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Level Up Dental - Career & Practice Leadership

@drsanbhatha

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Helping dentists build successful careers & practices
25+ years in dentistry & ownership
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25+ years in dentistry taught me a lot I wish I’d known earlier. If you’re building your career now, follow along. I’m sharing it here. taken in USA by @drsanbhatha

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2 months ago

“Huge growth potential” sounds great in a practice listing.

But potential isn’t something I’d automatically pay a premium for.

I want to understand why that growth hasn’t already happened. Maybe the opportunity is genuinely there. Or maybe getting there means rebuilding the team, fixing the systems, investing in the practice, or solving problems the current owner never could.

There’s nothing wrong with buying a practice you can improve. In fact, some of the best opportunities can be the ones with work left to do.

Just make sure you’re paying for the practice that exists today, not the one you still have to build. by @drsanbhatha

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19 days ago

I spent years thinking there would eventually be a moment when I felt completely ready for the next stage of my career.

It rarely works that way.

You can take the courses, read the books, understand the numbers, and build years of clinical experience, and still have doubts when it comes time to buy a practice.

The goal isn’t to eliminate every uncertainty before you move forward. It’s to understand the opportunity, know the risks, ask the right questions, and make the best decision you can with the information you have.

Sometimes readiness doesn’t come before the decision.

Sometimes you build it by making the decision and growing into what comes next. by @drsanbhatha

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22 days ago

It’s easy to fall in love with a dental practice from the listing.

Beautiful office. New equipment. Great location. Eight operatories.

But those things don’t tell you what you’re actually buying.

Before getting excited about the photos, I want to understand the patient base, financials, team, systems, referral patterns, and how dependent the practice is on the selling dentist.

Because if the goodwill walks out the door when the owner does, those beautiful operatories suddenly matter a lot less.

If you’re an associate thinking about buying a practice, learn to fall in love with the boring stuff first. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

I remember looking at the gaps in my schedule as a young associate and wondering why the practice wasn’t giving me more patients.

Eventually, I realized my schedule wasn’t being built in isolation.

The relationships I had with the hygienists, assistants, and front team mattered. Patient trust mattered. The team trusting me enough to confidently recommend me mattered.

Once I stopped waiting for someone else to fill my schedule and started thinking about the relationships around me, things began to change.

If you’re a young associate with an empty schedule, don’t only look at the schedule. Look at the trust you’re building around it. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

As a young dentist, I used to look at experienced dentists and assume they had everything figured out.

They seemed confident. They made decisions quickly. I thought eventually I’d reach that point too.

After more than 25 years, I can tell you that point never really comes.

What changes is your ability to make a good decision even when you don’t have every piece of information.

You learn to trust your experience, ask better questions, and move forward despite some uncertainty.

If you don’t have all the answers right now, don’t mistake that for being behind. Learning to move forward without them is part of becoming an experienced dentist. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

There was a time when almost every question in my practice eventually came back to me.

And for a while, I thought that was what a good owner was supposed to do.

Be involved. Help everyone. Have the answers.

What I was actually doing was building a team that depended on me.

One of the biggest shifts I made as a leader was realizing my job wasn’t to make every decision. It was to develop people who could make good decisions when I wasn’t there.

That’s when a practice starts becoming less dependent on its owner. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

When I first became an owner, I thought being responsible for the practice meant being responsible for solving every problem.

So everything came back to me.

For a while, that worked. But as the practice grew, I eventually became the person slowing everything down.

One of the hardest lessons I learned in ownership was that being responsible doesn’t mean doing everything yourself.

A strong practice needs people who can make decisions, solve problems, and take ownership without always waiting for the dentist.

If your practice can’t operate without you being involved in every decision, the next stage of growth might be learning when to get out of the way. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

Before I owned a practice, I assumed becoming an owner meant reaching a point where you finally knew what you were doing.

Then I became one.

Suddenly I had to understand hiring, financials, leadership, systems, difficult conversations, and dozens of decisions dental school never prepared me to make.

Over time, I realized ownership isn’t about knowing everything before you begin.

It’s about getting better at learning, asking for help, and making decisions when you don’t have every answer.

After 25+ years, I’m still learning.

The goal was never to know everything. It was to keep becoming a better owner. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

When I graduated from dental school, I definitely didn’t know what the next 25 years would look like.

And I’m glad I didn’t wait until I had everything figured out before moving forward.

Your career teaches you things about yourself that you simply can’t know at the beginning. You discover what you’re good at, what kind of environment you thrive in, what opportunities excite you, and sometimes what you never want to do again.

The direction can change as you do.

So if you’re early in your dental career and don’t have the whole plan yet, don’t put so much pressure on yourself. You don’t need to know the next 25 years. You just need to make the next good decision. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

I’ve had times in my practice where everyone felt stretched, and the obvious answer seemed to be adding more.

Another employee. Another associate. More hours. More space.

But over 25+ years of ownership, I’ve learned that feeling busy doesn’t always mean you need more capacity.

Sometimes the real problem is the schedule. Sometimes it’s a system that no longer works. Sometimes responsibilities aren’t clear. And sometimes you really do need another person.

The important part is figuring out which problem you actually have before committing to the solution.

Don’t hire to fix the feeling of being busy. Find the bottleneck first. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago

I’ve kept the wrong person on my team longer than I should have.

Not because I didn’t see the problem. I kept convincing myself it might get better.

What I learned was that avoiding one difficult conversation rarely makes the problem disappear. Usually, it allows the problem to affect everyone else.

Leadership requires you to deal with things when they’re still small.

An uncomfortable conversation today can prevent six uncomfortable months for your entire team. by @drsanbhatha

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a month ago