IGP: Episode 127: Hiring: Proactive vs. Reactive

“Figure out who you are. Understand your overhead. Start branding and marketing yourself as one of the leading employers in the area.” ~Dr. Victoria Peterson

Are you stuck reacting to hiring challenges or are you taking proactive steps to build your ideal team? This episode of the Investment Grade Practice Podcast, host Dr. Victoria Peterson tackles navigating the complexities of hiring in today’s competitive environment. Dive into the contrast between reactive and proactive hiring strategies, and learn how crucial it is to adapt to the new realities of compensation and staffing.

Discover how setting clear expectations, understanding your practice’s financials, and aligning your hiring practices with your core values can transform your team dynamics. Listen in to learn practical advice on how to attract top talent while maintaining a standard of care that reflects your practice’s philosophy.

As you listen to this episode, we want you to think about the following questions:

• Am I reacting to staffing challenges or proactively addressing them?
• Have I clearly defined and communicated my practice’s standard of care?
• What are the true costs and benefits of my current compensation structure?

Episode Transcript 

[00:00:00] Intro/Outro: The Productive Dentist Academy podcast network.

[00:00:02] Victoria: I’m challenging you to think about your own key characteristics. Who do you want to be as a doctor and who do you want to surround yourself with? Once you figure that out, cost is no problem. It comes down to marketing and patient flow.

[00:00:16] Intro/Outro: Welcome to Investment Grade Practices Podcast, where we believe private practice dentists deserve to get the lifestyle today while building an asset for tomorrow. Join your host, Victoria Peterson, to design the practice of your dreams and secure your financial independence. Let’s get started

[00:00:32] Regan: Doctor, are you living the dream or just dreaming of living? It is my honor to announce the PDA 20th Anniversary Special Conference. This September 12th to the 14th in Frisco, Texas, the nation’s leading course on dental practice growth. If you feel isolated as a leader who is frustrated that your schedule is unproductive, maybe your team is disjointed or your systems are inefficient. This is the conference for you. The PDA 20th Anniversary Conference has all new features, including keynote speaker, Emmett Smith, who is a pro football hall of fame, running back and entrepreneur. You can choose your own educational track to customize your learning experience, go to www.productivedentist.com and click the pop-up or select Productive Dentist Academy conference under the dental CE and events tab. That’s www.productivedentist.com. Seating is limited register today, and we look forward to helping you make your dreams become reality. Reality.

[00:01:24] Victoria: Are you proactive or reactive when it comes to hiring your next team member? Hello, I’m Victoria Peterson. Welcome to another episode of Investment Grade Practices. I’m going to stay with this topic for several episodes because it is epidemic. In our industry today, this topic of my hygienist wants 60 bucks an hour, my dental assistants making 30 an hour. When I started, I was making a buck 50. What are these young kids expect today? Well, it’s the new reality and you’re either going to ship your sale and go with it, or you are going to be crushed by it. Now with the DSO competition and benefit packages, how does a solo dentist or a small group even survive and recruiting efforts and branding yourself? Let’s talk about compensation. Let’s dive right into the meat. I want to get as close to the bone as we can. Cause this is painful. When I see 60 per hour, what body part costs puckers, you know, this is difficult. Your reimbursements from Delta dental or 45 for a pro fee and you pay a hygienist 60, how’s that math going to work? This goes to the fundamentals of creating an Investment Grade Practice. You can’t do it alone and sometimes you can’t afford your team. That’s the misperception I want to correct right now. So what if you hire that hygienist and she says, “I want 60 an hour,” and you say, “Absolutely. I will pay you 60 an hour, but you must uphold my standard of care, not yours, not what you were taught in dental school, but I have a comprehensive approach to care. My expectation is that your patients are healthy. My expectation is that 30 percent or more of your procedures are periodontally driven. So if you’re here just to do pro fees and chit chat, then you’re not worth 60 an hour to me. But if you truly want to be a professional helping save lives, helping educate patients to the oral-systemic connection, helping patients understand that they can have the comprehensive care they need today. and we will work out the financial options. If you’re that kind of hygienist, man, you’re worth your weight in gold and we’d love to have you on our team.” These are the types of things that you should be thinking about as an employer. It goes to the heart of who you are. You set the tone. You set the philosophy of care. You set the standard of care.

[00:03:45] Victoria: I’ve been at this, oh my goodness. I was the co-creator of Hygiene Mastery back in 1998 for a group called Fortune Management. It’s still going. Helped to launch the careers of Rachel Wall and Inspired Hygiene, myself, Patty Suey, Chris Duvall, Janet Hagerman. Names that are still icons in this industry and we always come back to one key component. We drive the care of our patients. We are proactive in the care of our patients, not reactive. This is what I mean by are you proactive or reactive in your hiring choices, in your training choices, in your retention choices. You’re not at the whim of an insurance executive who wants to buy a new jet. You’re in your whim. You’re a small business owner. You get to choose. I’m in your face right now with intention. I want to wake you up. If you fell into the PPO slumber and you’re writing off 40 percent and it’s strangling your ability to take care of patients and to hire the team that’s dedicated to that. Hello, the alarm clock is going off. There’s a way out. We have helped thousands and thousands of practitioners across the country get off PPOs if you need to. I know it sounds weird, but your fee schedule is directly tied to your ability to hire. Your open time, average dentist has 23 percent open time. Open time is directly tied to your overhead. All of these things connect and they all come down to the bottom line of your labor cost. Doctors ask us all the time, “Hey, I’m spending 33 percent on labor. Should I fire people?” Heck no. You should have a team of people who want to be productive and get in there and take care of your patients. Period. End of story. Go to your charts. How much unscheduled treatment is on the books today? How active are you at reappointing patients for care? How active are you in retaining your patient base and growing it? I know this sounds terribly fundamental and it’s weird that I’m, I’m bringing this up and employer branding and hiring, but it goes to the culture of who you are, be who you are.

[00:05:51] Victoria: And if that’s a PPO environment, then maximize your efficiency. Delegate to the lowest level that you can. If you’re a dentist, you should only be doing dentist things. If you’re a hygienist, you should only be doing hygiene things. Hire an incredible assistant to help you.  Now, do you need to do assisted hygiene all the time? Not necessarily. I’ve created schedules where we do assisted in primetime, mornings and afternoons, and our healthy patients who are compliant get primetime. I save my middle of the day for reactivated patients that are going to need longer appointments and more care. There’s so many creative ways to set your standard of care in motion and become more proactive about your business, more proactive about supporting your employees and their own career path, and more proactive as an employer in general, in the marketplace. So let’s recap things you need to do to become more proactive. Understand who you are and articulate that standard of care throughout your entire practice. We talked about the key characteristics in another episode of how you want your employees to show up. I’m challenging you to think about your own key characteristics. Who do you want to be as a doctor and who do you want to surround yourself with? Once you figure that out, cost is no problem. It comes down to marketing and patient flow. Number one, figure out who you are. Number two, understand your overhead and where your margins are and your write-offs so that you can right-size your company and hire that talented team of caregivers, and then number three, we’ll go into this in the next episode, is start branding and marketing yourself as one of the leading employers in the area.  If you do these things, I guarantee you, you’re going to have people lining up at the door to come and work for

[00:07:34] Intro/Outro: you. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Investment Grade Practices Podcast. If you find value in this episode, help us spread the word by passing it along to a dental friend, subscribe, and give us a like on iTunes or Spotify.  Learn more about building your Investment Grade Practice at productivedentist.com today. Productive Dentist Academy Podcast Network.