Practice Production Prioritized: Three immediate steps to aggressively grow your practice

Dentistry has been the beneficiary of a large supply of patients with a limited number of doctors. Unfortunately, the profession is going through a transformation that has produced multiple levels of competition more serious than another practice down the street vying for your patients.

My strongest message to dentists today is that they need to become proactive and "nicely" aggressive in building their practices, reaching production goals, and ensuring an excellent career. As a dentist, I understand the hardships of this profession and believe dentists deserve an excellent return on investment in regard to their finances and personal satisfaction.

Don't be fooled into believing that you can just show up each day and everything will be fine. You must be intentional about having goals, plans, and even the right experts to ensure your success. Here are three steps you can take immediately to start building your practice:

Build a world-class team

You can build a world-class team by coaching them to perform and holding them accountable with rules, protocols, and expectations. In a review of Levin Group client data we found that teams in the highest producing practices are always aligned and motivated to do a great job. These teams have an ownership mentality and act accordingly.

Have a "hospitality" mentality

I had the opportunity to spend time with a high-end restaurant owner and ask him questions about what it takes to run a successful business. During our conversation, he kept coming back to one point: every guest should be treated as a VIP and leave feeling like they had an experience that made the check feel arbitrary.

This has inspired me to encourage dentists to believe their practices are more about hospitality than anything else. You may be the greatest clinical dentist in your area, but if patients aren't coming or accepting treatment, it doesn't really matter. Sit down with your team and identify 10 ways that you can immediately improve the patient service experience-let the team know this is not an idea, but a requirement.

Get serious about case presentation. Case presentation must be approached like any other system with these five steps:

Develop an amazing relationship with the patient.
Listen, listen, and listen. If the patient is not doing 50% of the talking, your case acceptance will never reach its potential levels.
Be concise in your explanations and focus on the benefits of treatment. Talk about dentistry as a key factor in overall patient health as well as avoidance of pain, keeping teeth for a lifetime, keeping expenses down, and demonstrating true care about the patient and why they should have treatment.
Ask for commitment. Say something like, "Mrs. Jones, would you like to have this done?" This is what we call the magic question, and it will often change a patient from thinking about having treatment to making an on-the-spot decision to go forward.
Work out financial arrangements and always include information on interest-free patient financing. There are excellent patient financing companies that can help skyrocket your case acceptance.

Summary

Your practice is the key to having a successful life, taking care of your family, enjoying your lifestyle, and retiring at a reasonable age. This all depends on proactively building a practice with outstanding performance. The three recommendations in this article will benefit any practice almost immediately when properly applied.

Editor's note: This article appeared in the July/August 2025 print edition of Dental Economics magazine. Dentists in North America are eligible for a complimentary print subscription. Sign up here.