STOP THE STALL! 5 Strategic Ways Dental Practice Owners Can Drive Associate Efficiency & Maximize Practice Profitability
In the competitive world of dentistry, many practice owners, CEOs, and VPs of growing practices grapple with a silent killer of profitability: inefficient doctor production.
There’s a pervasive myth in our industry that meticulous slowness equals high quality and dedication. Many of your struggling practices are being anchored by doctors—often your best clinicians—who wear the “grind” as a badge of honor. But for owners striving to scale, this isn’t dedication; it’s a costly operational failure that impacts your bottom line, raises overhead, and fuels associate burnout and turnover.
True dedication for a practice owner lies in strategic efficiency—a system that maximizes Revenue Per Hour (RPH), improves the patient experience, and, critically, retains your top associate talent. Research shows that top-performing general practices aim for $450–$650 in production per hour from their providers, underscoring the necessity of this RPH focus for scalable growth. (Source: Precision Dental Analytics: Operational Efficiency KPIs)
In a recent expert discussion, Sten Ericson and Jennifer Paxton dissected this challenge. Here are 5 Key Practice Management Strategies to coach your doctors toward greater efficiency, transform your operations, and unlock scalable growth:
- Shift Performance Metrics: Reward Output, Not Presence
The Problem: Practice culture often implicitly rewards time spent instead of impact produced. This manifests as page-long Slack messages sent late at night or doctors boasting about spending an hour on notes after the office closes. This belief—that working longer signals dedication—is a drain on morale and a massive inefficiency.
The Solution for Owners: As a leader, you must redefine the metric of success. Stop valuing prolonged presence and start emphasizing predictive, high-output production. Implement clear, data-driven performance metrics focused on RPH and completed procedures, not just hours clocked. Your conversation with doctors should pivot from “Why are you staying late?” to “How can we achieve the same (or better) quality and production in less time?” True dedication means optimizing your operational systems so that everyone can thrive and produce consistently, not just endure the daily grind. This strategic shift is vital because keeping your overhead percentage under the ADA’s recommended benchmark of 63% is one of the most important KPIs—and efficiency directly lowers that cost. (Source: ADA: Key Performance Indicators)
- Implement Clinical Efficiency Training: Debunk the “Slow Dentist” Myth
The Problem: Many dentists carry an ingrained belief from dental school that “the longer you take, the better the result.” This mindset results in economically devastating procedures—a 4-hour crown prep or a 4-hour single implant case. This wastes premium chair time, increases overhead costs, and often leads to a worse patient experience.
The Solution for Owners: Investment in clinical efficiency is the fastest path to increasing your daily capacity and revenue. Coach your doctors for precision and speed, not just precision. As our experts advise, the goal is to “Do a good job, faster.” The most profitable practices employ the most efficiently excellent dentists. This requires structured coaching to hone skills, streamline workflows with assistants, and master the ability to deliver high-quality, predictable results in shorter, optimized timeframes.
- Foster the “Fighter Pilot” Mindset for Clinical Mastery
The Problem: When challenged on procedure time, doctors often cite “detail-orientation” as a reason for slowness, fearing that faster production means sloppier work. This fear of loss of quality limits their production capacity.
The Solution for Owners: Introduce the “Fighter Pilot Analogy” to your leadership and coaching program. Ask your associates: “What flies faster, a Cessna or a fighter jet? Which pilot is more highly trained?” The answer is clear: the fighter pilot executes complex maneuvers with incredible speed and precision because of their advanced training and refined skills. Encourage your doctors to strive to be the fighter pilots of dentistry—elite clinicians who deliver top-tier results faster. This analogy reframes speed as a result of mastery and confidence, which you provide through robust, structured mentorship programs. Investing in leadership and clinical mentorship is consistently cited as a key strategy for boosting associate retention and long-term production.
- Strategically Schedule for Production: Implementing Hard Stops
The Problem: Parkinson’s Law dictates that work expands to fill the time allotted. If you give a doctor a two-hour block for a procedure, it will inevitably take an hour and 59 minutes. Vague scheduling blocks allow doctor time to bleed into prep, setup, and breakdown, resulting in chronic delays and team frustration.
The Solution for Owners: Operational control starts with the schedule. Clearly define your appointment blocks, detailing exactly what is included (numbing, setup, doctor time, breakdown). Set realistic, yet challenging, timeframes. Most importantly, implement strategic hard stops for doctors and staff. For example, mandate doctor completion time 30 minutes before the rest of the team. This is not about rushing; it’s a powerful management tool that encourages focused work, demands effective utilization of assistants, and ensures doctors complete their administrative tasks (notes, final sign-offs) efficiently, ready to leave on time. This system reduces costly overtime and is crucial for meeting a target Chair Utilization Rate of 85% or higher. (Source: Teero: 23 Dental KPIs Every Practice Must Track)
- Drive Associate Retention: Cultivate an Output-Focused Culture
The Problem: The belief that a doctor “has to be here until 5 PM” even if all their work is finished is a symptom of a culture that prioritizes presence over productivity. This devalues efficiency and is a primary driver of high-performing associate burnout and subsequent costly turnover.
The Solution for Owners: To retain your best associates and make your practice an employer of choice, you must foster a culture that rewards output and results. If a doctor has seen all patients, returned necessary calls, completed all notes, and their schedule is clear, they should feel empowered to leave. As a leader, you should signal that leaving early is a reward for peak efficiency. This is what actionable work-life balance looks like—a system where high production is rewarded with personal time, significantly increasing associate satisfaction and loyalty, and mitigating the cost and disruption of high staff turnover rates.
Are you an owner looking to transition from a struggling, grind-focused practice to a highly efficient, scalable, and profitable enterprise?
Our Coaching Program is specifically designed for practice owners to implement the robust mentorship, systems, and coaching strategies needed to transform your associate dentists into high-producing, long-term leaders.
➡️ Discover how we can help your practice thrive: connect@pathwaydentalsolutions.com Pathway Dental Solutions
