Howard Speaks: Up Yours! (Productivity, That Is) by Dr. Howard Farran

by Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, publisher, Dentaltown magazine

Hey, homies! You know I love you, but that also means I’m going to call you on your BS. It doesn’t do either of us any good for me to blow smoke up your pants.

For 32 years, whenever I’ve traveled on vacation, I go check out at least one dental office in the city I’m visiting. If I go lecture, I fly into town a day or two beforehand for the same reason. I’ve been to more than a thousand dental offices around the world, and when I visit one that’s particularly cool, I post photos in that particular country’s “Your Dental Neighborhood” forum, which has forums for dentists everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, so a dentist in, say, Ohio can check out a practice in Panama, Cambodia, Malaysia, etc.

After 30 years of walking into a thousand dental offices, you know where I find the dentist 90% of the time? Sitting in the back.

You’re back in business—now get back to busy-ness

You’re used to me telling you how wonderful you are, but I’ve got to be honest: You are not a hard worker. You may be a lot of things, but a hard worker isn’t one of them.

After the pandemic hit and we had to close our practices down from, essentially, St. Patrick’s Day to Cinco de Mayo, a lot of staff still weren’t ready to come back when we reopened—especially people who might be taking care of kids at home. People were posting on Dentaltown about hygienists calling in crying, saying, “I’m scared. I don’t want to bring this home to my family.” So we lost a lot of labor.

But what did everybody see in their July, August and September protocols? When they opened back up, the market bounced back—to at least 70% right out of the gate, and the most efficient operators went right back to 100%.

Along with that, practices saw a massive increase in profitability, because labor is a practice owner’s second-biggest cost. The pandemic virus scared away enough labor—assistant, hygienists, front desk—that dentists are actually having to do work they normally would’ve handed to someone else while they sat in the back, browsing DentalPorn.com.

How many of you have ever gone up to your staff and said, “By the way, if I have a cancellation and someone’s dying to get their teeth cleaned, put them in with me. I brought my lunch to work; I don’t need a full hour. I’ll be happy to do a lunch clean.” Not many—in fact, I’d say 90% of dentists have told their offices that they’re not available for cleanings ever, because they think they’re all that and a bag of chips. But if insurance is paying you $65 for a cleaning and you’re paying a hygienist $40 an hour, you’re probably not making much money when your average overhead is 65%.

Now’s the perfect time to get used to doing more work yourself. Do some cleanings! Make that temporary! Consider this labor scare a blessing in disguise.