You went to dental school to be a dentist, but they don’t teach you much about practice management and business ownership. At the same time, a lot of dentists end up becoming entrepreneurs and setting up their own practices. Being a business owner takes up a lot of time and energy, and the clinical side that you actually went to school for can feel secondary. So are you a dentist or an entrepreneur?
Technically you can be both. It is possible to run a business and do clinical work and still feel like you’re doing what you enjoy. However, I’ve noticed that most dentists are incredibly stressed by the business ownership half of the equation. You want to be doing more of what you enjoy, and that’s dentistry. Practice management is time-consuming, stressful, and you may not have the skills to handle it. And that’s ok.
Some of you are born entrepreneurs that happen to be dentists. Others just want to do the dentistry and not worry about practice management. Both are perfectly fine, but you have to be honest with yourself about which one you are. If you’re not an entrepreneur, if you have a hard time with practice management, find a good manager to help you. It’s ok to admit you aren’t good at practice management. Once you find that manager, they can manage the staff, and handle the HR issues, they can also take on the oversight of your accounts receivable, and order supplies. And you’ll free up more of your time to do dentistry.