how embedding a dedicated virtual team member transforms your dental practice management. By delegating repetitive front-desk tasks, your in-office staff can focus exclusively on the patients directly in front of them, driving sustainable dental practice growth.

Here is your blueprint for implementing elite dental business strategies using virtual support:

Capture Missed Revenue: Over 60% of Reach's clients start by delegating inbound phone calls because the industry average for missed calls is 33%.

Define Success Metrics: Before hiring, clearly outline whether your goal is saving money, buying back time, or driving revenue to ensure a measurable ROI.

Customize Your Training: Provide the final 20% of practice-specific training, such as exact verbiage and software nuances, to fully integrate your virtual assistant.

Embrace AI as a Tool: Combine the efficiency of AI technology with the empathy of human virtual assistants rather than treating them as opposing forces.

Treating virtual assistants like actual human team members is the missing link in modern dental practice management.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this Ask George episode, we tackle the ultimate debate in dental practice ownership: have you built a highly profitable business, or just a high-paying job? Dr. George Hariri breaks down the reality of "key man risk," proving that if your office relies on your personal clinical energy to generate revenue, you are acting as an employee. For a future owner, making the shift to CEO requires mastering advanced dental practice management so your team performs efficiently without your oversight.

This ultimate survival guide for mastering dental practice ownership shows you exactly how to shift from a stressful owner-driven clinical model to an autonomous, team-driven powerhouse. To achieve sustainable dental practice growth, implement KPI accountability:

• Missed Call Rate: Track front office metrics to capture inbound leads.
• Reactive Retention: Consistently monitor your overdue recare efforts.
• Proactive Retention: Push daily hygiene reappointments past a 90% target.

To cement your dental practice ownership, delegate case acceptance entirely. When hygienists are calibrated to co-diagnose, they educate patients before you arrive, massively boosting dental practice profitability. We also highlight why the associate to owner transition fails without an Office Manager handling HR and payroll, ensuring scaling does not create more work. Embrace entrepreneurship for dentists by building systems that leverage your team's time.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

The "Busy" Trap in Dentistry

For Future Dental Practice Owners, a packed schedule feels like success. Yet, a booked day lacking strategic production leads to clinical burnout. Dr. Andrew Clingan and Caitlin Embree reveal why being merely "busy" destroys dental practice profitability. Moving from clinician to empowered CEO means stopping the cycle of stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. This requires mastering dental practice management through intentional scheduling.

Your Scheduling Survival Guide:
If your days are chaotic but collections are stagnant, your systems are failing. Allowing patients to cancel restorative work without consequence is why dental practice profitability drops. You cannot achieve sustainable dental practice growth if your team scrambles for supplies instead of prepping same-day treatment. To implement elite dental business strategies, engineer your operations:

Implement Block Scheduling: Define daily "rocks" and "boulders" to hit goals before filling gaps.
Enforce Front Desk Protocols: Separate doctor time from assistant time to end bottlenecks.
Demand Accountability: Stop absorbing no-shows by collecting upfront deposits for major cases.
Optimize Back-Office Systems: Standardize inventory so your team can add same-day treatment.

Dr. Clingan shares how these systems turned a routine limited exam into a prepaid $17,000 case in ten minutes. This operational mindset lays the foundation for scalable dental business ownership and predictable dental practice profitability. It is vital for the associate to owner transition.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri breaks down the common—yet avoidable—trap where adding an associate leads to a massive drop in dental practice profitability. George shares his own Dental Moneyball cautionary tale: how he went from a thriving income to making zero dollars after hiring his first associate. This episode serves as a survival guide for any dentist moving from clinician to CEO, ensuring that your associate to owner transition actually results in more freedom, not just more expenses. George explores the "perfect storm" that kills dental practice profitability: rising overhead costs paired with a less efficient provider seeing your patients. You will learn specific dental business strategies to mitigate these risks, including the "two-to-one" hygiene-to-restorative ratio and how to expand your office capacity by modifying your schedule. We discuss why owner doctors are typically more efficient and how to train your team for co-diagnosis so that your associate walks into a well-oiled system of case acceptance. Whether you are looking to work fewer days or simply want to scale your net worth, George provides the roadmap for delegating lower-level procedures while keeping your high-production hourly rate intact. Stop guessing and start using data-driven insights to ensure your next hire is a catalyst for dental practice profitability rather than a drain on your bank account. Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Caitlin Embree and Morgan Hamon from EAG Dental Advisors bridge the gap between daily operations and proactive financial management for dentists. Transitioning from clinician to CEO requires deep financial clarity. Most owners only speak to their CPA during tax season, but advanced financial management for dentists transforms raw data into insights that fuel long-term dental practice profitability.  

If your goal is sustainable dental practice growth, this is your survival guide. Morgan explains how specialized CPAs act as your financial radiologist—diagnosing cash flow bottlenecks—so your dental practice management team can perform the operational surgery. We explore why standard profit and loss statements hide critical metrics like debt service.  

Here is your blueprint to master dental business strategies and dental practice ownership:

• Master the Rule of Threes: Hygienists must produce three times their total pay to sustain dental practice profitability.  
• Calculate Cash Reserves: Keep one to two months of break-even capital, combining operating expenses and debt service, to eliminate stress. 
• Optimize Distributions: Implement structured monthly or quarterly distributions to maximize personal wealth.  
• Demand Strategy: Stop accepting tax-season surprises. Demand year-round communication to track liabilities as you scale.  

Proactive financial management for dentists protects your revenue. Contact Morgan Hamon at morgan.hamon@eisneramper.com or visit https://eagdentaladvisors.com/. 

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey?

Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Transitioning from a clinician to a CEO requires a fundamental shift in how you view your bank account. In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri reveals the "survival guide" for mastering dental practice profitability. If you’ve ever felt the frustration of a packed schedule and high production that never seems to translate into a growing bank balance, you are likely missing the "Moneyball" discipline required for true dental business ownership. George shares his personal journey from a revenue-only focus to becoming a disciplined CFO, providing the roadmap for every future owner to follow.

The core of dental practice profitability lies in understanding three financial pillars: the Income Statement, the Balance Sheet, and the Cash Flow Statement. George explains why your practice management software might lie to you about your revenue and how to reconcile bank deposits with collections. By mastering financial management for dentists, you can stop guessing and start leading. This episode breaks down the "one month break-even" liquidity rule, ensuring you have enough cash on hand to weather the volatility of dental practice management without the stress of payroll cycles or credit card bills.

For those looking to scale, George explores dental growth strategies that prioritize cash-on-cash returns over "paper wealth." He discusses how to utilize a quarterly distribution schedule to accumulate cash before deciding whether to reinvest in the practice or take a personal draw. This approach to sustainable dental practice growth ensures that every dollar you spend—whether on a new operatory, marketing, or coaching—acts as a soldier sent out to bring more soldiers back.

Don’t let your practice be a high-revenue trap. Learn the dental business strategies that separate struggling associates from wealthy owners. By focusing on dental practice profitability through the lens of cash flow and disciplined reinvestment, you can build a business that generates consistent, predictable wealth.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Transitioning from a clinician to a CEO is the ultimate hurdle in dental practice ownership. In this episode of Practice Underwater, Dr. George Hariri and Elizabeth navigate the "logistical nightmare" of scaling an eight-month-old practice that is already bursting at the seams. With 3,000 patients and only six operatories, Elizabeth faces a pivotal choice: stay in a challenging second-floor space or chase a "shiny object" real estate deal with mismatched timelines.

George reframes the traditional dental business ownership mindset by challenging the urge to move too soon. They break down the ROI of a $43,000 construction project to add two operatories versus the capital-intensive trap of buying a building that doesn't fit the long-term vision. This is a survival guide for any dentist wrestling with dental growth strategies and the fear of patient attrition.

The conversation pivots to the "Mega Group" concept, where George introduces the power of the 12-operatory model. For those pursuing sustainable dental practice growth, reaching 12 operatories allows for a three-doctor rotation, providing the owner with the "school schedule" flexibility they crave without sacrificing dental practice profitability. Elizabeth gains clarity on why settling in her current space—for now—is the fastest way to hire an associate and preserve her patient base.

 Ready to scale your dental practice ownership?

Visit https://sharedpractices.com/ for our "Free Look" service and follow our social channels for roadmap updates. Join the community and turn your clinical skills into a thriving business.

In this episode of Practice Underwater, Dr. George Hariri sits down with a dentist, Elizabeth, to discuss the initial hurdles she faced following an associate to owner transition.

They analyze her impressive growth as a new dentist, jumping from a projected $1.2M to a $1.4M finish within eight months, while exploring dental business strategies to manage a bursting 3,000-patient base with only 11 hygiene days.

The core strategic debate centers on whether to simplify the schedule via a fee-for-service model or expand into a multi-doctor setup by hiring another dentist, a dilemma complicated by real estate constraints discussed through a Shared Practices framework.

This is a must-listen for any dentist weighing the long-term flexibility of group practice against the streamlined profitability of staying solo.

In this episode:
• Scaling production from a projected $1.2M pace to over $1.4M.
• Managing a bottleneck of 3,000 patients with only 11 hygiene days.
• The strategic debate: dropping insurance versus hiring an associate.
• Evaluating real estate options for a growing team.
• Balancing clinical autonomy with family flexibility.

Whether navigating an associate to owner transition or vetting acquisitions in dentistry, this is your survival guide. Ready to scale your dental practice ownership? Visit https://sharedpractices.com/ for our "Free Look" service and follow our social channels for roadmap updates. Join the community and turn your clinical skills into a thriving business.

Welcome back to the Shared Practices podcast.

In this episode of Ask George, we’re diving into a question we hear all the time from aspiring owners: How do you build a real business instead of just buying yourself a job? Whether you’re preparing to purchase your first practice or thinking about expanding into your second or third location, this conversation will give you a clearer, more honest picture of what ownership really looks like today.

Dentistry has changed a lot over the years. With more options like DSOs, choosing private practice is no longer the default—it’s a decision. And for many, that decision means stepping into the role of an entrepreneur. That comes with real challenges: managing rising staff costs, dealing with insurance reimbursements, and navigating tighter margins, especially in a post-COVID landscape. But at the same time, it creates an opportunity to build something that can grow beyond your own clinical work.

So what’s the difference between a job and a business? If everything depends on you being in the chair day in and day out, it’s still a job—no matter how successful it looks on paper. A true business is built to operate and generate income even when you’re not there. That shift in mindset is what separates operators from owners.

George breaks down a practical path to get there, including how to build around multiple providers, improve efficiency, and create systems that support long-term growth. From bringing on associates to optimizing your space and team, it’s all about creating a structure that doesn’t rely solely on you.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey?

Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Transitioning from a skilled clinician to a successful practice owner requires a radical shift in how you view the operatory. In this high-stakes episode of Coaches Corner, Caitlin Embree and Dr. Andrew Clingan break down the essential dental business strategies that separate struggling associates from thriving owners. The secret isn’t just in the hand-piece; it’s in the psychology of case acceptance and the internal systems that turn "maybe" into "yes."

Dr. Clingan pulls back the curtain on the "trauma" and wisdom gained during his associate to owner transition, revealing that clinical excellence is secondary to patient trust. If a patient doesn't understand the "why," they won't value the "how." This conversation serves as a masterclass in dental practice management, focusing on the "micro-trust" moments—those small, honest interactions that build a foundation for sustainable dental practice growth. You’ll learn why "creating space" and embracing silence is more effective than any sales script, and how to handle the "not now" objection without sounding like a corporate salesman. Implementing these specific dental business strategies allows a doctor to maintain clinical integrity while ensuring the practice remains a viable, profitable entity.

A critical component of modern dental business ownership is the integration of high-ROI technology. Caitlin and Andrew discuss how utilizing AI-driven radiographs and intraoral cameras isn't just about clinical accuracy; it's about shifting the burden of proof from the doctor to the data. By treating the patient as a co-diagnostician, you eliminate the friction of "supervised neglect" and move toward more predictable financial management for dentists. Whether you are currently navigating how to buy a dental practice or looking to optimize your existing startup, adopting these dental business strategies will help you stop playing "ignorant to finances" and start leading your team and patients with the conviction of a true CEO. This episode is your survival guide to navigating the complexities of patient behavior and modern clinical technology.

Are you worried that you missed the "Golden Age" of dentistry? Many dental students and associates look back at the 1980s with envy, assuming that high insurance reimbursements and low competition made that the only era for true wealth. In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri deconstructs this myth and explains why dental practice profitability in the 2020s actually offers a superior path for the entrepreneurial dentist.

We shift the focus from the "Golden Age" to the "Golden Way"—a modern survival guide for transitioning from a clinical technician to a high-performing CEO. George breaks down why the current landscape of dental practice ownership is ripe with opportunity for those who embrace technology over tradition. Whether you are navigating an associate to owner transition or managing a growing firm, understanding the levers of dental practice valuation methods is critical to your exit strategy.

This episode explores three distinct paths to building a $5M–$10M net worth:

1. The Mega Practice: Why a single 14-operatory office with high dental growth strategies often outperforms a multi-location portfolio with less risk.
2. The Multi-Location Venture: The "irrational" drive needed to scale past four locations and the financial controls required to maintain margins.
3. The Platform Play: How modern DSOs allow for wealth creation through equity without the traditional burdens of solo ownership.

Success in the mid-2020s requires extreme efficiency in marketing, patient retention, and clinical productivity. George explains how AI, guided surgery, and 3D printing have replaced "hanging a shingle" as the primary drivers of entrepreneurship for dentists. If you want to stop trading time for money and start building a "Practice 401k," this deep dive into the 170-billion-dollar dental industry is your roadmap. You aren't too late; you are exactly on time to leverage the consolidation wave and modern clinical systems for maximum financial freedom.

How do you bridge the gap between being a clinical student and achieving dental practice ownership? In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. Andrew Clingan returns to the mic to deliver a "survival guide" for D4s and associates planning their move from clinician to CEO. Andrew bought his practice straight out of school in 2023, and he’s pulling back the curtain on what it actually takes to double revenue in year one. If your goal is dental practice ownership, your first job is not an investment—it is a means to an end. This episode breaks down the four pillars of readiness: clinical confidence, practice management, cash runway, and leadership.

We address a common dilemma for future owners: choosing between a DSO, a private practice, or a multi-location group. Andrew argues that if you want to succeed in dental practice ownership, you must prioritize clinical volume over brand names or base pay. We analyze why many private practice associate roles are "dead ends" for growth and why the "dead space" of mid-sized groups can hinder your development. Transitioning to a CEO mindset means understanding financial management for dentists; Andrew explains why keeping your personal overhead low is the key to securing bank financing for acquisitions in dentistry.

Stop waiting for the "perfect time" to start your journey. We discuss how to identify a ready-to-grow practice and why most buyers pass on "diamonds in the rough" because they lack the dental business strategies to see past old wallpaper and film X-rays. This is a masterclass in dental practice management designed to help you build the clinical and financial cushion necessary for sustainable dental practice growth. Whether you are navigating the associate to owner transition or performing due diligence red flags checks on a potential acquisition, this episode provides the roadmap. Don't let your "pre-owner angst" fade into the comfort of a corporate paycheck. Learn how to stack your skills now so that when the right opportunity appears, you are prepared to execute.

Is dental practice ownership still a viable path for aspiring dentists in today's rapidly changing landscape? Join Dr. George Hariri as he navigates the complexities of dental practice ownership in the latest episode of Shared Practices. This enlightening discussion delves into the critical factors that every dentist must consider when contemplating their career trajectory in the field of dentistry.

Dr. Hariri emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and self-reflection for dental professionals, urging them to assess whether dental practice ownership aligns with their personal and professional goals. With the realities of increased competition and rising operational costs, particularly in a post-COVID world, understanding the nuances of ownership is more crucial than ever.

The episode outlines essential principles for a successful dental career, including job satisfaction, income needs, and the importance of asset accumulation. Dr. Hariri also contrasts traditional dental practice ownership with the growing appeal of Dental Support Organizations (DSOs), which present attractive opportunities for those who may prefer a non-ownership track. This is particularly relevant for dentists who are exploring their options in the face of changing dynamics within the profession.

For those considering a leap into dental practice ownership, Dr. Hariri provides invaluable insights into entrepreneurship for dentists, offering guidance on how to buy a dental practice and navigate the complexities of dental practice acquisition. He discusses key topics such as dental practice valuation methods, due diligence red flags, and financial management for dentists, equipping listeners with the knowledge needed to excel in their ownership journey.

As Dr. Hariri articulates, ownership is increasingly suited for those with an entrepreneurial mindset who are willing to actively engage in the business side of dentistry. He encourages listeners to reflect on their leadership in dental practice and consider strategies for scaling their practices while avoiding common ownership mistakes.

This episode is a must-listen for any dentist contemplating their career path, offering a comprehensive overview of the dental landscape and practical advice on navigating ownership transitions. Whether you're a first-time buyer or an established owner looking to refine your dental practice marketing strategy, this episode provides a roadmap to success.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain insights from a seasoned expert in the field.

Adding an associate to your team should be the ultimate win for dental practice ownership, but it is often the exact moment where your existing systems begin to break. In this episode, Andrew Clingan and Caitlin Embree unpack the "ugly duckling" stage—that uncomfortable transition where your previous business strategies no longer scale to support multiple doctors.

If you are navigating the complexities of dental practice ownership, this episode is your survival guide for the inevitable systems failures and team tension that occur when scaling toward a sustainable dental practice.

As we discuss in this segment, entrepreneurship for dentists is about developing people as much as it is about fixing teeth. Andrew gets vulnerable about the "super solo" trap: trying to out-produce your problems rather than fixing the underlying systems. We dive into the specific financial management for dentists necessary to weather the "stings" of growth—like losing $15,000 cases because the team wasn't ready to present new clinical codes.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Are you stuck in the "defensive" trap of dental practice ownership? In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri breaks down a controversial reality: your CPA should not be your most trusted advisor if your goal is growth. While dental CPAs are essential for tax compliance and embezzlement prevention, their inherent bias toward historical data often creates a "growth ceiling" for ambitious owners. This episode serves as a survival guide for the transition from clinician to CEO, helping you identify when to listen to the brakes and when to hit the gas.

We dive deep into the world of dental practice management to explain why traditional accounting metrics like staff cost percentages can be misleading. George shares his personal "Dental Moneyball" story of growing a practice from $90k to $150k and how listening to a defensive advisor during a dip could have stifled his long-term success. You will learn about the "deposit ratio"—a critical tool for spotting embezzlement—and why your CPA is the gold standard for historical accuracy but a poor guide for future projections.

If you are currently navigating dental practice ownership, you need to understand the difference between offensive and defensive strategies. We discuss how to use dental growth strategies to justify temporary spikes in overhead, such as hiring a new hygienist or investing in marketing, which a standard CPA report might flagged as "red." This episode challenges you to become your own most trusted advisor, using financial management for dentists as a data point rather than a final decision.

We also explore the future of dental practice profitability in the age of AI and why using tools like ChatGPT can prepare you for more nuanced conversations with your professional team. Whether you’re an associate in transition or a seasoned owner, this roadmap ensures your business decisions are fueled by vision, not just tax efficiency. Stop letting the "brakes" drive your vehicle and start mastering the levers of dental practice management today.

The wait is over for the conclusion of Nate’s journey from a solo practitioner to a multi-million dollar dental group practice owner. In Part 2 of this Practice Underwater special, Dr. George Hariri reveals the high-leverage recommendation that will allow Nate to escape the "yo-yo" effect of clinical scheduling and finally achieve sustainable growth. While Nate’s practice is already a financial powerhouse—grossing over $3.15M with elite-level systems—the missing piece isn't operational; it’s a specific human resource strategy that bridges the gap between a solo clinician and a true CEO.George breaks down the "Anchor Dentist" concept: the necessity of finding a high-caliber, workhorse provider who is incentivized through a minority equity stake. 

This episode acts as a survival guide for practice management in secondary or tertiary markets where doctor attraction is the primary bottleneck. You will learn why typical associate recruitment often fails in these areas and how to structure a transition that aligns a new doctor’s clinical drive with your own need for long-term stability and reduced chair time.As Nate considers his practice's terminal velocity of $4–5M, the conversation shifts to aggressive recruitment volume. George challenges Nate to move beyond local ads and use "megaphones" to find doctors willing to relocate for a significant dental financial opportunity. If you are navigating entrepreneurship and feeling stuck in the whirlwind of daily production, this episode provides the blueprint for using minority partnership as a tool for longevity, allowing you to maximize your practice valuation without selling prematurely.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Transitioning from a solo clinician to a CEO is a journey fraught with operational hurdles, particularly when navigating the "yo-yo" effect of doctor turnover. In this episode of Practice Underwater, Dr. George Hariri sits down with Nate, a 2011 grad who successfully grew his office from $700k to over $3.1M. Despite this massive financial success, Nate finds himself back in the "whirlwind" of daily clinical operations, struggling with the common industry Achilles' heel: attracting and retaining productive associates. This conversation serves as a survival guide for any future dental practice owner looking to build a sustainable group practice without being tethered to the chair for the next twenty years.

The transcript reveals a common paradox in dental practice management: having world-class systems—including a 97% reappointment rate and an impressive AR ratio—yet still facing a revolving door of providers. George analyzes Nate’s history with five different associates to determine the difference between a "good leave" and a "bad leave". For dentists pursuing sustainable dental practice growth, understanding these nuances is critical. Are you settling for the wrong cultural fit because the candidate pool feels thin? George challenges the listener to move beyond the desperation of hiring and into a phase of selective patience.

As Nate looks toward an associate to owner transition or an eventual dental practice valuation for a DSO sale, the focus shifts to long-term profitability and cash flow. George argues that many owners sell too early, missing out on years of EBITDA. Instead, the discussion explores whether offering a minority equity stake is the key to stability. This episode is a masterclass in entrepreneurship for dentists, emphasizing that while doctor turnover is a natural part of the business, it shouldn't dictate your personal life or your clinical schedule.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Is dental practice ownership still a viable path for aspiring dentists in today's rapidly changing landscape? Join Dr. George Hariri as he navigates the complexities of dental practice ownership in the latest episode of Shared Practices. This enlightening discussion delves into the critical factors that every dentist must consider when contemplating their career trajectory in the field of dentistry.

Dr. Hariri emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and self-reflection for dental professionals, urging them to assess whether dental practice ownership aligns with their personal and professional goals. With the realities of increased competition and rising operational costs, particularly in a post-COVID world, understanding the nuances of ownership is more crucial than ever.

The episode outlines essential principles for a successful dental career, including job satisfaction, income needs, and the importance of asset accumulation. Dr. Hariri also contrasts traditional dental practice ownership with the growing appeal of Dental Support Organizations (DSOs), which present attractive opportunities for those who may prefer a non-ownership track. This is particularly relevant for dentists who are exploring their options in the face of changing dynamics within the profession.

For those considering a leap into dental practice ownership, Dr. Hariri provides invaluable insights into entrepreneurship for dentists, offering guidance on how to buy a dental practice and navigate the complexities of dental practice acquisition. He discusses key topics such as dental practice valuation methods, due diligence red flags, and financial management for dentists, equipping listeners with the knowledge needed to excel in their ownership journey.

As Dr. Hariri articulates, ownership is increasingly suited for those with an entrepreneurial mindset who are willing to actively engage in the business side of dentistry. He encourages listeners to reflect on their leadership in dental practice and consider strategies for scaling their practices while avoiding common ownership mistakes.

This episode is a must-listen for any dentist contemplating their career path, offering a comprehensive overview of the dental landscape and practical advice on navigating ownership transitions. Whether you're a first-time buyer or an established owner looking to refine your dental practice marketing strategy, this episode provides a roadmap to success.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain insights from a seasoned expert in the field.

In this masterclass episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri pulls back the curtain on the "invisible" side of dental practice management—the leadership dynamics that dictate your take-home pay and your team’s sanity. For most, the associate to owner transition is a shock to the system because dental school teaches you how to prep a crown, not how to lead a human being. George provides a survival guide for the future owner, breaking down the essential shift from clinical technician to high-level CEO.

True dental practice management isn't about micro-managing every tray setup; it is about strategic resource allocation. George identifies the "Goodwill Bank Account" concept, explaining how leaders must deposit trust through leading by example before they can withdraw effort during high-stress growth phases. We dive deep into the "unspoken culture" of a practice—what you tolerate becomes your standard. If your dental business ownership journey feels like a constant uphill battle with staff, the bottleneck is likely your relational leadership, not your clinical skill.

This episode covers the "Vision Avatars" necessary for sustainable dental practice growth, helping you decide if you are building a productive solo or a mega group. George also breaks down the "Operational Rhythm"—the cadence of huddles and meetings that transform dental practice management from a reactive chore into a proactive engine for dental practice profitability. By the end of this episode, you will understand how to audit your own self-leadership, set non-negotiable standards for what you tolerate, and empower an office manager to handle the details so you can focus on entrepreneurship for dentists. Whether you are currently in the middle of acquisitions or just starting your roadmap, this is the blueprint for leading a team that actually wants to follow you.

In this episode of Coaches Corner, we dismantle the myth that clinical excellence alone is enough to scale a practice. As you move from solo clinician to the head of a growing group, your dental business strategies must evolve or your systems will shatter. Dr. Andrew Clingan and Caitlin Embree dive deep into the "Ugly Duckling" phase of ownership—that volatile period where adding an associate reveals every crack in your foundation. Transitioning into dental practice ownership requires more than just hiring more hands; it demands a total shift in how you view dental practice management. If you are out-producing your problems rather than solving them with systems, you are sitting on a ticking time bomb.

For the future dental practice owner, this episode serves as a survival guide for the associate to owner transition. We discuss the hard reality of "losing" high-value cases simply because your team wasn't trained on the right codes or verbiage. We explore dental business strategies that focus on empowering an Office Manager to lead, rather than the owner micromanaging every $15-an-hour task. This is the core of sustainable dental practice growth: building a culture of leadership where your team is self-accountable and your dental practice profitability isn't solely dependent on your time in the chair. We break down the "Time and Energy Audit," a tool designed to help you buy back your time and focus on the high-level dental business ownership tasks that actually move the needle. Stop acting like an employee in your own business and start implementing the dental business strategies that allow you to lead with vision and clarity.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In Part 2 of this Practice Underwater episode, Dr. George Hariri continues his conversation with "Bob," a mega-group owner generating nearly $8 million in revenue. Despite scaling massive topline numbers, Bob faced severe burnout by failing to establish personal boundaries and neglecting his own dental practice profitability during acquisitions. By working clinically up to five days a week to cover gaps in a new location, he sacrificed his leverage as a CEO.

Rapid growth can become a financial and emotional grind if you do not properly utilize your leadership team. George helps Bob construct a personal "bubble" to reclaim control of his time and guarantee his cash flow, ultimately securing true dental practice profitability.

Here is your blueprint for protecting your sanity and maximizing dental practice profitability as you scale:

• Build Your Bubble: Restrict your clinical schedule to three days a week focused strictly on specialty procedures you enjoy, forcing your infrastructure to handle operational gaps.
• Take a Guaranteed Draw: Establish a non-negotiable monthly owner's draw to ensure you are consistently rewarded for your equity, eliminating personal financial stress.
• Trim Minor Expenses: Shaving just 1% to 2% off supply and administrative costs in an $8M group can fund your entire owner's draw and significantly boost dental practice profitability.
• Scale Into Your Infrastructure: Dilute your central management overhead by acquiring additional "ready to grow" practices before you reach the ceiling that requires overhauling your current operational systems.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of Practice Underwater, Dr. George Hariri sits down with "Bob," a mega-group owner who successfully scaled from a single solo clinic into an $8 million powerhouse spanning 17 operatories. For the ambitious dentist, Bob’s journey is a masterclass in aggressive expansion and mastering dental practice profitability. He shares how he temporarily abandoned traditional accounting advice, allowing his profit and loss (P&L) statements to look "ugly" while investing heavily in staff and marketing to secure unprecedented growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conversation shifts to evaluating true dental practice profitability. When Bob ran out of physical space in his flagship office, he leveraged his centralized infrastructure to seamlessly acquire an adjacent 2,000-patient practice. George breaks down Bob's margins on air, revealing that keeping management costs at a lean 3% while heavily funding the clinical team is the ultimate secret to sustaining dental practice profitability at scale.

Here is your survival guide to mastering dental business strategies through rapid expansion:

• Embrace the "Ugly Duckling" Phase: Temporarily accept high staff costs (like Bob's 36%) and a skewed P&L in exchange for explosive patient flow and long-term equity growth.
• Build Infrastructure Early: Establish a centralized call center and administrative team before you actually need them, ensuring your management costs remain incredibly low as you acquire more locations.
• Target "Ready to Grow" Clinics: Accelerate your timeline by acquiring underperforming offices with massive, untapped patient bases.
• Assess the Grind: Evaluate whether your current infrastructure can absorb another location before deciding to push forward or pause for operational optimization.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this deep-dive "Ask George" session, Dr. George Hariri tackles a silent epidemic among high-achieving dentists: hitting massive financial milestones only to feel a sense of emptiness. If you are navigating the complex associate to owner transition or currently feel trapped by your own success, this episode serves as your ultimate survival guide for evolving from a clinical workhorse to a strategic CEO. George breaks down why traditional dental practice management often fails by focusing solely on "numbers" while ignoring the qualitative lifestyle design that prevents burnout.

We explore the three distinct stages of a dentist’s career arc and how to identify your current "bottleneck"—whether it’s patient flow, team leadership, or clinical efficiency. You will learn how to use dental business strategies to increase your "surface area of luck," ensuring that your growth is both predictable and sustainable. George also introduces the "Venn Diagram of Success," a framework for aligning your quantitative income targets with your unique ability and desire for autonomy.

Stop chasing arbitrary production numbers and start building a business that gives you energy instead of draining it. Whether you are implementing new dental growth strategies to scale to a multi-doctor facility or looking to optimize a "smart solo" setup, this episode provides the roadmap to earning a seven-figure income while working only three days a week. We discuss how to delegate the "C-level" tasks that cause anxiety and how to empower your team to handle conflict, allowing you to stay in your zone of genius.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Most ambitious dentists are taught that dental practice ownership success is a linear climb from one location to three, five, or ten. In this episode, Dr. Megan Timm joins Caitlin Embree to pull back the curtain on the "sexy" allure of the dental empire and explains why she made the difficult decision to offload two locations to return to a single-doctor model. If you are currently navigating the associate to owner transition or feeling the pressure to expand, this survival guide explores the hidden costs of growth—including the financial strain of multiple mortgages, the "revolving door" of rural recruiting, and the mental toll of managing personalities rather than practicing dentistry.

Megan shares the raw reality of the "tipping point" where three practices resulted in zero personal take-home pay for six months. We deep dive into the logistics of a practice merger, how to communicate office closures to patients without losing your reputation, and the importance of clinical alignment when hiring. You will learn why sustainable dental practice growth is often found by increasing efficiency per patient and dropping insurance dependence rather than adding more chairs. Megan’s journey from a stressed multi-practice owner to a thriving, "productive solo" dentist proves that dental practice management is not one-size-fits-all. We discuss the "ego stroke" of expansion versus the actual dental practice profitability of a well-oiled, single-doctor machine.

Whether you are performing acquisitions in dentistry or looking to optimize your first office, this episode challenges the "bigger is better" narrative. Learn how to protect your vision, set boundaries with high-level team members, and design a life that allows you to be both a CEO and a present parent.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

The transition from clinician to CEO is often paved with unexpected roadblocks: wage inflation, shrinking insurance reimbursements, and a staffing crisis that makes 2026 feel like a battleground for private practitioners. In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri breaks down why traditional dental practice management is no longer enough to stay profitable. If you are a future owner, you must realize that the "Golden Age" of dentistry has evolved into the "Golden Way"—a high-tech roadmap where artificial intelligence acts as your digital co-pilot.

George moves beyond the hype of AI to provide a tactical survival guide for the modern dental entrepreneur. He explores the sequential flow of a patient's journey, identifying specific bottlenecks where technology can replace manual labor. From AI receptionists that mitigate missed call rates to radiograph software like Pearl and Overjet that revolutionize co-diagnosis, this episode explains how to reduce your dependency on a shrinking labor pool while increasing case acceptance.

True dental business ownership requires becoming a "technological champion." George emphasizes that while the dentist must provide the vision, the team must drive the implementation. You will learn how to use dental growth strategies that prioritize objectivity, such as using AI to audit phone calls or scribe treatment notes, allowing your staff to focus on high-level patient care.

This is more than a discussion on software; it is a masterclass in dental business strategies for the current economic landscape. Whether you are navigating an associate to owner transition or looking to scale your first acquisition, understanding how to negotiate the "how" while remaining firm on the "why" of technology is critical. Stop struggling with 20th-century systems in a 2026 world. Learn how to lean into the unique strengths of the technological revolution to ensure your practice isn't just surviving, but thriving. Success in dental practice management today requires more intentionality than ever—it’s time to build your roadmap.

The leap from clinician to CEO is the most significant hurdle in any associate to owner transition. Most dentists enter ownership with world-class clinical skills but find themselves practicing blind when it comes to the business side of the chair. In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Dr. George Hariri sits down with Dr. Aditi Agarwal, co-founder of Practice by Numbers, to discuss how to navigate this high-stakes shift using the power of data and AI dashboards.

Dr. Agarwal shares her personal journey of launching a startup in a depressed market and the "aha moment" when she realized that her case acceptance issues weren't a clinical failure, but a data-driven financing gap. This episode serves as a survival guide for dental practice ownership, moving beyond simple spreadsheets to embrace sophisticated dental business strategies. We explore the concept of "Operations AI" and how it acts as a co-pilot for the modern dentist, automating the revenue finder process to locate thousands of dollars in unscheduled treatment.

As a future dental practice owner, your success depends on your ability to implement dental business strategies that don't rely solely on your own manual effort. We break down the importance of team-led technology adoption, showing you how to empower your front office to reduce their workload while simultaneously increasing dental practice profitability. From call sentiment analysis to AI-assisted perio charting, learn how to leverage the "great equalizer" of technology to compete with DSOs while maintaining the personalized touch of private practice. This is the roadmap for turning dental business ownership into a predictable, data-backed success story.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Are you the primary force rolling every "boulder" up the hill in your office? In this insightful Ask George episode, George and Richard explore why building leaders is the non-negotiable secret to exponential growth and true leverage. Most future owners struggle with the transition from clinician to CEO because they fear the "drop-off" in quality when delegating. However, effective dental practice management requires a team-led approach where you empower others to perform tasks at 80% of your capacity so you can focus on your zone of genius.

We dive deep into the hierarchy of leadership, from the essential role of an Office Manager to the strategic deployment of Lead Assistants and Lead Hygienists. George introduces the A/B/C task audit—a powerful framework for identifying your highest-value "A" tasks while offloading energy-draining "C" tasks to team members who actually enjoy them. This shift isn't just about giving orders; it’s about fostering a "sense of ownership" where your team cares about results (like reappointment rates) as much as you do.

You’ll learn the "Document, Demonstrate, Observe" system for error-proofing your delegation and why the cost of a team member's mistake is actually a necessary investment in your associate to owner transition. Whether you are refining your dental growth strategies or preparing for dental business ownership, this episode provides the survival guide for building a culture of accountability and purpose. Stop being the bottleneck and start building the leverage required for a high-income, high-freedom practice.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Transitioning from a skilled clinician to a successful CEO requires a fundamental shift in how you view dental practice management. Most dentists enter ownership to focus on patient care, yet they quickly find themselves bogged down by the "human" element of human resources. In this episode of Shared Practices, Richard Low sits down with Jill Hasselmann from HR for Health to dismantle the myth that HR has to be a source of constant stress. For future owners, understanding these systems is not just about staying organized; it is about protecting the legacy and financial health of your dental practice ownership journey.

Jill explains that "compliance is caring," reframing bureaucracy as the baseline for treating a team with respect. We dive into the "Anatomy of HR," breaking it down into five critical pillars: hiring and onboarding, benefits administration, conflict resolution, payroll logistics, and legal compliance. Many owners struggle with wage and hour claims—which have seen a 450% increase over the last 20 years—simply because they lack a digital paper trail or clear time-off policies. This episode serves as a survival guide for dental business ownership, highlighting why relying on a "friend’s handbook" or unverified AI tools like ChatGPT can create massive legal exposure.

We also explore the modern expectations of Millennial and Gen Z team members who demand transparency and digital-first experiences. By implementing a "True North" via a customized employee handbook, you can remove the emotion from difficult conversations and lead with consistency. Whether you are navigating a startup or an acquisition, mastering entrepreneurship for dentists means having a proactive plan for everything from cell phone policies to pregnancy leave. Jill shares how automated systems can handle the tedious tracking of CE certifications and performance reviews, allowing you to shut your brain off and focus on dental growth strategies. Stop reacting to crises and start building a foundation where you never have to worry about HR again.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Are you choosing the wrong candidates because you’re afraid you don't have the time to train the right ones? In this episode of the Shared Practices Podcast, Richard and Caitlin unpack why dental practice ownership often feels like an uphill battle—and how to fix it. We discuss the mindset shift required to move from "panic hiring" to building a continuous candidate pipeline, much like you would for patient marketing.

The secret to scaling your practice lies in breaking free from the "experience trap" by creating a living Operations Manual. Caitlin explains the difference between a static employee handbook and a dynamic standards of care (SOC) guide that allows for consistent dental practice management as you grow. We explore how future owners can use the hiring process itself as a catalyst to document systems, ensuring you never have to reinvent the wheel when turnover inevitably occurs.

We also dive into the "lowest hanging fruit" of AI in dentistry: using tools like ChatGPT and Loom to draft training manuals and SOPs in record time. By utilizing voice-to-text and screen-recording technology, you can turn your clinical frustrations into clear, step-by-step instructions for your team. This episode is a survival guide for any dentist moving through an associate to owner transition, providing the tools to hire for attitude and train for skill so that your practice can scale without being held hostage by staffing gaps.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Think you could grow a suburban dental practice from $700K to $2.5M in four years without burning out? In this high-stakes episode of Practice Under Water, George sits down with "Thor," a high-intensity owner who has done exactly that. Thor shares the raw numbers behind his explosive associate to owner transition, revealing how he moved from 15 new patients a month to over 90 by mastering Google reviews and direct mail.

However, success has brought a new challenge: the "Sunday scaries". George helps Thor evaluate the dental business strategies needed to stop being the bottleneck in his own five-operatory building. They discuss the "pseudo-specialist" pivot—moving away from general dentistry to focus on high-value ortho and implants—as a way to maintain dental practice profitability while regaining control of the schedule.

This episode serves as a survival guide for dental practice ownership, tackling the psychological hurdles of dropping insurance, hiring a second associate, and the risk of taking a temporary income hit to achieve long-term longevity. Whether you are looking for sustainable dental practice growth or trying to navigate the complexities of dental practice management, Thor’s journey offers a roadmap for high-producing dentists who want to lead a team-led practice rather than grinding in the chair forever. Learn how he leveraged dental growth strategies to build a practice that produces $250,000 a month with only five operatories.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

Scaling a $2.5M practice while only working two clinical days sounds like the ultimate goal, but it often brings you face-to-face with a massive facility bottleneck. In Part 2 of Thor’s return to Practice Under Water, George and Thor break down the logistical gymnastics required to maintain sustainable dental practice growth when your building is bursting at the seams. Thor is currently managing 94 new patients a month in just five operatories, a situation that George identifies as being at total capacity.

The conversation centers on the essential transition from a "hustle-based" model to dental practice management that is truly systems-led. George suggests that to preserve quality of life, Thor must evolve into a pseudo-specialist role—focusing on high-value ortho, cosmetics, and implants—while training his hygienists to lead a co-diagnostic process that feeds these cases to his chair. This episode acts as a strategic survival guide for dental practice ownership, offering a masterclass in dental business strategies for owners who are ready to let the team handle the "daily rush".

We explore the gritty reality of "scheduling Tetris," including split shifting, no-doctor hygiene days, and why a six-operatory setup is a game-changer for multiple providers. Whether you are navigating an associate to owner transition or looking for ways to maximize dental practice profitability, Thor’s dilemma offers a clear roadmap for long-term success. Learn how to move from being the person propping up the practice to an owner who has built a self-sustaining engine for sustainable dental practice growth.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.

In this episode of Ask George, Dr. George Hariri guides you through "The Ownership Reset," a strategic process designed to align your dental practice ownership with your long-term life goals. As we head into 2026, George emphasizes that successful dental practice ownership requires more than clinical skill; it requires a clear vision and a refined sense of direction. Whether you are a productive solo or looking to scale into a mega group, this episode serves as a survival guide to help you identify your "vision avatar" and move from being a clinician to a true CEO.

George breaks down the clinical entrepreneur spectrum, identifying five distinct models for dental practice ownership: the Productive Solo, the Smart Solo, the Profitable Group, the Pseudo Specialist, and the Mega Group. You will learn how to identify the specific bottleneck—be it patient flow or clinical calibration—inhibiting your growth and how to implement dental business strategies like the "operating rhythm" to solve it. By transitioning to a team-led approach to entrepreneurship for dentists, you can increase your "surface area for luck" and ensure your practice values grow alongside your income.

Stop letting growth happen by accident. Learn how to use Dental Moneyball principles to audit your administrative time and focus on the tasks that actually move the needle. By the end of this episode, you’ll have the tools to communicate a clear vision to your team, ensuring everyone is rowing in the same direction for a profitable 2026 in dental practice ownership.

Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.