Dentaltown June 2019 - 72

A strong
foundation
of education
If there's one place to start
(if you look at increasing profitability as a
step-by-step process), education is that "must"
first step. Dentistry's variety of options and
areas allows you to create a niche practice
or to have a phenomenal bread-and-butter
practice.
Even performing "just" bread-andbutter dentistry requires someone to be
knowledgeable in prevention, restorative
dentistry, periodontics, endodontics, and
fixed and removable prosthodontics. To
become more niche, you'd add
specialties and subspecialties
of orthodontics, implants,
sleep dentistry, TMD, cosmetic dentistry and advanced
prosthodontics that surpass
the general fi xed and removable genres and deal with
full-mouth reconstructions.
All of these are part of an
ever-changing field, which
requires constant education
to remain at the top.
Being highly educated
allows you to be more thorough,
to create more options for the patient, and
without a doubt to be more confident in the
options you present. (Confidence in your
plans is something I'll circle back to later
in this article.)
There are so many excellent opportunities
to advance your knowledge of dentistry,
through both live and virtual continuing
education platforms. The investment I
made in a high-quality program geared in
advancing my education in occlusion and
cosmetics have paid me a hundredfold over
my initial investment and set the foundation
of my practice focus.
With the explosion of the virtual world,
hundreds of CE opportunities are available for
you to watch and learn from the comfort of

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JUNE 2019 // dentaltown.com

your home. Dentaltown's online CE platform
offers fantastic, cost-effective courses. Looking
for something at no cost? Visit the dedicated
message boards of the subspecialty of interest
(cosmetic dentistry, removable prosthodontics,
implants) and search through the thousands
of threads available. Many threads are put
there by the same educators who put on CE
courses themselves, and are there to help
advance your knowledge.
Don't overlook the importance of training your team, too-after all, you're only
as strong as the team you surround yourself
with. You can be a very highly educated
doctor, but if your team isn't on the same
page as you because of lack of training, you'll
surely be spinning your wheels. Treat your
team as you would yourself and make sure
they're masters in their fields. The best place
for your team is most likely with the same
education you have been focusing on. Does
the program you took part in offer team
training? If so, that would be an excellent
place to start. Don't just send your team to
the free CE courses provided by insurance
carriers in your area, or the local specialist
office; choose their path as you would choose
yours. Whether you want to be a rock-star
niche practice, or the super general dentist,
education is your jump-off point.

Presenting
options
Patients love options! Being
able to offer patients several
options for their treatment not only makes
you look like an expert but also
increases your case
acceptance, simply
because you've offered
the patient options
to choose from.
Countless times, I've
heard from patients
whom another practitioner had offered
on ly one opt ion;
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