What Dentists Should Consider Before Starting Their Own Practice

Art Wiederman, CPA: Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of The Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA. I'm your host, Art Wiederman. Welcome to the podcast. Well, we finally have some sun here in Southern California. And again, I was talking to a couple of our friends at Eide Bailly in Fargo, North Dakota, which is where our mothership offices and I never complain about weather. And then I was talking to a friend in Minneapolis, and I certainly don't complain about weather, but it's nice to have some sun out here.

And today I have a great topic for you. I have a practicing dentist, Dr. Christopher Green, who I was introduced to through both Mark Costes, who's been on our podcast before, and by Scott Haberman, who is a partner in our Fort Collins, Colorado office. And Dr. Green is not only a practicing dentist out in Parker, Colorado, which is a suburb of Denver, but he is also very involved in helping doctors with startup practices. So our subject today is going to be if you're thinking about a startup and by the way, doctor is not only a startup, but maybe this applies to expanding your practice or even starting a second location. We're going to talk to you today about all the good, the bad and the ugly about what you should be thinking about. And it is amazing how many dentists are still starting up practices and are being very successful if you do it right. So we're going to get to Dr. Green in just a couple of minutes. What I want to do is I want to first thank our wonderful marketing partner, Decisions in Dentistry magazine. Lorene Kent. And her team over the last four years have just been amazing marketing partners with us. They have the best clinical content of any dental magazine out there, bar none. The top clinicians in the world write for them. They have 140 continuing education courses that they do on a regular basis that you can buy for a very, very reasonable price. So go to the website www.DecisionsinDentistry.com.

We're now coming into tax filing season, folks. Yay. So if you're having any trouble with your taxes, you can't get a hold of your CPA, things are not looking right, we at Eide Bailly are here to help you. My phone number is 657.279.3243. My email is awiederman@EideBailly.com, which is spelled Eide Bailly. And hopefully you all have a safe and sane tax filing season and hopefully you don't get surprised as we get many of our new clients and we do get a number of folks that call us every year that we help come to us because, oh my goodness, I had to pay $90,000 to my to the IRS in the state of whatever state you're in last year. And I didn't know about that. And it was a surprise. And I had to go to the bank and borrow. So we work very hard in our CPA firm in the months of October, November and December to make sure that that does not happen.

I am going to bring up a couple of things before we get to Dr. Green. First of all, for those of you who are not aware, there is in about 20 states now, there is something called a workaround to the loss of the state tax deduction. So back in 2017, when the Republican controlled Congress and President Trump got passed, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was signed at the end of that year, one of the things that it did was it limited the amount of state income tax that you can deduct on your itemized deductions sheet to $10,000. Now, doctors, especially those of you who live in high tax states like California and Illinois and New York, you know that you pay a lot more than $10,000 in state income taxes. Well, you can't deduct that anymore. Well, they came up with what's called a workaround for that. Now, in California, it's through something called AB 150. So let me give you an example. Let's say you have and this is only for doctors who operate their practices under corporations or as part of a partnership. You don't get it if you're a sole proprietor, dentist and you don't get it if you're a C corporation. So this is for S Corps and partnerships, which is probably most of you.

So what happens is let's say you get a half a million dollars of income from your practice. You take a you know, let's say you take 100,000 salary, that's a little light, but let's say that's what you do and you have $400,000 left of K one income. Well, you can make a payment here in California. That's 9.3%. So let's say you make a payment of $36,000. That's going to be your tax on that $400,000. That is a deduction on your federal K-1 for your S Corporation. So that's how you get the workaround you don't get as an itemized deduction, you get as a deduction specifically reducing the income from your S Corp, and then you get to take that amount as a credit on your tax return, on your personal tax return.

Going forward, the rules get kind of complicated. In order to do that, at least in California, you have to make a payment by June 15 at least $1,000. But check with your CPA. If your CPA says, I don't know about this, you might want to give us a call. But is the way we've saved tens of thousands of dollars for doctors. And if you didn't do it for 2022, it's too late, but you can do it for 2023, especially if you're selling a dental practice.

Now, today we're talking about starting not selling. But that's one thing to consider. Also, don't forget doctors, that if you are interested in the employee retention tax credit, if you have a greater than 50% reduction in your revenues for 2020 in the second quarter as opposed to the second quarter of 2019, you pretty much have until probably May to get this done because the statute of limitations on your payroll return will generally run July 31st. The credit for 2020 is $5,000 per employee for the year. And for 2021, if you have a greater than 20% reduction for any of the first three quarters of 2021 versus 2019, it's 20% per year. It's a credit of up to 7000 per quarter for each of your employees. It's a big deal. We've done about 125 of these over the past year and a half, and we've gotten well over $5 million in tax credits.

And do be careful of any of these firms that call you up and say, by the way, because you look at TikTok, you qualify for the ERTC because you had to social distance, because you couldn't get supplies as quickly as you could. You qualify for all the quarters. Be very, very careful about companies like that. The IRS knows their name and they're coming after them.

Last thing is the HHS Provider Relief fund. If you got money between July one and December 31 of 2021, you've got until March 31st to report on the HHS website. If you got that money and it's over $10,000 and you don't report, you will have to give it back. All right.

Well, let's get to our topic today, startup practices. We have a lot of doctors who are starting practices up and we're going to tell you all the good, the bad and the ugly about that with our guest, Dr. Christopher Green. As I mentioned, Dr. Green is a practicing dentist in Colorado, just outside of Denver, in the city of Parker. He's a third generation dentist. And between his dad, his grandpa, his uncles, cousins, aunts, I don't know friends, I don't know. He's got the Green family has collectively 175 years of experience in the dental profession, in the family. In 2018, Dr. Green opened a six operatory practice from scratch. So he's going to kind of we then to this discussion kind of what he did and what mistakes he made and what he did good and what he did not so good. I don't know if that's proper English. I do numbers, folks. As I've told you, I don't do letters, but he opened a six operatory practice from scratch that's rapidly grown to a now mature and highly profitable dental practice. He also and he enjoys the privilege of scaling down to one day a week clinically and one of his new projects, which is why he's on this podcast, is because he's been working with Dr. Dhoon. Did I pronounce that right?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yep.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Dr. Dhoon and Dr. Mark Costes, who's very, very well known in the in the dental management field to start a project called the Practice Launchpad. And we're going to talk about startup practices and we're also going to talk about a special event that Dr. Green and Dr. Dhoon and Dr. Costes are holding on March 9th and 10th. We'll get to that a little bit later. And so anyway, Dr. Christopher Green, welcome to the Art of Dental Finance and Management.

Dr. Christopher Green: Well, hey, Art, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Well, thank you, too. And I see on the computer screen you have a professional set up with a microphone. It looks newer than mine, but I'm sure it works just fine. And one of the things I've learned about you in researching for this recording is that you are a guitarist and that you actually did a 12 city tour with your band. Tell us about that.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. So I think this is a fun topic to start with. I like the direction we're going here so far, but yeah, I started playing guitar. I think I was in sixth grade. The chops are not quite what they used to be. So some fellow guitarist might say he calls himself a guitarist. I don't think so these days because with two kids, it's hard to find time to pick it up as much. But, you know, I still pick it up several times a month. But yeah, we had a little band back in the day that we went for about five years just playing coffee shops and YMCA and all types of little venues. And yeah, we decided after senior year of high school we were going to take it on the road, get away from the parents for a few weeks. And yeah, we went, we went on a little tour. I don't know, I think I put air quotes around the word tour, but it was, it was a blast.

Art Wiederman, CPA: So how old were you when you did this?

Dr. Christopher Green: 18.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Oh, my goodness. Well, that's about the time you should be doing so. So you're at the Jerry Garcia level. I actually went and saw the Grateful Dead one time at the Los Angeles at the Inglewood Forum where the Lakers used to play. And that guy can play guitar or he used to be able to play guitar. I think he's past, but. But. So you so are your kids old enough to start playing yet?

Dr. Christopher Green: No. We have a three year old and a six month old, but they enjoy listening when I pull it out so.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Well, I'm sure they will somewhere down the road, so. Well, that's very cool. I mean, we have all kinds of guests that have all kinds of great hobbies and stuff like that. And I love music, as I'm sure you do, too. So tell us a little bit about your professional journey. Where did you go to dental school and how did you get to be where you are today?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, sure. So you mentioned on the pre call here that you know, I'm a third generation dentist. So my grandfather and father, both dentists and then several other family members, uncles, cousins, all dentists and I'm the oldest grandchild, so my grandpa and dad were like, Hey, what are you going to do when you grow up? And it's like, I have no clue. You know, I'm 18 years old. I'm gonna be in a rock band. Like, I'm not obviously.

Art Wiederman, CPA: I'm going on tour with the Yeah, with the Rolling Stones, as a matter of fact.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to open for the Stones and that'll be it. But so I started have to think seriously about what how you know really make a profession. And I had always been in and out of working as an assistant or you know janitorial services at their practice.

Dr. Christopher Green: And I.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Started at the top, right.

Dr. Christopher Green: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You know, that's the beauty of working for family. You're the first to get yelled at and you're the first to get the grunt work and all that, all the rest. So yeah, I was definitely doing whatever was asked me. But basically I said, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to try to get into dental school and went premed and all that fun stuff. Like everybody, I met many of the guests or many of the folks listening did and ended up at Temple out in Philadelphia, graduated in 2013, and from there went back to practice with my dad and my grandfather passed at that time and kind of got sick of Illinois. This was back. They practiced in Chicago. That's where we were. And so I started looking to move to Colorado and was an associate there for several years. So and then at some point I decided I think a start up is going to be the way to go.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah. And we're going to talk about the decision that doctors have to make between start up and buying a practice and going to work for somebody and maybe partnering. So we'll get into all of that. So let's start the discussion about so what's the thinking process? A dentist comes to you and says, Hey, I want to do a startup. So what's the thinking process to help them, you know, to decide between buying a practice, starting from scratch, going to work for somebody, being a partner, maybe going into public service or nonprofit? What's the thinking process that you help them with when you get started?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. I mean, typically, you know, we're talking to several dentists, each of us a week, typically an associate that's maybe been knocked around a little bit. Maybe they're not getting treated or not getting the patient flow that they desire. And now they're wondering, how do I get into practice ownership? And we'll just hear them out hear where they're at and say, you know, what are we looking at? What are your goals? What's your vision? Where do you want to live? What kind of dentistry do you want to do? And we start sorting through that. So that's kind of the initial call. And I always say, okay, you have a location in mind, Great. Let's think about startup and acquisition at the same time rather than just pigeonholing ourselves down one direction because there could be a great acquisition opportunity in that town that you want to live. And that would be that would be probably better for initial cash flows, wouldn't you say?

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah, well that's I mean, that's what we talk about. And I've been doing this work for almost 40 years and you know, you have to decide, do you want brand new equipment? Do you want to make it the way you want it? Because if you buy a practice, it's kinda the whole thing is set up already, the systems are set up, the people are in there, you know, you'll get, you're taking over something that you didn't put a footprint on. Right?

Dr. Christopher Green: Right. I mean, I did a start up and I've acquired a practice and they're very different experiences for sure. It's still dentistry at the end of the day, but definitely different challenges in the early days.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Right. So who do you think is better first start? I mean, maybe personality wise, who do you think is better for a startup and maybe what type of a dentist, what type of a personality or someone who has a thinking process, if you will, would be better for a purchase? What do you kind of think?

Dr. Christopher Green: That's a tough question. I mean, it's definitely a generalization, but in general, I would say for an acquisition, somebody that really wants to make sure that they have cash flow in the beginning. Right. Okay. They want they have maybe their finances are pretty tight and they need to have some sort of money coming in, whereas a start up, you might have somebody that has set aside a little bit of an emergency fund, can wait for the insurance checks and the ramp up phase to get going. That's kind of the first place I'd go with that question, Art.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Okay. All right. So they decide they want to do a start up. I guess the first thing we got to figure out is where are we going to start up? So what goes into the thought process, Dr. Green, of choosing a location for the start up practice?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. Location is critical. Absolutely critical. It could make or break you in the early days with a start up for sure. I know some people that have gone into saturated areas and have overcome that by just levering up big time on marketing, and that's an option. But for most young docs, they're not going to have the capital and the working capital from the bank to put that much into marketing to make that makes sense. So we're looking at dentists to population ratios, we're evaluating the competition, we're evaluating the existing number of people that live in the area. You know, if I go to an area with 25,000 people and, you know, ten dentists versus 75,000 people or 70,000 adult residents excuse me and, you know, 15, 20 dentists, what's that ratio look like? And how many active people can I capture?

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah, and I think maybe a little discussion about opening up in a large metropolitan area versus opening up in a rural area. Now, I'll tell you that here in Southern California, if you drive, I always use this as an example. We have the biggest street in Huntington Beach, which is in the heart of Orange County, is Beach Boulevard. And I almost feel like when you drive down Beach Boulevard, there's almost a dental office sign on virtually every corner. So I had one and one doctor called me up one day say, I'm going to do a startup in Irvine. I said, You're insane. And he said, No, there's a little sliver of Irvine that doesn't have a dentist. I said, What are there, like four people living there? So how do you look at a dentist who wants to start a metropolitan, large metropolitan area versus a rural area?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, so a large metropolitan area. That's if it's what you described, that's going to be pretty tricky. And you know, there's an area just outside Denver, Cherry Creek. It's probably the worst dentist population ratio in the area. And I know a lot of the practices in there and they're doing okay. They're no it's tough. It's a battle for new patients. It's just a grind up there. Right. Whereas if you kind of position yourself around the large city, let's say like Denver, L.A., whatever, I mean, California is it's on. Yeah, that's. Yeah, we won't go well.

Art Wiederman, CPA: California's now under, under well it's by the time this comes out it will be out of underwater. But some part we just don't hold water very well. When I used to live in New York, Dr. Green, it would rain. And then they would say, oh, you know, 20 minutes into the local news, it's raining in California. It's the first 20 minutes of the local news that it's raining and what happened in the holes and all that stuff.

Dr. Christopher Green: So yeah it's different. Couple of weeks out there. But I guess what I'll say is I'll tell you my preference. My preference is if you're going to be near a big metropolitan city, look for a suburb maybe that's growing and that there's enough people there to support you where it's not super rural, but it's got potential. Right. And there's not too many doctors that it's already saturated. I think the trouble with rural, at least the last couple of years is hiring. Okay, There are no people. That's true, let alone in a big I can't find anybody in a big city, let alone like some little town. And you have to know that you're going to have to be very creative if you want to eventually have associates, you have to be extremely good at taking somebody from Starbucks per se and turning them into a dental employee. You really have to know what you're doing there. And that's something that I think is often overlooked with the rural. Of course, there's opportunity, there's people, there's patients. But I think your H.R. headaches could be quite a bit higher. And you're going to have to be a black belt at recruiting and training.

Art Wiederman, CPA: And I feel like you have to be a black belt recruiting and training now. I mean, every business is not only dentists, but struggling with finding people. I know that the ADA statistics are that 7 to 17% of hygienists have just left the profession altogether after the pandemic. It's we're not going to go down that road too far today. So how did you choose your location?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. So I pulled, you know, first thing you do, pull a demographics report, kind of see the lay of the land. I said, I'm willing to be anywhere. I don't know. Within an hour of Denver, it was kind of the thought process and the reports came back. We're looking at a couple different towns. And then I just drove the areas. I just drove around. The numbers are very, very important. But does it also pass the eye and sniff test? And you know what feels good? So when I did that, I kind of mapped everything out, started analyzing the competition, cold calling different offices to see how sophisticated these offices were that I was going to be going in next to and landed on Parker.

We had a pediatric dentist that I became friends with that was doing ground up construction and said, I'm going to have a space here for a general dentist. Are you interested? Now this turns out. This was a growing, growing town, is a growing town. And the intersection. He had a great plot of land at a perfect intersection that's kind of become the next main street of this area. So it worked out well. But, you know, after coaching a lot of clients finding space, it takes time, finding the right location and then finding the right space in that town or that area. It takes a lot of time. And, you know, sometimes you strike out on three or four before you land on the one that you end up renting or buying.

Art Wiederman, CPA: And I'm one who is adamant that part of your retirement plan doctors, is the ownership of your own suite or building. And if you can do that at the beginning, it's kind of hard when you're starting out. You're maybe two, three or four years out of dental school or maybe one year out of dental school. And you want to start up and you're going to start up a practice and buy a building that little. That's a lot of stuff. So but it's something that I would encourage all of you if you can afford to do it in the large metropolitan areas, it's a lot more challenging because of the cost of real estate. So that's two different locations. So what are some of those?

Dr. Christopher Green: So on that topic, if I could.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah, Yeah.

Dr. Christopher Green: If you're in an area, let's say Denver, you're not going to find a desirable building like that for less than 2 million, probably closer to 3 to 4, you know, So it's like it's probably out of the picture for somebody to get five years out of school. However, you're in Alabama, you're in parts of North Carolina, Atlanta. You know, there's banks that we work with that are creative. And it's going to be like the tradeoff between your mortgage and the rent. And whatever your philosophy is there, it might be worth it to get into the real estate right away. Yeah, with very little down.

Art Wiederman, CPA: But you have to just compare the rents here in California are a joke. So the mortgage payment, I'm sure they are the same way in Denver. Yeah, it's yeah, it is not so. So talk about some of the mistakes that you're I mean, you've worked with lots of dentists who are doing start ups. Have you seen others that have done startups? What are some of them? The biggest mistakes that some of these folks are making and doing startups?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, I think under us, the startups have become pretty, you know, sexy over the last few years, right? It's become very popular to do a startup. There's these, these Facebook groups that talk about startups all the time. And I think that and also listening to podcasts and these success stories, I think that we downplay the amount of work that goes into it. So I think the biggest mistake is underestimating the project and what you're actually taking on and thinking, Just because I could get approved by the bank to build this thing out, that people are going to show up at your front door and you're going to have dentistry to do and you're going to make a bunch of money. It's not quite that simple. But others have made it look simple. But we forget that there was a ten year runway maybe done before that to get to the point where now it looks simple.

Art Wiederman, CPA: That's right. And then you get into the whole discussion of do I sign up for every single PPO when I start the practice? We'll get to that in a little bit. The answer is be really careful. So let's talk about marketing. So we found a location we're going to start and we'll get into the contractor here in a minute. But what kind of marketing are we going to do? What do you recommend as far as marketing and startup?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, there there's a lot of ways to go. Of course, there's a lot of marketing companies out there. Yeah, Yes. Every part of town might react differently or respond differently to different types of marketing. So some of it's, you know, beta testing certain things, but kind of just if you said the general principles would be. Work with a firm. Don't try to DIY marketing. Definitely build a nice website with some SEO management. Run Google AdWords, maybe some Facebook campaigns. Get your name and any of the moms of Facebook groups. We have like a Moms of Parker Group, and at once moms start talking about how do you go to that once you get your name in there a few times, that's good. Same with Next Door. And then we ran Postcard a big postcard campaign, and we ramp up your reviews, the Google reviews. You got to get 100 as fast as humanly possible. And now you're on the map. And now people, you know, they get the flier, they look you up online, they check your reviews, they look at your website, they're like, okay, this person's seems good, seems trustworthy, go from there. We did a lot of videos as well so you could show, you know, your human, you're authentic, etc.

Art Wiederman, CPA: But I love videos on our website. I mean, I like to see them right at the top of a website. And by the way, if you do a website, doctors, make sure you put your phone number right there so people can see. I can't believe how many websites I've gone on. And I'm looking around and I really want to buy the service. Not nice, not necessarily dentist and I can't find their flipping phone number.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, the last thing I'll say about marketing, it's absolutely critical is you got to put the work in and go around at the community grassroots marketing. You have a lot of time, you have a lot of holes in your schedule early on. If you're doing a startup, whether you and your one or two team members should be getting out there, talking to businesses, doing booths at different events. And you know, you got to be scrappy in the early days.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah, you do. You do. And we have a lot to talk about. I want to hit as many topics as I can. So now we got a location, we're thinking about marketing. Now we had to sign an office lease. What do you tell your startup clients about, you know, what should they do? Should they go in and talk to the landlord themselves? Do they hire somehow? What do you recommend on that?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, absolutely. Do not talk to the landlord yourself. Absolutely. Do not call the broker that's listed on the window of the building you want to establish. We have some recommendations. We could make it that way. He needs an intro. But you want to establish a relationship with the broker. That has your interest only. I mean, of course they have their own interests. They're going to get paid, but they and then the landlords are going to have their own broker. You don't want to have the same broker for each end. You know, initially find a space or a broker shows your space, you get an LOI and don't sign that thing until your lawyer reviews it because everything's negotiable, right? Once the LOI is signed here, a lot of the framework of the lease is in place and it's going to be hard to backtrack on any of those big bullet points in the lease.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah. And the way it works in dentistry, I understand, Dr. Green, is that if the dentist, the person doing the startup hires a broker, they generally don't have to pay anything for that broker because that broker is going to go to the landlord and say, Hey, landlord, you pay me a part of the rent because it's built into their budget to pay brokers to bring them tenants. So that's a good thing for you to realize. And you want to have someone so you want to have not only a broker who's going to negotiate the square footage and maybe TIs for you tenant improvements, but then you've got to have an attorney who's going to look at all the legal stuff in there. I mean, there are things like recapture clauses and options that are personal or not personal. We don't have time to get into all that today.

But doctors, just if you need a referral, you know, I can we can get you one, Dr. Green and I can get you one of those. So I want to take a second. I know that you guys have an event coming up on March 9th and 10th. I'll just read this. It's going to be in Houston. Am I reading this right? Houston, Texas. Yep. The Practice Launch Pads going to be hosting a dental startup business master class at the Voxel facility in Houston, Texas, about start ups. So talk about that for a minute and make sure you mark on your calendars doctors. If any of you are thinking about a startup or even a second location, mark this, you know, March 9th and 10th of 2023.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yep. So the by the time this podcast released, you know, we'll be getting close to the event, but we should have a few seats left. So act fast if you're interested. But the event's going to go through A to Z in detail. Process of a startup. You know how to save $20,000 or more nowadays on I.T. How to save hundreds of thousands on equipment bids, how to save hundreds of thousands on construction. And everybody that comes will have access to us to ask any questions. And we have a pretty robust manuals playbook for startups.

I mean, let's face it, this stuff's a recipe at the end of the day and you want the right recipe and to be connected with the right people and be fumbling around and say, Ooh, I wish I didn't hire that person for marketing or who I didn't. I wish I didn't hire that person to negotiate my lease. So we're just there to connect you and show you the ropes.

Art Wiederman, CPA: And also, Dr. Green, you consult with dentists who are thinking about doing startups. Talk a little bit about your consulting services and then why don't you go ahead and give out your contact information in case anybody is interested? We do this on all the podcasts that we have guests on because, folks, I only have the best on here and the best people and the best services who have number one, 100% of my doctor's interests at heart. So if, you know, give Dr. Green a call, if you're thinking about a startup and you want to talk to him about it, I'm sure you'd be happy to talk to you. How does your services work and then give out your contact information?

Dr. Christopher Green: Absolutely. Thanks, Art. We do some private coaching for anybody doing startup or acquisition, you know, first time owners pretty much getting them from, hey, this is an idea and I'm still an associate all the way to opening day. If it's a startup or Hey, I've found this practice or I'm looking at these prospectuses, how do I evaluate them and how do I do this transition? And we hold their hand through the process as many coaching calls, texts, emails as it takes every step of the way. You know, we have videos and then books and manuals on how to do all these things, but we're also there to answer those questions right away. I've got guys texting me this morning, Hey, what do I do here? Here, here. Takes me 5 seconds to respond with the answer. But it would it took them three days to figure out what the right answer is.

Art Wiederman, CPA: I mean, there's hundreds of decisions that you have to make in building out a dental office. I mean, every little part of it. So. Well, we're going to get to that. So. Oh, yeah. So your contact information, how do we get to you.

Dr. Christopher Green: And the investment there it's folding of time. So, you know, your time's worth money, right? And we want to just get you there faster with less heartache. But to get a hold of us. My phone number. I'll just give out my cell phone. 708.917.8019. Feel free to text me. To email about the event or just anything email at JBGreenDental@gmail.com. And finally to sign up for the event or just to see a little more about what we're up to, see what we're all about thepracticelaunchpad.com is a great place to go to sign up for anything.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Sounds great. Okay, let's get back to our discussion. Dr. Green. So let's talk about the construction because this is, you know, we go ahead, we find a location, we sign a lease. Now we got to build it out. So what kind of trends and let's talk about the construction process because that's a big deal. What kind of trends are you seeing in construction space given, you know, rising construction costs and higher interest rates?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, construction varies a lot across the country, As you know, Art, it is different in New Jersey than it is in California than it is in Colorado or Wyoming. I have a client in Arizona. He's having no problem with this build out as well as the person in Denver. But we're paying a lot of money for construction these days. I have a guy in New Jersey. He just texted me last night and he's been waiting for weeks and weeks. He can't even get a construction bid because the contractors have no subcontractors. Right. So it's a complete mess. And so, you know, supply chain issues have kind of been solved. There's some you know, some things like electrician recently didn't have everything that he needed. So there's delays on kind of can lighting and lights in the drop ceiling. But most of the supply things are figured out. But yeah, you're going to pay a lot of money on construction these days, about 100,000 more than I did in 2018.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah. So one of the things I want to point out to doctors is when you're negotiating or you have your lease negotiator negotiating your lease, you've got to make sure that you can get a contractor get this done. It's usually 4 to 6 months, right? Probably.

Dr. Christopher Green: Well, we have a contractor in town that could do it in about 13 weeks. But you have 4 to 6 months is more realistic. Yeah, national level.

Art Wiederman, CPA: So when you sign a lease, if you sign a lease and they're going to start charging you rent in X period of time and you can't get a contractor for a year, you're going to be paying rent on a space that is going to be sitting there. So you got to be real cognizant of that. So, okay, so how do you pick a contractor? Maybe walk through what was your process?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. Usually I start with my. I'll just tell my process. I start with an architect that I knew and trusted from other people. And he's been in the industry in this area for a long time and we picked three. I think three is probably the max number of contracts you want to put out. When you do, they're kind of like, screw you and they don't even want to put their time into the bid because they think it's too many. But three, you know, you bid it out to three and then you look at the bids and then you talk to them and meet them and see who you feel the best about, you know, because you don't always want to go with the cheapest bid because you want to know if they're going to hit timelines, if they're going to do quality work and what the relationships are like with their subcontractors, because it's really the subcontractors that keep the project on time.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Now a couple of questions is, number one, it's probably a good idea if you are thinking, you know, you bid it out to two or three contractors and then you say, this is the one I like. Don't you really need to go look at some? Number one, we want them to probably be dental specific, right?

Dr. Christopher Green: Typically, yeah, I would if we can. If we can.

Art Wiederman, CPA: yeah. I mean, in a more rural area, that might be a little more difficult. But if they're dental specific and we want to we want to go out and look at the work and talk to the people that they did work for and say, how did the process go for you?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. Now that's a huge point and thanks for bringing that up. Sure. Definitely. Definitely. Go look at offices and talk to talk to references and not just, you know, look just like with anything, you go with the references they give you, but then go find your own references. Right? And there's that. Look, the good thing about dentistry is dentists. It didn't used to be this way, but I feel like we're more open to sharing information. So if you have a local like Denver Dentists Club on Facebook or some if I posted that, everybody would tell you their opinion, what contractor they like, the good, bad and the ugly, so that you probably have a forum like that in your community.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah. Or I mean, there are other forums out there too. Yeah, absolutely. And then we got to go to the bank and get the money because most of the folks don't have a bunch of money. I know. I know that from the bankers I've spoken to in the industry, startups run anywhere between probably 500 and $700,000. Again, depends on the part of the country you're in. Plus, they give you some working capital for receivables and stuff like that. But when's the right time to go to the bank? When do we go to the bank? After we pick the contractor? Do we go to the bank? When we pick the location? When do we go to the bank?

Dr. Christopher Green: Actually, the bank is very early. It's one of the first steps. So once I have my vision and have my, you know, an idea of what I want to create, I'm looking at demographics and I'm looking at the banks because they're going to ask for all sorts of paperwork. I don't want to have a lease signed without knowing that I have a bank in place. Right. So, yeah, right. Thanks.

Art Wiederman, CPA: I've seen that happen. That's scary.

Dr. Christopher Green: Banks one of the first things and if anybody needs any connections to any bankers that are familiar with this, just let us know.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah, but both of us have those connections. And there's dental specific lenders who understand your business, who have done lots and lots of startups. Absolutely want to want to do that. So, so when a dentist is going to go ahead and do a startup, right? I mean, I've always we'll talk about the numbers in a minute, but do you see most you recommend the doctors spend their full time trying to get that thing going, or are they going to be working a day or two a week to pay some? But how do you advise on that?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, it's definitely a case by case basis. In my case, I just I was let go from my associateship and I just went all in on my startup, but I had a pretty nice emergency fund, having been an associate for five or six years and I was ready to get going and we started getting 120 new patients a month at the offset.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Hundred and 20. Wow. What did you do with 120 new patients a month.

Dr. Christopher Green: That we processed and we made it work. We were hustling and got it done. And that's how we were able to grow so fast.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah, that's amazing. But I am assuming you also had your side gig of going all around and playing gigs with the guitar, right?

Dr. Christopher Green: But those days were long over by then.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Trying to think of ways to keep you making money while you build this practice right.

Dr. Christopher Green: Now. That would've been awesome. But I wouldn't do any dentistry.

Art Wiederman, CPA: So let's do a little math here. I'm required by law to do math in every podcast. Every one of my listeners knows that I'm a CPA. And so I always I run the numbers. I run the numbers with rent. And again, rent is a wild card because, you know, if you're renting in, you know, Beverly Hills, California, versus renting in maybe Parker, Colorado, it might be different, I don't know. But my numbers say that to break even as a benchmark, you got to bring in about 200,000 a year. Do you have any benchmarks as far as breakeven? And then maybe how much working capital? Let's talk some numbers.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, that's great. So I think that overhead control starts before you open. I really do, because you start getting in the mindset that I need to save money on every last thing. I mean, you got to spend money in some areas, then you could control your fixed cost moving forward. So I would my numbers like 25,000 a month done with our process. If you could produce 25,000, you're going to break even on your expenses. That includes payroll and things like that. And that's again.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Okay. But the 2 to $300000 a year is 25,000. But 300 That but yeah. And you've got to be able to have enough working capital. So remembering that most of the banks, from what I see, are giving somewhere between 50, 50, $75,000 and working capital. So doctors, if you're going to do a start up and you know, if Dr. Green is saying you need 300,000 because we want to be more conservative and less conservative, you know, if you get 75,000 working capital, that means you need to generate collections of $225,000. That's about $18,000 a month, which in dentistry is not a lot.

But now it kind of leads me into the next question of, okay, we're starting this practice. And I know that a lot of doctors' mindset is I have to sign up for every PPO that's out there. When you as part of your what you're going to be doing on the ninth and the 10th, I'm assuming that this is going to be part of the conversation. Talk about what you recommend to dentists who do these times. Do you sign up for one PPO three? All of them. And I know you got to be careful when you sign up for a PPO, because when you sign up for PPO, sometimes if you read the fine print you're signing up for ten is on the same contract. So talk a little bit about that.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, no, it’s an important point and I think it depends sometimes too, on the state. I would not sign up for every PPO under the sun. You definitely you probably don't have to sign up for a few because people are very insurance conscious, especially if we're heading into a recession at all. People are going to be watching their money a lot closer. So I don't mind. Some of these umbrella networks are given that the fee schedule is high enough and close enough to your UCR that you're not discounting your services, you know, by 50% or something. So if you could get write offs, you know, let's say you have the fee schedule 90% of whatever you the 90th percentile and your write offs are somewhere from 25 to 35 early on. You think that's reasonable and then you go from there and you shut down the road.

Art Wiederman, CPA: And a lot of it is going to be your marketing and social media marketing is so important. And Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all and then the website and just getting involved in the community. I mean, this is another question that I want to ask you is I always tell doctors they need to buy the practice before they buy their home. If you buy your home first and then you buy the practice, you know, let's say you buy a home and then you find or you're going to start a practice and you find the perfect doctor. You contract with Dr. Green and the folks at The Practice Launch pad, and they find you. They work together and they find you this great location. Right? And but Oh, my God, this is perfect. And there's like, you know, one dentist to every 5000 people. Gee, wouldn't that be wonderful, Right? But then you live 50 miles away. So do you talk to them about the house versus the practice in the order are doing that?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, I think that you're spot on. I think it depends what your priorities are. People are so emotional about homes, though, like we know, and sometimes the spouse gets involved and. Oh, you no, there's no choice there.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Well, that ends it right there. I mean, the two most important, I've been married for 38 years to a wonderful mate, talking about my wonderful wife, Lynne, all the time on this podcast. And one of my dear friends in dentistry, Dr. Phil Potter, taught me the two most important words in the English language. Ah, yes, dear. So, you know, and it works. It really does.

Dr. Christopher Green: And working for 38 years and, you know, Yeah, no, that's funny. But yeah, I think it's I agree with you from a financial standpoint. Get the practice first then look at the home. Right. But most doctors are doing it the other way around.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah. And we do see that now. And I've had some doctors who live 30, 40, 50 miles away and they commute and that starts getting old pretty quick. But they've done okay. But I always think of my one of my long term clients who I helped sell his practice about ten years ago and he lived in a in a very much a bedroom community here in Orange County. And he got his son was an Eagle Scout. He was a Boy Scout leader. He coached Little League. He coached in JV basketball. He coached AYSO soccer. He got involved in his church. He did all these things. And that's what built his practice. But it's a community thing. I mean, you know, Dr. Green, you have so I'm assuming you live pretty close to your practice location.

Dr. Christopher Green: Oh, about 25 minutes away. So, okay, it's not in my backyard. I also didn't want to run into people at the grocery store. That's a nice thing. Is that what you want? That's fine, if that's what you're into for me, I just want to have a little bit of a buffer. Now, Dr. Dhoon, I think this is interesting if you haven't heard this before, but he had a failed start up, so pivoted to an acquisition and he wanted to live right outside Denver, looked could not find a practice. So he found this practice in Greeley, which is an hour north of Denver, and he commutes every day. And but it was a win for him because the practice was right. He's been able to grow it. He went the opportunity was more important than the commute. But I'm sure, you know, it does get old. But that's how bad that he wanted to succeed and he wasn't going to make a bad investment.

Art Wiederman, CPA: And it doesn't mean that if you don't live I mean, I always talk to people. If you can live in the community, you're working. That's great. But obviously, Dr. Green, you've been very successful. I mean, 120 new patients a month. I mean, I'm assuming you can't you're not still getting 120 new patients, are you?

Dr. Christopher Green: Well, 150 a month. But we have to be very careful. It's not we've shared a lot of insurances and, you know, we help anywhere between 120 and 150. And I don't care if we get some fewer patients nowadays. That's why we acquired a practice nearby.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah, that's I mean, because you can't sustain that and know it's not sustainable. Absolutely not. We were talking a little bit about earlier about supply chain issues. And so in the building of this, you're saying you're I mean, I've talked to some bankers in the business who do financing for startups, and they're saying that some of their startups are having to be held up three, six months or are you not seeing that anymore? Is that kind of solving itself?

Dr. Christopher Green: Well, I mean, your bankers are in the know for sure. It depends. It really does. In some cases, like I said, in some cases, the supply chain issues are have corrected a little bit. But there are still scenarios where there is like that one thing that they can't get for this one client, it was lighting for somebody else that was flooring. And that one thing, for whatever reason, you know, that's going to hold you up, you can't. They need lights and flooring, you know. So no, it is still an issue. Ah, but I think most contractors, at least the good ones, have figured out a plan B or C to get around it.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Right. Okay. All right.

Dr. Christopher Green: And what have you heard? You contrary to that, though?

Art Wiederman, CPA: Yeah. I mean, I'm hearing that again, this is California, so it's a different it's a different country, a different planet and all that kind of stuff. But I think I think that we have to ask I mean, it depends on the area. I mean, you know, Fresno, California, might be different than Sacramento. California might be different than San Diego, California. So.

Dr. Christopher Green: You know, we're going to start up. And you can't get flooring, though. I'll drive to Utah if I'm in California, to go to Florida in a car and get the floor. And you just you know, you figure it out. But I think that is a good question to ask the contractors. Yeah.

Art Wiederman, CPA: So I, I now I'm going to compare this. I am starting on a journey to do a bit of a remodel of our house here in Southern California. I've never done one before. My father in law, God bless him, he was a contractor. So my wife has learned a lot about this stuff. I do the tax return, you know, So one of the things that several of my friends have told me in this is that you have to monitor the job on a daily basis. And so talk about the because the dentist who's looking at the build up, they might be working a full time job. They might be working two or three days a week. How do you recommend that the dentist who's doing the start up, how do you recommend that they get involved in monitoring the project? Do we talk to the contractor every day? Do we talk to them weekly? Do we have a list? How does that work?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, I'm really, really glad you brought this up. And that's good advice from your friend. That said that, I prefer to be there every day if I can, you know, or at least five days out of the week. Now, it's not always possible. We have a guy that's 45 minutes from his startup, so he's only getting there two or three days a week. And I said, You got to start figuring out a way to make this priority as we get closer to Opening day. And the reason is you start to meet the subcontractors, you start to meet the general contractor has some laborers that kind of are the handymen that will help you with little things and you'll catch things. You'll hear things from the electrician, for example. In my case, I became very good friends with and he said, Hey, this isn't right with your project right now. You need to look into this. So I'm getting tips on that. You're finding out if they're going to fall behind on timelines and if the building part if you're waiting on an inspection. I went over and pressed the building department to get over and get the inspection on time, because if it wasn't on that date, all my subcontractors schedules were pushed out because they're booked up. So if they were supposed to come Wednesday and paint the paint, you know, then we missed Wednesday. You couldn't paint Wednesday because something wasn't approved. Now they're out two weeks because of their schedule. Does that make any sense? Oh, that's.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Great. Don't know. That is spot on. Great advice. Absolutely. So when we're talking about picking a come back to picking a contractor again, obviously you're going to interview face to face that contractor, right? I mean, you're going to recommend that you do that. So what are what are some questions that someone doing a startup should ask? What questions should we ask the contractor?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. How many projects like this have you done? What's your relationship like with some subcontractors? Maybe even interview some of their subcontractors? What's going on? And I like your question about supply chain. Tell me about the recent projects. What things have you been missing out on? How many projects do you have going on at once? You know, where am I on your priority list? Things of that nature, if you want. I have actually a list thread in for everybody that I could send you if you want to put it in the show notes or something like that. I don't know how you guys operate.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Well, I think I think what might be a nice idea if you're offering this, Dr. Green, would be to my listeners, is that one more time? Give out your email address and just if you want Dr. Green's list of things you should be looking at, he'll you'd be happy to share that.

Dr. Christopher Green: Absolutely. Email is JBGreenDental@gmail.com. That's Jenna Brady my assistant. She runs the practice spreadsheet. She'll get it over to you.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Okay, So. So that'll be something nice for you to have and stuff. And one of the last things I want to chat with you about, which we talked about a little earlier, and maybe we're getting in some detail now, I don't want you to give away all your pearls of March 9th and 10th, but you talked about how we can save money on different things. You said I.T. construction equipment. So maybe, maybe just and again, we're not giving out names of, well, this person, if you go with them, you'll save 20,000. I mean, that's not how it works. But how do you let's start with it. How do you save money on it?

Dr. Christopher Green: I think it's about being intentional. So let's lump i.t and equipment together. Okay. Intentional about every line item on there with an i.t guy. Can I go buy my own computers and then bring them to you and, you know, save the markup costs because you might find a computer. 500 bucks. That's the same model, but the i.t. Guys charging 800. So $3 here, there $20 here or there, it all adds up.

Art Wiederman, CPA: It does.

Dr. Christopher Green: It all adds up. So that's how I go through that with a fine tooth comb and, and that's, and we strip it apart right now.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Now how about on the contract you say now this is what I've seen because I've been through a bunch of start ups with clients over all these years. Doctors, if you want to win I don't know if I mean, Wells Fargo is a dental lender. They used to be called Masco. Masco was melded into Wells Fargo, and the reason I mention them by name is that Masco used to do a national dental design contest. And so if you want to be the dental design contest winner and you want to have waterfalls and fish tanks and a putting I mean, whatever you want to have there, I mean, aren't you going to I know the doctors all have a vision for their practice, but the fact of the matter is, and this is my opinion and Dr. Green, I'd love to hear your comment on it, People are not going to come to you because you have the prettiest office. People are going to come to you because they hear that you are a really good dentist and that you can be trusted to help them in the best possible way with their dental care. So, I mean, isn't you could really have a project that blows out of control if you have a vision that you want this thing to look like the next Disneyland, right.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. And there's so I 100% agree. But, you know, you want it to look clean and nice and less is more. I mean, I think we're moving towards that kind of minimalistic look these days. And I think that there's plenty of examples of how to make these things look nice on a fixed budget, on YouTube or Pinterest or whatever. People are very creative. You borrow a few ideas there. They think it's a state of the art facility and you really you're laughing because you saved a bunch of money on certain aspects, but it looks good.

Art Wiederman, CPA: I'll tell you what I have learned over the last year. You can learn anything on YouTube. YouTube has got so much. I mean, if you want to learn how to boil peas, you get like ten videos on how to boil peas, right? I mean, it's great. So how about on that? She talked about equipment and then how about saving on construction? That's a little more on that maybe.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, absolutely. So contractor, one of the biggest things you'll have, how many items can I bring to the table? So if I look at a lighting package and I look and I say, why did the architect call for these $400 accent lights? And then I look and I, I had this happen to me. So I had 2020 accent lights for my plaques and diplomas. I don't care about that stuff. Like they're going to be able to see them. I don't need these 400. So that's 20 times 400. We caught that and you know do them. I'm not good at math. You're the numbers guy. We save that much money.

Art Wiederman, CPA: That's a lot of money.

Dr. Christopher Green: 8000 bucks there. Yeah, and like, stupid lights. Okay, so you're going to go through and say, how do we value engineer this thing? So. It might be flooring. Okay. They have. You wanted this, you know, this gray color flooring. And from this they called for it from this company. And you go to the contractor and say, Is there a company that has the similar look for a cheaper price? And they go, Yeah, why didn't you ask this? I got one off the price here. So stuff like that adds up. And then, you know, depending on what kind of chairs and things you're going to run, we save. There's ways to save money on plumbing and some of the more expensive things. So there's little tricks here and there, but you want to keep track of it all because you want the contractor to give you credit for those because you agree to a bit in the beginning. So I agree with you. You're my contractor says it's 350,000. I come to you and I say 8000 on lighting. I want it in an email with each other. So it's documented timestamps that green get. You know, it's his bid is now less $8,000. It's two or 342,000. You know.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Because if you don't do that contractor just made an extra eight grand off you that drops right to his bottom line.

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah. And it was your idea all along.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Exactly.

Dr. Christopher Green: Love it. Yup.

Art Wiederman, CPA: No they want they I would that is a tough business to be in as being a building contractor. I mean, that's just a hard, hard business.

Dr. Christopher Green: And you want to ask them what is your profit need to be on this? They need to make money. So like you said, your profit needs to be 10% or 13%. Great. Then let's stick to that. And it's not. I come with these ideas to save money and now you just profited in your up to 15 17%. So if they could open their books to you see what they're actually paying the contractors, keep everybody honest. That would be great.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Fantastic. Well, we've come to about the end of our time on the podcast. Dr. Green, great, great information. Before I let you give out again one more time about The Practice Launch Pad event in Houston. Any last thoughts, anything we forgot, any last tips you want to throw out to our listeners about doing a startup?

Dr. Christopher Green: Yeah, I would say it's not all about start ups. Like I said in the beginning, I like to look at acquisitions as well. I think that it's you hone in on an area. You decide what's going to make the most sense for you and your family and see where the opportunity might be. And, you know, there's a lot that goes into this, but be ready to put the work in and be ready to work harder than the guy down, guys and gals down the street because it's work and it's you know, it's missing certain things. You maybe got to skip a few vacations, skip a few bachelorette parties, bachelor parties, whatever, to get this thing done the right way.

Art Wiederman, CPA: Now that's very, very good advice because, folks, this is going to be where you're going to live for potentially 30 or 40 years. I mean, you may move offices, but hopefully. Oh, one more thing I want to jump at. When you do a startup, how many treatment rooms do we equip? How many treatment rooms do we plumb? Talking about that from an I've got time.

Dr. Christopher Green: Good question. I mean, ideally I want seven or eight ops, but it's not always possible because you're usually looking at 2000 to 2500 square feet, but let's say six minimum five really pushing it. So then you equip 3 to 4, you know, three's minimum, but depends what kind of producer you are, depends what kind of patient flow you expect. I want with four just because I knew we were going to be rocking and rolling out of the gates. And then we added this the fifth and sixth, six months later, so we can get that on the next year's tax return. Do you like that?

Art Wiederman, CPA: I like that. Yeah, exactly right. It's all about increasing the federal government's deficit. That's what I've done for a living for the last 38 years. Well, Dr. Christopher Green, thank you very much. I think you being connected with Dr. Mark Costes is a great thing. I mean, I have the utmost and greatest respect for Dr. Costes and what work he does. I had him on the podcast about, oh, four or five months ago. What a nice man. What a smart man. And so tell us one more time about the event in Houston and then one more time give out or give out your information, and then I'll ask you to just kind of stay with me until I take the podcast out.

Dr. Christopher Green: You got it. So March 9th and 10th, 2023 down in Houston at the Voxel facility we're limited to about 35 docs. And we'll have we're going to go A to Z startup. So it's a dental startup master class myself, Dr. Mark Costes, Dr. Dhoon And if you're interested, go to thepracticelaunchpad.com or email us at JBGreenDental@gmail.com. And you know, for the Art of Dental Finance management listeners, we'll continue to offer the early bird specials. So please mention that and you know that's just for all that's a gift from us because of all Art does for the community and having us on today and just, you know, we just want to thank Art for it for everything over the years in the dental industry.

Art Wiederman, CPA: You're very kind. Dr. Green just made my day. That's nice of you to say. And doctors listen. I mean, they don't teach you in dental school how to build out a dental office. There's no class. I mean, there's occlusion, there's TMJ, there's ortho, but there's no class on building out a dental office. So if you've got an opportunity and this is what you want to do, and your dream is to build out your dream office with your footprint all over it, I mean, you've got an opportunity for two days to get every single thing that you need to understand it. I mean, we're talking 16 hours. There's going to be a lot of stuff presented.

So Dr. Christopher Green, thank you very much. Say hi to Dr. Costes for me and all the folks back there. And hang on as I take this out, folks. Thank you again for the honor and privilege of your time. I'm really, really excited about all the great guests and the great information that we're going to have on here. I was talking to our this morning. I was talking to our head of cybersecurity, and in a half hour, I learned so much about the fact that cybersecurity is a big threat to all businesses. And we're going to be doing I believe we'll be doing a podcast on that coming up in the next couple of months.

Do please and make sure that you put on your calendar for those of you in California, and I forgot to mention this at the beginning, as I have done sometimes, but I will mention it now. We are doing a series of four live seminars supported by the California Dental Association and Bank of America, and we are doing one on Tuesday, March 23rd at the Stone Brewery in Escondido, California. From 530 to 830. I will be speaking there among other speakers, including folks from CDA, geared to younger dentists who are trying to make the decisions. We talked about today that Dr. Green was talking about. Do you start up do you buy a practice? What do you do on Saturday, March 25th? We are tentatively scheduled at Top Golf in Ontario, California, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Then Saturday, June 10th. We don't have dates and times. We'll get those out to you later. Well, we have the date Saturday, June ten. From 9 to 12. It will either be it'll be somewhere in the Bay Area. So put that on your calendar if you're listening in Northern California. And then Thursday evening from 530, 830 June 22nd in Sacramento, come to those.

Make sure you visit our partner Decisions in Dentistry magazine www.DecisionsinDentistry.com fantastic clinical content and 140 continuing education classes that you can obtain for a very, very reasonable price. That's www.DecisioninDentistry.com. Our mothership is the Academy of Dental CPAs. We are a founding member at Eide Bailly. Eide Bailly works with about a thousand dentists. The Academy works 25 CPA firms across the United States that represent over 10,000 dentists. Go to www.ADCPA.org. Or give me a call if you are if you're not happy with your CPA work, give me a call. We work with lots and lots of wonderful, wonderful dentists. Give us a call. 657.279.3243 or email me at awiederman@EideBailly.com.

With that again, Dr. Christopher Green, thank you for your time and your expertise and what you and Dr. Costes and all your friends do for the dental profession. And with that said, I will say adieu for this edition of The Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA. Thank you for listening. Please tell all your friends and we'll see you next time.