April showers may bring May flowers, but for dentists, April also brings a downpour of stress management reminders and, mercifully, a sprinkle of humor. April is both National Stress Management Month and National Sense of Humor Month. Coincidence? Probably not. Especially not for dentists, whose daily lives include more drilling than an oil rig and more stress than treating your mother-in-law.
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the waiting room: dentistry is more stressful than ever. Once upon a time, you hung a shingle, saw your neighbors’ kids, then their kids, and eventually their grandkids, and everyone brought you cookies during the holidays (even if they were bad for teeth). Fast-forward to today, and suddenly you’re not just a dentist. You’re a business owner, a customer service rep, a human resources department, a marketing guru, and an unwilling participant in a gladiator match against corporate dental Goliaths, insurance companies with the empathy of a brick, and patients whose loyalty is as fleeting as their willingness to floss.
Let’s be honest—running a dental practice today can feel like juggling handpieces while riding a unicycle on a treadmill…that’s on fire.
The emergence of corporate dental practices has turned the once-cozy profession into a high-stakes reality show. Insurance companies are playing gatekeeper like they’re protecting the crown jewels, denying claims like Oprah gives out cars—"You get denied! You get denied! EVERYBODY gets denied!" Meanwhile, patients are hopping between dentists like they’re on Tinder. Swipe left for no co-pay, right for the best care.
In these chaotic times, dentists are expected to carry on with a smile (a professionally enhanced one, naturally) while they silently scream inside. It’s enough to make you consider taking up accounting…Almost.
So how do you manage this stress? You could scream into a pillow, or aggressively floss your pet…OR…you could do something far more effective—talk to someone who “gets it”.
Enter the mentor. Not just any mentor, but someone like Dr. Steven Katz, who’s navigated the dental battlefield and lived to polish another restoration. Dr. Katz has dedicated himself to sharing the lessons that he has learned during a long and diversified career in the dental world.
Dr. Katz has helped dentists step out of survival mode and into growth mode. He doesn’t help with managing the practice, because management does not boost production. He helps with introducing, implementing and managing the things that could greatly increase the productivity and success of the practice. Whether you’re trying to streamline systems, boost revenue, or just survive another team meeting without flipping the break room table, having someone in your corner can help to turn chaos into confidence.
But let’s not forget the other incredible secret weapon in your dental supply cart: humor. Yes, laughter really is the best medicine—right after fluoride, of course. A good sense of humor doesn’t just lift your spirits—it transforms your practice environment. When the doctor laughs, the team laughs. When the team laughs, patients feel relaxed. And when patients feel relaxed, they’re less likely to mistake your gentle care for medieval torture.
Humor diffuses tension, disarms difficult situations, and turns mundane moments into memorable ones. Even something as simple as saying, “Don’t worry, the Novocain shot will be the highlight of your day,” with a wink, can lighten the mood. It creates connection. It builds camaraderie. And most importantly, it reminds everyone—this is still, first and foremost, relationship-driven work.
Dentists often forget that stress doesn't just exist in the their treatment rooms—it creeps into the entire team dynamic. When stress goes unchecked, it becomes the symptom-less cavity in the morale of your practice. When humor is part of the daily culture, it acts like mental floss, keeping tension from building up and giving yours and your team’s minds the freedom to focus on what really matters—growing your practice, improving patient care, and, maybe, even enjoying your dentistry just a little more.
So, this month, while you’re grinding your teeth over insurance claims and corporate competitors, take a moment to laugh. Then maybe, just maybe, pick up the phone and call Dr. Steven Katz so that we can find reason to laugh together. Dentistry is too important—and too stressful—to go it alone.
Smile wide. Laugh often. And remember: behind every great dentist is an eager mentor… and maybe a really good joke.
If you would like to find out more about how Dental Excellence Advisory can help you grow your practice, lower your stress, and bring more joy to the performance of dentistry, send me an email at drkatz@dentalexcellenceadvisory.com or call me at 516-524-7573.
Drive past any local road construction project and you will see multiple “managers” with clipboards overseeing a few workers waiting to be told what to do. In witnessing some locations out of our area, I have personally seen construction projects with a single “manager”, usually with a bullhorn, overseeing many workers who are working efficiently and getting better results in less time. Performance is the key.
Attracting new patients, expanding capacity and onboarding additional sources of revenue will help a practice grow, over time, without a doubt. To achieve dramatic practice growth, without additional costs, and with less overall effort, there are two strategies that work without fail…improving diagnosis and increasing treatment acceptance. These concepts succeed by raising the standard of care, getting patients to appreciate the value of care, improving the patient experience and constantly exceeding patient expectations. Combine these with improved leadership and you have the "blueprint for success".
“The Blueprint for Practice Growth”, that I teach, is based on an evaluation and review of current practices for patient care within a practice, and then introducing strategies for improved and calibrated diagnosis of restorative and periodontal care opportunities. Once diagnosed, more treatment is carried out with team strategies to help patients want what the practice has determined that they could benefit from. When patients make improved decisions based on higher perceived value of care, they want the care more, and they are less sensitive to cost, or whether insurance will pay for it. People make buying decisions about cars, fine dining, and vacations based on an emotional want, not a factual need. We need to concentrate on inspiring patients to want treatment instead of constantly telling them that they “need” a crown or an implant.
When these strategies can be applied across multiple providers, including owner-doctors, associate doctors, and hygienists, and each of them can achieve considerably higher hourly production from increased delivery of care for the “right” reasons, the cumulative growth of a multi-provider practice is extraordinary.
If you have any questions about this concept, or would like to discuss how this strategy can be practiced in your office, then contact me at 516-524-7573 or drkatz@dentalexcellenceadvisory.com
It is amazing how the small actions of one person can totally undermine an otherwise fantastic practice or business. Don’t believe it? Check this out.
Recently a brand-new restaurant was reviewed in the newspaper. It seems the setting was beautiful, and the food was great. Yet the restaurant received a lousy review. Why? Because the reviewers felt their waiter did a horrible job.
This is very sad, and maybe a little bit unfair. After a sizable investment, lots of planning, an incredibly creative chef, and doing so many things right, they were ultimately judged by the poor behavior of one person.
You can be sure that after this review came out, this server was chastised, if not fired. And here is how this relates to your practice.
No matter how great your office may be, oftentimes you are judged by one person who doesn’t care to give every single patient a memorable experience every time they visit or are on the phone. It can be anyone in the practice – a hygienist, a dental assistant, a business team member, and perhaps more frequently than we like to admit…the doctor!
You can be doing 99 out of 100 things right and all of it can be undermined by a single person doing a single act. The beautiful crown you are about to cement is forgotten if a patient doesn’t feel completely appreciated. The gentle touch you provide is not as valued if you ran twenty minutes late. The beautiful office is undermined if the patient doesn’t get their questions answered in plain English. And on and on and on and on...
So take a lesson from this restaurant. Hopefully they will clean up their act and survive the bad opening review; then again, they may not. Don’t let the same thing happen to you and your dental practice!!
When doctors wait until the end of the hygiene appointment to do the check, although there might have been a more convenient time, they usually refer to the fact that "they've always done it this way". The same can be said for hygienists who do scaling but only bill out for a prophy, or who alternate prophies with periodontal maintenance, teams who wipe down their counters with alcohol or double glove for hepatitis patients, or doctors who routinely perform root canals over the course of multiple appointments and administrative teams who file for insurance predeterminations for preventive treatment. When questioned about why these tasks were performed in certain ways, the response is always that "we've always done it that way".
Recently, one of my daughters was taking a course in Human Development. In her textbook there was the story of an experiment involving five monkeys that could be applied to this phenomenon. A scientist, according to the story, did an experiment with five monkeys housed in a cage. The scientist hung a bunch of bananas in the cage where the monkeys could not reach them. A large tree branch was put up against the wall close to the bananas. One monkey figured out that he could climb the branch and reach the bananas. But just as he was about to grab them, the scientist used a hose and drenched all the monkeys with cold, frigid water and chaos ensued. Later another of the monkeys tried to get the bananas and again the scientist drenched them with the ice-cold water. This occurred several more times until one of the monkeys made the connection between reaching for the bananas and the cold water.
On the next attempt, that monkey attacked the one who was trying to get the bananas and prevented him from doing so. The others joined in when it became clear that reaching for the bananas caused the water punishment to start. After that, none of the monkeys tried to get the bananas. Later, the scientist took out one of the monkeys and included a new one. The new monkey saw the bananas and tried to reach them. The original four monkeys attacked the newcomer when it made its attempt. They managed to stop him before the water punishment started. This monkey also learned not to try to get the bananas. The scientist then removed another of the original monkeys and included a new one. The process was repeated and eventually the new monkey would join in the attack, even though it did not know why.
The scientist removed the original monkeys one by one, replacing them with a new monkey each time. Each time the reaction was the same. The new monkey was attacked when it tried to get the bananas. Eventually, all the original monkeys had been replaced. All this time none of the new monkeys had ever been sprayed with water. Even though they did not know why, all of the replacement monkeys kept attacking the new monkey every time they tried to get the bananas. Why did this happen? All the new monkeys had learned "That's how we do things around here. That's how it's always been done."
Does this sound like anything in your practices? Systems need to constantly be reviewed for efficiency and relevancy. It is important to confirm why we do things the way that we do them. There may have been a good reason to do something a certain way a long time ago, but it may not be applicable now. Always be open to new ideas, new strategies, new techniques, and new technologies. Get the monkeys off your back and you may find that there are better, more efficient, and more cost-effective ways of performing tasks and procedures. Some of these ideas may rattle your cage, for a while, but in time you will find that the bananas previously out of reach will afford you the ability to make banana splits, banana daiquiris, bananas foster, and they may offer many other advantages that you may never have realized previously. Quit monkeying around!