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Can a dental practice function on a NO-hygienist model? In this Monday Morning Episode, I sit down with Dr. Ron Schefdore, a trailblazing dentist who dared to challenge the conventional hygienist-dependent model and hasn't looked back since. He bravely shares his transformative journey, detailing the hurdles and victories of running a practice without hygienists. By prioritizing time with patients and refining diagnostic capabilities, Dr. Schefdore not only enhanced patient care but unveiled significant financial benefits. He offers a candid look into the operational dynamics of his practice, demonstrating how a focus on customer relationships can complement financial growth in the dental industry.

Further into the conversation, Dr. Schefdore delves into practical strategies for managing the shift, particularly in scenarios involving the exit of hygienists. His methodical approach includes a gradual dropping of insurances to attract and maintain loyal and high-quality patients, while emphasizing the pivotal role of training and teamwork. Ron passionately challenges the traditional mindsets that dominate dental practices and invites you to do the same!

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• The compelling advantages of a no-hygienist dental practice model.
• Steps to overcoming operational challenges without hygienists.
• Financial benefits of spending more time on patient diagnostics.
• How to navigate network transitions for retaining top-tier patients.
• The critical role of training and teamwork in a restructured practice.
• Strategies to shift the mindset of traditional dental practices.

Tune in now to explore the no-hygienist model with Dr. Ron Schefdore!

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Sponsors:
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CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack/

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You can reach out to Dr. Ron Schefdore here:

Website: https://www.pharmaden.net/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dentalcoachingsystems/

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Mentions and Links:

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Education:

Loma Linda University

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If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Ron. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning?

Ron: Don't worry about not finding a hygienist or having hygienist issues because I did a no hygienist model very successfully for decades. And I teach that to dentists now and how to do the same thing.

Michael: Interesting. Okay. So if you can a little bit expand on, how did you first transition to the no hygienist model and what were the biggest operational challenges you faced?

Ron: The first 17 years in practice, we built three practices. I owned the three buildings. Staff of 36 associates out of network financially.

It was fantastic. It was like every dentist's dream, right? And what I realized after that long of managing people that that is not my forte drove me nuts somebody offered me some stupid money and I took it And thank God because it gave me an opportunity to grow up now being a dentist and say, you know, what do I really want to do?

Why am I here? What excites me? And for me, it was spending more patient time, which a lot of doctors want to do. So I says, if I want to spend more doctor time, and I really want to help people with their perio, get them cure basically of perio, get them to look better, the things that excited me and the work I wanted to do, that means that I can't be chair hopping.

Forget the chair hopping. I don't know a dentist that likes it. I mean, There is some weirdos that like it, but who the hell wants to keep jumping from chair to chair? This never excited me, never interested me. And not getting paid, they're all joining these cut rate insurances.

Why you went to all the schools, spent all this money and you're an expert. Why are you doing that? I never bought into that and I had, a bunch of money. So I didn't really need to worry about the money when I opened up the second practice of a new hygienist model. we figured it out and very quickly in today's dollars, we got up to doing a million dollars and bringing home ham and I did that for a couple of.

and I had six weeks vacation, sometimes a little bit more, took a month off. A lot of times, it was the best of all worlds. And so once I retired the second time, five years ago from clinical dentistry, I started getting on Facebook and just telling dentists, Hey, you guys could still have it all.

It works out really good. You're having so many hygienist issues. You don't need those anymore. Hygienists are valuable. However, they're getting theirselves. Out of the market, they're pricing themselves out of the market. They have quite an attitude. So many of them think they're doctors and it's like, no, you're an employee.

You might be a colleague, but you're still an employee. So let's not cross that line, it's just a weird dynamic. Now, I've met hygienists that are awesome. I'd hire them in a second. That's 5 or 10 percent of them that I've met. And this is a real problem with most dentists that I've talked to.

Don't do a hygienist model. Get out of network or minimize the PPOs. Keep just the best ones. You only need 400 active patients. For this. That's it. If we all only had 400 active patients, there's plenty of patients to go around. All these dentists are fighting over. I need 1, 000. I need 2, 000. I need 3, 000 patients.

That's crazy. No, you don't. You know, just, Just stop the nonsense already. So that's my advice.

Michael: Okay. Okay. So then when you apply this or what systems or workflows did you have to adjust to maintain or improve your patient care without a hygienist?

Ron: One column, see one patient at a time, minimize the amount of re cares that you do, and it's assisted hygiene.

No, it would be stupid for a doctor to do hygiene all day long. Get that out of your brain. Oh, I'd rather do something else where I make more money. I could prove to you, any dentist can make six to seven hundred dollars an hour doing a re care visit. I've done this on dozens of practices.

How many doctors are making 700 an hour without even breaking a sweat? I mean, That is about the easiest appointment you could do. Why not have some appointments during the day that are easy on us both emotionally and physically? There's nothing wrong with that. So, you know, 800 an hour and you get a 50 percent overhead, that's a million a year and bringing home 450, 000 pace.

Why do we need a hygienist? Most dentists, if they made a half a million dollars a year take home, they would be very, very happy with that. I did that for decades, took six weeks off, and it was, dentistry's still hard, but you know, I only had three cross trained staff. So when you're doing hygiene, you minimize the amount of re care that you do, and you use a great cross trained assistant with you.

That's all you need to do, and you fit those half hour appointments, it's half hour doctor time, half hour assistant time on the recare, that time that you spend with them is so much more fun, and it's relaxing in between all the hard work that we have to do, look, I don't have any physical problems, it didn't burn me out, it was so much easier than what dentists are doing.

Please do this, please look at this.

Michael: Gotcha. Yeah. if we are already, we have a hygienist our new patients are coming in, we're pretty bustling office, right? And then right now our hygienist left. We're listening to this episode and we're thinking, man I, I want to do this, but we just have too many patients at this time.

would you recommend in that situation?

Ron: That's when you strategically over 18 months get out of network and half the patients will fall off, which is fantastic because the ones that stay will stay pay and refer because they like your service, but you got to change the mentality of a PPO doctor to an out of network doc