Brews and Tiny Teeth, The Unfiltered Pediatric Dentistry Podcast

Wes Lyon is a CPA, CFP, and CEO of McGill and Lyon Dental Advisors. His company, McGill and Hill Group, publishes the McGill Advisory, which is a monthly newsletter to dentists updating the latest events and tips for financial planning, investing, taxes, and practice ownership topics. I became familiar with this newsletter at the office of my previous employer, and based on recommendations of some older and wiser pediatric dentists, I recently subscribed. I personally have found it very helpful as a practice owner to have monthly updates about what's going on in the stock market, tax updates, practice management and retirement planning strategies.   I would definitely recommend to my listeners who own practices or are considering buying or starting a practice to subscribe to the newsletter.  Wes has offered our podcast listeners a 10% discount using the code PEDIATRIC10. He also has offered a FREE trial membership for pediatric residents who are interested in receiving the newsletter. Click the link to subscribe or learn more: https://www.mcgillhillgroup.com/Advisory/Current Wes joins us to talk about 10 financial mistakes that he sees dentists commonly make. We review this list below in detail. 1. Improper insurance 2. Not having a budget 3. Saving in the wrong place 4. Poor debt management 5. Concentrating on salary 6. Paying excessive taxes 7. Being house poor 8. One house/one spouse 9. Not taking advantage of HSAs 10. Trying to be a financial expert

Today's episode is all about taxes. As pediatric dentists, we have tax issues, and dental school doesn't give us the foundational knowledge we need to understand how taxes work and how to play the game.  Scott Clynch is a CPA and personal financial planner at Cain Watters. He joins us today to talk about how taxes work. We start big picture with basic concepts and definitions, and then walk through how taxes work at each career stage that a typical pediatric dentist goes through. Some things we talk about: - Marginalized vs effective tax rate, differences between deductions and credits - W2 vs 1099 employees - What can an employee dentist do to lower his/her tax bill? - What is an S-corp and how does it work? - What expenses should be run through a practice? What areas are grey and what's on the black list? - When does it make sense to implement a 401k plan for tax purposes? - What is a capital gains tax, and how does it work when a pediatric dentist finally sells his/her practice?

Ever since the big announcement earlier this year, NuSmile's Bioflex crowns have created quite the buzz among pediatric dentists. NuSmile revealed the crowns to the general public at AAPD 2022. These white, flexible resin polymer crowns could be a game changer to provide a flexible and esthetic improvement to traditional stainless steel crowns. As a millennial techie pediatric dentist, I wanted to learn more. Mike Loessberg is the Vice President of sales at NuSmile, a whiskey connoisseur, and a founding member of Bourbon and Baby Teeth. He joins us on the podcast to sip some whiskey and talk more about this new product, including some frequently asked questions he's received about the product. These crowns should be available and released for sale sometime this fall, likely at Bourbon and Baby Teeth in Louisville, Kentucky.  Mike also gives us some updates on BABT and what we can expect this year.  Mike can be reached via Facebook or at https://bourbonandbabyteeth.com/ 

Two oral surgeons join us for this week's episode. Dr. Chip Abraham is a fourth-year OMS resident at Indiana University, and Dr. Doug Orzel is a private practice OMS and practice owner in Grand Rapids, Michigan. These two oral surgery studs come on the podcast to talk all things oral surgery involving pediatric dentistry. We go through different tough clinical situations, as well as review a few listener Q & A's. Some of the topics we discuss: Should pediatric dentists be extracting permanent teeth? How do oral surgeons decide on a sedation modality? What agents and what doses? Do oral surgeons ever elect NOT to sedate? How do you suture a small extra-oral laceration? Can a tough teenager have thirds taken out with just local anesthetic?

Imagine being a pediatric dentist for 44 years, and then still having the ambition to start a thriving fluoride and prophy paste company at 80 years old. It was a pleasure to interview the founder of Wonderful Dental and our guest today, Dr. David Epstein. In today's episode, we learn more about what pediatric dentistry was like in the 1970's, how our profession has changed, and why the most important thing we should be doing is looking for ways to do things better. Dr. Epstein lets us look inside of the world of manufacturing fluoride varnish and why there was a need to develop better fluoride at a more reasonable price point. We had a fantastic discussion and Dr. Epstein's detailed bio can be found below. David W. Epstein, D.D.S., M.S.D. is a retired Pediatric Dentist in West Hartford, Connecticut. His education began with the study of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, a degree in Mathematics followed by a Doctor of Dental Surgery and a Master’s Degree in Pediatric Dentistry from Indiana University. In 1970, he joined the original Dental School Faculty at the University of Connecticut Health Center. He began his private practice in 1972, which has grown into a group practice consisting of five Pediatric Dentists and two Orthodontists. For more than forty years the primary focus of this practice has been preventive care with an emphasis on active child and parent participation.

Dr. Julia Richman is a pediatric dentist and private practice owner in Washington. She joins us on the podcast to talk about a variety of topics, including her journey from being a long-term (10+ year) associate to starting her own practice and the challenges that go with it. Dr. Richman has an interest in forensic odontology that we discuss. She also is an avid diver, and we talk about how cold water therapy and just being outside in general can be a remedy for the stresses of being a pediatric dentist. 

Live from AAPD 2022, this episode features short power interviews with 6 pediatric dentists (2 residents and 4 private practice). We learn more about their practice backgrounds, pearls that they’ve learned, new technology that changes the way they practice, and advice for other pediatric dentists.

Recorded in-person at the AAPD meeting in San Diego, Dr. Corey Hastings and I sit down at a hotel over a couple cold craft beers and talk shop. Dr. Corey has been a guest on the podcast before, and is a wealth of knowledge regarding the business side of dentistry. He has an MBA, and has built 5, 6?... 7? A lot of offices in the Missouri area in a very short amount of time. In this episode, we discuss: - What's a healthy overhead for a pediatric practice? - When making the jump to multi-doctor ownership, how do you structure compensation? - How are capital expenditures accounted for? - Cash flow and growth topics.

Dr. LaRee Johnson is an accomplished pediatric dentist, speaker, and private practice owner from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is very active on the ABPD, and keeps a busy schedule with professional lectures, speaking events, and running ultra marathons. Dr. Johnson joins us on the podcast to tell us a bit about her busy private practice, along with answering some listener Q&A's. Some of the topics we discuss: - Should parents be allowed back during procedures? - Tips on talking to the parent when he/she is surrounded by their own crying kids - How do you handle parents that expect treatment be done the same day as the consultation - What do you say to a parent who denies x-rays? - How do you handle GA/sedations where you find more work then originally anticipated on the treatment plan?

It doesn't take long reading iPedo posts and talking to other dentists to realize that burnout, stress, and difficulty finding work-life balance is a common problem among pediatric dentists. In this episode, Dr. Natalie Datien joins us to discuss her story about why she walked away from a busy practice. Dr. Natalie bought a practice shortly out of residency with her husband, a general dentist in the Detroit area of Michigan. Together they grew the practice from an old-school, low-production office into a multi-doctor GP practice with Dr. Natalie running the pediatric side of things. They were seeing over 100+ new patients a month and booking out for weeks. After three years of sleepless nights, staffing issues, worrying about cash flow, and dealing with difficult families, Dr. Natalie and her husband set down the handpiece and sold the practice. She is now retired at 33 and happily spending time with her young family. We have a really interesting conversation about what life is like after dentistry, reflections on what could have made things easier as a practice owner, advice for young start-up docs, and just in general what type of things burn us out as practice owners. PODCAST NEWS: If you are a pediatric dentist attending AAPD in San Diego, look for me (Casey Goetz) at the convention. I'd like to do some speed-dating style interviews with other pediatric dentists, maybe 10 minutes long, asking for pearls, tips, advice, and lessons learned. Keep an eye out for me and flag me down if you are interested in being part of this episode idea!