T-Bone Speaks

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In this week’s episode of T-Bone Speaks, I sit down with Dr. Kyle McKinney from Hickory, North Carolina.

Dr. Kyle McKinney is a member of the American Dental Association, North Carolina Dental Society and the Academy of General Dentistry. In his free time, you can find him at the golf course or his local study clubs. He continues to invest in his education to provide the best possible dental care to his patients. As part of his mission to continue his education and learn more about dentistry, he took a course at 3D-Dentists on the implant pathway. It was during his time here that I had the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss his practice.

To listen to the interview click on the podcast player below:

Dr. Kyle McKinney recently purchased a new practice in Hickory, and he had some questions regarding how to grow his practice and introduce more procedures over time.

Here’s what we discussed:

When should you hire an associate dentist?

Adding an associate dentist to your new practice is a big step and not something you should consider lightly. If your practice is under six months old, it’s probably not the best time for you to add an associate BUT it is something you should have on your radar from a long-term perspective.

We can look at it from three different angles; Economic, Lifestyle, and Procedural. Your perspective on this subject depends on your own needs, and the needs of your practice.

1. The Economic Perspective

A practice should start thinking about adding an associate to their team when it hits around 900,000 dollars. Once you hit 1 million, it’s time to get serious about it and if you surpass 1.2 million, hiring an associate dentist is a must.

The numbers can increase or decrease based on the business model of your practice. If it’s a heavy PPO based practice model, the numbers may be slightly lower. If it’s a fee for service business model, the numbers may be higher.

2. The Lifestyle Perspective

When thinking about adding an associate to your practice, you need to consider your lifestyle. If you want to take time off work and maintain a living without increasing your income, an associate is the right decision for you.

3. The Procedural Perspective

If you want to expand your services and the skillset of your practice, bringing an associate on board can be the right decision for you. For example, if you want to devote more time on implants like Dr. Kyle McKinney, my advice to you would be to focus on that and bring on an associate to assist with everyday dental procedures such as hygiene checks.

Associate Pay Structure

The basic approach to finding the right person for the job is to decide what traits, skills and education your ideal candidate must have and then find somebody that fits that description.

When it comes to the associate pay structure, pay them the same amount as you get paid. If you get paid 30%, make sure your associate gets paid 30%. As the business owner of the practice, you’re entitled to the business profits, but your associate is not.

How can you add new procedures to your practice?

We discussed how to approach the task of adding new procedures to a practice. Kyle wants to begin implementing implants to his practice, and I suggested that the best way to achieve this goal is to dedicate one day per month on this service. Once you begin to get more comfortable with the procedure, you can transfer the service into your regular workflow schedule.

What is the next step after taking a course with 3D-Dentists?

Kyle asked me an intriguing question regarding his standpoint, and he wanted to know what the best step for him would be following the completion of his course.

I advised Kyle to focus on the technology within the implant world. By focusing on what 80% of his practice will be doing, he can start moving forward towards immediate placement of this service.

We also talked about 3D printing and why outsourcing this at a reasonable cost is the best decision to help you focus your time on more important aspects of your practice.

Understanding that success isn’t always easy

It’s essential to have a clear picture of where you want your practice to be in two, five or ten years from now. I didn’t get to where I am today overnight. It took 15 years of hard work and good decisions, as well as some bad ones.

The three worst decisions I’ve ever made in my career are the following:

1. Keeping team members too long

2. Not getting an associate early enough

3. Not investing in digital marketing

The future of the Ask T-Bone Podcast

If you enjoyed this week’s episode of T-Bone Speaks and you want to decide what we’ll discuss in our next “Ask T-Bone” podcast, click the “Ask T-Bone" to submit your question. If your question is chosen, you can do an in-person coaching call, or we can have one over the web using video and audio technology.

You can watch my discussion with Dr. Kyle McKinney in the video below:


This article originally appeared on T-BoneSpeaks.com.