The Anchor Dentist Plan: A Dental Partnership Strategy for Sustainable Growth | Nate
Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap through Practice Ownership
Dr. George Hariri | Shared Practices Network
4.9 • 559 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The wait is over for the conclusion of Nate’s journey from a solo practitioner to a multi-million dollar dental group practice owner. In Part 2 of this Practice Underwater special, Dr. George Hariri reveals the high-leverage recommendation that will allow Nate to escape the "yo-yo" effect of clinical scheduling and finally achieve sustainable growth. While Nate’s practice is already a financial powerhouse—grossing over $3.15M with elite-level systems—the missing piece isn't operational; it’s a specific human resource strategy that bridges the gap between a solo clinician and a true CEO.George breaks down the "Anchor Dentist" concept: the necessity of finding a high-caliber, workhorse provider who is incentivized through a minority equity stake.
This episode acts as a survival guide for practice management in secondary or tertiary markets where doctor attraction is the primary bottleneck. You will learn why typical associate recruitment often fails in these areas and how to structure a transition that aligns a new doctor’s clinical drive with your own need for long-term stability and reduced chair time.As Nate considers his practice's terminal velocity of $4–5M, the conversation shifts to aggressive recruitment volume. George challenges Nate to move beyond local ads and use "megaphones" to find doctors willing to relocate for a significant dental financial opportunity. If you are navigating entrepreneurship and feeling stuck in the whirlwind of daily production, this episode provides the blueprint for using minority partnership as a tool for longevity, allowing you to maximize your practice valuation without selling prematurely.
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 back to part two of Practice Underwater with Nate. |
| 0:06.3 | And I think maybe there's like a good percentage of the audience that's pretty pissed off at how I ended the last episode. |
| 0:11.0 | I had time to kind of like reveal the recommendation. |
| 0:14.7 | But then you wouldn't have been wondering for a week and came back. |
| 0:17.5 | So I just really wasn't willing to do that. |
| 0:19.2 | And so I held out a little bit, |
| 0:40.1 | and we're going to go through Nate's situation again, and I'm going to walk through what I recommend. So if you've listened to Part 1, you're coming here because you really want to find out, then, you know, welcome back. And if you haven't listened to Part 1, I'm going to give a brief synopsis of Nate's story and Nate's pain point and then going |
| 0:38.8 | from there. So I met Nate back in 2019. Apparently, I was blunt, but, you know, that doesn't surprise me. |
| 0:44.6 | And I told Nate that a solo to group transition is what I would recommend. Nate has gone to a group |
| 0:50.1 | practice. And Nate's practice is like in a secondary tertiary type area. So doctor attraction |
| 0:55.4 | is somewhat of a bottleneck. And so Nate has had five associates. And ever since 2021 has at least |
| 1:01.6 | had one person working three days a week. So there's always been kind of two dentists. |
| 1:04.8 | But Nate's practice really needs three dentists. You got between four and five hygienists |
| 1:08.5 | coming Monday through Thursday. And then you have two hygienists on Friday. |
| 1:12.1 | Like, it needs a full-time dentist additional to Nate and an associate. |
| 1:16.8 | And Nate really wants to work like two to three days a week, wants the cash flow this thing long term. |
| 1:21.2 | It's been profitable and likes dentistry, specifically surgery and implants. |
| 1:26.3 | And so the problem is kind of the chief complaint. And everything analytically looks really good in Nate's practice. Case acceptance is good. Retention is unbelievable. AR is honestly like great. So I looked at this and I was like, where's the problem? And then when I talked to Nate, I understood the problem is, you know, Nate kind of does, he described it as a yo-yo, right? Like two days a week, three days a week, |
| 1:44.8 | four and a half days a week. And it's like it just kind of keeps tightering based on the number of doctors. And so I asked Nate a question. I said, well, are you willing to just say, screw it? I'm just going to work three days a week and live with the consequences. Honestly, that's the direction I would go during these in-between windows. And Nate's like, no, I care too much about the practice. I put |
| 2:03.1 | too much work in it. We've built up the patient base. Like, I need to go and make sure that we keep it. And so that really leaves one option. And Nate kind of nailed it at the end. It's a minority partner. And so Nate took out the current associate to lunch, talked about the 10 to 20% equity. |
| 2:18.7 | And that was exactly what was going through my mind when we were going through this whole thing. |
| 2:21.9 | And I think where Nate missed it on the first time is the avatar of doctor that goes for this. |
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