Top Year End Tips

 It is that time of year – you have a list of things to do that is nearly a mile long. Your mind is scrambled, and you are trying to remember what you need to do for the practice and team to wrap up 2025 nicely. Dr. Kuba and Bethany are here to help! Together, they put together a list of their top year-end tips and reminders. Some of the items are easy to forget, like evaluating your fee schedule, while others are more challenging like evaluating your A/R trends. Nonetheless, this episode will help you maximize the last few weeks of this year to ensure that everything is checked off your list (and hopefully you don’t have to check it twice!). 

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📣December content now available! Don’t forget that 2026 Subscription Prices are INCREASING. If you want to lock in at the amazing monthly price of $49.99, you need to get on it TODAY! This month’s content includes: 

• A Bonus Episode designed give you tools for End of Year Reflection
• Versions of Rest Quiz
• Develop a Rest Plan
• End of Year Reflection Questions
• Plus 6 Creative Team Building Ideas

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Transcript

0:01
Are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real dental drama? If so, then
0:09
you've come to the right place. Join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr. Reena Kuba
0:14
as we dive into the solutions we've created and the mistakes we've made
0:19
while managing dental drama. Let's get started. Ladies and gent, top
0:26
of the morning to you. Howdy, howdy. Good morning. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. And I'm I'm talking to you
0:32
all you listeners cuz obviously it's just Bethany. You lady in here. There's no gent in here. I was talking to y'all.
0:37
Sorry. I should clarify that. But we don't store a little a little man in our recording space just to listen to
0:44
us talk. We do need one. Anybody? Any any listeners want to come? Any volunteers to creepily hang out in
0:51
the corner while we record? Pipe in as you see fit. Like so that we can say ladies and gent.
0:57
There you go. Yes. Yes. Um, okay. So, can I start this? Oh, yes.
1:02
First of all, I wanted to remind everybody uh of two things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed yet, don't be
1:10
a dummy because uh the prices go up in January. Yes. So, lock your rate in now.
1:15
Yes. Um and which I am so pleased and I know y'all will probably hate me for and that's fine, but I'm the one who talked
1:22
you into the price increase. So, I'm glad you listened to me. I listened to your advice. Isn't that
1:27
amazing? Isn't that great how it works? You advise me, I listen, I advise you, you
1:34
listen. Just win-win. Win-win. Brilliance. Brilliance. Just propelling us forward. Um, and so yeah,
1:42
so all the hate mail you can direct to me um for that price increase. But what
1:47
you're getting for said subscription, like the December digest I printed. um
1:54
loved your article as usual. Um and then you had a lot of great uh playbook tips,
2:00
which is our um like how to what to do, how to make this happen. Um recipe guide, if you
2:06
will. And um I already took um screenshots of of the ones I want my
2:12
team to work on that I'm like, okay, here here's some good. Um so
2:18
even leading to you had like real the sweet sally solutions in our So that's what I was about to say. So
2:23
that if you're okay with I want to talk about for today's topic I want to talk about I was thinking of like a top three
2:30
or top four tips for year end. Like what are the things we need to do? Cuz I don't know about y'all but I'm like
2:36
holy coal you know Santa's coming to town which means it's the end of the year and what all am I ready for
2:43
wrapping up this year? Like what all was I supposed to be doing again? And I know like for home, you know, it's like this
2:49
my side of the family, we need to do this. Your side of the f husband's side of the family, we need to do this. Oh,
2:54
office crap, we need to do this. So, what do I need to do as a business owner
3:00
to wrap up things for December? I was hoping we could talk about that in this episode. So, you can kind of remind me
3:05
of things I'm forgetting to do. One of the things I was forgetting to do happened to be one of your suggestions
3:11
in the digest. Yeah. So, I took a picture of that and I sent an email. You haven't seen it yet,
3:16
but I copied you on the email. Um, and then I sent it to my AR team and it was
3:22
so I'm going to go ahead and launch with my first tip. Okay. Are you okay if we do this? I am totally good with this. So, my first tip is um fee increases and
3:30
I've just got my head in the cloud. Sometimes I started thinking about this back in like September. it has zero been
3:37
on the radar until I read the December digest and I saw that in there and I was like we haven't and it's already like
3:45
almost you know we're we're December is well into the month and um we don't have
3:51
much time for this now but we want it to hit in January when we kind of reset our
3:57
fee tables and stuff like that so we better get on this. So, that would be
4:02
it's kind of that dual tip of one, don't forget to go subscribe so you're not missing these pearls and nuggets.
4:09
And may I say, and I think I've said this before, I am a Bethany client. Y'all see how much time I spend with
4:14
Bethany. And yet, like, it's not like we sit there and go, "Don't forget to increase your fees, Kuba." Like, we
4:21
we've got other problems we've been tackling. Yes. And so if I wasn't getting the digest myself as a
4:28
subscriber, I wouldn't have caught that tip, right? So, um, I'm so grateful I did. So now
4:33
I've got that ball set in motion and I've got a deadline for my AR team to make the recommendations of what we're
4:39
increasing. If you've never done a fee increase, oh, you need the subscription more than you know. Um, but for those of
4:46
us that that do them and if you've forgotten, get that taken care of. Yes, that's such a great tip to bring to the
4:53
surface here. I know obviously we put it in the digest, but I can't tell you how many times I'll step in to work with a
4:59
practice and they have forgotten it. It just slips our minds. They've forgotten to really evaluate fees for years. For
5:07
years. And guys, like this is such a great tip. I'm just so glad you brought
5:13
it up because we we're shooting ourselves in the foot if we don't think about this. There's a process to it for
5:19
sure. It's not an easy task, but absolutely it should be something that re should be re-evaluated on an annual
5:25
basis. Yep. And and I think, you know, we feel bad. We feel bad about it. We're like, people already think of us as greedy,
5:32
shady society, you know, of dentists. That's what you guys are. But we're business owners and find me a business
5:38
that is not evaluating their fees and find me a business that is decreasing their fees.
5:44
Yeah. Right. When was the last time American Airlines dropped their fees on a flight? Right. So, um, as business owners, we
5:50
need to take care of our business, and that is a super important aspect that we can't overlook.
5:56
Yes. Um, are you okay with how do you want to do this? You want to bounce back year three
6:02
mine? Yeah. Okay. Um, the other thing then as I was trying to think about fees and trying to
6:07
wrap my brain around what else do I need to do at the end of this year? Um, we do dental benefits for our team
6:14
members. So, when I say that, it's just me going, "Hey, I'm going to do whatever our number is, $1,500 of free dental
6:21
work for you." Um, and that's my dental benefits for the team.
6:26
Yeah. Um, which actually comes in handy, too, when you're doing your compensation reviews, which I know we'll start
6:32
talking about here soon, but we we we always talk about it every year. Um, but that's like, you know, if you got paid
6:38
$10 an hour, but you also got $1,500 worth of dental work from me this year because you brought your kids in, you
6:44
brought your husband in, you got your own teeth cleaned, or we did fillings on your kid, whatever it was, and I did
6:49
1,500 of that and didn't charge you as an employee. But then we show that on our
6:55
compensation review is like, don't forget, you got this benefit from me as well because if you weren't here, you
7:01
would have gone and paid $1,500 somewhere else. Yeah. And so, um, so
7:06
what that means for me is then now we're hitting towards the end of the year where if I allow 1,500 or,000 or 1,800,
7:12
whatever it is, the amount that I give my team, um, I need to make sure I go back and like readjust their ledgers so
7:19
that when we start in January, cuz I do it like from January to December, um,
7:24
and make sure we're starting off at zero balances for them, right, for their dental benefits. So, I need
7:31
to, you know, and the the chart that we calculate that on as well, like preparing all of that for you when you
7:39
come help me do my fee um or my compensation reviews, I need to have those numbers ready for you as well.
7:45
Like, if Jamie used all 1500, but Sally only used 400, I need to be able to put those
7:50
numbers on our Exactly. um thing. So, I need to I need to work that out. Um so, that's my tip number two.
7:56
I love that. My tip number three is um in our office I pay out PTO. So any
8:03
unused PTO I pay out at the end of the year. Um it does not roll over and I
8:08
always get anxious towards the holiday time because we do uh the paid
8:13
vacations. So we do um Christmas Eve or sorry Christmas day and New Year's Day
8:19
and so that can add up. Then you count in PTO pay that was unused. Um, and
8:27
typically around this time of year we are bonusing because we've just had Thanksgiving which is busy in a pedo office and we've just had Christmas
8:33
break. So just watching cash flow Christmas gifts that you might do Christmas party like it's an expensive
8:40
month for business owners. Yes. And and the other thing I always forget is if I'm not mistaken November,
8:46
December sometime it's where you're getting three pay periods in that month instead of just the two.
8:52
Yeah. Usually somewhere between October and November is when that happens. You're exactly right. It's pretty fresh
8:58
freshly happened. So you're you're already low. Yeah. Your reserves are low and then here we go into the most expensive time
9:04
of the year. So I think for me then I have been burned before forgetting to
9:09
pay out PTO and then getting slammed at that too. So I actually just messaged my team last week and I said, "Hey, I'm
9:16
looking at who has unpaid uh who has days left." Then I had to
9:21
contact my uh accountant cuz I track it, but my my tracker I'm not good at
9:27
tracking it. And so I just kind of said, "Hey, can you be my second set of eyeballs? What has who has gotten PTO
9:33
paid already? How many days?" And and there were two that I had wrong. Like I had one that she had used three PTO
9:39
days. And he's like, "We're payroll is showing she's only been paid two days of PTO." So I actually owe her a day. And
9:46
then anyway, I was able to check those numbers against what our system has showed that we have paid.
9:51
Yeah. And then calculate what is left to pay. There's one that she hasn't used any of her eight PTO days this year.
9:58
That is expensive. That's like paying her two weeks worth of pay plus her regular pay plus Christmas plus. Right.
10:05
So I told her I was like, I'm going to pay four of your days on this pay period. I'm going to pay four of your days on the next pay period. And she was
10:11
fine with that. um but anybody else that I can pay and just get that cost taken care of now while we still have money to
10:17
pay before like all these other accounts receivable things come in. So just making sure that you're watching
10:23
cash flow I guess is the point of that. But also we don't often think cash flow
10:28
with if you do have a policy where you pay out PTO we don't normally remember
10:34
to correlate that in there. So, I think that's a I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one who does that, right? Like, I don't know
10:40
what people think. I would say it's 50/50. I mean, some people will allow it to roll over into the next year, but probably about 50%
10:46
are like, "No, I'm just going to pay that out." Well, and some some of y'all maybe maybe don't do PTO. Some of you maybe don't do
10:52
paid vacation days. So, I know that is not universal across the board, but I
10:58
think most offices are doing some thing or another. And the point is watch your cash flow.
11:03
Yeah. Okay. Um, and then I know that was just that was three already, but then this kind of ties in with cash flow as well.
11:10
Um, just another random. So, I guess I've got four here. I have four, too. So, okay, good. I think I know what your
11:16
fourth one is cuz I'm we kind of talked about it together. Um, so yes, good. I
11:21
didn't realize. So, that was number four, but um my fourth is um if you have anything like uniforms that you look at
11:28
fresh for the new year or things like that. And also, I kind of tie in uniforms with our wish list items.
11:35
At this point, it might be too late to go, "Hey, our wish list, um, hey,
11:41
accountant, can I should I buy this before year end?" I think a lot of us are pretty good with that. I'm not. So,
11:48
I've had to remind myself to go, "Hey, buddy, do do I need to buy something else this year or
11:54
but I already know what I want for next year." And so, I'm like, "Hey, heads up. I want two new of these units.
12:00
Yeah. So, I'm gonna be turning to you to go, when can I afford to do that? Yeah. Um, and so I've already put it on his
12:07
radar. But whatever you do with your wish list items, if you haven't already thought about that and looked at it from a tax
12:15
perspective, make sure to do that. We don't have much time left. Yeah, that's such a good one. And again,
12:24
I love that this is what early December. There are still I know for tax purposes
12:31
sometimes if we've got a an overage and we need to write the ship so to speak, I
12:36
think it's important today's the day. If you haven't created your wish list, think about it today because if there is
12:43
something that you need to purchase before the year end, you still have a little bit of time. Um, but then if not,
12:48
if you're not in that situation where you need to purchase some things, then definitely creating the list for next
12:54
year. Well, and and that too then just helping your accountant out to go these are where I see our, you know, even things
13:00
like my compressor is 10 years old, so we're we need to make sure we have reserves for that for next year. We're
13:05
wanting to buy this new blah blah next year. We actually need a new sensor next year. And just kind of teeing them up. I
13:13
know this year it could be something about isn't it something like for a lot of things like you've got to have it in
13:18
your building before December 31st and it may not you know whatever whatever time we have left if you have not
13:25
thought about it think about it today and reach out to your reps reach out to your accountant
13:30
to see if this would apply to you is the point and it may not even be major things it could be hey I need a couple
13:36
new hygiene kits because that's been on our radar for a while and no that's not a massive spend and but if it does help
13:43
you with from a tax standpoint with some extra costs before the end of the year, then that's certainly a worthwhile thing
13:49
to consider. Those are good. Okay, thank you. Those are my four tips for a year end. But I'm looking forward
13:56
to yours cuz that's what I came up with on my own. But when I started thinking about this, I was like, "Good God, what else have I forgotten?"
14:02
Yeah, what else have I forgotten? Like fee increase, dummy. like that should always be it always has been on my radar like
14:09
again starting Octoberish and it just has not but once we get towards the end of the year there's such a flurry of our minds
14:16
are just distracted with a lot of things and so it can be easy for stuff to fall off. So tell me what else I've fallen off. I
14:22
want to see your list. So the one of the things I put as my um top four tips is calendar prep for 2026.
14:32
In this case, I can't tell you how often we just kind of keep putting this off
14:37
like, oh, I don't have time to sit down and plan out my calendar. Um, or I don't know when I'm taking vacation. I've
14:43
really got to decide on that. But I would just challenge you, don't let the holiday season pass without sitting down
14:49
and at least at the bare minimum getting the first six months planned. My preference would be that we get all of
14:56
2026 planned because in dentistry, most specialties function in that six-month
15:02
cycle. So, anything that you're putting on the schedule right now for March is
15:08
really too late, quite honestly. So, uh that can be vacations. Um I like to go
15:14
ahead and get all the team meetings on the schedule. If you do annual
15:19
compensation reviews, go ahead and put that on the schedule. If you do uh you know quarterly performance reviews, put
15:25
those on the schedule. The emergency trainings. Emergency if your state board requires
15:31
that or whatever it is, but put your emergency trainings on there. Yes. CPR if y'all do that together as a
15:37
group and you're due for that. Um your OSHA HIPPA uh training, you know, get
15:42
that on the books. Um and I would say even when you said like try to plan through the end of the year
15:47
and my thought was like, "Oh honey, like I don't know." Yeah. you know, Labor Day weekend or
15:53
like come on now. Who who knows that this far in advance? But I think even what what I tend to do is I will make an
15:59
event in March. Yes. And so what I'm doing now for Calendarer prep is saying leaving myself an event
16:05
in March to go okay now start thinking about September. Can I can I do that in March? Sometimes I can. Sometimes I
16:12
can't. If I can't then I'll in March I will make an event for May already to go okay come back and think about this
16:17
then. So you're leaving yourself breadcrumbs throughout the year so you don't have things falling off. Yes. Or an alternative to that would be
16:25
if you're like, hey, there's that there's a lot of administrative things, then block yourself off from work. And I
16:33
know this sounds crazy, but if you can wrap up a little bit early on a Friday afternoon and give yourself two or three
16:40
hours of admin time and then in that admin time, you have a checklist that
16:45
you're going off of. Coordinate with CPA on this uh vacation schedule, um you
16:53
know, team meeting schedule, whatever. You create a list of all of your admin for those few hours and then you're
16:59
literally just checking it off. But then your admin that admin afternoon is clearly marked on the calendar because
17:06
there's no patient care. It's blocked off for doctor admin time. So that can be a really good
17:11
and and we all know we all have times like in Texas star testing week is always slow across the board.
17:18
So I know I will have time in April. So maybe that's when I'm going to save to do my emergency trainings. And like
17:24
we the last several years we have been so much better about going okay I know I don't want to send all my staff home.
17:30
So, let's wait to clean the baseboards until April. Yeah. Like, we're going to do it in April and then it'll get really
17:38
slow again in mid August after school starts back. So, we'll clean baseboards again and then it'll be real slow again
17:44
in November after Thanksgiving break. We'll clean them again then. So, like putting those blocks on the schedule. Anything you can think of that you went
17:51
this year and went like, "Damn it, I didn't give myself enough time for that." Yes. Um, we do our marketing calendar. We we
17:58
do that. We have a meeting in September to to mark all the marketing events we
18:03
want. Yeah. The next year we've done that the last couple years and it's made it so much easier. Not that we don't pivot from that. Um but at least we've
18:09
got some sort of a and framework framework. And so for example, if in uh
18:15
June we want to go hit the school nurses. Well, in our calendars I'm putting plan
18:20
that in April. You know, April's going to be slow. Order all the stuff you need for the nurses. order all the for our um
18:27
February like for peds we do for daycarees and stuff we go and we do our national children's dental health month
18:33
we're not planning that in January we don't have time to get all the toothbrushes in get all the bags made do all of that in January for February so
18:40
if you wanted us to do a presentation for you we really should have booked that back in October and so this year we did we had somebody
18:47
calling schools in October going hey are you going to want this in February you'll still have a straggler or two who
18:53
may call you or you may reach out to if you have extra things you ordered or whatever or you met somebody at the,
19:00
you know, your chamber mixer in January and they're like, "Oh, I happen to be the administrator for events for this
19:08
school." Right? Like, you can always pivot, but it's it's not easy to do that when you've got like 10 schools you're
19:13
trying to hit and now you need 3,000 brushes, not 300 brushes, right? So, anything you want to
19:19
do from a this is the time to sit and think about that. Yes. And the more thought you can put
19:26
into it, the better prepared you're going to be. And like you said, if it's too overwhelming, make yourself an event
19:31
and come back to it. But don't just let it fall off into the atmosphere. It
19:38
won't come back. It'll or it'll come back when you have no chance to do anything and then it's chaos and stress and maybe
19:44
not the product you wanted. Yeah. even going through putting employee specific things like employee
19:51
work anniversaries or employee birthdays on the calendar or you know things like
19:56
that. Putting your own putting your spouse's birthday on the calendar if you're going to be inclined to forget it. Figure out how to put that on your
20:04
calendar so that you can keep track of all of that. So that's my number one is calendar prep. The other thing if I can
20:10
add if you have associates and and you renew the contract yearly giving yourself like Mark you know if I
20:16
know that Dr. Smith is going to his contract ends in March maybe in January I'm meeting with you to go hey we need
20:22
to get him to sign this new contract because it expires in March. Yep. Do we need to make any changes? What are we doing with this contract? Are we
20:29
still comfortable with this is the contract we want so that way we can get it to him by February so he's got a month to look at
20:34
it so that he can be signed by March. Yeah, that's a great reminder as well. Just again, create those events for
20:41
yourself so that you can remember what you need to do to prep cuz not everything has to be prepped today,
20:48
December. You can at least put it on the calendar and then create opportunities to prep for those as you get closer to
20:54
them. Yeah, that's a really good one. I think this kind of ties in with it, but I view it as something different, which
21:01
is I'm going to call it projections. And I know every dentist is like, "Oh,
21:08
that sounds like such business language projections for 2026." But I really
21:13
think that this is super important for us to think about what are some of
21:19
the potential needs that we'll have next year? What are some of the potential
21:24
problems? What are some of the opportunities? Like if we know that
21:32
um Sally is having a baby in March and she's going to be out for 3 months,
21:38
what are we doing to problem solve that? Now it's December. I know we're months ahead of that, but that's a projection.
21:45
We're going to be light staffed. Are we outsourcing during that month? Have we trained Susie up to cross trainin for
21:52
her, but then that's going to be too much on Suz's plate? What clinical assistant are we pulling up to help with
21:57
that? what's our strategy? So, we're projecting a potential problem and we're going ahead and starting to think about
22:02
solutions. There could be opportunities like, oh, um, there's a pediatric
22:08
dentist that's opening up down the street. It looks like their website says they're going to be opened in February.
22:14
Great. I need to block some time on my calendar to go and meet with that person, get to know them. That's an opportunity for us to lighten our
22:21
schedule a little bit by referring some of our tough pediatric patients over there. So, that's that's a great
22:27
opportunity. It could be, hey, marketingwise, um we've got a new uh
22:32
neighborhood down the street that is start we see the houses are looking like they're starting to be finished. Let's
22:38
think about marketing to them because we need to increase our new patients. Um we
22:45
could project problems like uh you just went through this. Uh, I've
22:51
had multiple clients hit their pano expiration date. Expiration meaning the
22:58
the machine decided it was expiring this year and they're like, "Oh gosh, I've
23:03
got this huge $30,000 bill now that I wasn't expecting." Sit down and think about all of your big equipment. Is
23:09
there anything that could be on the fritz? um even if it's acted perfectly fine from an age standpoint, if it is
23:18
nearing that 10 year mark or let's say you've got a server that's older, go ahead and project what if this server
23:26
goes down um or what if this panel goes down. So, I would say just sitting and
23:31
thinking about possibilities that could occur or are guaranteed to occur like
23:36
Sally having her baby, that's a guarantee. She's going to be out for maternity leave. Um, some things though
23:42
are just we're hypothetically thinking about things that could happen. Can I throw in a teaser here?
23:47
Yeah. So, you saying that I'm like, where does that sound familiar? That's been in my brain recently. And I think I used that
23:54
example in my January digest article. Yes. And um I won't and should I should I go
24:02
ahead and tell y'all what it is or not? Anyway, point is that's one of the things that I was um talking about in
24:10
there was go ahead and what can what does Bethany help me with? Yeah.
24:15
And um that that's one of them. I was like being strategic with things and uh I don't think I used the word you
24:22
just used. Projections did I don't Yeah, I used some super
24:27
layman term. I don't remember what it was. But layman works. Well, that sometimes
24:32
that's all this brain can can, you know, process. But, um, I think the the
24:38
concept is and I was excited about my January article. Your articles are always so good and
24:45
practical. Like, they're practical. They're not they're not polished whatsoever. It's like I write how I speak. Um, so, but I think
24:53
they I think and hope Do you want me to just tell you what the article is just know? Don't give it all away though.
25:00
I won't even remember what all there is to give away. Um but uh maybe teeing it up for anybody who's not a subscriber
25:06
like this is what I I had just been hit quite a bit this last month with um
25:11
people going so what all does Bethany do for you or what all am I supposed to expect out of a consultant and what all
25:17
am I paying for and whatever. And I was like how do I even describe what all you
25:22
help me with? Um and my thought was I'm not going to describe what you help me with. I'm going to actually give you
25:28
examples of what you help me with. And then that way if another owner is going, I need help.
25:33
It's like these are the kinds of things she helps me with. And it was by no means all-incclusive. It's just But that
25:39
was one of the things which and I can't again I can't remember what the whole tip was, but it was it was like yeah, if you know that somebody's going to be out
25:46
for surgery. Oh, it was about the schedule, about how you help with the schedule. And I think I normally would have been like, what's
25:53
to help with the schedule? We're open these days. We've got this many people. like what is there to strategize about
25:58
this? But there is because if you know somebody's out on maternity, that changes the schedule. If you know that
26:03
you can get summer help, that changes the schedule. If you know that Billy's going to be out for her knee
26:10
surgery, then how are we adjusting for the schedule? Times that
26:15
we know we're going to be busy are times we know we're going to be slower. So, if you if you just have one static schedule
26:20
all the time, no wonder Yeah. You're not maximizing the times that could be maximized. and you are probably wasting
26:27
money and um having chaos that you don't need frankly. So I it's
26:33
if it has never occurred to you to change your schedule um but then how to do it
26:40
strategically and being smart about it. Yes. And that's where you come in handy because you do look ahead and go okay
26:47
guys what are y'all doing at these times? And now you've got my train team kind of trained to do it. There's a
26:52
couple of people that are strategic thinking about it, but still oftentimes we're in the weeds. We kind of miss
26:57
things and you're like, um, that sounds good in theory, but what about this? And we're like, oh, right. So, that's one
27:05
thing that as a consultant, you're looking at a healthy schedule. And it does vary. It's it is not static.
27:13
It it can't stay the same. It cannot. And I would agree with you. But I would say if it's staying the same, there's
27:19
usually indicating that something's wrong or we're not maximizing or we're chaotic because we're running the same
27:25
schedule regardless of who's there. So, or what opportunities there are and stuff like that. So, you're you're
27:31
you're not maximizing what you could and should be. Yeah. Ooh. So, that's going to tee it up
27:38
nicely. You need to hear more people. I had some good stuff in there. You haven't read it yet? No, I haven't. I haven't. I'm I need to.
27:46
It sounds awesome. I always read them just for clarity. I haven't read hers
27:51
yet, but I I just sent it to you. I just sent it to you Friday night. Yes. I was about to say, don't make it
27:56
sound like I haven't done my homework. I promise. No. No. You don't even know the title. I don't. Should I tell you the title? She said, "What's the title?"
28:02
The title is 51 plus ways my consultant helps me. Ooh.
28:08
51. Mhm. Plus, plus. Dang. Do you have 51 in there? I
28:16
want you to read the article. Quiet you. I could probably do a whole second set and finish out the hundred.
28:23
Oh my gosh. I'm excited, man. Now I'm kicking myself for not having read it yet. It's long. Why didn't I stay up late on last night
28:31
reading this? Yeah. Come on. What? Would you need to sleep? I'm like slacking here.
28:38
What a slacker. Um, okay. So, that was my second tip. Also, because I am the
28:44
queen of boring business topics that nobody wants to think about. So, I'm just going to keep
28:51
going on my tren trend here and go with yearend expenses,
28:57
which I know everybody's going to stop listening right now. Why did I even have to put it in the list? But it is so
29:04
critical to come to the end of the year and to be able to pause, look back. Hopefully listeners, you guys have some
29:11
really great CPAs on board that can help you with this, but you need to thoroughly look through that profit and
29:18
loss report and figure out where are you overspending? Where are you spending?
29:24
You're like, is that possible to underspend? Absolutely. There's areas that you can underspend on. So, you need
29:29
to take the time to actually go through, look at that report, and and analyze it
29:34
to figure out what you need to do differently for 2026. I will say this is very challenging to do on your own.
29:42
It's not that you can't do it. It just sometimes needs perspective that either
29:48
comes from your CPA which can certainly ask though ask questions or answer questions for you. Um it could come from
29:54
other colleagues, dental colleagues, and comparing like, "Hey, my payroll is at
29:59
27%. My CPA is saying that that's kind of within normal limits. Do you know
30:05
what your payroll percentage is?" Um, so it takes some dialogue to figure out um
30:10
what you need to do differently, but look at that and trim trim the budget if
30:18
need be or expand the budget based on your goals for the next year. So yeah, you're in budget.
30:24
I'm going to say I hope everybody has a CPA and or a Bethany or somebody because I will say a lot of people that I hear
30:30
get their spouse to help. My spouse has his MBA in finance so he's more than capable. I hate for him to look at it. I
30:38
don't want you to look at it because you don't you're giving me all this advice. Yeah. On things you don't know how it's
30:46
applicable. So that to me, that's why I have a problem with like any DSO coming in and it's like, yeah, you're your job
30:51
is to save money, but are you really saving money? If you tell me I need to decrease my supplies budget, okay, so
30:58
what does that mean? Like at the end of the day, if I don't have enough etch in my office because like that didn't work.
31:04
So, I like somebody who knows a dental office, knows a pediatric dental office,
31:11
and can guide me accordingly. My husband, you should try to weigh in a long time ago. And I was like, I I
31:18
can't. We're not going to be married very long if you we continue on this, right? Like, this is you stay in your lane. Like,
31:24
you're finance for everything but dental. Leave me alone. I'm going to go seek my own people to help with this. But,
31:30
you know, honestly, I don't I don't want to. I hate all those numbers. It gives me I know
31:35
nausea and I don't want to. So that's where you CPA somebody else. But point is somebody should be looking at it. I
31:41
guess if you don't have anybody else and husband who's going to tell you what to do even though he doesn't know what's in it or wife whichever way I guess it's
31:47
better than nothing. But pay attention to your profit loss I guess is what you're saying especially
31:53
here at the year end. Do yourself a favor and take the time to if you don't understand it take the time to learn to understand it. But this is
31:59
where outside resources are really helpful. So, that one's a challenging one. I know that's not an easy year-end
32:06
tip, but I would definitely recommend it. The la last one that I'm going to say is um everyday life, but I want
32:16
every office to take a look at their accounts receivables
32:21
and do some analyzing at the end of the year. We are going to dive heavily into
32:28
this in January bonus um episode because this is a whole category honestly that
32:35
we could spend multiple episodes on. But the year end is a very important time to
32:42
evaluate. Okay. What has the not only what are our current accounts
32:47
receivables both patient receivables and insurance receivables but what has our
32:53
trend been is why I like it at the end of the year when we look back when did we eb and flow when did we have higher
33:00
accounts receivables why what happened was that just because our production was so high during those months that our
33:07
accounts naturally went higher but why did they go higher why did we not estimate accurately ely for those. Why
33:14
did all these patients end up with balances that we weren't expecting? How
33:19
can we go back and revise that next year? Because if June, July, and August are busy for us again next year, we
33:25
don't want to end up holding the bag at the end of that summer. Um, how do our
33:30
current insurance receivables look? Why has that been on a continually negative trend for the whole year? Why has that
33:37
continued to increase? What are we doing wrong? What do we need to do differently? Um,
33:43
are we turning accounts over to collections? Why or why not? Should we
33:48
do that? You know, it just is a really good time to focus on that part of the
33:54
business. When I everything you just said is so yucky to me. And honestly, like when I suggested accounts rece
34:01
let's talk about accounts receivable. Um, because I'm thinking of a colleague who he um he he's run his practice for a
34:08
while now, five, six years and whatever. and he he said something to me not too long ago about how accounts receivable
34:15
had gotten real high and I guess he had like thought his manager was taking care of it but then said manager was botching
34:22
things up and I I don't remember all the details about it but at the end of the day I was like dude so you basically
34:27
have all this outstanding money that you may or may not get so you've basically been doing free dentistry for a while how did that get off your radar
34:34
because we we talk often enough and anyway so um so I was saying to you like
34:39
my question to you was, "Is there something different we need to do about accounts receivable at the end of the year than we would do every month if
34:46
you're tracking it and checking it every month?" And you were like, "Actually, yes, you should be." Everything you just
34:53
said like a minute ago, I'm like mind-b blown. Like, I know you're looking at all of that for me, but I wouldn't even
35:00
have even thought about that. You're right. Like, we should look at it from a trends perspective. And yeah, are there
35:05
insurance companies that we knew we were taking write- offs from, but we didn't realize how much like that has changed
35:11
from years prior? Yeah. Um, so all of that and at the end of the day, we don't want to be just doing free
35:17
dentistry. We have a business to run. Absolutely. And um, between this year's tariffs and
35:23
blah blah blah, whatever else has gone on this year, if we want to stay in
35:28
business, this is possibly the most important thing you could be doing. Yep. And are you equipped to do it? I would
35:33
say I know I am not. Yeah. So if the majority of you are not, you really need I I encourage you. Can you
35:40
do that as a bonus episode in January so that we can whatever mistakes we've made for this year, but if we can be more on top of it
35:46
for next year. 100%. I think that's a great focus for our uh December I mean for our January
35:53
upcoming digest because this is it is a yucky category and it is so complex but
35:59
it is so consequential to the practice. And I will say even if you've got a
36:05
great dental CPA, yeah, which I do, but this is not one area they can look at kind of going, "Oh, what's going on in
36:11
receivables?" This is not a number they are paying attention to. No, they are looking at other numbers.
36:16
They're looking at cash flow. Uh, so I I'm glad you mentioned that because I have so many amazing clients that work
36:22
with awesome uh CPAs and I am on a
36:28
regular email basis with one of the CPAs because his concern was cash flow. He's
36:34
like, man, we're having some cash flow issues with this practice. I started working with them realized yes it's a
36:41
cash flow issue issue but it's a cash flow issue because of accounts receivables issues and so we reinvented
36:49
so many things with the practice that they were doing wrong systematically that was leading to this just grow
36:55
ballooning accounts receivable issue he he doesn't know that he's not looking at
37:01
the practice management reports to know that they've got an accounts receivable issue he's looking at the bank account
37:07
yeah he's not looking yet. Is it a scheduling issue? He's not looking at it as a write off issue. He he doesn't know
37:14
and they're not going to know. They're not going to and then you're stuck kind of going what I'm doing here. So, actually, this is good because it's teeing up my article
37:21
and the theme for January. It's like what does your consultant do for you and you coming in there? But if you don't have said consultant, what can you do to
37:26
help yourself? But I think this is one of those things that the majority of us are not equipped to do it. Even if you were a business
37:32
major in college or whatever, do you have the time to really sit and look at
37:37
this and strategize so that you are not working for free, working like a dog when everybody else
37:43
around you is asking for raises and asking you to take less of a of, you know, from insurance and whatever.
37:49
Like at the end of the day, you need to stay in business. And how smart are you going to be with that? And it starts and ends with accounts receivable.
37:55
Absolutely. and and your patient satisfaction is going to be 100% tied to accounts receivables. If they're going
38:02
to get mad about anything, it's because you somehow misinformed them about what
38:08
they were going to owe and now they've got a remaining bill and now they're ticked at you and don't want to come
38:13
back. So, this whole category is one that at the end of the year, we do need
38:18
to take the time to reflect back and really look at what were the trends that occurred throughout the year. and now
38:25
let's project forward and figure out how we're going to fix that for next year. So, it's funny because that also teaser
38:31
that comes up in my article as well because I'm talking about like do you have the verbiage you need
38:37
to handle some of these things and I think that's one thing a lot of people don't think about. Um, and so
38:44
that's the quickest way to piss off a patient. Y is when they owe money. We all know that. So, how are we avoiding that? Both
38:51
from a Google review standpoint, a patient retention standpoint, who else are going to tell that you're terrible
38:57
and don't come here anymore, but also what are you getting paid at the end of the day? What are you getting? How much are you having to write off to not make
39:03
these patients upset at you? Um, so, uh, all of the above. It's all things that
39:09
we need to look at. I can't wait for your bonus episode. I know it's going to be boring as hell, but it's gonna be an
39:14
eye openener. And I'm sure you will have some playbook tips in there. I'm sorry.
39:19
It will. I know it. I know. I'm gonna have to sit there and be like, Kevin, I'm just treating myself to Starbucks.
39:25
Get a venty and I'm ready. Venti.
39:30
Oh my god. Double the espresso in there. I need caffeine for this episode. Um,
39:36
like, do you have any Xanax you can pop in there while we're at it? Well, no. Then I'll fall asleep. I need some pickmeups. I need to be awake to
39:42
listen to this episode on awake but calm,
39:48
right? I love that. Yeah. So, if if you're just man, if you're just itching for a moment like that, I can guarantee
39:56
a good bonus episode that'll make you want a venty and a Zantax at the same same time. So,
40:02
a Zantax and a Hey, it'll be like a bonus if you have
40:07
somebody in your life that is not getting good sleep, then you'll have that, too. You can play that as white
40:12
noise for them to go to sleep, too. So,
40:18
sorry, I'm being mean to you. I apologize. It's It's important. It's just not my cup of tea. I'm glad it's
40:24
yours. Yes, I'm glad it's mine, too. And it should be every listeners as well. Kuba
40:29
can bow out because she's got me, but y'all can't. So, tune in for January
40:35
bonus episode. Well, that's it. Our our top four, our top eight. So, like we this is the
40:41
episode's top eight for the end of the year. We've got just a smidge of time left and we got some stuff to do, it looks like.
40:47
Um, yes. Don't delay. Jump on all of these today. Don't wait.
40:53
Go get you your Starbucks now. Thanks for joining the conversation
40:59
today. We hope that you are comforted in knowing that you are not alone, but we
41:04
also hope that you're walking away with some really great tips and tricks to try in your practice.
41:10
We value your feedback, so please take a few moments to rate and review the
41:15
podcast. Finally, we want to make sure that we're covering the topics that matter to you. So, track us down on
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Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and let us know what topics you want us to cover. As always, please know that we
41:31
are rooting for you today as you manage your dental drama.

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From Managing Dental Drama Podcast