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Office Visit: Dr. Maggie Augustyn by Kyle Patton

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Categories: Practice Management, HR and Accounting;
Office Visit: Dr. Maggie Augustyn 

Overcoming early career challenges and a battle with cancer transformed this Townie into a powerful supporter, mentor and advocate for other doctors

by Kyle Patton
photography by Robin Subar

Dentists spend most of their working hours inside their own practices, so they usually don’t get many opportunities to see what it’s like inside another doctor’s office. Dentaltown’s recurring Office Visit profile offers a chance for Townies to meet their peers, hear their stories and get a sense of how they practice.
For the first 15 years of her career, Dr. Maggie Augustyn, FAAIP, FICOI, adhered strictly to a detached, clinical demeanor and harbored deep skepticism about her place in the profession. Her struggles with mental health remained mostly hidden, but were further exacerbated during her battle with cancer. Now, Augustyn is forthright about the challenges she faced and advocates for bettering the profession by encouraging dentists to look inward.

In our exclusive Q&A, Dr. Augustyn confronts the mental health issues in dentistry, shares her foray into implants, and highlights the products and services that turned her practice into a powerhouse.


Office Visit: Dr. Maggie Augustyn



Office Highlights
NAME:
Dr. Maggie Augustyn, FAAIP, FICOI

GRADUATED FROM:
University of Illinois at Chicago

PRACTICE:
Happy Tooth, Elmhurst, Illinois

PRACTICE SIZE:
3,500 square feet; 7 ops

TEAM SIZE:
14 
The biggest transformation of your practice has occurred over the past five years. Describe that transformation.

A few years before the pandemic, I evaluated our office, an HMO and public aid practice. We served 10,500 patients a year and 800 new patients annually, yet collected only 25% of our $4 million service value, with overheads between 69%–75%. We barely had any profits, often struggling with $100 in our account and significant credit card debt.

Cancer changed my perspective in 2019, leading me to pursue life coaching and professional guidance from Productive Dentist Academy. In three years, through relentless effort, planning and change, we achieved significant growth and profitability. My advice is to seek expert help, create accountability and commit to a plan. For me, that meant three years of 60-hour weeks. In 2022, I had 24 contact hours with patients per week but worked three times that. Two of those three years were in practice coaching. We created a million-dollar growth in our practice receipts, profitability and an overhead to be envied. But to achieve this, my team and I needed to experience some uncomfortable changes, difficult conversations and challenging concepts.


Your work outside of clinical practice focuses on mental health and wellness. What about dentistry makes these areas so challenging?

Our professional lives are filled with challenges that are deeply rooted in how we perceive and evaluate ourselves. Initially, it’s an insatiable pursuit of the unattainable—a fascination with high scores, grades and numbers that tracks back to our academic rigor. In dentistry, this quest for validation morphs as our clinical skills are judged to the minutiae. We’ve inadvertently allowed the precision of our work to overshadow the larger value of our efforts, casting competent treatment as inadequate when it falls short of perfection. Further, the speakers we often see on our stages portray an illusion of flawless success. In our fear of judgment, we shy away from discussing our setbacks, preferring silence over the potential for critique.


 What are some practical approaches dentists can take to better their overall wellness?

Noticing when you’re stretching past a margin of sanity is key, as is monitoring your mood and paying attention to how kind or unkind you are with the people around you—especially those you love most. Those can all be indications of putting more on your plate than you can handle. The truth is that we know, intuitively, when we’ve had enough; we just think we can manage to push past it. In this, we suffer.


What has been the most important change in how you run your practice?

My early years were marked by a strict adherence to a detached, clinical demeanor that valued authority and expertise more than empathy and connection. It’s what I was taught. Confronting my mortality in a battle with cancer began a profound shift toward servant leadership. Part of this shift has been recognizing when I'm careless with my words, admitting when I am wrong, and trying to foster a culture of support, empowerment and collective success among the people around me.


What challenges have you faced as a woman in this profession?

Navigating the professional world as a woman without clear role models in either clinical dentistry or practice ownership, and battling the private shame associated with my mental health.

As a young dentist, I needed to have my credentials displayed prominently, or I’d incessantly be ushered to rooms filled with dental assistants and dental hygienists. Simultaneously, a struggle with depression cast a long shadow, forcing me to guard my mental health history with secrecy.

Today, I mentor many young female dentists and practice owners. Our collective stance is a testament to the realms of possibility.

I'm invited onstage as a keynote speaker to reflect on the challenges and battles of not just my past but my constant present. Colleagues openly discuss with me their own emotional battles, often at first meetings. Moments like this make the milestones shine.


You’ve made a name for yourself as a speaker and a prolific writer.

For about 15 years of my career in dentistry, I found myself terribly alone. And I found myself running a failed practice but was disproportionately fearful of admitting that to anyone— including myself. I just accepted the idea that I was never going to be an excellent clinician. I settled for "good enough" and making a fair living. I accepted the fact that, like most of the world, I was going to dread coming to work every Monday.

Then, a battle with cancer awakened a new reality: The life I'd been leading up to that moment wasn't the life I wanted to lead moving forward. That inspired me to search who I was, what my strengths were and how I was going to incorporate those into my failing practice. In time, I found my tribe and my support and I regained a sense of compassion.

Joining the world of speaking and writing, while also making time to hold a handpiece and run and manage a practice, continues to be a challenge. I have pushed myself to the brink and my body kept the score!

But the drive to push, to publish and to speak is related to the fact that as I write, I also process and heal. It’s my therapy, and I’d likely be doing that regardless of my words making it to print. But above all, my fuel and catalyst has been to create a world in which no one feels as alone as I did. I want to create a better world than I entered, for the sake of my daughter.


You know what you like and focus on it. What’s your message to dentists who feel like they have to say yes to every case?

I practiced most of my career as a public aid/HMO dentist. Compensation was minimal: $58 for a complex filling, $235 for a dental crown and a mere $23 for an extraction—figures that remained static into 2019. During this period, the fabric of my professional identity was woven through encounters with diverse patient demographics, the refining of dental protocols and a marked increase in procedural efficiency. This crucible of financial limitation not only enhanced my budgetary skills but also taught me the invaluable lesson of resourcefulness.

The notion that we should eagerly accept every opportunity—especially in the nascent stages of our clinical practice, when we have yet to establish a patient base and are struggling financially or still exploring our professional desires—is not flawed.

It took me two decades to realize my affinity for surgery and endodontics, a discovery made through a comprehensive exploration of the field, including engaging in areas that ultimately did not resonate with me.

Top Products
PRODUCTIVE DENTIST ACADEMY’S support guides our practice not just toward profitability but also in alleviating the pressure on my team. PDA is committed to refining our processes and revising protocols to lighten the collective burden, enabling us to center our attention on what truly counts— our relationships with one another and with our patients.

eASSIST saved us when our busy practice was left, with no notice, in the hands of a single treatment plan coordinator. Almost instantaneously, the company provided us with virtual assistance for insurance verification. This intervention has evolved into a pivotal component of our ongoing success.

PRACTICE BY NUMBERS can access real-time data, dissecting metrics such as hourly production and overhead within a singular portal. This tool provides a panoramic view of our practice's profitability. It’s also an integral part of our communication with patients.

BIEN AIR HANDPIECES are thoughtfully designed with female practitioners in mind. Their compact form stands in contrast to bulkier alternatives, alleviating the strain on hands and arms while retaining the same level of power, reducing chairside time on almost all procedures.

GROUPUPS has unparalleled negotiation abilities. It has been instrumental in reducing the cost of our CBCT and handheld X-ray machines. I have a firm intention in seeking its partnership for all future equipment purchases.

What gives you the most satisfaction from the clinical side of the practice?

A crisp crown margin, a puff of sealant past the apex, a miniscule canal opened, a PRF membrane, a challenging extraction and a suture placed. I feel fullfiled. Elated. I do not take for granted how very lucky I am.


What was your last major investment? What will your next investment likely be?

My most recent investments involved education—implant education, to be more specific, as well as implant armamentarium, centrifuge and CBCT. Next? I’d like to get Bien-Air handpieces in every operatory. We will also continue with Productive Dentist Academy coaching and training.


What mistake turned out to be the best teachable moment?

A particularly humbling experience stands out: being dismissed from my first associateship, at a high-tech, fee-for- service practice with a close-knit, loyal team. My arrogance led me to underestimate the value of collaboration, particularly after clashing with a hygienist over patient treatment. Contrary to my expectations, the practice owner chose her experience over my title, teaching me a lesson in humility and the true essence of patient care.


What’s your favorite patient story?

I took care of a patient who had suffered with PTSD on account of a past dental experience. She considered spending $3,500 she didn’t have to hire an anesthesiologist for a root canal she needed. After listening to her story, I persuaded her to let me try to carry her through the treatment with just a prescription for Xanax.

We succeeded for the first 30 minutes, until she saw me holding an endodontic file: Her brain was hijacked by the PTSD, and she felt like she was back in the hands of the endodontist who had hurt her. She began shaking and crying uncontrollably, so we stopped the procedure and I sat her up, held her hand, looked right at her and did the opposite of what I’d been taught my entire career: I didn’t hold back my own emotions. She saw me tear up. I told her I was there to help her and to carry her, as promised. We could stop and reappoint, or we could keep going with her permission. I empowered her to feel strong and capable. Thirty minutes later, we finished the procedure. It was one of the most privileged moments of my career.


What’s a trend you dislike in the profession?

Everything around us is about money. We want to buy things for the lowest cost, sell them at a premium, undercut anyone in the middle and make the most profit we can. We are jeopardizing the health of our patients by putting profit over people, jeopardizing the well-being of our team and ourselves.

When I interview for various positions in my office, I find people fleeing impossible work situations in which care is not dictated by the needs and desires of the patients but rather by the bottom line of the investors.


Tell us about your foray into the world of implants.

The path was anything but linear! Practicing in a public aid and HMO office, often compensated minimally for my work, meant I had to do more to make ends meet. The lack of mentorship did not deter my spirit; instead, it ignited a steadfast resolve to master my skill. This self-taught phase laid a rugged foundation for my professional evolution—a testament to the love for the challenge and the satisfaction derived from overcoming it.

Years later, my ambition to learn implant placement emerged from a deep-seated desire to offer affordable care to patients. I’ve been inspired by the fearless enthusiasm of some young dentists, including Drs. Ben Baranes, Feras Ziadat and Mostafa Al-Wakeel, at a Dental Nachos event.

Twenty years in, I have very little anxiety chairside. The transition was made possible through the rare yet invaluable mentorship of Dr. John Pawluk, who not only came to my office to teach me how to place a bone grafting but also spent time guiding me on CBCT interpretation. And after knocking on the doors of specialists with whom I had collaborated over the years, I was finally connected to Dr. Chad Johnson, who became my mentor.

It has been a challenging journey, and it continues to be so. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve had to learn in my years of practice.


How did you find your way into dentistry?

There's nothing romantic about my story. I loved science, especially molecular biology. I had incredible professors in undergrad, including Drs. Allison Wilson and Donald Taylor. I wanted to be a researcher. My dad, a 50-year veteran researcher in medicinal chemistry holding both a PhD and a ScD, dissuaded me from entering that field. He had witnessed first-hand the skepticism toward women in science, and he had a front-row seat to the difficulty in balancing their ambition with motherhood. I loved working with my hands, so I threw a dart at dentistry


Feeling blue about your practice? Learn more online about the power of color in dental office design

When Dr. Maggie Augustyn was planning the redesign of her practice building and logo, she relied on newfound knowledge about how color can affect our mood and psychology. In an exclusive article online on Dentaltown, Augustyn recaps the major takeaways and shares how they affected her final choices.

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