5 Scheduling Hacks that Allow you to Easily Cut Clinical Days

Feeling trapped in the operatory five days a week? Imagine reclaiming an entire workday without sacrificing income or patient care. That's exactly what today's episode delivers—a practical blueprint for dental practice owners who want to work smarter, not harder.

I break down five seemingly small schedule adjustments that combine to create massive efficiency gains. From the simple act of staggering assistant lunches (yes, you can eat quickly!) to training your team to handle crown deliveries up to the final cementation, these strategies address the hidden time thieves lurking in your daily operations. By implementing these changes, you'll reclaim a staggering 16 hours of production time weekly while simultaneously increasing your hourly production value.

The math is compelling: just two crown appointments daily at $1,500 each generates $3,000 daily—that's $430 per hour or nearly $331,000 annually. Combined with your newly reclaimed production time, this approach transforms practice economics while reducing your chairside hours. These aren't theoretical concepts—they're the exact strategies I've implemented in my own multi-doctor practice and helped countless coaching clients adopt with remarkable results.

This episode reveals the foundation of what makes a "three-day dentist" possible. You'll discover how seemingly minor inefficiencies compound into major production losses, and more importantly, how addressing them systematically can revolutionize both your practice and your quality of life. Ready to spend more time with family, pursue other interests, or simply reduce the physical toll of clinical dentistry? These practical strategies offer the concrete pathway many dentists have been searching for.

Want to implement these systems with expert guidance? Visit dentalpracticeheroes.com to explore our coaching options designed to help practice owners install efficiency-driving systems that ultimately allow your practice to run itself. Work less, earn more, and fall back in love with practice ownership.

Text us your feedback! (please note: we cannot respond through this channel))

  👉 Register for the Free Webinar: How 7-Figure Dentists Work 3 Days or Less… Without Working Harder
Learn the exact systems top practice owners use to increase income, reduce clinical days, and finally escape the daily grind. 

Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life

We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.

Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.

Episode Transcript

Paul Etchison (00:02):
What if you could add a full day's worth of
production time to your week,every single week, without
seeing more patients, hiringmore team or working later?
These five small changes toyour schedule that I'm about to
share with you.
These can add up to a majortime savings and major money in
the bank, and I've seen themwork in my own practice as well,

(00:23):
for all of my coaching clients'practices.
You're not going to want tomiss this one.
I am giving it away today.
You are listening to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast and I
am Dr Paul Etcheson.
I'm the author of two books onpractice management, the owner
of a large group practice in thesouth suburbs of Chicago and
the host of this wonderfulpodcast where we help practice
owners escape the chair, runsmarter businesses and live

(00:45):
better lives.
All right hypothetical situationhere.
Okay, it's Wednesday, you'redriving home from work, you're
sitting in your car, you'redriving home.
You know you got one more dayin the week.
You got to go to work onThursday and then you get Friday
off.
Maybe Friday is an admin dayfor you, maybe you take it off,
but you're driving home, it'sWednesday night, you're in your
car and you're just wonderingwhat would it be like if I

(01:06):
didn't have to come in to worktomorrow, and what would you do
with your time?
Think about that for a second.
What would you do with yourtime if you didn't have to come
into work tomorrow, on Thursday?
Well, if you can implementthese five things I'm about to
tell you about guess what youcan easily cut a day out a week.
There is no doubt in my mind ifyou do all five of these things
, you will be able to cut yourfourth day out and make exactly

(01:28):
the same amount of money.
Actually, you're going to makemore money.
All right, let's quit talkingabout it and get into it.
Let's go.
Number one the first thing is tostagger your assistant lunches.
I think every doctor should berunning two columns so they
don't lose any time to turningchairs.
But I want you to stagger yourassistant lunches.
Often we see the whole officewill shut down for an hour,

(01:50):
between 12 and 1.
And by the end of the week, atfour days, that's four hours you
just lost.
What if you could stagger yourassistant lunches so that they
don't share the same lunch, sothat you, as the doctor, never
take a lunch?
You keep producing throughlunch.
Now I know what you're thinking.
Dude, I gotta eat.
I get so hangry.
I know I feel you, but you caneat really fast.

(02:12):
I mean, tell me that you don'thave time during your day to go
sit in your office.
All right, you got time tothrow some things down.
Let me tell you some thingsthat I can throw down pretty
quick.
You know, if you need someideas, canned food I know it
sounds gross, but it's alreadycooked.
You just open the can and eatright out of the can.
Man, those spaghettis that youused to eat and that chef
boyardee crap when you were akid.
Dude, that's really fast.

(02:33):
Hot dogs they're pre-cooked.
Or you can get like thoseprotein bars, like the cliff
bars or the kind bars.
There's so many things that youcan eat really fast.
Think about it If you'reworking four days a week, that's
four hours that you just gotback there.
I know you might like yourlunch, you might enjoy it, but
is it worth four hours ofproduction each week?
I don't know.
That's a pretty expensive lunch, all right.

(02:55):
Number two train your assistantsto deliver crowns.
Now, what do I mean by this?
Now, you got to check yourstate practice act.
You got to see what you can letyour assistants do.
But what I'm saying is that ifyou train your assistants to
adjust the crown, to get itready, to get the temporary off,
everything all the way up tothe point of cementing it, you

(03:16):
can save yourself about 20minutes of that crown delivery
appointment.
I want it to be like you walkinto the room, the assistant has
it ready and you pick up thatcrown and you squirt some cement
in it and you smoosh it on thetooth and you leave and the
assistant cleans up the cement.
You can do this.
What if you did that?
What if you had two crowns eachday?
That's going to save you maybe20, 30 minutes per crown.

(03:36):
That's going to save youanother hour each day.
That's another four hours.
We just saved you.
Now we're up to eight hours,okay, so just train your
assistants to do everything theycan.
This doesn't end at justdelivering the crowns.
I mean, it's making temporaries.
It's like every little thingthey can do that you don't need
to do.
That will save you time and getyou time back in your schedule

(03:58):
that you can use to produce Allright.
Number three let your hygienistnumb all of your patients.
Now, I know you can't do thisin some States, which really,
really sucks because it is sohelpful.
I remember we started doingthis at my office.
It was like wonderful, whowants to give shots?
I don't want to give shots, sohave your hygienist do it.
You can walk in the room.

(04:19):
The patient's already numb andready to go.
But you know, when we did thisin my office, it eventually
started becoming a nuisance tothe hygienist.
Like they were like gosh, Idon't, I have to turn my own
room.
I have to do this, I have toget my patient out of time to
numb your patient.
It was like the hygienist hadto start working two columns and
it wasn't fair to the hygienist.
So what we came up with is thatit's the assistant's
responsibility to to find ahygienist and trade services

(04:43):
with them.
Like, hey, can you numb mypatient?
I will turn your room and getyour next patient back and take
the x-rays, things like that.
You've got to offer somethingso that they're just trading
work.
So that makes it equitable foreverybody.
And if you do that I don't knowsix patients a day you just
save yourself maybe 10 minutesper patient per day.
Four days a week, dude, it'sanother four hours.

(05:05):
That means we're up to 12 hours.
We're saving you each week.
Now you can start to see howthis stuff really adds up,
especially we're talking aboutper day, per career.
How much does this add up Ifyou do this for the rest of your
career?
All right.
Number four check your hygienerecalls in the middle of the
appointment, when the patient islaying down.
I want you to interrupt thecleaning, and the reason I think

(05:28):
this is important is that youcan get in and out.
You can still chat a little bit, see how people are doing, but
you don't have to spend a lot oftime in the recall exam.
You pop in.
Hey, I'm so sorry.
I'll get in and out of here.
Sorry to interrupt.
I'm about to start something inthe other room.
I'll get in and out of here.
Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
I'm about to start something inthe other room.
I didn't want to make you waitOne.

(05:49):
Your patient's going toappreciate not waiting at the
end of the appointment.
Because how do you think thatpatient feels when they wait 10
minutes at the end of theappointment for you to come into
the room and then you come infor like a one or two minute
look-see and then you get out ofthere, they're like dude in the
middle of the cleanings.
You can do those recall examsand probably like two minutes,
two, three minutes, instead oflike a five, eight minutes.

(06:11):
So that'll save you about fiveminutes per patient.
How many recall patients yousee a day, I don't know, maybe
12, 14, because then get youanother hour back four days a
week, that's four more hours.
Now we're at 16 hours.
We have saved you.
That is two full days of work,right?
This stuff really adds up Allright.
The last one, number five useDental Practice Hero's block

(06:35):
scheduling method, which isessentially we're gonna weight
the schedule with highproduction appointments.
We're gonna save spaces forcrowns because we know when we
do a crown we get high dollarper hour production, but when we
do fillings we don't.
So we make sure that if we'regoing to do a fillings
appointment we balance out theweight of that appointment with
a dollar per hour with a highproduction appointment, like a

(06:56):
crown.
So if you hold space in yourschedule for two crowns per day,
roughly about $1,500 per crownbuildup, and that's going to get
you $3,000 per day.
Let's divide that by a sevenhour day, okay, that's $430 per
hour, that's $6,800 a week andif you're a 48 week per year

(07:17):
dentist, that is $330,000.
So not only did I just give you16 hours additional production
time, I just increased yourproduction by 330,000.
And that's just with the crowns.
If we add in the additional 16hours, we got with the
additional production.
I mean, dude, this is a gamechanger.
This is completely changingyour practice and this is part

(07:38):
of the stuff that contributes tobeing a three-day dentist.
There is so much inefficiencyin our practice.
This is just the tip of theiceberg.
There is so much inefficiencyin our practice.
This is just the tip of theiceberg.
There are so many other areas.
We can get more dollar per hour.
We can kill these inefficiencyholes, like we just did in this
episode.
So if you're looking to takeyour practice to the next level
and take your life to the nextlevel because you're ready to

(07:58):
practice less days, I hope youcan see how this is possible.
We gained 16 hours today and wealso increased our production
by $430 per hour.
It's a big deal.
So if you're ready to do thatat your practice and you want
more time to spend with yourkids or whatever you love,
please check out our coachingoptions at
dentalpracticeheroescom.
I assure you we will help youand we will get you there.

(08:20):
We always do.
So let us help you, as apractice owner, install these
systems into your practice sothat the practice will run
better and eventually run itself.
That'll allow you to work less,earn more and hopefully enjoy
practice ownership even morethan you already do.
So thank you so much forlistening today.
I really appreciate it and wewill talk to you next time.