It still surprises me that so many dentists out there don’t have a grip or a grasp on their numbers.

Omer Reed told me two years ago that at age 65, ninety five percent of dentists in the USA have not reached their walkaway point in their dental practice careers.

This means that at age 65, only five percent of dentists are in the position of being able to hang up their dental drills and retire into a comfortable life style.

The other ninety five percent are either dead, or dead broke at age 65.

Now this seems ridiculous that after such a glamorous, long and well-paid career, only five percent have saved sufficient funds to support a comfortable retirement.

I was fortunate enough early on in my dental career to be advised to start investing in my own superannuation retirement funding, which had significant and immediate tax advantages at the time of investment. Along with that, the investments in superannuation are quarantined and cannot be withdrawn until retirement age. On top of those reasons, because I began early and continued investing year in year out, month in month out, I was able to benefit from the process of compound interest as well.

“The best time to plant an oak tree was twenty years ago – the second best time is today.”

 A lot of people say that they’ll wait until the time is right or the market is just right before they start investing for their retirement. Well that is just so so wrong. The time to start investing is now!!

Removing that money now in small weekly or monthly portions starts that investment process. And you’d be surprised how the current budget adapts to compromise for the missing funds being channeled into investment. Miraculously, we get by!!

There’s a large number of dentists out there who don’t know their vital numbers.

They don’t know where they stand on a balance sheet of assets vs. liabilities. On profit and loss.

“It’s somewhere in the negative”

Or they know they’ve borrowed more than their assets are worth.

Their home has a mortgage. Their dental office has a mortgage. And an overdraft. But they often don’t know exactly how much.

The cars are financed. The dental equipment, lasers, and Cad-cams and Cone beams are financed.

And still they keep borrowing. And spending. And borrowing…

There are a lot of docs out there hoping for a big payout when they sell their dental practice. They’re hoping someone’s going to turn up with a big wad of cash and buy them out. When the old doc is ready. At the price the old guy wants. Well those days are fast diminishing.

There’s a trend in dentistry for more young graduates to want a job in dentistry, rather than want their own practice.

And with the corporatisation of dentistry increasing, and the ever-increasing role that insurance is playing in dental treatment, then the “carrot” of owning your own practice is becoming less and less appealing as a way of dental life to those dentists not already owning an office.

What this means is that dental offices will become more and more difficult to sell and offload for retiring dentists. Many retiring dentists will then be forced into staying on and working, as a means of recovering the principle funds that they had invested in the practice, and expected to receive on its sale.

The purpose of working, in any career, is to provide an income stream to survive, as well as enjoy life along the way, and to finance a comfortable retirement.

Otherwise, what is the point?

The easiest and simplest way of increasing your dental office income and funding your own investments and retirements is to fix and repair those retention points where your dental office is bleeding patients and clients and customers straight out the door.

Retaining patients who love coming to see you, who come more often, spend more per visit, and accept more treatment, and also refer more customers and patients to you, is the simplest way of increasing your bottom line, freeing up and creating valuable revenue for investment.

And the simplest way to do this is to fix up your customer service systems, so that they are both complete and impervious to leaks.

So that you’re not leaking patients through the cracks in your systems.

So that your front office is converting and scheduling a bigger and better percentage of new patient enquiries.

Without any additional spend on marketing, or new fancy equipment.

So that your office bottom line goes up….

And then you can get a handle on those vital numbers.

To invest. In your future.

As you must….

The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build system that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office of patients who love coming to see me, who come more often, spend more per visit, and accept more treatment, and also refer more, in an ordinary Sydney suburb.  If you’d like to know how I did this, then you must read my free special report.

Email me at david@theupe.com

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