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Office Visit: Dr. Ross Bennett

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Categories: Practice Management, HR and Accounting;
Office Visit: Designed to Evolve 

This Townie’s small-city practice transitioned into a 10,000-square-foot powerhouse—and now it’s won a design award

by Kyle Patton, Editor
photography by Justin White

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.
After transforming a former church into a thriving dental practice, this Missouri Townie expanded his office with thoughtful design, patient input and ergonomic solutions prioritizing efficiency and comfort. Drawing on his business acumen—an MBA—and a family background in interior design, Dr. Ross Bennett created a space that met both team and patient needs, allowing the practice to flourish without raising prices in the early years.

In our exclusive Q&A, he shares insights on the challenges of the renovation process, lessons learned from his mentors, the importance of thoughtful practice management, how his MBA has provided a competitive edge in private practice and more.


Office Highlights
NAME:
Dr. Ross Andrew Bennett

GRADUATED FROM:
University of Missouri
Kansas City, 2007

PRACTICE NAME:
Bennett Family Dentistry
Cape Girardeau, Missouri

PRACTICE SIZE:
10,700 square feet;
21 operatories

TEAM SIZE:
37
Your practice won an ADA Design Innovation Award in the large new build category. What elements of your office are you especially proud of?

Being born and raised in Cape Girardeau, it was important to create an office that serves my community. While I’m proud of the design, it’s the people who serve others that matter most. We prioritized selecting equipment and design that allow our team to function at their best. For example, we provided options between more ergonomic-minded chairs and traditional chairs based on team preference.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw our team struggle to meet fitness goals, so we created an on-site gym with cardio equipment and weights. We also hosted fitness classes like Pilates and yoga. Investing in our team’s well-being has improved the care we provide.

For patients, we asked what mattered most during visits. They said comfortable chairs, low wait times, cleanliness and high ceilings. We incorporated their feedback into the design. We also trusted our team to help design functional spaces like the sterilization area.

My MBA Capstone Project focused on our practice, helping me research and implement the best equipment for both team and patients. Our office now features patient chairs with massage and heat settings, CEREC same-day crowns, iTero scanners, MouthWatch cameras and soundproof rooms for patients with dental fears.


Your current office reflects several expansions. Tell us about your first location and how you got to where you are now.

The previous build was a church that my parents purchased in 1982. The building had a beautiful wooden vaulted ceiling that our patients loved. When I joined the practice, my dad had finished seven operatories. Looking at our future, we knew we would likely renovate this office one time before either building or moving to a larger space. We decided to add three more operatories and renovate another one.

I had each of our four new dental operatories designed differently. One room used rear delivery, one used side delivery, one used chair-mounted delivery and the last utilized over-the-head delivery. All our dentists and team members took turns working in the various operatory designs, and all the dentists and assistants agreed we preferred the over-the-head delivery system utilized by Design Ergonomics and Ergonomic Products. By trying out the four different options over a three-year period, it took the guesswork out of what design we preferred for the new office.


What decisions went into the build process?

Every city we visited for about two years, we would drive around and look at brick. In fact, we still joke with our kids when we get in the car that we are just going to drive around and look at brick.

I can’t estimate the number of hours, trips, conversations, etc., that I spent during the building process. If I could do it all over again knowing what I know now, I would have hired Design Ergonomics and let them do the entire project from start to finish—but I would stay actively involved as well.

I was extremely fortunate that our office manager at the time was my aunt, Trish Stahly, who runs an interior design firm. The important parts to me were the floor plan and the functionality, and she loved creating the feel and experience for the patient. With our knowledge and relationship, we were able to achieve the result we both wanted.
What advice do you have for dentists going through a build, remodel or expansion?

Set objectives and ensure your project aligns with your goals. I wasted time designing play areas and slides—none of which made the final cut.

We wanted a professional, productive space. Many dentists build their “Taj Mahal” and then deal with patient complaints about costs, which is why we didn’t raise prices in the first few years. When patients mentioned high treatment costs, we politely pointed out we hadn’t raised prices in the new building.

Focus on a functional, productive floor plan with features that matter to your team and patients.

Talk to colleagues, research on Dentaltown and attend courses to learn your design preferences. I wanted a productive, efficient and affordable design, so I chose Design Ergonomics to manage our project. Their services were excellent, and they sent Angie Bachman to help with training and implementation. She rocked it! She helped our team settle into their operatories and create systems we still use four years later.

Involve your team and patients. In our old office, we asked patients what they liked, and we made sure to incorporate those features. We also addressed things they didn’t like, such as noise and parking. The new office has a quiet area with two operatories featuring ceiling-mounted TVs, and we added 35 ground-level parking spaces.

Involving our experienced, trusted team members was my best decision. The reality is that I don’t know the best place for our radiology supplies to go—but I know someone who does. I recommend trusting them to work alongside you on the project—you will both be much happier for it!


How can dental schools better prepare the next generation of dentists?

Dental schools must add business classes to their curriculum. While UMKC provided an excellent clinical education, today’s skyrocketing tuition limits students’ postgraduate opportunities and schools can’t ignore the debt burden. The admissions process should be reevaluated. Prioritizing standardized testing weeds out social, patient-focused candidates, leading to dentists who struggle with communication and patient care.


What was your most humbling experience in dentistry?

Surprisingly, my most humbling experience is also my proudest moment: learning the art of referral. At the beginning of my career, I viewed referring patients as a weakness or admission of giving up. However, it is important for dentists to recognize that we are entrusted to do what is best for our patients. It was both humbling and freeing to realize that my patient is better served by an endodontist completing their root canal in 70 minutes vs. me completing the procedure in 120 minutes over two visits.

A simple guide that my dad taught me: Every patient is someone’s child, parent, grandparent, etc. Recommend the same treatment to them as you would to your own family. Very simple, yet profound.


How do you like to manage your practice?

Management is a lonely world. Rarely does anyone ever say “good job” or “I appreciate you” for how you handle situations in management. Five years ago, I would have recommended dentists not spend the money for management and instead spend time and energy to attract, develop and train great people.

But as our practice has grown to more than 35 employees, we are consistently managing schedules, time-off requests, sick time, etc. I think it is extremely important to either have or develop a great management team.


Tell us some of the mentors and positive influences you’ve had throughout your career.

First off, I have to mention Dr. Howard Farran—and not just because this is a Dentaltown article. His 30-Day Dental MBA course and books are management gold. If you only remember one thing about this article, go listen to Howard’s 30-Day Dental MBA—it will challenge your beliefs and provoke great change within your career.

I have been fortunate to learn from some of dentistry’s greatest superstars: aesthetics with Drs. David Hornbrook and John Nosti, functional occlusion with Dr. Frank Spear, endodontics with Dr. Reid Pullen, dental sleep medicine with Dr. Barry Glassman and practice management from the late Dr. Joe Steven. I recommend finding passionate, energetic individuals such as these and soaking up all of the knowledge you can from them.

If you can, I highly recommend taking hands-on courses. I took five or six courses on veneers before starting my first case—and I was still unprepared. But after taking Hornbrook’s functional anterior aesthetics course, I have approached all my cases with confidence.
Top Products
PRIMESCAN AND PRIMEMILL
Seeing my work on a large screen has made me a better dentist and helped my patients receive a higher quality of dentistry. I couldn’t go back to impressions and temporaries!

ERGONOMIC PRODUCTS DELIVERY UNITS
Since two of our dentists are lefthanded and two are right-handed, we tried several L/R convertible options. Our dentists voted unanimously for Ergonomic Products delivery units.

MOLAR MEDIA MOUNT
These mounts allow any room with an overhead light to be converted into a multimedia center. We utilize the mounts to connect our office iPads and provide entertainment options for patients.

LUMADENT LOUPES AND LIGHTS
With more than 30 clinical team members, it is important to find a dependable, quality option to equip our dental professionals. Our dentists, hygienists and dental assistants all utilize Lumadent products.

ITERO 5D
The tools on the new iTero scanners help the patient visualize their mouth as we see it. This helps create conversations and treatment options.

What difference did your MBA make in running your practice?

I earned my MBA in 2018 from William Woods University. The curriculum gave me a greater background in finance, economics and other business areas. My father and I discussed the direction of dentistry, especially with the growth of corporate dentistry. Large corporate dental chains employ MBAs and other business professionals to advise their partner practices. But we felt that if I could obtain the same business knowledge and pair it with my knowledge of dentistry, we would create a competitive advantage over corporate dentistry.

Here is one of the best exercises I performed in my MBA. First, make a list of dental procedures you currently perform. Next, create a chart with “Predictability” on one axis and “Enjoyment” on the other axis. The graph results in the following quadrants:
  • Quadrant 1: High Predictability and High Enjoyment
  • Quadrant 2: High Predictability and Low Enjoyment
  • Quadrant 3: Low Predictability and High Enjoyment
  • Quadrant 4: Low Predictability and Low Enjoyment
Then I made decisions about each of the quadrants. Quadrant 1 did not require any attention from me—I already enjoyed it, and it was predictable. Quadrant 2 required me to evaluate each procedure and figure out why I did not enjoy it—was it lack of confidence, poor experiences, etc.?

Quadrant 3 represented an action quadrant in which I wanted to take CE courses to become more predictable. Quadrant 4 represented procedures that I would refer to other dentists in our practice or quit performing entirely.

Performing this exercise helped me decide which procedures were most important for me to invest in continuing education and which procedures I needed to quit performing entirely.


Name an inexpensive investment that made a valuable impact?

An inexpensive purchase that has been a difference-maker in our practice is Dr. Casey Culberson’s Molar Media Mount. The product allows any overhead light to become a source of patient entertainment by attaching the mount to a light and an iPad to the mount. We keep a Molar Media Mount on hand for pediatric patients as well as other patients with dental fears. The technology is both inexpensive and extremely effective!


Tell us about your journey as a dentist.

I graduated from UMKC School of Dentistry in 2007 and joined my father, Dr. Michael W. Bennett, at Bennett Family Dentistry. With a family background in both dentistry and design, it soon became clear that our seven-op building wasn’t big enough for our future. I discovered Dentaltown and attended seminars by Dr. Scott Leune and Dr. David Ahearn, which helped shape my office design priorities. We flew our team to Design Ergonomics for training on LEAN concepts, and worked with designer Paul Leonard to create a practice that aligned with our business goals.


Give us a snapshot of your life outside of dentistry.

Life could not be wilder. My wife and I have five extremely busy children. We are currently in the middle of cheer, tennis, fall baseball, tackle football, flag football, speed and agility training, and competitive dance. My dad was an All-Big Eight Conference football player at the University of Missouri and signed with the Buffalo Bills before dental school. Similarly, I was an All-Big 12 Conference baseball player at Baylor and was drafted by the Washington Nationals.

I serve on several community boards and coach local football and baseball teams. My parents, my wife and I believe it’s important to stay active both professionally and personally in our community.
 
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