Blog - Page 57 of 310 - The McAnally Selling System

How Dental Insurance Maximums Shrink Your Revenue

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

How does insurance shrink the money available for dental treatment? Think of insurance as a pool of free money that used to help patients say yes, and that pool has been draining for years. Maximums have barely moved while costs climbed, so each plan buys less real treatment than it did a decade ago. On top of that the carriers fight you harder on claims than they ever used to, clawing back and denying wherever they can. So you get hit twice. The patient's own disposable income is down, and the insurance cushion that once filled the gap is thinner and [...]

How Dental Insurance Maximums Shrink Your Revenuejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

The Chicken Without a Head Dental Practice Trap

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

What is the chicken without a head routine in a dental practice? It is the dead giveaway of a practice in trouble. The owner is running flat out all day, room to room, fire to fire, with no time left for anything that actually matters to the future of the business. No time to think, no time to plan, no time to work on the practice instead of just in it. That is the chicken without a head. It comes straight from the volume trap. When your whole model depends on cramming more bodies through the chairs at commodity fees, every [...]

The Chicken Without a Head Dental Practice Trapjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Is the Middle Class Dental Model Dead in Your Area?

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

Is the middle class dental model dead everywhere? Not everywhere, but you have to be honest about where you actually practice. If you are out in a small rural pocket with a stable middle population and not much competition, the old middle class model can still hold up for a while. That is the exception, not the rule. For most of us sitting in bigger population zones, that model already looks tired, and it is getting worse as real spending keeps sliding and the big players walk away from the middle. So do not take comfort from someone three states away [...]

Is the Middle Class Dental Model Dead in Your Area?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Struggling Practices Cannot Afford Dental Marketing

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

Why can't struggling dental practices afford to market themselves? Because they get caught in a brutal loop. The commodity practice runs on thin margins and high volume, and every dollar coming in is already spoken for by payroll, technology payments, tuition, the mortgage, the lifestyle. There is nothing left to put toward marketing. And here is the cruel twist. To reach a better, higher-paying type of patient, you usually have to give up some income for a stretch while you build the new flow. A squeezed practice cannot stomach that gap, so it stays put, which keeps it squeezed. That is [...]

Why Struggling Practices Cannot Afford Dental Marketingjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

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

The Sinking Ship Dental Practice Model Explained

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

What is the sinking ship model in a dental practice? It is the practice locked into price-based, commodity dentistry, and I call it the sinking ship for a reason. These offices have let insurance dictate what they can and cannot do. They chase efficiency above everything, the ultimate Walmart of dentistry, always asking how to do it cheaper, how to cut a corner, how to push volume higher whether or not it serves the patient. They still buy technology they cannot really justify, and they stay chained to the middle class model that is fading. The worst part is the trap [...]

The Sinking Ship Dental Practice Model Explainedjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Middle Class Dentistry Is Losing Its Patients

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

Why are big companies abandoning the middle class, and what does that mean for dentists? Watch what the giants do, because they spend fortunes on research before they move. The big retailers and mass producers have quietly split the market into the rich and the poor and stopped serving the middle. Higher-end stores are dumping the middle and upper middle to chase the wealthy. Mass producers are running to the lows and the highs and leaving the center to fend for itself. They do this because the growth is at the top and the bottom, not in the middle. Now look [...]

Why Middle Class Dentistry Is Losing Its Patientsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How Dental Productivity Gains Hid a Shrinking Market

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

How did dentists keep doing well for so long despite shrinking patient budgets? The counterweight was productivity, plain and simple. If you have practiced since 1980 you have lived it. We went from two-handed dentistry to four-handed, and the best operators pushed to six or even eight hands working a super-operatory, moving fast with high speed handpieces and tight protocols. At a minimum that bought a 20 percent gain, and that was for the slow learners. The gunners at the top probably doubled their output. That speed quietly absorbed the falling spending and falling free insurance money for years. The problem [...]

How Dental Productivity Gains Hid a Shrinking Marketjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Is Dental Spending in Real Decline After Inflation?

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

Is dental spending actually declining when you adjust for inflation? Yes, and it is worse than the headline numbers suggest. The ADA shows growth in dental expenditures slowing from about 3.9 percent over a decade down to 1.8 percent, then into negative territory after the recession. But that data was never adjusted for inflation. Go back and correct for it and the picture changes. We had a real run of around eight percent growth for about ten years, then from 2002 onward we slid into a steep negative trend, roughly 8.2 percent a year on a real basis. That is not [...]

Is Dental Spending in Real Decline After Inflation?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Your Dental Practice Feels the Squeeze Now

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

Why is my dental practice feeling squeezed even though the industry keeps growing? You feel squeezed because the money behind your average patient has been shrinking for years. Disposable income is down, insurance maximums buy less than they used to, and the carriers fight you harder on every claim. Strip out inflation and dental spending has been on a negative trend since about 2002, dropping roughly eight percent a year on a real basis. The industry total looks fine because growth piled up at the very top. So the typical practice, sitting in the middle, gets hit from three sides at [...]

Why Your Dental Practice Feels the Squeeze Nowjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

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