Start 2026 the Right Way: Five Decisions Every Thriving Dentist Needs to Make!

Gary Takacs: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice—one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, your podcast co-host. We have a great episode for you today. It’s titled Start 2026 the Right Way: Five Decisions Every Thriving Dentist Needs To Make.

Well, before I get into that episode, first of all, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy New Year. You know, we’ve made it through the holiday season, and we’re into the first week of the new year if you’re listening to this the date that it’s published. And I want to simply wish all of you—my wish for you is to make 2026 your best year yet, and this podcast episode will be a great way to get that started.

Before I get into that episode, though, two quick announcements to make. If you’re a regular listener to The Thriving Dentist Show, you probably know that we regularly put on Thriving Dentist events.

Gary Takacs: These are virtual events. They could be a webinar, it could be a panel discussion, it could be an expert conversation where we bring experts on. We do those on a regular basis. We provide those Thriving Dentist virtual events at no tuition—no tuition. I like to think it’s the greatest value in dental education, and we do that in appreciation for your listenership.

If you’d like to find out what event is coming up—the next event on the schedule—you can always go to thrivingdentist.com/events.  We keep updating that on a regular basis, and you’ll find out what the next event is. Come join us. We’ve got a really great calendar of events scheduled in 2026. Look forward to seeing you there.

The next announcement is I’ve got a marketing tip from my podcast co-host, Naren Arulrajah, and he’s gonna share a Thriving Dentist marketing tip. This particular marketing tip is titled What is Google CrUX? And What Do You Need to Know in the Age of AI?

Well, with no further ado, here’s Naren Arulrajah with his marketing tip: What is Google CrUX? And What Do You Need to Know in the Age of AI?

Naren Arulrajah: In today’s marketing tip, I’ll be talking about Google CrUX. This is Naren, the co-host of The Thriving Dentist Show. Google CrUX is a recent update that Google came up with, and it’s all about, you know, are you doing the right things on your website that makes people—Google—wanting to send more people to you?

See, we live in the day of AI, and we all have heard of ChatGPT, and Perplexity, and all these platforms. The good news is Google is 60 to 100 times bigger than ChatGPT when it comes to how many times we use Google—that is 12 billion times a day—versus products like ChatGPT. So Google is, you know, literally 100 times bigger.

And Google’s approach has been, you know, we want to make sure people are finding human information versus AI-generated information. The reason is, AI-generated information is just made-up words.

Naren Arulrajah: It’s not a doctor who went to medical school. It’s some computer, and nobody even knows how this computer is making up words when it’s giving answers. So Google is like, the way their algorithms work is—even with their AI mode and AI overview—they show literally what are the sources of that information. So they’ll study all the websites, which they have the most, and the largest index and the current index in the world, and based on all of that information, they’ll give you the answers.

So, for example, if you were to ask a question like "cost of dental implants in Chicago," they’ll look at all the websites in Chicago from dental practices that have talked about cost, and they’ll summarize what they found and provide those three websites that they used as the source—as links.

Naren Arulrajah: So now people are directly going to your website if you are one of the sources. Now, the AI overview is for questions where people are asking for summary-type information, like the cost of dental implants in Chicago. But for everything else, Google would directly send them to your website. So, for example, on Google Maps or regular search—like a "dentist near me" keyword, or, you know, "Invisalign near me."

Now, one of the things Google has realized is it needs to favor human content. So, as part of that, it’s really, really, really looking for AI-generated content and penalizing it. So anyone who is using AI-generated content, or they don’t have original content, or they don’t meet Google’s content guidelines—you are not gonna rank.

So remember, Google gives 95% of their traffic to 5% of their web pages on the internet. So you want to make sure you are among those 5%.

Naren Arulrajah: So follow these rules. CrUX has replaced something called Google Lighthouse Code. Those of you who are paying attention would have known what Google Lighthouse Code is. It’s an advanced form of a tool to see what you’re doing on your website.

CR stands for Chrome. UX stands for User Experience. So they’re looking at it through the Chrome browser on smartphones and desktops and saying, okay, based on what we are finding on our browser, are you doing all the right things?

The tip that I want you to remember is: don’t try to optimize for a particular keyword or a particular procedure or particular thing. Rather, do everything Google wants across the website.

So we run the CrUX reports very frequently for our clients, and all the things Google wants us to fix—we fix it. Of course, we have 300 people and we have 14 teams, and a large team is dedicated to making sure we are compliant with CrUX.

Naren Arulrajah: And that is key if you want to show up on Google Maps, Google Search, Google AI Overview, and Google AI Mode. So pay attention to it—do the things Google wants.

And finally, remember: human content means a lot. And the fact that you are a doctor—and if you can include that in the bio—again, it means a lot. Now Google knows this is generated by a doctor who has the qualifications necessary to talk about this particular topic.

So these are all tips. If you want to learn more about how you are doing with CrUX, go to ekwa.com/td. We book what we call a marketing strategy meeting. We look at you, we look at your competition, we’ll tell you how well you are doing or how poorly you are doing and what you need to do differently.

Take advantage of it. The world is changing.

Naren Arulrajah: AI is here to stay. Like I said, we completely revamp what we do to help our clients continue to dominate in this AI world.

Now, also, don’t ignore ChatGPT and Perplexity—even though currently they are like 1/60th the size of Google. Who knows, they might become stronger. So, you know, we are definitely checking if our clients are showing up on all these other platforms as well. And if they’re not, what can we do about it?

One of the challenges with a lot of these other platforms is they don’t have current information. So one of the things we also look for is:

A) Are we showing up on these other search engines—the AI search engines?

B) Is the information correct?

So once again, ekwa.com/td. Hope we can help.

Naren Arulrajah: Welcome to the Thriving Dentist Podcast Show. I’m Naren, your co-host, and the topic we are gonna dive into today is Starting 2026 the Right Way: Five Decisions Every Thriving Dentist Needs to Make.

Before we jump into this topic, I wanna take a minute to wish all of you Happy New Year and the very best of success, peace, and prosperity in 2026. And also, if anyone wants to learn more about AI and how AI is changing how people are finding you—or even CrUX, which stands for Chrome UX, it’s a tool that Google provides to see how well you are doing in the age of AI—you know, book a marketing strategy meeting. We would love to help. ekwa.com/td. That’s a unique link for Thriving Dentist listeners—ekwa.com/td.

Gary, many practice owners want 2026 to feel different from past years. I think we alluded to this in our last episode.

Naren Arulrajah: This kind of reminded us of the great, you know, the period we went through in 2007–2008, where the good businesses thrived, and they exploded and they grew, and the okay or mediocre businesses died. I mean, you talked about even in Phoenix, hundreds and hundreds of practices went out of business.

I know now it’s called "affordability crisis"—that seems to be the buzzword—but also a lot of it is driven by the future that we are moving into, where AI is replacing jobs that were once upon a time only done by humans. So it’s creating a lot of uncertainty, a lot of anxiety, and also everything is more expensive.

Like, for example, for the very first time, the average price of a car is around $50,000 USD, which is the highest it has ever been. Insurance costs have continued to grow over the last several years, and they expect it to grow 16% over the next two years. Why? Cost of building a house has gone up, and also, natural disasters are taking a heavier and heavier toll. So insurance companies are upping their premium.

So as people start worrying and start being concerned, how do you navigate this difficult world? And I think, given that you’ve had this podcast even for the last 12–13 years, you have seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and you have helped your clients navigate. So I’m really excited to go and talk about these five decisions, Gary, that I think are crucial for the success of every practice.

Gary Takacs: You know, as we start this year, Naren, this is our 15th consecutive year, right?

Gary Takacs: Of publishing the Thriving Dentist Show. Fifteen years. And, you know, if I go back, my history in dentistry goes back to the early 1980s, and I’ve weathered many downturns in the economy—right? Even recessions.

You talked about ’07, ’08, and ’09, which now economists label the Great Recession. Yes, ’07, ’08, and ’09. And yet, I became a practice owner in 2007—right at the beginning of that—and we figured out how to navigate it and absolutely thrive in the midst of it.

You’re right about one thing, Naren, and that is that if I had to pick a single word to describe the economy that we’re in right now, the word I would choose is uncertain. Right? It’s uncertain.

And when—when you made that comment earlier—when things are uncertain, it sort of freezes people.

Gary Takacs: It freezes people, right? But let me give you the great news.

If you go back, you know, in my 45 years in dentistry, I truly believe that dentistry may not be necessarily recession-proof or downturn-proof, but it’s downturn-resistant. It’s downturn-resistant.

Let me explain why: people either need or want dentistry in good times or bad, right?

If you’re delivering necessary dentistry—right? The person’s in pain and they aren’t able to sleep and their face is swollen—if you’re delivering necessary dentistry, people need that regardless of the economy.

If you’re delivering elective dentistry, things that don’t necessarily have to be done—I call those high-value services, we’ll talk more about that later—the reality is, Naren, that a recession doesn’t affect everybody.

Yes, it doesn’t affect everybody.

You know, when you read the headlines—and this is in good times or bad times—but you read the headlines, and there’s a segment that is always saying, "Chicken Little, the sky’s falling!" You know, "Chicken Little, the sky is falling."

But, you know, you think about it. Let’s look at it—economics is more of a macro discussion, what’s happened in macroeconomics. And you know what I have to say about that, Naren?

Who cares?

Naren Arulrajah: Right? Who cares? I mean, there are things you control and things you don’t control. Why waste your time worrying about the things you don’t control?

Gary Takacs: Who cares? And I say that intentionally. Let me back that up. How many patients do you need to have an absolute thriving practice? How many patients do you need?

You know, Naren, still for many solo dentists, the holy grail is the million-dollar practice. The million-dollar practice, Naren. If you have a thousand—you’re pretty good at math—I’m gonna ask you to do this in your head, right? If you have a thousand patients in your practice—thousand active, active meaning they’ve had an appointment in your practice in the last 18 months—and that patient simply does their annual insurance max of a thousand a year, what’s a thousand times a thousand, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: It’s a million dollars.

Gary Takacs: Then you have a million-dollar practice, right? If that’s all they did—if you have a thousand patients and all they did was their insurance max every year, which is, by the way, a pathetic thousand dollars… Yes, it was a thousand dollars in 1968! But now, if that’s all they do, you have a million-dollar practice.

How many patients do you need? Well, first of all, that math is silly because not everyone is gonna have insurance, and not everyone is gonna have the need to do a thousand dollars. Some might do five times that, and others might not do anything.

But, you know, in my client base, Naren, we have practices that have 2,000 active patients—2,000 active patients—and they’re consistently producing between $2.2 and $2.5 million a year. Can we find 2,000 patients in your community?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, can we find that? You know, it depends on where you are. I guess if you’re in Siberia… you’re not listening to this podcast if you’re in Siberia! But, you know, if you’re in a very remote area, it’s a blessing and a curse—because you don’t have any competition, but there’s also no people there.

Gary Takacs: But since most dentists don’t—

Naren Arulrajah: Don’t live in Siberia. So I think we don’t need to worry too much about that. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. And even if you’re in a very densely populated area—if you’re in an urban area, a suburban area where many dentists practice—do you think you can find 2,000 active patients? Can we find 2,000 of them?

My answer is: absolutely, we can do that. So don’t pay too much attention to the naysayers that say the economy is failing and the sky’s falling.

Let’s just go about our business. Try to help people. Let’s try to help as many people as we can enjoy the benefits of great oral health—look good, feel good, have strong teeth and gums, have a beautiful, attractive smile. Let’s enhance their overall health because of what we can do. And let’s build the practice one patient at a time.

Absolutely, Naren. And really, you can have an amazing practice by taking on that mindset, and, you know, answering the question, “Who could I help today?” You’re gonna see patients every day. How many of these patients can we turn into our ambassadors that can’t wait to go out and tell other people about your practice?

And that’s a day-to-day—I would say—a day-to-day goal: to convert some of the patients that visit your office today to become your practice ambassadors. They can’t wait to go tell other people about the amazing quality dentistry they received, but also the amazing experiences they have in a practice like yours.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Before I jump into the first decision, I just want to summarize what you said, and it reminded me of the famous lesson that I got from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

He said—and I’m quoting or paraphrasing—it’s not what happens to you; it’s rather your reaction to what happens to you that determines much of your future.

You are correct—whatever happens in the economy or AI stuff—it’s not within your circle of influence. What is within your circle of influence is:

Are you providing the best game in town for your patients?

Are you treating patients the way you want your family members to be taken care of?

Are you doing it with people you love—and they all have the same excitement and same passion?

If you have that purpose—that goal—of making a difference in the lives of your team and your patients, you’re gonna thrive because all these distractions will not bring you down.

Naren Arulrajah: It’s good to know what’s going on, because yeah, you’re gonna hear it on social media all day long and every minute on this Facebook group and that Facebook group about “sky is falling, sky is falling.” So I’m glad we brought it up.

But I do think the ones—even going back 15 years ago—or in any of those 15 years, all the practices that both of us have as mutual clients who thrived, they put blinders on. They were very clear on what they were trying to do, which is make a difference in the lives of their patients.

They were very clear on who they are and what they stood for. And, you know, some stood for using the latest technology, some stood for being the best in the world at certain kinds of procedures and services—whatever it is—and then they did it with passion and love, and did it with a team of people who felt the same way.

Gary Takacs: I’ll add one more really positive fact. Absolute fact, Naren.

The population has never been more interested in their health than now. Yes—than now.

Think about it for a minute. Our young children today will be living in the 21st century.

Naren Arulrajah: They might live for a hundred years. Maybe they’ll see the 22nd century too. 

Gary Takacs: Yeah, I mean, seriously. Well, I guess—we’re in the 21st century. I’m saying that they will be alive in the 22nd century.

Naren Arulrajah: 22nd century—okay, got it. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: You know, because of the advances made in health—yeah, lifespan. And not only lifespan, but healthspan, right?

Healthspan is a term that I learned from Peter Attia, the physician. And he talks about living very healthfully late in life—not the way we normally think of someone in their 90s.

So, there’s—we’ve never been more interested in health. And we’re in the healthcare profession, and people want to keep their teeth all their life.

So the world’s our oyster. And, pardon my enthusiasm around that, but that is my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Naren, let’s get into those five decisions.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, Gary. I know you help your practices create the best year yet every year by setting a bigger goal. And you’ve done that consistently, and I’ve seen you do that with the mutual clients we enjoy.

And a lot of these decisions that you’re gonna be talking about are keys to their success as well. So I’m so glad you’re sharing that with the wider community.

What is that first decision, Gary, you want every dentist to make as they step into January 2026—if they want 2026 to be their best year yet?

Gary Takacs: Let’s frame this. We’re gonna talk about five decisions every thriving dentist needs to make.

Decision number one: Begin with an honest assessment of your practice. An honest assessment.

Naren, if listeners have been regular listeners of The Thriving Dentist Show, they know I’m a car guy. I enjoy cars.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: And I have an amazing mechanic. If I bring my car in for service, the first thing he does is he does an assessment. He wants to make sure he’s solving the right problem. He does an assessment.

So let’s take that and apply that to your practice. Do an honest assessment of your practice. Do a simple practice checkup. For example, we’re gonna look at some details. We’re gonna look at: is your overhead where you would like it to be?

I want overhead—if you’re a solo dentist practice—I want overhead no higher than 60%. And overhead is all the expenses necessary to run your practice with the exception of the owner-dentist compensation. So, on overhead: no higher than 60%.

If you have two or more dentists in your practice—whether that be an owner, an associate, or partners—then I look at it differently. We don’t look at overhead anymore. We look at EBITDA. EBITDA is just a fancy way to say profit. And what we want to do is have profit of at least 20% after paying all of our expenses and our doctors—including yourself. Including yourself. A profit of at least 20%.

So start looking at this. Start looking at things such as: what is your volume of high-value services?

I’ll use a very specific example that’s fairly easy to track. Let’s say you are doing aligner orthodontics. I happen to like Invisalign—no affiliation—I just like their product and service.

Let’s say you’re doing Invisalign. How many Invisalign starts did you do last year? Look at that. Did it meet your goal? Is there more potential?

Another thing to look at that every listener—I want you to do this—is… you all know how I feel about the hygiene department.

Naren, if you had to assess it in one sentence, how do I feel about hygiene?

Naren Arulrajah: You believe it’s essential. You believe it’s core to the practice.

Gary Takacs: It is absolutely critical.

And in a thriving practice, hygiene production is equal to or more than 33% of total office production.

What counts as hygiene production? Everything that happens to the hygiene patient—with the exception of the doctor exam.

So go back and pull the data from 2025, the last year we just completed. And if your practice is at 20% of hygiene production, what does that tell us, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: It tells us… you know, you’ve got work to do. I mean, if 20% is where you are today and you want to get to one-third, you have work to do. You have to grow it, like, 60% now.

Gary Takacs: We’ve got untapped potential. Yes, we’ve got untapped potential.

Maybe within hygiene, we look at our hygiene occupancy—of all the available hygiene appointments, what percent got filled with a butt in the seat? We’re looking for 92% or above.

And if hygiene occupancy was in the low 80s, we’ve got an opportunity to improve.

So do this. It’s almost like, you know, my mechanic having the electronic reader, where he could plug it into my onboard computer in the car and determine exactly what’s going on.

So, as you’re doing this, look in the rearview mirror and look back at 2025 while it’s still relatively fresh. Think about what worked for you in your practice and what didn’t work. Maybe make a list of those: what worked, what didn’t work.

And then you’re gonna set some real goals for 2026—because you’re not gonna achieve goals unless you set them. So you’re going to have to have some very real goals.

But those goals will be based on decision number one: the honest assessment of your practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. So, decision number one is the honest assessment, and is decision number two setting goals? Is that where we are going towards? And I know I have a follow-up question on that, Gary, but just wanted to get some clarity.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. I’m gonna get very specific about decision number two.

Decision number two: Define what you want to achieve by December 31st, 2026.

So, in other words, fast forward to the end of this year. You know, it’s the full 12 months ahead of us—minus a week at the date this is published, right?

And define—put it in different areas:

• How many Invisalign starts do you want to have?
• What percent of your total production do you want to come from hygiene?

And there’s any number of different ways. By the way, I’d be happy to help any of our listeners set those. If you’d like to get my help with that, schedule a coaching strategy meeting. Go to thrivingdentist.com/csm, and I can walk you through how I do this with our clients.

So, you need to know your data. You need to set your KPIs—Key Performance Indicators—and goals for the year.

And really what we’re doing here, Naren—if you’re listening to this on the day that it comes out, January 6th—we’re beginning with the end in mind. We’re following that Stephen Covey concept.

We’re beginning with the end in mind. We’re not just gonna march through the year and see what happens, right?

Can you imagine a football coach—you’re into college football, Naren—can you imagine a college football coach starting the season:

“Hey guys, we’ve got 12 games this year. Let’s just see how we do! Game one’s coming up. Let’s see how we do!”

You’ll never hear that from a college coach, right? They’re gonna start before the season starts:

“Our goal, guys, is to go 12 and 0. We’re gonna go 12 and 0.”

And they’re gonna have a specific game plan to address that. And that’s what I’m asking you to do.

Begin with the end in mind.

Naren Arulrajah: Let’s get a bit specific, Gary. Now, you said, "Let’s set some goals that you want to achieve by December 31st, 2026."

Can you pick three numbers that every owner must choose to track closely if they want steady growth in line with those goals?

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Number one, I’m gonna say collections, okay? Production is fantastic—yeah, we gotta produce it before we collect it. However, sometimes production is a myth. Sometimes it’s not real.

Like, for example, if you enter your UCR fees into your practice management software, you can run a report to see how much you’re writing off every year. But 90% of dentists don’t enter their UCR fees—they enter their contracted fees—and they never know what they’re actually writing off.

So, one area I would say—in fact, I had a discussion yesterday with one of our Thriving Dentist coaching clients—and he said, “Gary, you track 10 very specific KPIs for me. Which one do you think is most important?”

And I said to my client, “Well, you know, all of them are important.”

He said, “Okay, I’m not gonna let you off that easy. If you had to pick one, what would it be?”

And without a moment’s hesitation, I said, collections. Because it’s real money you can put in the bank. Yes, you have to produce it before you collect it, but collections is what I would start with.

I encourage our clients—we want to grow by at least 10% every year in collections. So, if you had $2 million worth of collections in 2025, then what are we looking for in 2026?

Naren Arulrajah: 2.2.

Gary Takacs: 2.2 million—at least. At least 10%.

Naren Arulrajah: And then you break it up into months and then days, right? What’s your target for the day?

Gary Takacs: And we can literally break it down—you know, down to granular level. What are we looking at per day? That’s going to be one of the high-impact numbers: collections.

Naren Arulrajah: Collections.

Gary Takacs: The second high-impact number I want you to know is: how much are you writing off due to insurance participation.

For those offices that are participating with insurance as a PPO provider—how much are you writing off?

By the way, if you don’t know that number, I can help you determine that. If you don’t know what that number is, Naren, it’s almost like driving an exotic sports car with a blindfold on. You don’t know what you’re writing off.

And then it leads to all kinds of erroneous decisions.

I want you to think of those insurance adjustments—the write-offs—as a marketing expense, because you’re paying Delta to provide you with patients.

I recently did this with a new client. We went through all the math to show him what he was writing off. He was collecting $1.2 million in the office. However, he had to produce $1.7 million to collect $1.2 million of real production dollars. He was writing off $500,000 a year.

So, he understood the concept of thinking about that as a marketing expense. But it was still a little bit abstract for him. I could tell by looking at his face on Zoom.

And I said, “Doctor, let me be very specific. You’re spending $41,666 a month on marketing.”

Naren Arulrajah: That’s a million-dollar collection practice, right? That’s 41,000 on 1.2.

Gary Takacs: And he was producing $1.7 to get $1.2.

Naren Arulrajah: Wow.

Gary Takacs: Where did I get my $41,666 a month, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: It’s the difference between their UCR fees versus what they actually get paid from the insurance company after all the write-offs.

Gary Takacs: $1.7 million minus $1.2 million is $500,000. Divide that by 12 months: $41,666.

I don’t know a dentist on the planet that actually writes a check to their marketing company for $41,666 a month…

Naren Arulrajah:  $40,000…

Gary Takacs: Not a single client. But I know many practices that are effectively spending that much in the form of write-offs.

So if you don’t know that, that’s gonna change everything about how you think.

So there’s your second goal.

Now I said I’d give you three—but I’m going to give you four, because not all of our listeners are participating with insurance.

Number three: Look at your hygiene percentage as a function of total office production.

Naren Arulrajah: And the target is one-third, right? 33%?

Gary Takacs: Target is one-third or more. So that’s going to be a third thing I want you to look at.

Number four: Look at your new patient flow.

I want to look at your metrics for new patients. Every practice has an appetite for new patients—every practice. Some more so than others. But if you’re not achieving your new patient flow, that’s something that can absolutely help propel you to hit that 10% growth every year.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary.

Gary Takacs: I said four—you asked for three—but I used a fourth one because not every one of our listeners is a PPO provider.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. And if you are already on a PPO plan—which means you probably have very high write-offs—message us. We’ll give you a PPO write-off calculator. We’ll also put it in the show notes, and you can fill it out. It takes you two to three minutes, and we’ll tell you how much you’re writing off.

Gary Takacs: Where would they send that message, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: Just go to the website and contact us. Actually, you know what—we’ll do one better and put a link to the PPO Write-Off Calculator in the show notes.

Gary Takacs: Awesome. If you don’t know that, our team will calculate it for you. It has an accuracy of plus or minus 2%. It’s amazingly accurate.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. And if anyone wants to reduce that number that you’re writing off—which is a fee, a marketing fee, you know, an indirect marketing fee going to the PPO company—book a marketing strategy meeting. That’s what Gary and the team at LifeSmiles did 18 years ago. And of course, that’s what—

Gary, any comments on the marketing strategy meeting?

Gary Takacs: I would just encourage all of our listeners to do that. That’ll help you achieve that fourth impact number—make sure you’re getting the right number of new patients every month, for sure.

Let’s go a little bit deeper on the numbers, Naren. So we picked some impact numbers.

Now, let’s talk about how often you should check each number.

And there’s a balance here. You don’t necessarily want to check it every minute—Naren, that’ll drive you nuts.

But I think we need to take a granular check on those numbers at least every month.

Naren Arulrajah: Right. I know you do that with your clients, Gary. You literally have your team log into the practice management system and find out—and report to you—how well the 10 metrics are doing.

And of course, if they’re on track, everybody’s happy. Everyone gets a pat on the back.

Gary Takacs: Well, if they’re on track, we talk about what are you doing to make that happen? Because sometimes I ask, “How did this happen?” Let’s say hygiene was 36% that month—how did that happen? What’d you do?

And a lot of times they say, “Gary, I don’t know.”

I say, “Well, I’ll take a happy accident! Happy accidents are great—it’s a win.”

It’s like the football coach: “How’d you win the game?”

“I don’t really know—we just ended up with more points at the end.”

But I really want them to know: how did offense do? How did defense do? How did special teams do?

So I tell my clients, if you don’t know, that’s okay. But next month, I want to know what we did so we can repeat it.

And that’s where we start.

And then, if they don’t achieve it, that’s when I put my thinking cap on and say, “Okay, this is what we’re gonna do differently next month to make it happen”—so that losing streak doesn’t continue.

And sometimes just a single change in one number can lift the entire year.

Like, for example—another number I would look at, that’s an impact number: How often do we achieve our daily production goal in the office?

We’re not necessarily going to achieve it 100% of the time—that would be an impracticality—but I want our clients to achieve their daily production goal at least 80% of the time.

So, one thing you could change is how we get skilled at adding same-day dentistry in our schedule—so that if a day starts out below goal, it can finish above goal by adding in same-day dentistry.

What I mean by same-day dentistry is: we have a patient in hygiene that has part of the treatment plan remaining—maybe fillings on the upper left—and we work it out in the morning huddle that at the end of Gary’s appointment, we could move him into a different room and complete those fillings today.

Save him a trip.

Beginning of the year—what else happens at the beginning of the year, right? They’re already meeting their deductible and they have a whole year’s worth of insurance benefits.

So a simple change of being committed to add same-day dentistry—if we’re below goal—can make the difference between a flat year and a record year.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. I want to get into the third decision that you recommend all practices make in 2026. We all know staffing is really tough, and it has been since COVID. Things have improved, but not where it used to be pre-COVID. What is one clear staffing decision you want owners to make as they get into 2026?

Gary Takacs: Get your team fully on board. Get your team fully on board.

And yes, it is important for us to recognize that we’re kind of in unprecedented territory right now when it comes to staffing. And it’s not just us in dentistry—it’s every business owner. Every business owner is in uncharted territory.

But meanwhile, how many team members do we really need? We’re not trying to staff the Tesla production line. 

Gary Takacs: We need a team of people that are interested in helping patients have great health, right? So, get your team on board.

I would encourage you to have—I’ve often talked about the importance for every practice to have three regular meetings—three formats of regular meetings:

Meeting #1: The Daily Huddle If you’re not doing a daily morning huddle, I strongly suggest you start that. It literally sets the tone for the day. That’s a seven-minute meeting—no longer than seven minutes—where we review the day, look for opportunities, look for celebrations, and talk about some specific things in the morning huddle.

It’s like the football team huddling together. It’s a huddle. If you’re not doing that, it can make a massive difference in your practice.

Meeting #2: The Regular Team Meeting We used to call these “staff meetings.” I don’t like the term “staff.” I like to say staff is either a stick or an infection. 

So, I call them team meetings. The standard format in many offices is a one-hour meeting once a week—usually a lunch meeting. But I found that format doesn’t work well. The morning runs over, the afternoon starts early, and that one-hour meeting gets compressed and becomes ineffective.

I suggest a better format: meet every two weeks for two hours. Same total time per month, but now, even if the morning runs over, or the afternoon starts early, you’ll still have enough time for in-service training, discussing your KPIs, and doing the business of the office.

Meeting #3: The Semi-Annual Team Meeting Now, other than our clients, Naren, I don’t know many offices that do this third form of meeting.

Naren Arulrajah: Check-in meetings, right?

Gary Takacs: No, the third meeting is a semi-annual team meeting. We usually do one at the beginning of the year. It’s an all-day meeting—no patients, and everyone’s on the clock. That’s right—they are on the clock.

Here’s the format:

• Morning: 8 AM to noon. We talk about the main initiatives for the year and how we’re going to achieve them. Maybe it’s getting serious about 3D printing. Maybe it’s adding Invisalign. Maybe it’s doing more oral conscious sedation—whatever your main initiatives are.
• Lunch: Bring lunch in. Continue the meeting informally over lunch.
• Afternoon: Go do a fun activity together as a team. They’re on the clock—you’re paying them.

This is about culture. It’s about bonding. It could be something simple like bowling. There are fun new bowling places now, like Bolero—21st-century bowling. Not the old, stuffy, stinky-shoes kind.

Maybe you do mini-golf. Maybe you go to the lake. Maybe you do a group bike ride or horseback ride. Maybe you go to an escape room.

Gary Takacs: Naren, do they have escape rooms in Mississauga?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, there’s a ton of those! My kids love them. I get lost in them, but the younger generation loves it.

Gary Takacs: Oh, the team loves it. You can even divide the team into two and have a little internal competition—who escapes first!

Just do something together that’s fun. Set a budget. Pick three team members who don’t usually work together and ask them to plan the activity within that budget.

If you’re in an urban or suburban area, maybe there’s a restaurant that’s only open in the evenings, and they offer private cooking classes during the day. Do a private cooking class for your team.

So those are the three meetings:

1. Daily huddle
2. Bi-weekly team meetings
3. Semi-annual all-day meetings (done twice a year—one in Jan/Feb, one in June/July)

That mid-year one acts like halftime in a football game. We ask, “How are we doing against our goals? What course corrections do we need to make?”

If any of you need help implementing this, go to my site and schedule a coaching strategy meeting. I’ll walk you through exactly how to do this in a way that’s tailored for your practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Let’s jump into decision four. What do you think is the next important thing practices need to do in 2025?

Gary Takacs: Well, I’m gonna take this down two different lanes, Naren.

Naren Arulrajah: Okay.

Gary Takacs: The majority of practices in the United States would define themselves as PPO provider practices, right?

It’s estimated, Naren, that less than 7% of all dental practices in the U.S. are completely fee-for-service—less than 7%. But because we may have some of those 7% as listeners, I’m going to address that group.

But if you’re in the 93% that are participating with PPO plans, decision number four is:

Take your first step to drop PPO plans before the year ends. Prepare to successfully reduce insurance dependence.

Let me say it another way: You’re going to prepare to successfully drop PPO plans.

There’s a whole blueprint to follow to do this successfully, and I want you to start preparing now.

Think ahead, Naren. Twelve months from now, when the clock strikes midnight in Times Square and the crystal ball drops, you could be in a very different spot.

You could be entirely fee-for-service—if that’s your goal—or you could have significantly reduced your insurance dependence. Either way, you’re radically improving your practice, because you’re reducing that massive amount of money you’re handing over to the fat cats at the insurance company.

Now, if you’re already fee-for-service—and I suspect more of our listeners are, compared to the national average—then your fourth decision should be:

Develop a plan to grow your practice by at least 10% in collections in 2026.

So you’re not only maintaining a fee-for-service model—you’re growing it.

That would be decision number four in our list of five.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. That’s a key step, right? I mean, like the example you cited—a $1.2 million practice writing off $41,000 a month—just by going down that road and dropping one plan, two plans, they can save tens of thousands of dollars every month, which is now going to the fat cats at the insurance company. And now they can do something else with it.

Gary Takacs: You know, when doctors complain about their overhead, they typically say, “Hey, take a look at my profit and loss statement and tell me where I’m overspending.”

And I’m going to politely say—they’re asking the wrong question, and they’re looking in the wrong place.

Why? Because what you’re writing off never shows up on your profit and loss statement. It’s not there—because you’re not writing a check for it.

The accountant only knows how to put something on your P&L if you’re writing a check for it.

That doctor isn’t writing a $41,666 check to a PPO plan—it’s worse. The PPO plan is taking it out ahead of time.

So I want you to think differently about this. Think about what that’s actually costing you.

That same practice—the example I gave—produced $1.7 million and collected $1.2 million.

Now, this year, if they make the right moves, that same practice could say:

“We produced $1.6 million and collected $1.5 million.”

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: So the production goes down from $1.7M to $1.6M—but the collections go up from $1.2M to $1.5M.

Now, you will lose some patients when you go out of network. But ask yourself:

Would you rather produce $1.7M and collect $1.2M… or produce $1.6M and collect $1.5M?

Naren Arulrajah: I mean, $1.5 million is $300,000 more than $1.2 million. That’s $300,000 more in my bank account.

Gary Takacs: It’s 33% growth—right?

Now, you might ask, “Gary, how come they produced $1.6M and only collected $1.5M if they were fee-for-service?”

Well, that $100,000 difference likely comes from the in-office membership plan.

Yes, there are some discounts associated with it, but it’s radically less than what’s going to the insurance companies.

And now, you have a real tool to roll out the red carpet and welcome patients without insurance into your practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. As we bring this to a close, let’s talk about the fifth and last decision you recommend every practice owner make in 2026. What is that?

Gary Takacs: Decision number five would be to:

Define one specific high-value service that you will grow in 2026.

Notice the language I used there: you will grow. What is the plan to grow it?

What could that be? It could be Invisalign, right? It could be oral conscious sedation. It could be implants—placing implants. It could be cosmetic dentistry. It could be diagnosing sleep apnea.

Naren Arulrajah: Sleep apnea, yes.

Gary Takacs: It could be complex restorative dentistry. It could even be something simpler, like the ankloglossia procedure—the lip and tongue tie release for infants that allows them to successfully nurse.

Whatever it is that you really enjoy doing, pick that one thing you’re going to grow.

And now that you know what it is, you’re beginning with the end in mind. Work it backwards. Figure out: What do you need to do to grow that?

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. From marketing all the way to training your team members—how to answer the phone, how to get people to book.

So you have to now reverse engineer it once you know, “Okay, I’m going to focus on Invisalign.” What do you need to do?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, what would you like to grow geometrically this year?

I’ll give an example, Naren. This happened literally in 2025—just this past year.

A client of mine, a Thriving Dentist coaching client, had been an Invisalign provider for a while. He was doing three starts a year.

Three starts a year. Woo-hoo. (Did anyone pick up the sarcasm there, Naren?)

Naren Arulrajah:  Yes!

Gary Takacs: At that point, Invisalign’s a nuisance. A nuisance.

So, we decided 2025 was the year he was going to change that.

At the end of 2025, he started 50 cases. Five-zero. Instead of 3.

Think about that, Naren.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah—crazy, right?

Gary Takacs: Yes! Went from 3 to 50. That’s one per week, instead of three a year.

And that added around $270,000 of increased revenue to the practice.

Gary Takacs: And it created all kinds of referrals—people that were now coming in to him for this. And it was one thing that added a significant growth segment to his practice.

One of the things I like about Invisalign—or I should say aligners more neutrally, although I do like Invisalign—is that it’s largely auxiliary-driven after the initial appointment. It’s largely auxiliary-driven.

Yeah, you have a role as you’re delivering those aligners, but it’s largely done by your auxiliary team member.

So isn’t that cool? Where you could do something to grow your practice that’s largely done by an auxiliary, and grow the top line in your practice.

Very, very cool. And give people something they want—people want straight teeth. Straight, beautiful teeth. And you can do that.

So there’s an example of one specific high-value service.

Well, Naren, this has been a fun exercise. You and I both expressed it—both of us have the same sentiment: we’d like all of our Thriving Dentist Show listeners to make 2026 their best year yet.

Hopefully, this episode will serve as a blueprint for you.

Hey, if you have a colleague who maybe is not a listener to The Thriving Dentist Show, send them a link to this episode. And maybe you guys could be kind of like a workout buddy—you could hold each other accountable to that.

Maybe it’s a dentist who practices in another part of the country, someone you see at CE meetings, or someone you went to dental school with. But share this with one of your colleagues and create a practice workout buddy. There you go.

Gary Takacs: Naren, as we wrap this up, we’ve got a lot of exciting episodes planned for 2026. We’re into our 15th year, and there’s no end in sight.

So I want to take a minute and thank all of our listeners. We appreciate each and every one of you. We appreciate the privilege of your time.

And here’s to making 2026 your best year yet.