An interview with Dr. Howard Farran

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Dr. Howard Farran continues to answer questions on DENTAL PRACTICE MANAGEMENT 

• After how many years of practice should a strong retirement kit be ready ?

I am not an opponent of retirement plan, I think that right now, around the world, CDs are paying one or two percent interest, so if a dentist wants to live off of 100,000 dollars per year, he is going to have to have 10 million dollars of CDs to retire. What I see, every dentist who thought he was going to retire at 65 realized that if they just stayed on and worked two or three days a week, their paycheck would be a lot more money than their retirement account. I think it’s a healthier lifestyle, I think there is no reason you should throw in the towel and sit on the couch and be sedate and watch TV and play golf. I think it’s very, very healthy for you to have to get up and shower and eat breakfast and go to work and interact with people. So what I would focus on is that business is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. And I’d start asking yourself, why do you want to retire? Some dentists will tell me that they hate root canals so bad they cannot wait ‘til they retire to never have to do a root canal again. And I’m like, why don’t you just quit doing root canals? I mean there are endodontists. Or why don’t you take a bunch of courses on endo and buy some new technology and maybe it will be easier?. If it’s the stress, then figure out why your office is so stressful. Bring in an office manager, tell her that the reason you want to quit is because of the staff struggling or office drama or turmoil or whatever. But what I would focus on is to keep altering your dental office until you didn’t want to retire. And then set a goal that when you get older, you’ll work one hour less and make one dollar more. So let’s say you want to retire at 65 and you’re making $100,00 a year, why don’t next year you try to do it in 39 hours and make $101,000, the next year try to do it in 38 hours and $102,000. Just slowly, slowly taper off is my advice.

• Have you ever been duped by an employee/patient ?

Sure! People are complex. People are – Ssome people think 3% of people are sociopaths. People have depression. People make imperfect decisions. It reminds me of the poem Anyway by Mother Theresa: People are crazy, but treat them kind anyway. People lie, cheat and steal, but be nice to people anyway.

• What precautions you take before you hire an employee ?
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I think one of the biggest precautions that we take is that, number one, people are so complex so we want to call references and background checksGoogle them to check on their background. Another thing that we do with employees thatwho handle money is we do a credit check. A lot of dentists have listened to me over the years and done this and I get e-mails where they will do a credit check and they are literally bankrupt, and desperate people do desperate things like steal your money, embezzle from you. So yeah, I would get references, I’d call their last employer and I’d if necessary do a financial background check because you certainly don’t want people desperate working for you, especially when they are around money.

• How can a dentist use social media to promote his practice ?

I think the biggest player is Facebook. And you have your Facebook personal page, but I think your dental office should have a Facebook personal fan page and a Twitter account and a Pinterest account and a LinkedIn account, and whenever something fun happens in your office – you havegot an exciting case, maybe one of your staff had a historic event like a marriage or had a baby – then I would post that. I think when you make a human emotional connection with someone it helps facilitate love, trust and respect, and they are more likely to trade with you.

        

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