Episode summary
The Five Points of Productivity: How to Grow Your Dental Practice
The Dentist Money Show
· · Hosts: Christine Uhen
Summary
Christine Uhen lays out a five-part framework for growing a dental practice’s top line without simply getting busier: more patients in the chair, stronger diagnostics and treatment planning, higher case acceptance, better financing options, and a schedule that reliably converts demand into production. She argues that collections and profitability matter, but none of them can improve until the practice increases productivity at the source.
On patient growth, she says general practices should aim for 25 to 30 new patients per full-time dentist each month and should pay close attention to internal referrals and recall. She also says nine out of 10 hygiene patients should be scheduled back for their next visit, supported by automation where possible.
Uhen emphasizes that case acceptance should be measured against production needs, not just as a percentage. Her broader point is that doctors need to diagnose enough work, present it confidently, help patients pay for it in realistic ways, and manage the schedule with flexible templates so the team can say yes to patients while still hitting daily goals.
Key takeaways
- Christine Uhen says a general dental practice should target 25 to 30 new patients per full-time dentist each month.
- She says internal referrals are a high-value growth source because referred patients are typically happier and more likely to accept treatment.
- Uhen argues case acceptance is only useful if the amount accepted is enough to hit production goals, not just because the percentage looks high.
- She recommends helping patients finance care with options that fit a monthly budget, including installment plans and possible prepayment discounts.
- She says a flexible scheduling template with high-production, lower-production, and non-productive blocks helps practices stay on time and meet daily goals.
Notable quotes
“A good benchmark, a great rule of thumb is that for every full-time dentist in a general dental practice, you want 25 to 30 new patients each month”
“Nine out of 10 of your patients that come in today for hygiene should be scheduled back for their next hygiene”
“It's about did I diagnose enough that if one out of two said yes, I'd be at my goal”
“having worked with enough dental offices, the administrative team may understand that we've got a template and we need to follow that template”
How the episode opens
Hi everybody. I'm Christine Yuan, the practice strategist with the Dentist Advisor team. And I am here to welcome you to our educational program that we're calling the five points of productivity. And we're here to help you grow your top line and increase the productivity in your dental practice.
Consult an adviser. Conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice.
This program is furnished by Dennis Adviser, a registered investment adviser. Welcome everybody to Dennis Advisor's educational information program about how to grow your topline productivity. For us, it's what we call the five points of productivity.
It's patients, diagnostics and treatment planning, getting patients to say yes, measuring case acceptance, helping patients fund and finance the dentistry that they want and deserve, and then how to get it on the schedule. After decades of working with dental practices, we've got experience with understanding how to grow businesses. Yes, collections pay the bills.
Yes, profitability and even on the value of your business is important, but until you grow the top line, none of the other ones can actually grow. So, we're going to focus today simply on growing the and increasing your productivity. This does not mean just getting busier.
there's some thought, planning, intention, and strategy around it. So, we're going to break down those five points and go into a little bit more detail. So, the first one being patience, bodies in the chair.
So, that's both new patients and then your recall or reactivation strategy. So, let's start out with new patients. A good benchmark, a great rule of thumb is that for every full-time dentist in a general dental practice, you want 25 to 30 new patients each month.
So that's a good average to think about.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- dental practice productivity
- dental practice growth
- patient attraction
- case acceptance
- financing treatment
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Dentist Advisors
- Aquire Wealth Advisors, LLC
Watch the episode
Watch “The Five Points of Productivity: How to Grow Your Dental Practice” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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The Dentist Money Show, this episode and its artwork belong to Dentist Advisors - Financial Planning and Investment Management. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
