Dental Practice Heroes Newsletter
Dr. Etchison will share tips, strategies, and give a summary of the DPH content and upcoming events for the month.
Stop Guessing: Find What's Holding Your Practice Back
Production is down, collections are slipping, and something isn't working. But where do you start?
You've got unscheduled treatment piling up, your team is busy, and things keep falling through the cracks. You're looking at your numbers, wondering what happened and what to fix first. The problem...
Oct 21, 2026
dental practice growth
dental practice kpis
dental practice management
profitability
Breaking Through the Next Stage of Practice Growth
Your practice is growing, you're making good money, and somehow everything feels harder than it used to.
Your team is busy, things keep falling through the cracks, and you're constantly answering questions, solving problems, and reminding people what needs to get done. You keep thinking, "We just...
Oct 16, 2026
dental leadership
dental practice growth
dental practice profitability
dental team development
How to Make Hiring an Associate Pay Off
Hiring an associate is supposed to make your life easier. So why does it sometimes do the opposite?
You picture more production, fewer clinical days, and more freedom. Instead, you're struggling to fill their schedule, your production takes a hit, and now you're managing another doctor's expectat...
Oct 14, 2026
associate retention
dental practice growth
dental practice profitability
hiring an associate dentist
The Difference Between Fixing and Creating
You can spend an entire year improving your practice and still end up with almost the exact same practice.
You fix scheduling problems, improve systems, handle team issues, and put out fires. Yet you're still working the same hours, carrying the same responsibilities, and dealing with the same fr...
Oct 09, 2026
ceo time
dental leadership
dental practice growth
practice ownership
The Ownership Shift
The more capable you are, the easier it is to accidentally make your practice depend on you.
You’re good at interviewing, so you keep interviewing. You’re good at handling conflict, so everyone brings it to you. You’re good with upset patients, so you’re always the one who gets pull...
Oct 07, 2026
dental leadership
dental practice systems
team ownership
Stop Waiting to Feel Ready
You may already be ready for the change you keep telling yourself you’ll make “someday.”
Maybe it’s cutting back a clinical day, hiring an associate, taking more time off, or giving your leadership team more responsibility. You keep waiting for the practice to feel a little more s...
Oct 02, 2026
ceo time
dental practice growth
dental practice profitability
dentist freedom
The Hidden Cost of a Comfortable Practice
“Things are fine” can quietly become one of the most expensive beliefs in your practice.
You’re making good money. You like your team. The schedule is full. Nothing feels broken, so it is easy to stop asking what could be better. That is where comfort can slowly turn into complacency.
A healthy p...
Sep 30, 2026
dental leadership
dental practice growth
dental practice owner
dental practice profitability
When Good Changes Get Pushback
Sometimes your team’s pushback has less to do with the change and more to do with how you introduced it.
You announce a new system, training, or expectation thinking, “This will make us better.” Your team may hear, “We’ve been doing this wrong.” When people misunderstand the reason behind a chang...
Sep 25, 2026
change management
dental practice culture
dental team management
team communication
Get Curious Before You Correct
The quickest way to mishandle a team issue is to assume you already know why it happened.
Someone shows up late, checks their phone, misses a responsibility, or gives you attitude, and your brain fills in the rest. They’re lazy. They don’t care. Maybe that story is right, but once you believe it,...
Sep 23, 2026
conflict management
dental leadership
dental team development
employee accountability
Stop Saving Your Life for Later
You can save more money later. You cannot save more of this season of your life.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that freedom is something you earn later. Work hard now, save aggressively, take the bigger trips later, cut back clinically later, and enjoy the money later. The problem ...
Sep 18, 2026
dental practice owner
dentist retirement
financial freedom
practice freedom
work life balance
Build a Practice That Stays on Track
If you have to keep reminding your team to follow the systems, you do not have a systems problem.
It is frustrating to talk about something in a meeting, watch everyone do it correctly for a week, and then slowly see things drift back. The instinct is usually to remind them again, add another che...
Sep 16, 2026
dental leadership
dental team accountability
dental team management
sops
team development
Build a Team That Speaks Up
If no one on your team is bringing up problems, that is the problem.
It can feel like everything is running well. No complaints, no mistakes, no issues to deal with. But there is another possibility: people are not paying attention, they do not care enough to speak up, or they do not feel safe do...
Sep 11, 2026
dental practice culture
dental team development
psychological safety
team accountability