The Art of a Successful Integration Process

Integrating your private practice into a dental group is a pivotal step in a transaction that can significantly impact your business’s stability and legacy. Building the right team takes time, and maintaining their trust should be a top priority during the integration process. A well-thought-out documented plan, timely communication, and thorough confirmatory diligence are the cornerstones of successful transitions, ensuring minimal disruption and maximum benefit for everyone involved. This blog post will cover key considerations for integration, including maintaining your practice’s stability, leveraging administrative support, creating a timeline for communication, and how to address team concerns.

At MB2 Dental, we’ve integrated more than 700 dental practices in the last seven years, learning and refining our process along the way. Our experience has taught us how to facilitate a seamless integration that puts the dental practice team ahead of the process, seeks to understand and problem-solve, and starts your partnership with MB2 Dental on a foundation of mutual respect and trust.

Key Considerations for Transacting

Before you start the process of integrating with a dental group, here are some key points to consider that will lead to a successful transition. MB2 Dental partnerships focus on two main areas: keeping you in control of your dental practice and team and giving you the ability to leverage the larger organization for operational support and financial outcomes. Doing so allows you to continue delivering exceptional patient care while propelling your practice forward.

Stability

• Autonomy: A partnership should allow you to retain control over not only your clinical decisions but also your business decisions. As an MB2 Dental doctor partner, you’ll gain support and practice insights that can only be offered by an expert and tenured leadership team, support departments, and a community of over 700 doctor partners across the country.
  • Recommendation: When considering a partner, ensure you clearly understand their definition of “autonomy” by providing scenarios and seeking to understand their proposed reaction.
• Operational Stability: At MB2 Dental, doctor partners are empowered to keep business as usual. Daily operations remain consistent, including hours, practice management software, and team dynamics. Stability is key to a smooth transition. If a dental group requires operational change like software, hours, brand or roles, consider the disruptive impact on your practice team, patient care and financials.
  • Recommendation: If your transaction requires critical change, ask for thorough and documented project plans, case studies, and timelines before transacting.

Administrative Support

• Reduce Administrative Burden: One significant advantage of joining a dental group is the reduction of administrative tasks which can free up time for patient care, team development, mentorship, and your personal life.
  • Recommendation: Share your pain points and burdens, then ensure the dental group has concrete solutions to meet your needs.
• Access to Resources: Support services like compliance oversight, marketing strategies, supply and lab analysis, cost savings, legal advice, and financial services should create value for your practice and not cause distraction, disruption, or doom. These resources can help streamline operations and support practice growth when done right.
  • Recommendation: Ask which support services are mandatory or optional and their cost.

Starting the Integration Process

Now that you’re ready to choose a dental group that meets your short and long-term goals, there are critical questions you should ask to ensure your integration is seamless for your team, patients and your local reputation.

• Will I have a dedicated integration lead and what is their role?
• Do you have a documented integration process that outlines critical milestones?
• Who will be onsite at my practice, and when?
• What information and documents do you need from me?
• MOST IMPORTANTLY – when do I tell my team?

For most dentist owners, the scariest and most fragile moment is telling their team about their upcoming transaction. Here are a few tried and true tips:

1. If you have a trusted and key office or business manager, involve them early in the process. They will appreciate that you’ve empowered them as a leader, and when it comes time to notify the team, they will be your advocate.
2. Always tell your associate dentists ahead of the non-doctor team. Your transaction is dependent on associate dentist retention. Allow your associates an open Q&A with you and lean on the dental group for guidance, references, and support.
3. Notify your non-doctor team a few weeks before your transaction. You want to ensure legal documents are in a good place and integration planning is documented. This will ensure you can confidently answer their questions, maintain an authoritative (yet calm, cool and collected) composure, and prepare them for the next steps in the process.

Addressing Team Concerns

Each team member will likely have their own unique concerns about the transition. You can expect a range of emotions that are consistent across all team members, but specific concerns by role. These can include:

• Associate Concerns: clinical corporate oversight or directives, reduced dental assistant staff, and compensation changes.
• Hygienist Concerns: Periodontal Therapy Protocols and reduced appointment lengths.
• Dental Assistant Concerns: Job duties, pay rate and practice hours.
• Front Office Concerns: Additional reporting, a corporate boss and termination.

Overall, be sure to highlight the benefits and reassure your team of the positive impact the partnership will have on their roles and your practice. Some key phrases we like to use are:

• “We are partnering to enhance our practice’s support and growth opportunities.”
• “Your role and contributions are vital, and this partnership will help us all focus more on what we do best – providing excellent patient care.”

Conclusion

Integrating your practice into a dental group is complex and only rewarding when it’s planned, documented, and your dental practice team is a top priority. Integration is the path to meeting your partnership goals; so it’s important to remember, if you fail to plan, plan to fail.

With MB2 Dental’s proven track record of integrating more than 700 practices, we have the experience and expertise to make your transition as seamless as possible. Our ongoing refinement of the integration process ensures minimal disruption and maximum benefit for your practice. MB2 Dental is ready to support you through this transformative journey to enhance your practice’s success and your professional satisfaction.