Old Hygiene Tactics vs Modern Dental Growth Strategies for the Ambitious Dentist
Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap through Practice Ownership
Dr. George Hariri | Shared Practices Network
4.9 • 559 Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Richard Low and Alex Sharp tackle a critical question facing every ambitious dentist today: is hygiene-led growth dead? With rising labor costs and shifting insurance economics, many practice owners are reevaluating their dental growth strategies. Is a bustling hygiene department still the key to dental practice profitability, or is it just an expensive headache? The hosts break down why abandoning this model is a massive mistake and reveal why hygiene remains the undisputed flywheel for sustainable dental practice growth.
For a future owner navigating the associate to owner transition, hygiene isn't just about cleanings—it is about delegation, retention, and high-leverage case acceptance. To master dental practice management, you must stop treating hygienists as mere teeth cleaners. They must be developed and calibrated like an associate dentist.
Here is your survival guide to mastering modern hygiene economics:
-Calculate True Break-Even: Measure acquisition costs against the direct and doctor production generated from that chair.
-Empower Co-Diagnosis: Train hygienists to educate patients before you enter the room, boosting case acceptance.
-Implement Clinical Calibration: Host meetings using bite-wings to align the team's diagnostic philosophy.
-Proactive Recruiting: Move beyond job boards to strategies like "lunch and learns" to fuel your dental growth strategies.
By empowering your hygiene team, you protect your time and elevate patient care. Treating hygiene as a strategic pillar is still the most predictable of all dental growth strategies.
Ready to take the next step in your dental practice journey? Visit https://sharedpractices.com to learn more about our Buyer Representation and Coaching services, designed to help dentists buy, grow, and optimize profitable practices. You can also use our Free Look to evaluate dental practice opportunities with real data before making a decision. For daily Dental Moneyball insights, strategy tips, and updates, follow us across our social channels.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the shared practices podcast where we today are going to be recruiting hygienists on air for the practices that are listening to this podcast, our clients. |
| 0:13.9 | Let's make hygiene great again. |
| 0:15.5 | Without to say that, Alex. |
| 0:16.8 | He's about to spit out his water. |
| 0:18.3 | Definitely are. |
| 0:19.0 | I mean, MHGA. Yeah, I couldn't have taken a sip of water at Definitely are. I mean, MHGA. |
| 0:21.4 | Yeah, I couldn't have taken a sip of water at a worse time. |
| 0:24.3 | Thanks, Richard. |
| 0:25.0 | Yeah, Alex, welcome back to the show. |
| 0:26.8 | How are you? |
| 0:28.2 | Doing great, Richard. |
| 0:29.0 | Thank you for having me. |
| 0:30.3 | And, no, I think this is a really ripe topic for discussion because I don't think in the past, |
| 0:37.2 | hygiene, presence of of or absence of |
| 0:39.8 | was a charged discussion point for a lot of years. It was just taken to be a part of the dental |
| 0:47.3 | model for better or for worse. That's just the way that dentistry worked for probably a solid, |
| 0:53.7 | maybe call it 50 years. because I think back to my |
| 0:56.1 | granddad's days as a dentist he graduated dental school in 49 and hygiene was just getting to be |
| 1:02.4 | a thing in maybe the latter half or latter third of his career because back then it was a one |
| 1:08.8 | person show of doing all the doing, if you were cleaning |
| 1:12.1 | teeth at all, you were doing it yourself above the gums. And so dentistry has come a whole |
| 1:17.2 | heck of a long way in leveling up the level of care that we're offering to our patients from |
... |
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