Today's episode is all about taxes. As pediatric dentists, we have tax issues, and dental school doesn't give us the foundational knowledge we need to understand how taxes work and how to play the game. Scott Clynch is a CPA and personal financial planner at Cain Watters. He joins us today to talk about how taxes work. We start big picture with basic concepts and definitions, and then walk through how taxes work at each career stage that a typical pediatric dentist goes through. Some things we t...
Jul 12, 2022•1 hr 11 min
Ever since the big announcement earlier this year, NuSmile's Bioflex crowns have created quite the buzz among pediatric dentists. NuSmile revealed the crowns to the general public at AAPD 2022. These white, flexible resin polymer crowns could be a game changer to provide a flexible and esthetic improvement to traditional stainless steel crowns. As a millennial techie pediatric dentist, I wanted to learn more. Mike Loessberg is the Vice President of sales at NuSmile, a whiskey connoisseur, and a ...
Jul 05, 2022•47 min
Two oral surgeons join us for this week's episode. Dr. Chip Abraham is a fourth-year OMS resident at Indiana University, and Dr. Doug Orzel is a private practice OMS and practice owner in Grand Rapids, Michigan. These two oral surgery studs come on the podcast to talk all things oral surgery involving pediatric dentistry. We go through different tough clinical situations, as well as review a few listener Q & A's. Some of the topics we discuss: Should pediatric dentists be extracting permanen...
Jul 04, 2022•1 hr
Imagine being a pediatric dentist for 44 years, and then still having the ambition to start a thriving fluoride and prophy paste company at 80 years old. It was a pleasure to interview the founder of Wonderful Dental and our guest today, Dr. David Epstein. In today's episode, we learn more about what pediatric dentistry was like in the 1970's, how our profession has changed, and why the most important thing we should be doing is looking for ways to do things better. Dr. Epstein lets us look insi...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 13 min
Dr. Julia Richman is a pediatric dentist and private practice owner in Washington. She joins us on the podcast to talk about a variety of topics, including her journey from being a long-term (10+ year) associate to starting her own practice and the challenges that go with it. Dr. Richman has an interest in forensic odontology that we discuss. She also is an avid diver, and we talk about how cold water therapy and just being outside in general can be a remedy for the stresses of being a pediatric...
Jun 21, 2022•55 min
Live from AAPD 2022, this episode features short power interviews with 6 pediatric dentists (2 residents and 4 private practice). We learn more about their practice backgrounds, pearls that they’ve learned, new technology that changes the way they practice, and advice for other pediatric dentists.
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Recorded in-person at the AAPD meeting in San Diego, Dr. Corey Hastings and I sit down at a hotel over a couple cold craft beers and talk shop. Dr. Corey has been a guest on the podcast before, and is a wealth of knowledge regarding the business side of dentistry. He has an MBA, and has built 5, 6?... 7? A lot of offices in the Missouri area in a very short amount of time. In this episode, we discuss: - What's a healthy overhead for a pediatric practice? - When making the jump to multi-doctor ow...
Jun 07, 2022•57 min
Dr. LaRee Johnson is an accomplished pediatric dentist, speaker, and private practice owner from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is very active on the ABPD, and keeps a busy schedule with professional lectures, speaking events, and running ultra marathons. Dr. Johnson joins us on the podcast to tell us a bit about her busy private practice, along with answering some listener Q&A's. Some of the topics we discuss: - Should parents be allowed back during procedures? - Tips on talking to the parent...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 1 min
It doesn't take long reading iPedo posts and talking to other dentists to realize that burnout, stress, and difficulty finding work-life balance is a common problem among pediatric dentists. In this episode, Dr. Natalie Datien joins us to discuss her story about why she walked away from a busy practice. Dr. Natalie bought a practice shortly out of residency with her husband, a general dentist in the Detroit area of Michigan. Together they grew the practice from an old-school, low-production offi...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Dr. Gena Otto is an orthodontist and the owner of Otto Orthodontics in St. Louis, Missouri. Her office has grown tremendously to include three locations, 30+ staff, and a full time marketing specialist. I wanted to have Dr. Otto on the podcast because we work closely together professionally, and I've always loved her hip and energetic enthusiasm for orthodontics. She has a fantastic social media presence, along with really nice clinical outcomes and a passion for what she does. In this podcast, ...
May 17, 2022•54 min
Dr. Peter Nguyen is a pediatric dentist who started First Bite Pediatric Dentistry in Henderson, Nevada. Dr. Nguyen grew up as the child of Vietnamese war refugees. He did his pediatric residency at UCLA, before moving to the Las Vegas area and associating for a number of practices prior to doing his start-up. Dr. Nguyen has a great sense of humor and as he puts it, "I'm not the smartest guy on iPedo so I have to make up for it with my sense of humor." I loved this podcast, I thought it was awes...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Dr. Cyrus Safizadeh is a pediatric dentist who opened a practice with his wife, a general dentist, shortly before COVID. They grew this practice together throughout the pandemic challenges to come out thriving on the other side. Dr. Cyrus talks about the benefits of working closely with a general dentist and utilizing the skillsets and technology that his wife brings to the practice. He shares how they have balanced Medicaid patients to keep a healthy new patient flow on both the pediatric and a...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Chip Fichtner is the founder of Large Practice Sales (LPS), a firm that specializes in partnering with large dental practices as they look to sell to DSOs. You may recognize him from the flyers and newsletters that his company mails out to private practices. Chip discusses how his company is able to achieve the highest EBITDA multiples by bidding practices to multiple DSOs to find the right fit. He also talks about "invisible" DSOs that allow the owner to retain full autonomy of the practice whi...
Apr 26, 2022•47 min
Dr. Jason Bresler is a pediatric dentist practicing out of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. His father originally started and grew the practice in 1982, and now Jason and his siblings and their spouses (5 Dr. Brasslers in total) own and operate this large practice. They have grown the practice to include eight pediatric offices, four orthodontic offices, over 30 associate dentists, 250 staff members, and along the way built their own surgery center. This stand-alone surgery center operates f...
Apr 19, 2022•1 hr
Dr. Juan Yepes is a man who needs no introduction. He is a pediatric dentist, radiologist, physician, masters of public health... I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Let's just say he's smarter than I am. Dr. Yepes joins us on the podcast to talk about radiation safety in pediatric dentistry. We had a great conversation highlighting the importance of being responsible with how much radiation we are prescribing in the office. Some topics we discuss: - Modern digital sensors vs traditional film x-r...
Apr 12, 2022•55 min
Dr. Mitch Kramer is a pediatric dentist, partner, and soon to be 100% owner of a busy pediatric practice in central Minnesota. Dr. Kramer comes on the podcast to share his story about how he structured his initial buy-in in 2016. After helping grow the practice to four-locations, an associate, and 12,000 active patients, Dr. Kramer will be transitioning towards buying out the remaining practice equity from his partner Dr. Dennis Carreras this year. It was great catching up with Dr. Kramer, as th...
Apr 05, 2022•54 min
This episode is a boards-review style solo episode, where I take some time to review the AAPD guidelines, current literature, and throw in a little personal opinion on key topics in pediatric dentistry. In today's episode, I review: - Amides vs esthers, - Is septo really better? - When to give an IAN block and when to infiltrate - Buffering and computerized delivery - How to manage a local anesthetic overdose - Pharmacokinetics and contraindications to N20 - MTHFR, should we avoid N20 in these p...
Mar 29, 2022•45 min
Dr. Tim Richardson is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Acorn Dentistry for Children in the greater Portland, Oregon area. After residency, Dr. Richardson bought and grew three offices in a five year period. After feeling the stresses of burnout coming on, he decided to sell these offices and start over with both a goal and team-oriented mindset. He has since started six pediatric offices in a five year period, and leads a team of nine pediatric dentists as partners and associates. In this ep...
Mar 21, 2022•56 min
Dr. Adam Priestwood is a pediatric dentist who practices in eastern Tennessee and treats a high-risk population. Dr. Priestwood comes on the podcast to talk about how he uses oral sedations to help manage shortages with his access to OR time. We talk about what the patient population is like in the Appalachia region of eastern Tennessee, oral conscious sedation strategies, Equia Forte for hypoplastic molars, when to graduated teenage medicaid patients, and personality styles of pediatric dentist...
Mar 15, 2022•51 min
Nothing fancy in this episode, just a couple of pediatric dentists talking about some of the tough cases and mistakes they've made in their respective practices. Sometimes you just need to vent a little about work over a beer, and that's exactly what this episode is for. Thank you to Dr. Nate Green from Denver, Colorado for joining me on this episode.
Mar 08, 2022•45 min
Charles Loretto is a partner at Cain Watters and Associates, a firm which needs no introduction in the world of dentistry. Charles oversees the practice transition department for CWA, and is founder of affiliate company, National Dental Placements, that assists doctors in the buying, transitioning and valuation of a practice. He and his team help hundreds of clients and non-clients with their transition goals annually.
Mar 01, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Dr. Dallin Young is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Young Smiles Children's Dentistry in Fairbanks, Alaska. After starting a practice in a competitive area of Idaho, he decided to sell and move to the interior of Alaska. In this podcast we discuss: - How Dr. Young settled on the interior of Alaska as a location to practice pediatric dentistry. - Challenges of the weather and remoteness of the area - What does the patient population look like in Fairbanks, Alaska? - How does treatment planni...
Feb 22, 2022•49 min
Dr. Kirsten Frazier is an orthodontist who recently started her own practice in South Carolina. She practiced in Chicago for several years out of residency before determining that she needed to be her own boss, and made the decision to move to a new city and plant roots in her dream practice. I wanted to bring Kirsten on to discuss and compare her start up journey to my own, to get a better sense of what challenges orthodontists face. Many pediatric dentists have spouses and significant others w...
Feb 16, 2022•48 min
This if the first of several solo study episodes where I will be reviewing certain pediatric dentistry topics as a way to review for board exams, as well as to review new evidence and clinical studies on the subject. Today's study topic is on sealants... how to do sealants that don't suck. Placing a good retentive sealant is one of the most technically challenging procedures to do well, and yet we don't critically evaluate how we place them often enough. There's a high degree of bias with how we...
Feb 08, 2022•41 min
Dr. Eric teDuits is a pediatric dentist and a private practice owner in Madison, Wisconsin. He has been growing and expanding his practice for nearly 30 years, and he joins us today for a great discussion on how to maximize efficiency and productivity in the hygiene department. Dr. teDuits discusses how he expanded and structured his business from one pediatric dentist to six partners with three different locations. We discuss how he brings on associates in his practice, structures buyouts, and ...
Feb 01, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Dr. Ann Bynum is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Holly Tree Pediatric Dentistry in Simpsonville, South Carolina. She has been in private practice pediatric dentistry for over 20 years, and maintains an active roll in the AAPD while also acting as a board examiner for the ABPD. She comes on the podcast to help us answer some long overdue listener questions and answers that have built up over the months. On this version of our Pedo Pearls Power Hour, we answer questions regarding: - What's th...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr 1 min
McDonalds knows the cost of a sesame seed on every bun they sell, yet when you ask a dentist what their case acceptance rate/monthly breakeven amount/recall retention rate of their practice is, most have no clue. With 2021 having come to a close, now is a great time to sit down over a cold beer or a stiff whiskey and start making some spreadsheets to understand the numbers in the business you are running. Dr. Eric Hans is a private practice pediatric dentist with nearly 25 years of business expe...
Jan 18, 2022•1 hr 13 min
Dr. Kathleen Schultz is a dual-specialized pediatric dentist and oral pathologist. She teaches and practices at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York. Dr. Schultz and I talk about a grab bag of oral path situations we sometimes encounter as pediatric dentists. Some of the topics we hit on: - Dentigerous cysts in the mixed dentition - Gun to the head, which is worse? Chewing tobacco or cigarettes? - Nutritional deficiencies and the increase in scurvy in food insecure or special needs pati...
Jan 11, 2022•1 hr
Dr. David Bailey is a private practice pediatric dentist in Sheridan, Wyoming. He has been using SDF in his practice for years, and was an early advocate for using it as a caries-arresting medication. While still an important component of his practice, he has since limited SDF to specific patient situations. Dr. Bailey and I have a discussion about the potential issues with widespread SDF use in our profession, in light of recent issues regarding non-coverage by insurance companies for restorati...
Jan 04, 2022•59 min
Dr. Christopher Chance is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Oaks Point Pediatric Dentistry in Houston, Texas. He joins the podcast to tell us more about his start-up journey to create a boutique practice in an edgy, modern office in the growing Houston area. We drink a few cold beers and talk about some of the following start-up topics: - Using corporate associateships as a practice run for a start-up - Challenges with securing lending for a large or expensive practice space - Using local res...
Dec 28, 2021•56 min
