Kristie: Instead of a double win, like Stephen Covey taught, a win-win, it should be a triple win: a win for the patients first, a win for the team, and then a win for the bottom line. If you can't check off all three, don't implement that new change. Whether it's AI or not, whether it's a new material, a new laser, or whatever, it doesn't matter. Don't implement it if you can't check off all three. It can't be two.
Anne: Well, hello, everybody. It's Anne Duffy, and welcome to the Just DeW It podcast. I am so happy that you're with me today. I have a brand-new DeW. We just met on the Zoom call, so it's going to be an exploratory call for both of us, and you're going to learn the inner workings of how we get started in DeW when you join our membership.
Anne: Let me tell you a little bit about this rock star. Kristie Kapp is the co-founder of eBitDent, a clinician-led consulting firm helping dental practices improve profitability, reduce burnout, and increase practice value through best practices, bookkeeping, and budgets. With 35-plus years in dentistry as a hygienist, consultant, and practice owner, she brings real-world operational expertise to dentist owners nationwide. Please help me welcome one of my new best friends, Kristie Kapp. Hello, dear.
Kristie: Hey, Anne. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to finally meet you. I've watched you from afar for a long time and am so impressed with DeW, and I'm grateful to be a part of it.
Anne: I'm grateful. The bar is set for everybody to jump over it, Kristie, to get into DeW. If you're a woman and you have a toe dipped in dentistry, you're welcome. I'm so glad you found us, and I'm so glad you said yes. Because I've told women recently, two years ago I would have been like, "Oh, gosh, I hope Kristie Kapp joins DeW." And now I'm like, "Kristie, if you don't get in this thing, you are crazy." Because the women are amazing, just like you. And it's an honor, honestly, to get to know you and welcome you into DeW. Thanks for being here.
Kristie: You bet.
Anne: I want to hear a little bit about your story, Kristie, because you're brand new. We just met, and I like to start with your story because everybody's story is important. Fun fact: I'm a hygienist as well. I had 46 years clinical.
Kristie: I know. Yes.
Anne: So tell me your journey. Where did you start, and where are you now?
Kristie: Birth, actually. My dad was a dentist. He practiced from about 1964 to 2004, and he always said I took to it like a duck to water, and I did. I just loved everything about it. As a child, I loved visiting Dad in his practice and thinking that what he did was so neat and important. Then, of course, I tagged along to all the meetings he went to, CDA and Disneyland at the same time. Weird enough, I loved going to the meetings with him. I loved walking the floors. I loved going to the speakers. Seriously, at 10, 11 years old.
Anne: Oh, my gosh.
Kristie: Between him owning his own practice and his parents being entrepreneurs and owning their own restaurant, then ending up going to the local university to do all the food services on a large scale, entrepreneurship was just in my blood.
Kristie: I learned the business from him and the profession from him, starting as a sterile tech in the summers. I think I assisted on my first crown prep at about nine years old. It was an emergency, and he needed some assistance, and I was hooked. I thought, "This is crazy awesome."
Kristie: I did chairside assisting and hygiene assisting, and that was the life for me. I just wanted my own schedule and my own patients, and I loved prevention. So sure enough, I went to the university and practiced hygiene for 16 years, mostly for him. When he retired, I worked in a couple of other offices, which was a good experience because you have to get out there and see the world.
Anne: Yeah.
Kristie: There are lots of ways to skin a cat, so that was a great education. I would always go to practice management or clinical courses and think, "I could do that. I want to do that. I want to get up there and speak and help people." Through great serendipity, I met some great people and started consulting when my kids were a little bit older, in about 2004. I worked for the same company for 10 years and then thought I'd practice what I preach. I bought four practices in Utah and was the CEO of a partnership in Utah.
Anne: What?
Kristie: Yeah. I got to carry that burden of ownership, and man, was it heavy. We had three practices that were pretty good. One was a quick turnaround and a flip, and two were really successful. Then one was a stinker. My CFO warned me, "Don't buy it." For some stupid reason, I fell in love with it, and it was so bad. I learned from failure in an epic way and could hardly even talk about it for about five years.
Anne: Oh, my golly.
Kristie: It was rough. It was an education. Let's just put it that way: an education.
Anne: Now I'm curious. What would make a practice such a stinker?
Kristie: First, I had to fire the dentist two weeks after I signed the papers and report him to DOPL.
Anne: Oh, wow.
Kristie: His books were sketchy, super sketchy, and my CFO warned me. Everything else kind of checked off the list: location, parking, signage, what I thought were practice management metrics that really weren't. They hadn't updated their patient count. Their software hadn't been cleaned up for a long time, so the numbers I was seeing were not real, and that became very clear. Not only that, your biggest asset is the dentist. When it became my problem, I had to report it to the board, and it was bad. Then I had to fire him, and it was like, "Now I have to get a new dentist." It was ugly.
Anne: We hear that sometimes, Kristie, especially when you think it's a good idea, but maybe you should bring in somebody who doesn't have any skin in the game and can look at it. I think of Mary Fischer De going in for evaluations because I hear this from women often buying a practice, and when the veil is lifted, let's put it that way, they're like, "Holy shoot, what did I just buy?" Because the numbers they were presented with aren't really the numbers. A lot of times, especially if you're an honest person, you can't believe somebody is going to lie to you about the numbers when he's selling a practice. You think everybody is upfront. I'm sorry you went through that, but no failure goes without a learning experience. Boy, do you have some chops now.
Kristie: I kind of wear it like a badge of honor because that's when I really started digging deep into learning EBITDA and learning how to read a P&L so I could see it for myself and know truth. So yes, I kind of wear it as a badge of honor now because it's 10 years later, and I can actually talk about it.
Anne: Without being curled up in the closet crying.
Kristie: Yes.
Anne: Look how far you've come. It's amazing. And now you want to give back and help people. You've got so much experience.
Kristie: Thank you.
Anne: You're so strong. Just the fact that you bought four offices, I can see that going from dental hygiene. That's incredible.
Kristie: Thank you.
Anne: The other thing that pops to my mind is that you didn't choose dentistry. Dentistry chose you.
Kristie: It did. That's for sure. I really was born into it.
Anne: How cool. You've got so much wisdom in your head and your heart. I just found out what EBITDA was about five years ago. eBitDent. Didn't we all?
Kristie: Didn't we all? For me it was about 10, but you still see all over social media dentists saying, "I'm finally learning what EBITDA is." It's Greek to all of us because we're caregivers. Full transparency, I founded eBitDent with my daughter. She was a dental assistant for me when I owned those practices. She was thinking hygiene, and then she said, "Mom, I think I love the metrics as much as you do, and I am kind of a nerd on spreadsheets." So she went into finance and started her own bookkeeping company. She has grown that thing, and we naturally started cross-marketing for one another. She'd say, "I have this dentist whose books I'm doing, and he really needs you and your best practices."
Kristie: So we developed eBitDent because we both love helping dentists who own their practice, not just become profitable, but do so through best practices and caring for the patient's individual needs. Because we've both been clinicians, we are very passionate about not being slimy, not being a used car salesman, finding out each patient's individual needs, and then realizing it's not mutually exclusive to be successful on paper, too.
Kristie: That's why we came up with budget benchmarks and best practices. I teach the best practices, the processes to help your patients invest in their oral health. She's the one who takes a look at all the nerdy numbers, the P&Ls and the balance sheets, and makes sure your month is closed on time and that EBITDA is a healthy number. Whether you keep your practice your whole life or want to sell, it doesn't matter. Whatever your vision is, everybody has their own happy place and what they want for their business and their career, and we want to help them achieve that vision.
Anne: What a gift that is, to be able to give somebody the confidence that they can sleep at night, that they're going to have enough money at the end of the month to pay their bills, they're going to get paid, there is a retirement that is going to happen, and there is an opportunity to sell eventually. With two experts like that, basically, your daughter grew up in dentistry. Dentistry chose her as well.
Kristie: It did.
Anne: To be able to work with your daughter in something like this is very cool. We'll have to do a mother-daughter thing for you. Are you still living in Utah?
Kristie: We're both in Utah, yes. We're still here. Born and raised, and we love it. We love the four seasons and the Rocky Mountains, and I'm glad she's close because, of course, my grandchildren are my--
Anne: Yummy. They're yummy, aren't they? They're such a light. We're having another one, and I'm just like, "Oh, I'm so--"
Kristie: Congrats.
Anne: Thank you. This one is a big surprise. Those surprises from Heaven usually are just the best.
Kristie: Agreed.
Anne: I love Utah. Do you know Eric Rolman and Josie Swale?
Kristie: I'm embarrassed to say that I don't.
Anne: Well, they live in Salt Lake. You should look them up. They're in Salt Lake, and they have a collaborative. Josie was the coordinator for a big DSO in North Carolina, and they're really cool. They have a monthly or quarterly meeting, I think, and I just talked to Doug Fettig today. He's really cool, and he goes there with them. He's learned a lot and made some great connections, so we'll connect you.
Kristie: We're kind of a dental hub here. I'm going to brag a little bit. My dad went to dental school with Gordon Christensen, and we were evaluators for CRA back when I was a teenager. I could throw a rock and hit CR. It's CR now. I was on the board of the dental hygiene school at UVU with Rella, and we're great family friends.
Anne: Wait, you were on the board with Rella?
Kristie: Yeah.
Anne: Brag a little bit, girl. That's what DeW is all about. Come on, give us some credentials. I love it.
Kristie: I love Dental Intel. It's right here up the street. My dad was one of the first purchasers of Dentrix when it started here in American Fork, Utah, before Henry Schein bought it. We've got Weave and Podium right up the street.
Anne: Silicon Slopes.
Kristie: And UltraDent is Utah-based, so I'm pretty proud to be a Utah dental professional.
Anne: Yeah, because they are good people. I love all those guys.
Kristie: E-Assist is here. I could just go on.
Anne: E-Assist, Archie Mango. They're all there. Everybody is there. Pearl is there, I think.
Kristie: Pearl, yep.
Anne: You're right in the hub.
Kristie: We are. I love it.
Anne: Now we've got to get you connected because you were saying you had a couple of years where your health was not great.
Kristie: Yep.
Anne: You're on the other side of that, it sounds like.
Kristie: Yes, and I'm happy to get back, both feet in, and start networking and meet the new people of the 2026 profession. I want to come to your meeting and bring my daughter and meet you in person. We're just so passionate. We love the profession. Who's better at prevention than dentistry? We're passionate about prevention, serving our patients well, and a healthy bottom line.
Anne: When I started DeW, this was one of the things. We're celebrating our 10th anniversary. I wanted to keep the amazing women in dentistry. They were starting to leave, and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, dentistry." No, no. The people, and you and I did talk about women in dentistry. We love working with women. I'm just meeting you, and you're so amazing. You've got great cred, and it's like, where have you been all my life, Kristie?
Anne: You'll be meeting women like that in DeW because they keep finding us. We just opened a door, and everybody's welcome. You may not stay for dessert, but you come in for hors d'oeuvres, and everybody's always going to have a seat at the table because we're so much stronger together, especially women. We like that relationship.
Kristie: Absolutely. Women need each other. We really do. We're such a support to one another. It's such a great sisterhood. Not only that, I'm really passionate about preventing burnout in the profession today because it's rampant, and I want to spread the message that I am excited. I think we can turn it around, and my answer to it is AI. I am passionate about AI in several ways, but I feel like it's our first chance in decades to fight the minutia that has overtaken the profession. Maybe it's admin that has become way too intense, causing a lot of burnout for our sweet dental admin team members. We finally have a chance to give them tools to take over that minutia and just love on the patients again, build relationships, serve the patients who walk in the door, and not have to be in a back room fighting an insurance company for verification or claim denials.
Anne: Or being on hold forever and then getting denied.
Kristie: Yes. And for us, the last time I practiced hygiene, I temped for someone, and it was about 15 years ago. I was staying 30 minutes of my lunch doing my SOAP notes and 30 minutes after doing my SOAP notes. I thought, "This is getting ridiculous." I remember in 1984, dental hygiene assisting, it was like you write, "Exam, four bitewings, prophy, topical fluoride, no greater than three-millimeter pockets, no BOP, light calculus, mandibular, K. Kapp." That was it. K. Kapp.
Anne: I love it.
Kristie: And now it's just like, so I am excited that we can have technology that can record the conversation while we're working and then do our SOAP notes just like that. I'm thinking, "Yay, we can spend our 60 minutes being a people person and not worrying about whether I have time to do my notes."
Anne: Or go to the bathroom.
Kristie: Or go to the bathroom, yeah. Tell me you can relate to this. I'm going to confess, but I've met enough hygienists over my years as I've traveled the country consulting, and when I share this, they go, "Yeah, I've done this too." Haven't you sat there and you're probing, and you're like, "Well, I really don't have time to chart this, but there are only maybe three or four fours. Not a lot of bleeding on probing." You're sitting there waffling in your brain, going, "Do I need to talk to them about soft tissue? No, they're a prophy. It's not a lot of calculus. I can do this right now." And you just do a prophy.
Anne: Oh, yeah.
Kristie: Right? You chicken out, and you don't objectify the disease and take a look at it. Instead of me deciding, let AI decide. Let it do the research. Let it objectify the numbers and tell you exactly what category and classification they are, and what your treatment plan is. Boom, sit them up, look them eye to eye, knee to knee, and present that sucker, and do the best thing for the patient.
Anne: When you present it like that, there's no question.
Kristie: There's no question.
Anne: It's validated, and it gives you not only permission but confidence that you are doing the best thing for the patient.
Kristie: The right thing. Yes.
Anne: I have to say, I'm sorry for all of you patients out there that I probably let go and still have bleeding gums. They still have disease. Back in the day, I graduated from Ohio State in '74, so I've been doing this for a long time. A lot in perio, too. I just love it. The other thing, Kristie, is I have been out for about five years now. I don't even know what the AI does for us.
Kristie: Oh, definitely.
Anne: And most hygienists right now don't know because they're in their operatories, and unless they're taking it on themselves to go look into AI and see what it's about, there is so much out there now that is a gift.
Kristie: So much. We finally have a chance to get back to a time and a place where we're not burned out, and we can love the profession again and love what we do.
Anne: And love the people because that's what I miss the most.
Kristie: Love the people. We're caregivers.
Anne: I know. We care. That's exciting. How do you understand all that? You must have that brain. Obviously, if you bought practices, you were a CEO. That would kill me. I would be like, "I'm hiring you immediately," because I'm decent at AI. I use Claude, and I'm trying to get it all together.
Kristie: I have to confess, my husband is an AI consultant. He builds AI products, so I cheat. I listen to him at dinner every night and stay on the cutting edge.
Anne: I love that. That's a gift. My husband's great, but I'm not getting that kind of work out of him. You understand it, and you like it. That is another layer for why you are successful, and you're a gift to the offices that you're counseling and coaching. I want to get back to why you named the company eBitDent. I love it. That's such a great one. How did you come up with that?
Kristie: It became real clear to me as an owner that EBITDA was an important number. I think that's one of our proudest resume items: Joey and I, my daughter, were both clinicians. We both were consultants, so we've been in the mouth. We're not just consultants who went and got their MBA or something. We know what patient care is about. But I've also been an owner, so I can relate to the team and to the owner. That burden of making payroll, and thinking, "Wow, we're producing and collecting a lot, but EBITDA stinks, and I can't sell my practice because EBITDA's not healthy."
Kristie: Then Joey comes in and says, "Well, guess what? Your P&L is categorized all wrong. EBITDA's a lot healthier than you think it is. Let me clean up your balance sheet, close your books on a timely basis, and we'll get a true EBITDA number." We all know EBITDA is a hot term in dentistry. We've had to get educated.
Kristie: Because eBitDent is an accounting firm, we wanted to bring to light the importance of healthy accounting, not just those best practices that I've been teaching for 20 years. Getting an increase in production and collections is great. That's a good start. But if your books aren't clean, it really doesn't mean anything. If you're not taking home enough money to pay off your student loans, pay off your practice, buy the supplies you need, and if you're always running behind, a dollar short and a day later, then that's what we help you with. We're having a ball. It is just the perfect marriage of increasing production and collections and clean books.
Anne: And that's what's going to prevent burnout, because that stress of books and honestly not knowing. I talk to a lot of different people, and even me, I do have a bookkeeper and I really like her, and she's helping me very much, but until then it was like, as long as I had enough money in the checkbook, I was good. That's not a way to run a business. Look, there are so many of us who are running businesses as a first-time opportunity.
Kristie: An accidental CEO.
Anne: Oh, yeah. I definitely am an accidental CEO. Sometimes I shake my fist up to the heavens and say, "I didn't ask for this, Lord," but here I am. We need people like you to help. I think you can help a lot of us, and I would love to see you on stages because this is really cool. Have you and Joey ever spoken together? Because that would be really cool.
Kristie: Yes. We've done a couple of podcasts together, and I'm so stinking proud of her. She is an ambassador for QuickBooks and speaks for Intuit. She's doing her thing, and sometimes we do things together. Like I said, we are having the time of our lives. The goal is to get out there and spread our message of best practices, budgets, and benchmarks.
Anne: And it's going to be okay.
Kristie: I see light. I see an exciting future for dentistry, and I want to spread the word: stay in the business, stay in the profession, because it's getting good.
Anne: Thank you for sharing that. I'm so happy because there's a little bit of doomsday talk now. You're right. With AI, if you have an expert who comes in and shows you, because learning that on your own is going to take a lot of missteps and a lot of failure. That didn't work. You just put money into that. You're so much ahead in AI.
Kristie: I have four steps that you need to follow before you adopt AI. That's a whole other thing. It's based on the Diffusion of Innovation. I haven't had a lot of original thoughts in my life, but the Diffusion of Innovation really sets those out so that we solve a specific problem first. Don't just buy the shiny new thing because you had a free lunch and learn, and they got you all pumped up, and it seems exciting. Are you having that specific problem that you need to invest in this technology? Not necessarily. If things are going smoothly, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you're having a great opportunity to serve your patients, your admin is running great, and your SOAP notes are running great, fine. But I'd have a hard time believing that.
Kristie: Again, don't go for the shiny new object. Don't get sucked in just because you really like the lunch and learn presentation. Two, is there a specific problem that you've got that you need solved? Don't fall for something that you think needs to be solved if everybody's okay with it. Make sure it's measurable, meaning measurable improvement. It is making your team's life better by implementing or investing in this technology.
Kristie: Then I added: make sure it's maybe version 3.0, because when it's brand new, it's really expensive, and there are still some bugs. If they've been around long enough, there's a little track record. There are success stories and testimonials. They've worked through the bugs. You're not the first to have to be their guinea pig to see if it works in real life on patients.
Kristie: For your admin team, it can create a lot of additional work adopting new technology. Owners or managers, if you're in a DSO, it really doesn't matter. We help anything from single-dentist owners to mid-market to big DSOs. If you're going to adopt this, make sure the boots on the ground, the admin team, has a great onboarding experience with this technology. You cannot make them take on all the burden. Managers or owners, you've got to go through the learning too. You learn it first, then bring it to your admin team and say, "This is how we're going to implement it. This is how we're going to do it. This is why we're doing it." The whole point, which I'm passionate about, is do not add burden to your team with technology.
Anne: Yes, because I think that's happening. Especially if you go to a conference, see it at a conference, bring it home, and lay it in front of them. They've got a thousand things on their sticky notes everywhere, and then you're expecting them to learn it. A lot of that just goes to the side. It never gets any legs.
Kristie: It really does. The other thing we're really passionate about at eBitDent is this: everything, whether it's technology, any other practice management, clinical new procedure, or new thing that you're going to adopt as a team, it needs to be a triple win. I'm still, after all these decades, so passionate about those seven principles to be effective. It just has not changed. But instead of a double win, like Stephen Covey taught, a win-win, it should be a triple win: a win for the patients first, a win for the team, and then a win for the bottom line. If you can't check off all three, don't implement that new change. Whether it's AI or not, whether it's a new material, a new laser, or whatever, it doesn't matter. Don't implement it if you can't check off all three. It can't be two. If it's just a win for the patient and it's too expensive for your bottom line, don't do it. If it's great for the bottom line and it's not a win for the patient and the team, don't do it. It has to be all three. Between Diffusion of Innovation and a triple win, you're never going to go wrong on an investment or a change in the practice.
Anne: It gives you a second to stop, take a breath, and ask those questions to yourself. It's so logical and so simple. Every young dentist graduating, if they would just realize that they need someone like you to come in and get them started on the right foot and carry with them the whole way through. You were saying that you love working with women. What is it about women that you love to work with, Kristie? We love men too, by the way.
Kristie: We do love our men. I was just about to say, I don't want to have reverse sexism here by any means. I love men, and I love my dad. He's passed on now, and I am so grateful for the education he and his parents gave me about taking care of your customers. The love they had for their customers. I could get teary about the fact that he let me work in his office for 16 years. My goodness. What a bratty little owner's baby I was.
Anne: I doubt that, but okay, go on. I'll brag on you. I just met you, but I doubt if you were that bratty little baby.
Kristie: Thank you. I also could get emotional about his dental assistants who took me under their wing and his dental hygienists who took me under their wing and taught me this profession as well. They were so kind to me. I think whatever it is in our DNA, or estrogen, or whatever, the sisterhood that we share in our DNA is magical.
Kristie: I love that there are so many women going to dental school and becoming dentists. Because I have been a CEO and an owner, I love particularly the ones who own their own practice. But women who are associates, who might work for a DSO, who just want to level up their game and be the best they can be, I love helping them too. They're so good with the patients. There's something in our nature, and again, men can have this too and can be really good at it. Whether we're just a little more coachable or they have a little less ego, I don't know. I've just found that they're some of my favorite clients.
Anne: They love beauty, they love relationships, they're innately caring. There are so many things that women have that lend themselves. It's no surprise that women are taking over dentistry, and 60% of graduating dentists are female, because it's kind of a great profession for us. To be able to give them a healthy mouth and a beautiful smile, that's just icing on the cake. I think that's why it's so sweet that you said that about your assistants, because DeW was for every career path.
Anne: When I started DeW, it was because of a beautiful friend in marketing at one of the big companies. I was mad that she was bullied in her review, and that was it. I started DeW that day. But all career paths, because probably the most influential woman in my career in dental hygiene of 46 years was our sterilization woman, Carolyn. She was so heartfelt, so sweet. We laughed, we giggled. I'll never forget her. She was the glue in our office, and she had no college education. A sterile tech. She just loved people, was smart as a whip, and could learn anything. It takes us all to make it go around and to do the right thing for our profession. The hope that you gave me today, I just feel like shouting it out the window here, like, "Dentistry's alive and well. Let's go."
Kristie: It is. Don't get down. I'm so glad that that's what you got from this because that's my goal right there, bottom line.
Anne: That's it, and I can see it. You exude it. You've lived it.
Kristie: The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Anne: Good, bad, and ugly. Now you need to teach it, and you are teaching it. It's so neat to do it with your daughter. How do we get in touch with you? We'll have it in the show notes, but how do we get in touch with eBitDent and you?
Kristie: ebitdent.co is our website. Of course, we're on all the socials. I'm on LinkedIn as Kristie Kapp, K-A-P-P, and Facebook, Kristie Kapp and eBitDent, and Insta. On TikTok, I'm Coach Kristie.
Anne: Joey's bringing in a little bit of that TikTok then, probably, I would imagine.
Kristie: She just turned 30, and I'm not stupid. To have one of those generations be my partner, she keeps me young and current.
Anne: Young and current. It's just so lovely to meet you, Kristie Kapp. Thank you. I can't believe it.
Kristie: The pleasure is all mine, seriously.
Anne: We look forward to seeing you in November, everybody, 12th through 14th in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's our eighth retreat, and we're celebrating our 10th anniversary of bringing women together who walk through the door. We're going to have a party, everybody, so you've got to get your room because we always sell out. I just want to make sure. We have plenty of suites available still, but get in before you can't get them.
Anne: Kristie, thank you so much. I hope to see you at some of our DeW Connects that we have during the week, the little times we get together with women virtually, and The Answer Is in the Ladies Room. We will see you there. Thank you so much. Most importantly, everybody, make sure that you know the most important thing you can do is to keep doing you. Thanks for joining me today, and I'll see you the next time. Thanks, everybody.
