By: Dr. Kaufman
I have had at least one associate sometimes two over the last 16 years. I was an associate and that was almost 30 years ago.
Here is my take, if you are the practice owner you need to be comfortable sharing your practice.
Why Not Have An Associate?
Some docs I know are not comfortable sharing their practice. My question to them is,
“What is your plan if something happens to you?”
Associates offer so much, and they are eager to learn and contribute. In my opinion, the time for an associate is now. To do that it often leads to you reducing your take-home pay until they ramp up their collections.
How to Find an Associate
How do you find an associate? There are plenty of sources, many on social media. There are sites like Direct Dental, Cloud Dentistry, and others.
Before you place an ad, define what you are looking for in that associate.
Here are a few questions to keep top of mind:
- What procedures do you want them to be able to perform?
- What are the days and hours you want them to work?
- Are you willing to mentor them?
- Do you want to do all the treatment planning and let them do the treatment or deliver the care as a team?
- How many years out of school are they?
- Did they do a residency program?
- How much are you willing to pay them as a base pay and what percentages are you willing to offer of their collections?
- What will their lab percentage be?
- Do you want them to only see new patients?
- Will your core dental team members be involved in the hiring decisions?
Once you have a clear picture and written out qualifications then it’s time to on-board a company to do the initial screening of the candidate.
Once resumes start coming in, I suggest an initial phone meeting or Zoom meeting as a meet and greet to get to know this person and for them to get to know you.
If there is chemistry/synergy I suggest setting up a time for them to visit the practice. When scheduling that time make sure that those core team members are available. If you have a current associate get them involved. See if you can take them out to lunch or better yet if they can go out with some of those core team members without you. This will often lead to conversations taking place that normally wouldn’t if you were in the mix.
Key Takeaway
The truth is we can go through all these steps, vet who we think is the best candidate, everything goes smoothly, until it doesn’t, or the best-case scenario is it all works out for everyone.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
