Dentaltown November 2022 - 35

Office Visit
me for my future. I wanted to thank her
by finally having us live the lifestyle we'd
always dreamed of. She deserved it and I
was determined to provide her with it. Thus,
I started transitioning from community
practice to private practice.
I worked as an associate for a local dentist
and practice mogul who had 11 or 12 local
clinics, and we just hit it off. I hustled for
him for a year-I went in early, I stayed late.
" You need me to come in on a Saturday?
Not a problem. " When he saw I had that
work ethic, he offered me a partnership.
I got lucky: It was a convenient way to
partnership because I wasn't starting from
scratch, I was buying into an existing work
model I was able to improve upon, especially
with my skill set. Implants, wisdom teeth,
IV sedation ... anytime you've got a special
niche, it makes you a great catch. First,
I took over a practice that had $600,000
in revenues and doubled it my first year.
I ended up partnering in a second office, too.
Regular readers might
recognize your name from
the continuing education
courses you've created
about implant-related
topics. How did you become
interested in that specialty?
At Pacific Lutheran, we had the option of
creating an independent study class to earn
a college credit. My advisor and I created
what we called " The Different Fields of
Dentistry. " My responsibility was to go to
my primary dentist and all the specialists he
referred to, shadow them and then write a
report. When I visited the periodontist and
oral surgeons and saw surgery in the mouth,
I had an " aha! " moment-I knew what I
wanted to do, and I moved my major from
pre-med to pre-dental.
I'm laser-focused, so when I decide
I like something, I jump all the way headfirst.
When I was in dental school, I tailored my
education to build my surgical skills. We
had to take a minimum three quarters of
oral surgery, after which I volunteered for
an extra quarter. Because I took so many
quarters, I qualified for a third-molar
impaction course, and spent the whole
quarter taking out impacted wisdom teeth
under the guidance of the oral surgeons.
I also volunteered for extra external clinic
rotations at community clinics where
I could do more surgery.
What was the plan
after graduation?
I originally thought I was going to go
into community health. I was sort of the
poster child for community health, because
I had done so much with it during dental
school, volunteering for and eventually
running programs.
But I was married with three kids by
then, and I transitioned into private practice
because I needed to support my family. My
wife had always been extremely supportive
of my academic pursuits-she believed in
me and sacrificed all those years right beside
How quickly did you realize
that practice ownership
might not be the right fit?
There was a period where I liked being
an owner, don't get me wrong! I liked the
chase for improvement and outcompeting
the previous year's growth. But after about
nine years of ownership, we had some deaths
in the family-my brother, and within six
months, my wife's brother as well. It was
a very dark and depressive time that really
started weighing me down.
It became increasingly hard for me
to cope with the high level of demand
managing two offices and 20 staffers can
be. Add to that increased inflation-costs
going up but insurance reimbursements
staying fixed-and the reward for all that
extra work and headache kept shrinking, to
the point where it was like, " I don't think
it's worth the trouble anymore. "
Before, it had been a welcome headache,
because I loved the challenge of growing
the practices every year. Both practices
dentaltown.com \\ NOVEMBER 2022 35
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Dentaltown November 2022

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