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Howard Farran,
DDS, FAGD




Since graduating from the University of Missouri School of Dentistry in 1987, Dr. Howard Farran has built one of the nation's most successful dental practices. After getting 88 new patients and collecting $40,000 in his first month ever in private practice, he built Today's Dental into an eight operatory, seven day a week practice collecting more than $2 million a year. He is a nationally known expert on practice management and expounds on the Dental Mania philosophy of practice management at seminars and lectures across the country. He has lectured to more than 40,000 dentists since 1990 and is booked at dental meetings into 1998. He is the author of "The Business of Dentistry," numerous articles in all of the major dental journals, and a soon-to-be-published consumer's guide to dentistry. He also has recorded more than 50 audio cassettes and a dozen videos detailing his practice management philosophy. He has been married to his wife Judith for nine years and is the father of four boys: Eric, 6; Greg, 4; Ryan 2; and Zachary, two months.



Current Seminar Schedule
June 7
New Orleans, LA
Louisiana AGD

June 8
Chicago, IL
Discus Dental: "Secrets to Succeed in Esthetic Dentistry"

June 18
Miami, FL
Futuredontics/1-800-DENTIST

July 12-14
Seattle, WA
Washington State Dental Association

July 26
Philadelphia, PA
Paterson Dental/Mike Nalls

August 1
Reno, NV
DenMat (tentative)

August 8-10
Keystone, CO
Profitable Dentist

August 16
St. Paul, MN
Harrison Dental Studio

August 16
St. Paul, MN
Harrison Dental Studio


The Future's Bright on the Other Side of the Managed Care Monsters


Good Morning, Dentistry! The forecast says clear skies, no chance of rain--should be bright and sunny for at least another couple hundred years. Consumers are still eating 187 pounds of sugar per person each year and floss is not seen on the horizon. Got the HMO blues? Think "the sky is falling" in Dentistry? You've been listening to the wrong people.

The best way to answer the HMO blues is good old-fashioned free enterprise. It's been going on for about 8,000 years. Even though almost every country in the world has tried to tinker with it in one way or another, it's still thriving here in the United States because it is by far the best system ever developed by mankind.

The basic economic principle of free enterprise is supply and demand. The supply of dentists is flat--more dentists are retiring each year than are graduating; the demand for dentistry is going up. Put those together, take away the HMOs, and guess what? We're seeing some mighty good days for Dentistry, as long as you don't let the HMOs tell you how to be a dentist. You went to college for eight years, the insurance man didn't. You're filling teeth, he's pushing a pencil. You're a doctor, he's not. He will never be able to diagnose a case better than you, so who cares what he says?!

But there's a group of dentists who believe that Dentistry is a game of volume--HMOs, PPOs, and reduced fees with more work for less profit. But Dentistry just isn't a game of volume. A lot of people are telling doctors they should sign up for this plan or that plan to "fill those empty slots in the schedule." Well, you need those empty times in the appointment book to run your business. Work on systems to make your office more efficient. Do internal marketing like sending mugs to referring patients to thank them--and build a source of more future referrals.

While you're working on your game, just remember a few stats. There are 25,400,000 root canals done in the U.S. each year. Endodontists do 5 percent of them, general dentists like you and me do the other 95 percent. Yet the endodontist takes home $40,000 a year more than you do on average. Let me say that again: You see three times the number of patients an endodontist sees each day, for $40,000 a year less, with 50 percent higher overhead (the average endodontist is right around 50 percent, the average general dentist is at 71 percent.) Why? It's their fees! The insurance companies generally reimburse them 20 to 25 percent more then they do you for the same root canal. Guess where that 25 percent comes from? Your profit!

Forty-three percent of Americans don't even have access to one of the ADA's eight recognized specialists. Now, the insurance company gives the endodontist 25 percent more resources to do the root canal than they will give you. Yet when you have to go to court, who is going to judge your root canal? It's not going to be a constitutionally guaranteed jury of your peers, the general dentists doing 95 percent of the root canals. It's going to be the endodontist. But I don't have the resources to do it like an endodontist, unless I squeeze my profit.

You think Dentistry is a game of volume? Kodak has been showing for years that if you raise your fees 20 percent, you can run off 40 percent of your business and still make the same net income. So if you have to do the root canal the same way the endodontist does, charge the same fee. Get off those HMOs with their reduced fees. It's not volume, it's quality.

So remember, doctor, you are a highly skilled professional providing a needed service to your community. You need to be reimbursed for that service and you shouldn't be afraid to charge the fee you deserve. The future of dentistry is very bright for those who practice high quality, hi-technology dentistry. Leave the HMOs behind and join the future today!

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