Are You Handcuffed by Success?

It happens to the best of dentists: You start out scrambling to grow your patient base. Inevitably you work extra hours, complete your own hygiene and whatever else it takes to grow the practice.

You're diligent and hardworking and before long the practice does grow and you're able to add hygienists and administrators. And the practice grows some more ... and some more.

And that's where the problem can occur. Before long, you have a deep patient base and a full appointment book. But it's full of routine procedures. Your days become a treadmill and you start to feel like you are there to support the practice instead of the other way around. You would like to do more fulfilling dentistry more often, but for now it's just a matter of keeping up with demand. Your practice has outgrown you.

This is the point where you have become handcuffed by your own success.

So what's the solution? Sometimes it can be solved with a few simple scheduling strategies such as, a "rocks first" approach that ensures you reserve the appropriate time for the right comprehensive cases each week. Sometimes it means you're ready for something more transformative, such as bringing in an associate. Or it can mean purifying your patient base, which is something you have to be very careful about.

But no matter how you do it, the important thing is that while the practice grows you always give yourself room to grow as well. Believe me, all the leading clinicians in dentistry today have all gone through a significant phase of growth in their practices, where the routine demands start increasing every day. The reason they reached the top tier is because they refused to let themselves be dominated by those routine demands. They are passionate about learning and growing and make sure they always have time – no matter what – to pursue the next level of excellence.

Always remember that you don't work for the practice; the practice is supposed to work for you. Only you can choose to put those handcuffs on. The good news is you also have the key that unlocks them.