Dental Entrepreneur Woman - Summer 2023

By Dr. Aditi Agarwal

Teeth can make you fly. Most people would say that is the weirdest thing anyone has said, but in my case, it is 100% true. Teeth have given me wings. Here is my story:

I was introduced to dentistry in the late eighties, when gloves were still not a necessity, because of my inherited class 2 malocclusion and anterior open bite. This orthodontic love affair continued until the age of 15 when suddenly I saw the power of pearly whites. I went from a gawky, slightly overweight tween, with a smile that was hidden behind wires, to this confident, cute, and still slightly overweight young woman. But the biggest shift came when suddenly I was accepted into the “in crowd,” the single most important thing in a teenager’s life. I credited my popularity to my new smile and the confidence it brought.

My obsession with teeth landed me in a little student town in India. There, I was not only introduced to more rainfall in 1 day than I had ever experienced in my 18 years living in the desert city of Dubai, but I also discovered all the tropical insects and bugs that came with the rain. My young mind was thrown into shock trying to navigate India’s teaching system, healthcare system, and social system. These were all new beasts to me.

I had to sink or swim, and at this point, I was the first woman in my family to even get into a doctorate program, so, I was not giving up that easily.

My time in India taught me so much more than just dentistry. It taught me resilience and how to find humor in tough situations. As a person who was an outsider, there were plenty of opportunities in that department. Most importantly, my time in India taught me to never give up, despite the challenges.

For the first two years of dental school, my program shared a few classes with the medical students, and I was introduced to going on clinical rotations with the medical students as well. Rotations in general medicine and surgery wards were inspiring. They led me to change my perspective on dentistry and approach it more holistically. I quickly understood that so many systemic problems originated in the mouth, and this fueled my passion even more.

In my 5 years of dental school in India, I experienced moments of pure joy, especially when we took care of underserved populations in rural India. There are many ways to serve people who are less fortunate than us, but the ability to serve and relieve the physical pain of those less fortunate than us is truly a gift. I hope to be able to give back to both humanity and this profession for all the love and kindness it has shown me.

Being the tooth-hungry person that I am, when I was in the final year of my dental program at Manipal University, I decided that I wanted to be at the forefront of dentistry. This required me to spread my wings and landed me at Boston University in the summer of 2001.

Once again, I found myself in a new environment, leaving my family and friends more than 3000 miles away. And once again, I learned a new way of living: I learned to let go of the metric system, how to navigate Boston using the T and bus system, and how to make the most of the McDonald’s dollar menu. I survived my first snowstorm and learned how to scrape ice off a windshield. There were many challenges, but the dedication and enthusiasm expressed by my professors and teachers kept me coming back for more.

I got married a month after graduating from Boston University and moved to Seattle, where my husband was then working for Philips Ultrasound. I was a full-time associate at a small group practice for seven years. It was at this time that I really honed my clinical skills. By doing so, I soared to new professional heights as I rose in the internal ranks and became the clinical manager of one of the clinics. This role helped me gain some knowledge about what and how insurance worked.

I started looking into buying a practice after my son was born, as I wanted a flexible work schedule. Most dental practices in 2008/2009, when I was looking to buy, were either not selling or were waiting for the market to turn. The ones that were selling were doing so at a premium. After a futile search for a good existing practice to purchase for almost 2 years, I decided to take the jump into the startup world, trusting that my wings, built from clinical expertise and perseverance, would ensure I did not fall. I might have been one of the only dentists in the state of Washington that designed, built, and operated a scratch-start practice in a depressed market.

I knew how to be a dentist once I had teeth to work on and torsos in the chair, but quickly realized that I had no idea how to run or set up a dental practice as a business. It 100% redefined my definition of flexibility. Now, I no longer only work in the business as a clinician but also hold the positions of HR, janitor, marketing manager, and dental equipment/supplies manager. All these responsibilities left me exhausted and unable to play my integral roles of being a mom, wife, sister, and daughter.

It was at this time that I went through many emotions of feeling like I had taken on more than I could chew. I was a first-generation immigrant with no business backing entering the ruthless world of business – surely my wings would be clipped. After putting my baby to bed, my husband and I would spend our evenings reading all that we could find on the business of dentistry.

I struggled with staffing, systems, insurance, and operations. I learned to do everything in a dental office, from scheduling, sending claims, posting, and processing payments to fixing and maintaining small equipment. I dealt with staff no-shows, needle stick injuries, leaks, and even break-ins at the office.

My husband, who was witnessing my struggles, would continue to help from the sidelines. The crux of the problems always came down to really understanding the numbers within my practice, whether it be patient-related, insurance-related, or even supplies-related. We realized that once we started to analyze the numbers of the practice, it became very clear to see which systems were working and which were not. Having this insight helped me make changes that were effective and enabled my practice to grow rapidly, which in turn motivated my team and enabled them to grow within the practice. We were on to something, and I started to feel that wind underneath my wings once again. By seeing firsthand the power of numbers, accepting the truth that came from those numbers, and realizing how important it is to understand how these numbers work, we were inspired to create Practice By Numbers when there wasn’t any other system in the market that provided this service just for dentists.

Practice By Numbers gave me the confidence to open a second start-up, which I still own and operate. Being a multi-site practice owner comes with its own set of rewards, challenges, and headaches. It is not easy to replicate success without solid systems.

With time, we grew organically through word-of-mouth. But it was during COVID, when the dental industry was faced with staffing issues, that we pivoted our approach and set out to find solutions to simplify the front office person's job by automating mundane tasks while staying compliant and thereby reducing the dentists’ stress. Our perseverance pushed us to become the first all-in-one dentist-created, owned, and operated software that we are today.

I know my entrepreneurial journey has just begun. I have been extremely fortunate to have some great mentors, teachers, staff, and patients. I have been humbled time and again by the love and kindness I have received from people in and around dentistry, and today, I’m able to give back to these people by helping make their day-today lives easier so that we, as dentists, can truly focus on making lives better one smile at a time.

About the author:

Dr. Aditi Agarwal is a general dentist practicing dentistry in the United States for 20 years with a prior education/practice of dentistry from India. She also founded 2 start-up practices, one of which opened in 2010 and the other in 2016. She helps simplify and organise the running of a dental practice through Practice by Numbers, which she founded in 2014 as a business analytics company. Practice by Numbers enables offices to run like a great team – seamlessly and without much effort. Today, Practice by Numbers has pivoted to become an all-in-one platform serving dentists nationwide.