The Practice Numbers That Matter, and the Ones Someone Made Up

About this Guide

The problem with reading from the bottom up

Most owners read their practice backwards. Take home feels thin, so they jump to cost, decide overhead is too high, and never look at capacity. That path feels logical. It leads to the single most damaging move in practice management: **cutting a team that was not the problem.**

What this guide does instead

• Puts your money in the order it actually moves, so you can see which of 6 areas is the real limit
• Gives you a 4 question differential to run on every metric, the way you would work up a symptom before picking up a handpiece
• Tells you the difference between a bad number and a number measured wrong
• Turns a percentage into dollars, and labels whether those dollars are real, before you spend attention on them

**We checked the benchmarks. About half of them do not exist.** The most quoted overhead figure in dentistry does not come from ADA research. Claim denial rates, AR aging rules, cost per new patient and the hygiene wage multiple all trace back to nothing. Every figure here carries its publisher, its data year and its denominator. Where no credible benchmark exists, the guide says so instead of supplying one.

**Inside:** the 6 areas and what each one limits · 21 numbers with what is actually behind each reference · a true cash break even formula · 4 practices built to be genuinely unclear · 22 common mistakes · questions for your CPA, team and lender · a 1 page review · 4 arguments and the fact that settles each · 3 AI prompts to copy.

The numbers worth watching

Not every number you get measured on has a real benchmark behind it. This table says which do, so you know when to compare yourself to the industry and when to compare yourself only to your own history.

Number How to get it Is there a real benchmark?

--- --- ---

Adjusted collection rate Collections ÷ adjusted production, rolling 12 months Yes, measured. Only valid against net production

Total operating overhead Operating expense ÷ collections Yes, measured, but it leaves out your own pay, your associate and your loan

Team pay Staff wages ÷ collections Yes, measured. Check whether taxes and benefits are in

Hygiene reappointment Rebooked hygiene visits ÷ total hygiene visits Yes, measured

Net patient growth New + reactivated − lost, against your active base Yes, measured

Case acceptance Dollars accepted ÷ dollars presented Measured average sits well below the targets you will hear quoted

Ownership profit Collections − operating expense − associate pay − what a replacement dentist would cost No. Most owners have never calculated it

True cash break even Operating cash + loan principal + interest + the draw you cannot skip + tax set aside No. Always higher than your P&L says

AR over 90 days Balances 90+ days ÷ total AR No. Every rule you have heard traces back to nothing

Schedule utilization Booked hours ÷ available hours No. Any figure quoted for it was invented

6 of the 21 numbers in the full dashboard have no real benchmark. That is not a gap in the research. It is the state of the evidence in dentistry. For those, compare your practice against itself over time, on a definition you wrote down.

**Before you compare yourself to anything.** Who measured it? On what group of practices? In what year? With what denominator? A source that cannot answer all 4 gave you decoration, not a benchmark. Ask it of everything in this guide too.

Guide Information

Chairlink Guides are general educational and informational resources. They are not medical, dental, legal, financial, employment or other professional advice.