by Karah Karah | Feb 7, 2018 | Prescriptions for your Practice
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Getting a dental practice up and running is one matter, finding the right staff and systems is a whole different matter. When faced with various issues concerning billing, insurance and staffing, Dr. James Anderson found effective solutions that not only worked for his business but for many other dental practices around the country. Today his company, eAssist Dental Solutions, is providing truly helpful solutions to dentist offices and he is here to share his journey and top tips to running an effective and stress-free practice.
James talks about how he got started in dentistry and discovered (the hard way) some key problems that bog down dental offices everywhere. He shares the most basic and important ways that an office should be handling insurance, billing, customer service and more. He also gives some helpful tips and tricks for getting the most out of insurance and serving your clients and practice to your best ability. James talks about eAssist’s core values and really casts an inspiring vision for how office management and accountability should work.
Key Quotes:
- “I wanted to be a physician because I wanted to serve mankind.”
- “I just set a goal every year to build a new practice.”
- “I really didn’t want to build a big DSO at all. I wanted to give people like me, who wanted their own dental practice, a turn-key practice.”
- “In the end the hardest thing was always finding someone in the front to manage the practice.”
- “They hope that they don’t have people that are following up properly because after 12 months or 18 months, depending on the insurance plan, they don’t have to pay you legally. It’s called a timely filing issue.”
- “You know you have a problem when someone says, “We love your office doc but, no offense, your billing is all messed up.” “
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by Karah Karah | Oct 18, 2017 | Legendary Leadership
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Insurance complications with patients and the lack of consistent reoccurring revenue are problems that most professionals in the dental industry face. Jordon Comstock, a natural problem solver, has found some simple ways to get rid of these common issues. His passion for leadership and a self-sufficient style of doing business is what got him to where he is today with many happy and successful clients in the dental industry.
Jordon shares his story and how he ended up working in the dental industry and found his passion for improving systems and processes. He also talks about key areas that are critical to building a more self-reliant and consistently profitable practice. Jordon sheds light on a few areas where dentists tend to miss opportunities for increased functionality, customer loyalty and profits.
The business that Jordon built, Boom Cloud, addresses many of the organizational issues that come with having a subscription-style practice. He talks about what services they provide to increase scalability and cut out the headaches that come with insurance billing and expired credit card payments. Overall he really plants a great idea that practices can easily avoid much of the hassle they currently deal with and gain more loyal and consistent clients.
Key Quotes:
- “I look for employees that are leaders, I don’t look for employees that look at me to be a leader”
- “Despite going through that year of hardship and challenge, I believed in my product, I believed in the concept and I just stayed persistent and I found ways to make money on the side and then all of a sudden we launched Boom Cloud a year later.”
- “You reap what you sow and sure enough that’s what happened.”
- “A critical component of self-reliance is getting other leaders involved and people that can lead different aspects of a practice.”
- “I do believe in the concept of reoccurring revenue, that that helps a lot.”
- “Dentists should be reliant on their own system, their own team, to grow and flourish.”
- “We’ve got the insurance companies that are policing the dentists but who’s policing the insurance companies?”
- “I believe in systems and processes. If we don’t have those, it’s very hard to manage things in any type of business.”
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by Karah Karah | Mar 22, 2017 | Prescriptions for your Practice
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Disability coverage isn’t something most dentists think about, especially when they feel young and bulletproof at the beginning of their careers. But my guest today, Chris Bransgrove, knows that dentists need to consider the possibility that they could develop a disability and jeopardize their practice and career.
Chris is an advisor at Lucet Advisors and specializes in helping dentists understand the kind of disability coverage they need. When insurance companies know how to stack the deck against your practice, it’s important to have someone on your side that knows the ins and outs of contracts and disability coverage.
Chris and I break down some myths about disability insurance that you may believe and provide you with accurate information instead. We cover a lot of ground, including the definition of disability you want your contract to have; coverage for partial and residual disabilities; what you need to know about coverage for mental health; and much more. Many dentists don’t review this stuff often enough, so be sure to tune in and find out what you should be doing differently!
Key Quotes:
- The insurance companies themselves are smart – they know how to stack the odds against the doctor and in the insurance companies’ favor.
- Disablity insurance itself is nothing more than a promise to pay.
- Generally, when it comes to definitions, the shorter it is, sometimes the better – because if it’s longer, it can leave more room for interpretation.
- What’s important in the language of the contract are the triggers, where this partial benefit kicks in and starts to make up lost revenue.
- When a doctor gets disability insurance for the first time, the insurance company looks at their income and good health – and what a future increase option does is it takes the second requirement of good health off the table.
- An elimination period or a waiting period is basically like a deductible, but instead of being in dollars, it’s in days.
- With vendors now, you can get an additional benefit just to cover student loans.
- Depending on the contract, some claims may be excluded or limited – the biggest one is mental nervous claims, and I prefer there not to be any limiting in my doctors’ contracts.
- There is a policy called overhead expense that allows you to keep the lights on or buys you time to find a suitable buyer.
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Registered Representative and Financial Advisor of Park Avenue Securities, LLC (PAS), 6455 S Yosemite St., 3rd Floor, Greenwood Village CO. Securities products/services and advisory services are offered through PAS, a registered broker/dealer and investment advisor, 303-770-9020. Financial Representative, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian), New York, NY. PAS is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Guardian. Wealth Strategies Group is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian. Lucet Advisors is not a registered investment advisor.
PAS is a member FINRA, SIPC
