The Only Solution to the 'Not Enough Time' Problem

Sometimes, when I talk to dentists about the possibilities for growth in their practices, I can actually see some of them recoil at the thought. "I'm busy enough as it is," they think. "The last thing I'm looking for is more patients."

These are dentists who have hit the saturation threshold and they have hit it hard. In some cases they have ended up busy with doing tooth-based dentistry day after day as they spend their time trying to "serve the system." Even the ones who manage to escape that trap and learn to go deeper with patients will inevitably come up against the immutable realities of time.

Time will always be the most limiting factor to the growth of any practice. There is obviously a limit to how many patients you can see in a day, and the same applies to your hygiene department. Once you hit that threshold, for every new patient you receive, one is walking out the back door because you can't handle the volume.

This is one reason I am a supporter of the concept of a value transition. That's where you bring in another dentist to help ensure that all your patients' clinical needs are met in a timely way, and that the practice's hygiene team is fully supported. The only other way to go is to let patients wait longer and longer for appointments, at which point the goodwill and value you have built over the years slowly starts to erode.

Don't let yourself get handcuffed by your own success. Don't be trapped into thinking that it's "too early" to bring an associate dentist aboard because you're not ready for retirement. A value transition doesn't have to be tied to an exit plan; it's all about capturing the value you have in your practice right now that you don't have time to service yourself. It's about giving patients access to the care they need when they need it.

If you feel that you have more patient possibilities than you have time to keep up with, you owe it to yourself and your patients to think about ways to explore those possibilities. There is a whole suite of lessons on this in our online course library. If you are an "overwhelmed" dentist I urge you to take a look. You just may find a way to grow the practice, keep your patients up-to-date in their treatment, and break free of those handcuffs once and for all.