james, Author at The McAnally Selling System

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So far james has created 3065 blog entries.

Why Elective Dentistry Demands Better Case Value Selling

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why can't I grow my practice on $5000 cases and elective treatment? Because five thousand dollars does not buy much dentistry anymore, and almost nothing you do is mandatory. Outside of an out of control infection, most treatment is elective, which means the patient can always say no and walk. That changes everything about how you must communicate. Even the oral systemic connection, real as it is, gets treated as optional by most physicians and by the reimbursement system. So it falls to you to make that care feel necessary rather than nice to have. If you intend to present cases [...]

Why Elective Dentistry Demands Better Case Value Sellingjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does Offering More Dental Procedures Win More Cases?

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I offer more procedures and services to win bigger cases? Adding more to the menu is not the answer most dentists think it is. Procedure after procedure, different implants, different materials, different techniques, all lined up like a menu. To the patient it reads like a Chinese menu written in Chinese, or if they happen to be Chinese, a menu in Swedish. It is a menu they cannot read. You assume that stacking options gives you an advantage and brings in more cases. It does not work that way. The fix is not fewer skills, it is packaging. Take something [...]

Does Offering More Dental Procedures Win More Cases?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does Dental Technology Improve Case Acceptance?

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does buying new dental technology increase case acceptance? Rarely, and sometimes it backfires. The common move is to put a machine in the practice, post the machine's name on the website, and wait for patients to be impressed. To the average patient that name means nothing. Worse, if you try to overwhelm them with technology, you can scare them off instead of winning them over. We are wired for this, by the way. In dental school you get issued instruments and you spend the rest of your career adding more. So buying the next device feels natural. But the patient is [...]

Does Dental Technology Improve Case Acceptance?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why You Need a Patient Follow-Up System for No Answers

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I follow up with patients who didn't accept implant treatment? Yes, and you should put it on a calendar instead of leaving it to hope. The patients who said no still have a problem, and that problem isn't going away. Your job is to stay in front of them so they remember you exist. I like physical mail for this, a card that lands in their hands a set number of times each year. Hope is not a system. If you tell yourself you'll get around to following up, you never will, and the case quietly disappears. So build it [...]

Why You Need a Patient Follow-Up System for No Answersjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Indemnification Agreement in Dentistry, Explained

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What is an indemnification agreement in dentistry? It's the document that makes dropping insurance fair to the patient. When you ask someone to set their plan aside so you can treat a big case at full fee, you're asking them to give up a benefit they paid for. The indemnification agreement removes that fear of loss. In plain terms it says, if anything comes up during the six months or year I'm treating you, I'll provide additional care up to the maximum amount of the insurance you dropped. So they effectively still have their benefit, you just absorb it as the [...]

Indemnification Agreement in Dentistry, Explainedjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How Falling Household Income Hits Your Dentistry

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do falling household incomes affect a dental practice? More than most dentists admit. Most practices are fed by middle class patients, and on an inflation-adjusted basis the average household income is, at best, about where it sat in the early 1970s. By some measures it is lower. The only reason families kept pace at all is that two people are working now instead of one. So the patient sitting in your chair has less real discretionary money than their parents had at the same age, even with both spouses earning. Pile the shrinking insurance benefit on top of that and [...]

How Falling Household Income Hits Your Dentistryjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How Many Patients Need Dental Treatment in the US?

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How many people actually need dental treatment in the United States? Far more than your appointment book suggests. The last survey put roughly eighteen percent of adults, about forty-two million people, without teeth. Add another nine million missing a full arch and around fifty million with a whole quadrant of problems. Then layer on everyone with orthodontic issues, sleep apnea, and TMJ trouble. You are easily looking at a hundred and fifty million people who need some kind of dentistry. The need is enormous. The catch is that most of those people are either unaware of their problem or have never [...]

How Many Patients Need Dental Treatment in the US?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How Dental Productivity Gains Hid the Drop in Demand

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Has dental productivity been hiding the decline in real demand? Yes, and that crutch is running out. Look at how practices stayed profitable through the early 2000s even as real income and the insurance pool shrank. The counterweight was raw productivity. If you have practiced since 1980 you have lived it. Dentists went from two-handed dentistry to four-handed, then six and even eight, with assistants stacked in a super operatory and high-speed protocols moving cases through fast. A modest operator gained maybe twenty percent. The gunners at the top doubled their output. That speed quietly offset every downward trend for a [...]

How Dental Productivity Gains Hid the Drop in Demandjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

The Adapting Growing Dental Practice Model

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What does an adapting and growing dental practice look like? It looks lean and deliberate. I call it the lean machine, or a practice within a practice, and it runs on a different math than the sinking ship. It often keeps an insurance component but grows a non-insurance side right alongside it. It does not price its work as a commodity. It earns the value of its services off the whole package the patient receives, lands cases outside insurance, and finds smart ways to get appropriate fees even on insured patients. Volume is lower, but the margin per hour is higher, [...]

The Adapting Growing Dental Practice Modeljames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Case Acceptance Is Really a Closing Ratio

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Is case acceptance just a fancy word for a sales closing ratio? Yes, and pretending otherwise is part of why so many dentists struggle with it. In plain business terms, case acceptance is your closing ratio, the percent of proposals that turn into accepted treatment. Every other industry calls it closing, but that word scares dentists, so the profession dressed it up with a softer name. The relabeling did real damage, because it let us avoid studying it the way a serious salesperson would. Once you accept that you are selling, you can actually measure the number, work on it, and [...]

Case Acceptance Is Really a Closing Ratiojames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

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