AMA - Practice startups and early retirement

[ElCubanito]

After PMing for awhile with another member regarding startups, I decided to answer any questions you may have regarding starting your own office and retiring early (yes, they are connected). I started my office a over 3 years ago and have been practicing for 5years. I love dentistry, but it takes it toll on you and life's too short to work for the rest of your life. If given the decision to do a startup or buy an office again, I'd choose a startup everytime unless the office was supercheap, but superprofitable.

I "retired" after 8 years of insane work. Had a start up, saved enough money and sold it as "cherry on top". After 1.5 years of retirement and traveling around I got kind of bored, and realized that I need some endeavor in my life. I actually enjoy dentistry, but not the kind of dentistry I was doing. Now looking into doing another start up and been doing some associate work around my house just to stay active. I am only 36, money is not an issue but I do want to get back into doing what I love.

Startups are the best investment, if you know what you are doing.

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[TanMan]

I "retired" after 8 years of insane work. Had a start up, saved enough money and sold it as "cherry on top". After 1.5 years of retirement and traveling around I got kind of bored, and realized that I need some endeavor in my life. I actually enjoy dentistry, but not the kind of dentistry I was doing. Now looking into doing another start up and been doing some associate work around my house just to stay active. I am only 36, money is not an issue but I do want to get back into doing what I love.

Startups are the best investment, if you know what you are doing.

I've heard of people going back after early retirement. I think there's lots of freedom in not needing money ever again and I'm not sure why I would want to chain myself to the commitment of "work". I told myself that once I've retired and become bored, I'll probably have kids.... and if/when kids bore me, I'll find something else to put my time/effort into like a pet rescue or something. I haven't retired yet since I have somewhat expensive tastes, but soon. Just creating an extra buffer now to make sure that I don't run out of money. Aiming for 8M/70k/mo at this time for retirement living expenses.

There's lots of things I'd want to do in the future, from war zone tourism to hunting in a helicopter to philatrophic ventures. I will be very sad the day that I have to return to work by force or want to return to work because I've run out of things to do. I assume I'm probably going to die at 50 or at least have a decline in health. YOLO, might as well live like I'm going to die soon. If there were an afterlife and I died working the dental chair, I would probably have a ton of regret. Just seems like a sad existence to want to work because there's nothing else to do.

Don't get me wrong, I like what I do, I like most of the patients that I encounter (and the ones that I don't are the ones that ruin the whole experience), I would rather work at 100%+ with no breaks than have a light load, and that's where I see it as an all or nothing. Either I'm working full blast or not at all. Working in a slow paced environment is probably just going to make me shoot myself because it's pointless and torture for me. I carry that philosophy in life... all or nothing.

 

[ToothJockey]

Aiming for 8M/70k/mo at this time for retirement living expenses.

70k monthly on 8M portfolio is like a 10.5% return at retirement. Got some good investments you wanna let us in on haha? I've always heard you should expect 7% or something like that.

I assume I'm probably going to die at 50 or at least have a decline in health

Nahh there's so much to life after 50 too. Even if I'm 100 years old, you better believe I'm getting my butt off bedrest and onto a wheelchair and traveling the world. Too much to live for.

 

[TanMan]

70k monthly on 8M portfolio is like a 10.5% return at retirement. Got some good investments you wanna let us in on haha? I've always heard you should expect 7% or something like that.



Nahh there's so much to life after 50 too. Even if I'm 100 years old, you better believe I'm getting my butt off bedrest and onto a wheelchair and traveling the world. Too much to live for.

I don't expect to make 10.5% on just an 8M portfolio. A large chunk should come from my anticipated lifetime dividends (so far, my dividends are based on revenue milestones , 5M, 10M, 15M and so on... yearly milestones), consulting/travel fees, and if the opportunity arises, golden parachutes from my businesses. This is why I advocate focusing on dentistry as a source of capital, then invest that capital into other businesses that could payoff in the future. I understand that things can always go wrong, but so far so good.

I took a cue from my father. He got ill early. I assume that anything can happen at anytime. The older you get, the higher the probability that something debilitating will happen (as a function of time, accumulation of mutations, biomechanical machinery breaking down). When we're young, we assume that nothing can take us down. I used to think I could live forever and take everything the world could throw at me. Unfortunately, as new aches come up, I realize my own mortality and assume that I'll die sooner than later. Sigh, I'm getting old.

 

[lono]

I'm not a fan of outsourcing dental billing. I have my own billing team and they are better equipped to to everything billing related. You have a lot more control over billing when you keep it in house and you have the billing aspect from start to finish (from converting the patient, to verifying insurance, to submitting claims, to collections). My own systems work in my office for billing, and production is very very close to collections. I have no patients in collections and I have very little writeoffs/adjustments.

I never heard of dental intelligence, it looks just like a fancy open dental with a GUI. It may provide more information, but I'd also be weary of information overload. There is such a thing as having too much irrelevant/non-contextual data. Also, their website seems to try and attract desperate offices that need to blame something for why their offices are not succeeding. That's the vibe I get from them.

In a startup, You have more time than money. I'd rather train the staff to become good at what they do rather than use these services like a crutch. There are some things you can automate and there are some things that would be to your advantage to keep in house.

In a successful practice, it's always hard to make a leap of faith, in terms of determining to implement systems. IF a system that works for an already successful practice is in place, you have to look at how you can improve those systems, and relying on a third party full of promises is like taking a blind leap of faith. Whenever I have a company approach me to change to their system or whatnot, my first question to them is why? What can you do better? Why should I trust you if my system is working already v. you guys who are untested? In these instances, I would insist that they run their system parallel with my existing system and see who is better and also insist that I don't get charged for the first few months of giving their system a try. I am not a fan of changing what works/saturates my system unless they are that confident that they can get my business. Rarely will they ever accept my offer.

great advice thank you so much!

 

[wannagiveup]

I don't expect to make 10.5% on just an 8M portfolio. A large chunk should come from my anticipated lifetime dividends (so far, my dividends are based on revenue milestones , 5M, 10M, 15M and so on... yearly milestones), consulting/travel fees, and if the opportunity arises, golden parachutes from my businesses. This is why I advocate focusing on dentistry as a source of capital, then invest that capital into other businesses that could payoff in the future. I understand that things can always go wrong, but so far so good.

I took a cue from my father. He got ill early. I assume that anything can happen at anytime. The older you get, the higher the probability that something debilitating will happen (as a function of time, accumulation of mutations, biomechanical machinery breaking down). When we're young, we assume that nothing can take us down. I used to think I could live forever and take everything the world could throw at me. Unfortunately, as new aches come up, I realize my own mortality and assume that I'll die sooner than later. Sigh, I'm getting old.

U retired yet?

 

[TanMan]

U retired yet?

Sortof, doing other things too. Part-time dentistry, part-time other businesses.

 

[DrJeff]

As I am now in the early part of my mid 50's and have been practicing for now over 25 years, and have numerous colleagues who I consider friends, who are in their late 50's and 60's (the age when many typically think is around "retirement time") the thing that I am noticing, even if money isn't an issue, is those that truly "retire" (as in don't practice dentistry anymore) are those that in the years/decades leading up to when they chose to retire, they had a robust life outside of their professional life as a dentist, and as such spent the time cultivating outside of dentistry passions and often also social networks, that keep their post dentistry retirement life full of enjoyment.

Those who can't ever seem to fully retire, often if one looks objectively at them, never really spent the time cultivating their life outiside of being a dentist, and as such really never had outside passions/social networks that wasn't dentistry based. They spent years and years with their lives so consumed by "being a dentist" that sometimes they end up with a life where they don't know any other way. For many, since they burn out eventually because they feel they can't see themselves as anything but a dentist, they tend to become somewhat crummudgeonly as they age, which makes finding other, outside of dentistry things to do and occupy themselves, difficult.

I would strongly suggest that as one goes through their career, even if their true passion in life is dentistry, that they also take ample amout of time to have a life outside of dentistry, that you actually enjoy as much, if not more, than being a dentist.

Personally I feel very confident, that when I decide that it's time to retire, that I have plenty of other interests outside of denistry, that I look forward to having more time to do, and not feel like my indentity will be lost. My hunch is that my business partner, who is about 10 years older than I am, will likely retire after I do, and it's not a $$ thing, simply because his life is basically defined by who he is as a dentist, even if he really isn't enjoying day to day dentistry a lot. He just doesn't know what to do with himself when he isn't in the office, and will often end up spending multiple hours per day, in our office, on his days off, even though he isn't seeing any patients.

Make sure that you have a life outside of being a dentist, to keep your life well rounded!

 

[TanMan]

As I am now in the early part of my mid 50's and have been practicing for now over 25 years, and have numerous colleagues who I consider friends, who are in their late 50's and 60's (the age when many typically think is around "retirement time") the thing that I am noticing, even if money isn't an issue, is those that truly "retire" (as in don't practice dentistry anymore) are those that in the years/decades leading up to when they chose to retire, they had a robust life outside of their professional life as a dentist, and as such spent the time cultivating outside of dentistry passions and often also social networks, that keep their post dentistry retirement life full of enjoyment.

Those who can't ever seem to fully retire, often if one looks objectively at them, never really spent the time cultivating their life outiside of being a dentist, and as such really never had outside passions/social networks that wasn't dentistry based. They spent years and years with their lives so consumed by "being a dentist" that sometimes they end up with a life where they don't know any other way. For many, since they burn out eventually because they feel they can't see themselves as anything but a dentist, they tend to become somewhat crummudgeonly as they age, which makes finding other, outside of dentistry things to do and occupy themselves, difficult.

I would strongly suggest that as one goes through their career, even if their true passion in life is dentistry, that they also take ample amout of time to have a life outside of dentistry, that you actually enjoy as much, if not more, than being a dentist.

Personally I feel very confident, that when I decide that it's time to retire, that I have plenty of other interests outside of denistry, that I look forward to having more time to do, and not feel like my indentity will be lost. My hunch is that my business partner, who is about 10 years older than I am, will likely retire after I do, and it's not a $$ thing, simply because his life is basically defined by who he is as a dentist, even if he really isn't enjoying day to day dentistry a lot. He just doesn't know what to do with himself when he isn't in the office, and will often end up spending multiple hours per day, in our office, on his days off, even though he isn't seeing any patients.

Make sure that you have a life outside of being a dentist, to keep your life well rounded!

Exactly. Don't let dentistry define who you are. It will drive you mad and it only takes a few crazy patients to suck the life out of you.