While everything we talk about will apply to everyone in terms of considerations about the future, this section is going to be geared more towards those doctors who believe they would like to maintain involvement and ownership in their practice for as long as possible.
I like to think of this as the old Whitehall concept of ‘retire in practice’ (though I have saved more people from the literal structure of it than I have seen people actually do it successfully).
My belief of ‘retire in practice’ is not loading up on associates and expanding your practice to have multi-layered buyers in case one goes lame; although that is one option and I emphasize one option.
I prefer a simpler approach and the majority of the doctors I talk to on a daily basis prefer simpler also. Retiring needs to focus reducing stress not just maintaining ownership and income. Depending on your age, stage in life and aspirations, the move towards management and out of clinical dentistry is a viable one – done properly and laid out strategically.
It certainly won’t happen on its own and it won’t be without challenges, detours and a little bit of pain – but hey, no pain no gain.
The simpler approach is usually done in phases. Similar to what I’ve outlined below and then tweaked to make it match with your own personality and preferences that we talked about last week.
Phase 1 – Ramp up profitability by growing the value side of the practice not just the production by volume.
This sets us up for a successful integration without having to give up production for an Associate onboarding.
Usually in this phase we also engineer the new patient streams to be heavily referral based so they become more consistent and we organize around the cultivation of dentistry for the owner doctor first.
Phase 2 – Integrate an associate following my six-step associate integration plan (that tends to have a high rate of success for matching the right person to the practice culture and identifying an ambition person who will be hungry to make the practice grow).
Often we would start the Associate a couple days per week. Depending on the number of ops, we might begin immediately reducing days for the primary doctor or we might expand days and keep things the same; all based on what the overall objective is and the timeline to consider.
Phase 3 – Begin the owner doctor slow-down or lifestyle based schedule that they would consider ‘semi-retirement’ (if that’s what they – in this case You – would want).
This might be three weeks per month, it might be three days per week or less. It might be three weeks off in the summer or winter.
Truly this is where you get your first dose of real liberation and not having to be at the practice, chair side being the only producer.
Phase 4 – We move to a buy-in or buy-out, or most likely an equity sale off and partnership approach.
This gives you total flexibility. It’s possible to maintain full ownership with the right associate for a longer period of time. Many though will want to have something they are working towards at some point.
Everything I have just outlined for you is the single associate transition and integration process. It is one option, one more choice you have for some type of lifestyle based retirement or transition out of full time ‘have-to’ involvement.
The next most common approach is going forward without the associate consideration. This one becomes a good old math problem.
And you would be surprised at how much money can be made in much fewer clinical hours required to do it – if and when – that becomes your specific intention and decision for your transition approach.
You really can have it all, it just may look different than what you imagined. It will certainly take some talking through and planning out, as it will be different than what you are used to (which it should be and you would want).
Remember this: everything I am discussing with you here in this Weekly Report is customizable, not one size fits all and certainly not mandatory for it to be all or nothing.
Perhaps most importantly, you are in control of the time frame that it all happens and that each phase transitions from one to the next.
What I propose is you take some time and think through what you really want for your next chapter, not just for your practice but your life. Reach out and let me know if you get stuck or need some guidance.
