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Howard Speaks: Passing the Practice Baton by Dr. Howard Farran

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Categories: Practice Management, HR and Accounting; Practice Transitions;
Howard Speaks: Passing the Practice Baton 

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

By the time I graduated from dental school in the 1980s, I’d already seen federal loan interest rates skyrocket as high as 19% as Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker manufactured a recession in an attempt to combat inflation. When I bought my practice, Today’s Dental, in 1987, the rates hovered near 7%, but by the end of the decade they were back near 10% and the 10-year average CPI increase was still 5.1% a year. The price of dental care services had jumped more than 103% that decade. Not an auspicious time to start a dental practice—but far from the last financial crisis I’d weather.

I earned my MBA and founded Farran Media, the parent company of Dentaltown, in 1999— right before the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s. I was in my mid-40s when the subprime mortgage crisis led to the Great Recession of 2008. And like all of my fellow Townies, I was forced to temporarily close my practice during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stepping out of the operatory
Over the years, I’ve hired some great associates and team members to manage the day-to-day patient care at Today’s Dental. Having them fire on all cylinders gave me the freedom to build the Dentaltown website and community. (Some of those team members even followed me over to Farran Media, including Dentaltown’s clinical director, Dr. Thomas Giacobbi. And company president Lorie Xelowski will have worked with me for 25 years come June!)

Then, after Dentaltown took off, I spent more than a decade traveling the world as a guest speaker, followed by a few years talking with thousands of guests on my podcast, Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran. I also became a grandfather many times over as my sons matured, got married and grew into adulthood, and nothing beats the ability to take off for a spontaneous trip to Texas for a week or two to hang out with your grandkids!

Time to make some big changes
During the early aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, I began to notice signs of what I think will be the next financial crisis. I’ve mentioned a few of them before in previous columns, such as overly speculative stock prices for companies like Tesla, which at the end of 2020 had a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 1,000. (As of today’s writing, that number has dropped to 38.) Housing prices climbed at such a crazy rate I knew a correction was coming. I’ve been watching interest rates creep up again—as well as my age! Staring down 60, I decided it was time to make some major changes before the U.S. economy took a major downturn.

First up: selling my house. A McMansion in the Ahwatukee Foothills made sense when it was me and my sons, but now that the kids have all moved out on their own, the big house was more of a hassle than a home. I wanted to sell before the market peaked, and for a couple of years now I’ve been shacked up in a small rental in downtown Phoenix, enjoying what it’s like to live in a bustling, walkable community.

It also seemed like the right time to put Today’s Dental on the market. In addition to changes at the national level, my trusty longtime office manager, Dawn, had recently left the practice to care for her husband. It had been decades since I’d reported for daily duty in an operatory, and finding associates who made a great fit at the practice had become a challenge. As a practice owner, I wasn’t looking forward to weathering any more uncertainties over the next few years. Like those stereotypical cops-with-seniority in movies, I was getting too old for this … stuff.

What does that mean for us?
The closing date of the practice sale was March 18, 2022, which means it’s almost been a year now! In this month’s Office Visit, you’ll meet Dr. Irving Chao, the dentist who purchased Today’s Dental, although the article focuses more on this young doctor’s path to practice because the success of his office in Salinas, California, is what set him up to become the sort of dentist who owns practices in multiple states by age 36.

Dr. Chao is particularly focused on the best ways to identify, hire and train the right young doctors to be associates—something a lot of readers can take interest in as the latest batch of dental school graduates begins looking for jobs.

Meanwhile, one of the first things I did after I sold Today’s Dental was work for a week in a friend’s practice while he took a quick vacation. I may have said goodbye to practice ownership, but I would never say goodbye to dentistry! You’ll still find me as active as ever here on Dentaltown and on social media channels—in fact, I might be sharing and posting even more than I was in previous years.

I consider myself extremely lucky, and equally grateful, to be able to connect with my fellow Townies 24/7 online. So please leave your thoughts in the Comments section under this column below. I guarantee that I read and appreciate every single one, every issue, and that’s one thing that will never change!

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