Start Up the Right Way (E.247)

In this solo episode, Dr. Bruce Baird answers a vital question from a startup dentist:
“How do I schedule for productivity from the beginning?”

Bruce lays out a clear and powerful roadmap that flips the traditional scheduling mindset on its head. Instead of squeezing new patients into hygiene or cramming your day with 10-minute blocks, he urges you to design every hour of your schedule around production goals—not time.

• How to schedule a comprehensive exam to set the stage
•  Why patients over 25 should always see the doctor first
•  How to avoid the “Crown of the Month Club” trap
• Why startup docs should never dip below $450/hour
• The hidden cost of poor front-desk scheduling habits
•  How Clinical Calibration aligns your team and supercharges your growth

Whether you’re opening your doors or 20 years into practice, this episode gives you the tools to produce more, stress less, and lead a team that’s firing on all cylinders.

Key Listener Reflection Questions

• Do I control my schedule—or does it control me?
• Is my team aligned on how and why we book new patients the way we do?
• Am I prioritizing low-value “busyness” or high-value productivity in my startup systems?

Listen now to build smarter, faster—and lead with confidence from the beginning.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Dr. Bruce Baird: Hi, my name’s Dr. Bruce Baird with the Productive Dentist Podcast, and today we are going to talk a little bit, I’ve, I’ve had some great questions from listeners, uh, across the country, and I wanted to, to share my thoughts on some of those. Um, one of the questions was, as a startup practice, how can we implement scheduling to productivity from the start?

[00:00:27] Dr. Bruce Baird: And that’s a great question. And, and by the way, if you did that, if you started, uh, scheduling correctly from the beginning, not only will you get to profitability faster, but your productivity is gonna increase significantly from the get go. But the first thing you need to do, how to do it, you need to have a total understanding.

[00:00:50] Dr. Bruce Baird: What does it mean to schedule based on productivity? Um, not time. And you know, we’ve talked about that in the past. And when you’re [00:01:00] first starting out, you’re gonna have a lot more examinations. You know, you’re not gonna have as much clinical dentistry to start. Um, one other thing that I would say that that is critical is not only to schedule the productivity when you’re beginning a startup practice, but to begin.

[00:01:17] Dr. Bruce Baird: With comprehensive examinations, the combination of a comprehensive exam and scheduling the productivity, you can’t go wrong. Um, the clinical skills, uh, those are gonna come, uh, uh, you’re gonna recommend to patients what you know and what you’ve trained for. And just because it’s a startup practice doesn’t mean you’re, you know, this doc straight outta dental school.

[00:01:42] Dr. Bruce Baird: You can be outta school 10 years and do a startup 20 years do a startup. So. But you have the opportunity to do it, what I believe is right from the get go. And, um, and that’s super important. So by scheduling for comprehensive exams, anybody over [00:02:00] the age of say, 25 years old, uh, those patients should be seen by the doctor first.

[00:02:07] Dr. Bruce Baird: Uh, regardless of whether they say, oh, I, I just wanna get my teeth clean. Well, you may just want get your teeth cleaned, but that’s not the way our practice runs. Dr. Baird wants to meet you. He wants to get to know you, and he’ll make recommendations, and as a matter of fact, we will be able to get your teeth cleaned today or next Friday or whatever day it is because we’re gonna schedule that as part of our scheduling template.

[00:02:33] Dr. Bruce Baird: The scheduling template will have the exam. It’ll have the exam process. Uh, and then after that, whether it’s an hour, hour and a half, if I was first starting out, you can schedule an hour and a half, take a full series of x-rays, uh, imaging, do all the things that you’re gonna be doing in your new patient exam, and then have a block right after that in hygiene.

[00:02:57] Dr. Bruce Baird: Now, if that patient comes in and [00:03:00] needs dentures. You know, and that should be picked up at the front desk first. The front desk is say, okay, um, you know, plus they’re not gonna be calling in for, for a cleaning, more than likely. But if somebody does call in like that, they’re gonna still be able to be seen right after that, uh, for their appointment.

[00:03:17] Dr. Bruce Baird: Most docs, because they don’t have a policy or they don’t have a scheduling template, it becomes something to where, uh. That somebody calls up and the front desk goes, oh, oh, okay. I’m gonna put you in for hygiene first. I said this years ago, we did a marketing campaign, um, unbeknownst to me that actually had a special for cleanings and we had a lot of new patients coming in and I didn’t notice what was going on, but our productivity dropped 23% over a period of a couple months.

[00:03:51] Dr. Bruce Baird: And I’m going, what’s going on? And what I found was. Hey, they were scheduling, uh, patients straight into [00:04:00]hygiene, and I didn’t notice it. I was busy, you know, doing what I was doing. But that’s, that’s the significance of scheduling the productivity and having schedule templated properly. Um, so you’ll, you’ll have your new patient.

[00:04:15] Dr. Bruce Baird: You’re gonna do a comprehensive exam. Present total treatment like we’ve talked about in multiple different, uh, podcasts, and we’ll be doing it some more, but you can go back and look at the titles of our podcast, um, and, and kind of pick up on, on some ideas that will help you, uh, in this comprehensive exam.

[00:04:35] Dr. Bruce Baird: Then you’re scheduling the patient. What if they needed, uh, three crowns or four crowns? Remember, dentistry? Is going to get expensive. The longer a patient waits, I tell patients, you know, uh, we better hurry and get it done now because I’ve been doing this for 40 years and it’s always been more expensive next year than it is this [00:05:00] year.

[00:05:00] Dr. Bruce Baird: But for the most part, if we’re marketing to the right people, then what we’re gonna find is that they actually need the dentistry that we like to do. And so if I scheduled, uh, let’s say I had two crowns to schedule, and if you’re starting out in a startup, practice your production per hour. Um, you know, I would start out my production per hour at 4, 4 75 or 450 an hour.

[00:05:26] Dr. Bruce Baird: And what does that mean? Well, that’s the national average. So I want have an IIII don’t wanna start out less than that. Uh, now it’s true. Uh, it depends on. New patient flow. It depends on location, it depends on all those things, but I would say start out at 450 to 4 7 5 an hour. Then what would happen if you did schedule?

[00:05:47] Dr. Bruce Baird: What if you scheduled, uh, these two crowns and they were 1500 each? That’s $3,000. Um, how long would you wanna schedule? Is this startup practice? You know, it’s 3000 [00:06:00] bucks. Let’s just say it’s 500 an hours. Your goal? Our philosophy, you’re gonna schedule six hours for that procedure. Six hours to do, you know, two crowns at 1500.

[00:06:13] Dr. Bruce Baird: If you charge a thousand for the crowns, you’re gonna, how long you’re gonna, you’re gonna schedule four hours. And people always say, Bruce, why on earth would you schedule four hours for something that’s $2,000? Well, and it’s only gonna take me 45 minutes. Well, the reason is because I set a goal. I only have two goals in the practice.

[00:06:37] Dr. Bruce Baird: One is to reach my goals, and the other is, as I’ve said many times, is to take great care of the patients and by following this protocol as opposed to doing, you know, you know, doing the slashes and exes where doctor’s time, assistant time, and trying to book it that way. What you’re gonna find is you, you’re, you’re [00:07:00] booking that way, you’re booking the least efficient system.

[00:07:03] Dr. Bruce Baird: That there is to book, uh, Dentrix calls that perfect day scheduling. Um, why is it inefficient? Well, because as soon as you get behind, as soon as that tooth turns into endo, or as soon as that tooth turns into something more, more, uh, involved, guess what You’re running behind. And even worse, if you’re scheduling new patients in hygiene, now you’re running behind and checking hygiene patients.

[00:07:31] Dr. Bruce Baird: With no time to actually, uh, do a comprehensive exam and tell them what they really need to have done. And so what does this lead to? You know? And that’s why startups, man, you, you’ve got the opportunity to do it right from the get go. That’s awesome because you know you’re gonna be able to tell patients what they actually need without, you know, without worrying about cost, without worrying about any of those things, otherwise.

[00:07:59] Dr. Bruce Baird: The, the [00:08:00] reason that I, I, I say most docs are 4 75 an hour, national average. Um, the reason they’re there is because they’re seeing new patients in hygiene. They don’t have time to tell the patient what they, they really need to have done. They don’t get to evaluate their aesthetic risk, their their functional risk, their perio risk, their biomechanical risk.

[00:08:19] Dr. Bruce Baird: They’re physiologic risk. They don’t have time to do any of that. Because Hygiene’s already running behind because you were running behind going to check them. And so what you end up doing is the crown of the month club, uh, or the crown of the year club. So you see a new patient, you know, you market, you go out in the marketplace and everything else.

[00:08:37] Dr. Bruce Baird: And I don’t care if you’re a PPO, I don’t care if you’re a fee for service practice, uh, that does external marketing. It doesn’t really matter. The systems are the same if you’re checking hygiene for new patients. You’re gonna find yourself, uh, behind the eight ball from the get go, and you’re gonna become a a tooth orthodontist.

[00:08:57] Dr. Bruce Baird: 95% of all crowns are done in the United [00:09:00] States, one tooth at a time. Why? It has nothing to do with whether people can afford it. It has nothing to do with anything except the fact I. You don’t have the time to go in and do a comprehensive exam. So what you do is you pick the low hanging fruit and you say, this is the one we wanna do today.

[00:09:16] Dr. Bruce Baird: This is the one, Bob. It’s time, you know? And they go, okay, let’s do that one crown. As opposed to. Breaking things down and going through our scheduling to productivity courses and going through to to understand exactly the process that you wanna follow. And one other thing that’s super important is having.

[00:09:39] Dr. Bruce Baird: Your team calibrated. Um, we we’re starting a program called Clinical Calibration Institute, which having your practice calibrated means the front desk knows exactly what what’s going on in the practice, what your philosophy of care is. Your hygienists do, your chair sides, which are the ones you schedule.[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] Dr. Bruce Baird: We don’t schedule from the front, we schedule from the back, and that’s where, that’s where things happen. And you know, I don’t expect my front desk to answer the phone and somebody asks, what do they ask the question? I need to get in for what Dr. Beard told me I needed to get that crown done. And they pick up a dart, they throw it up on the schedule and they say, how about Wednesday?

[00:10:22] Dr. Bruce Baird: In other words, there’s no rhyme. There’s no reason to why we do what we do. Um, and what I want to do is structurally put something together that allows me maximum productivity, maximum profitability. And when you do that, what you end up doing is you end up growing your business so much faster. Uh, you know, and as a startup again.

[00:10:49] Dr. Bruce Baird: Perfect time, um, is, is to do it right from the beginning. And so people always say, should I come to PDA? Should I learn this stuff? Absolutely. That’s the time to come. But I will tell you, if you’ve [00:11:00] been at 25 years and you’re not scheduling the productivity and you’re, and you’re seeing patients in hygiene, first, a new philosophy of care can increase your productivity per hour by 400, 500, $600 an hour, which is.

[00:11:16] Dr. Bruce Baird: 400, 500, 600, $700,000 a year in production and collections. Dentistry is not about speed. It’s not about how fast you can do things. It’s about setting ’em up, setting up your day so that you have maximum effect. Now people will say, do you keep the patient in the chair for four hours if you’re doing two cramps?

[00:11:37] Dr. Bruce Baird: No. No. But the, the, the patient and my team member, my treatment coordinator have plenty of time. There is no rush. You know, and I’ve told people, you know, my first 20 years in practice, I think I just ran from room to room saying, I’m sorry I’m running late, because that’s what I did. I still produced a lot of dentistry because we had so many patients.

[00:11:59] Dr. Bruce Baird: But I tell [00:12:00] you what. When I changed the way I did it all of a sudden, and as many of you know, the last 14 years in practice, I worked two days a week, but was able to produce over $2 million a year. And that comes down to other issues, but when your whole team is calibrated. And everybody understands case acceptance and how, how that all fits in, in the, uh, in the new patient exam.

[00:12:25] Dr. Bruce Baird: How it fits in seeing a regular schedule. Patients, when they understand that, first of all, stress levels go down across the board, your team is less stressed. You are certainly less stressed. And guess what happens to production? It goes up and what happens to collections, it goes up because nobody has time in your office, uh, during the day to call people who owe you money, uh, because they’re so busy and you’re running behind.

[00:12:53] Dr. Bruce Baird: So, um, I. Anyway, that is a question from a listener, and please send me [00:13:00] questions toBruce@productivedentist.com and I’ll do a special podcast specifically on your question. So, uh, I look forward to the next one. Thanks for watching this and listening to us. Uh, and check out the Clinical Calibration Institute.

[00:13:16] Dr. Bruce Baird: You can go to productive dentist.com and look at it. It is, um. Anywhere from $695 to $995 per month for your entire team training, which the team training includes training docs, training hygienists, training associates, training chairside, training administrators, so, uh, and all of that in separate. You know, categories, tons of content, and for the less, less than the cost of a crown a month.

[00:13:47] Dr. Bruce Baird: So, uh, we’re super excited about it. Let us know. Go see us@productivedentist.com. Look forward to the next time.