Dr. San Bhatha

Website Contact the business

Dr. San Bhatha 𝐈 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬.
25 yrs in the chair. UBC Faculty. Founder of Level Up Dental. Join the Community👇
https://community.levelup-dental.com/

Being a good dentist and being a good practice owner require very different skills.When I became an owner, I thought the...
10/10/2026

Being a good dentist and being a good practice owner require very different skills.

When I became an owner, I thought the formula was pretty simple.

Take good care of patients.

Work hard.

Stay busy.

Keep growing.

Over time, I realized there was an entirely different side of dentistry I needed to learn.

The business.

The systems.

The people.

And how to make better decisions as an owner.

Today, my practice has grown to 11 operatories, and I can leave for weeks at a time knowing the practice can continue to run without me.

That took years to learn.

This Sunday, I’m hosting a free live training where I’ll share some of the things I wish I understood much earlier.

OWNING THE PRACTICE

The Business, Systems & Leadership Behind Successful Ownership

Sunday, October 4
4:00 PM PST
Live + Q&A

If you own a dental practice, or you’re seriously considering ownership, I’d love to have you join me.

Save your seat through the link in my bio.

10/09/2026

Early in my career as an associate, I thought the problem was my schedule.

I was producing around $1,800 a day and assumed I needed more patients or more opportunities if I wanted that number to grow.

What actually changed things was how I handled the patients already in front of me.

Instead of rushing through hygiene exams, I slowed down. I sat with the patient, used the intraoral camera, showed them what I was seeing, and explained it in language they understood.

Same office. Same schedule. Same patients.

Sometimes producing more isn’t about finding more opportunity. It’s about getting better at the opportunities already in front of you.

10/09/2026

When I started Southridge Dental, we had zero patients in a shopping centre that wasn’t even finished being built.

So when I hear that a practice hasn’t grown because of the market or the location, I tend to look a little deeper.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that eventually, working harder inside the practice stops being the thing that grows it.

You have to make time to step out of the operator role and look at the business itself. The team, the systems, the patient experience, the numbers, and where the practice is actually getting stuck.

Your patients need you as a dentist. But your practice also needs you as an owner.

Being a good dentist and being a good practice owner require very different skills.When I became an owner, I thought the...
10/02/2026

Being a good dentist and being a good practice owner require very different skills.

When I became an owner, I thought the formula was pretty simple.

Take good care of patients.

Work hard.

Stay busy.

Keep growing.

Over time, I realized there was an entirely different side of dentistry I needed to learn.

The business.

The systems.

The people.

And how to make better decisions as an owner.

Today, my practice has grown to 11 operatories, and I can leave for weeks at a time knowing the practice can continue to run without me.

That took years to learn.

This Sunday, I’m hosting a free live training where I’ll share some of the things I wish I understood much earlier.

OWNING THE PRACTICE

The Business, Systems & Leadership Behind Successful Ownership

Sunday, October 4
4:30 PM Pacific
Live + Q&A

If you own a dental practice, or you’re seriously considering ownership, I’d love to have you join me.

Save your seat through the link in my bio.

09/30/2026

“Huge growth potential” sounds great in a practice listing.

But potential isn’t something I’d automatically pay a premium for.

I want to understand why that growth hasn’t already happened. Maybe the opportunity is genuinely there. Or maybe getting there means rebuilding the team, fixing the systems, investing in the practice, or solving problems the current owner never could.

There’s nothing wrong with buying a practice you can improve. In fact, some of the best opportunities can be the ones with work left to do.

Just make sure you’re paying for the practice that exists today, not the one you still have to build.

09/27/2026

I spent years thinking there would eventually be a moment when I felt completely ready for the next stage of my career.

It rarely works that way.

You can take the courses, read the books, understand the numbers, and build years of clinical experience, and still have doubts when it comes time to buy a practice.

The goal isn’t to eliminate every uncertainty before you move forward. It’s to understand the opportunity, know the risks, ask the right questions, and make the best decision you can with the information you have.

Sometimes readiness doesn’t come before the decision.

Sometimes you build it by making the decision and growing into what comes next.

09/22/2026

It’s easy to fall in love with a dental practice from the listing.

Beautiful office. New equipment. Great location. Eight operatories.

But those things don’t tell you what you’re actually buying.

Before getting excited about the photos, I want to understand the patient base, financials, team, systems, referral patterns, and how dependent the practice is on the selling dentist.

Because if the goodwill walks out the door when the owner does, those beautiful operatories suddenly matter a lot less.

If you’re an associate thinking about buying a practice, learn to fall in love with the boring stuff first.

09/20/2026

I remember looking at the gaps in my schedule as a young associate and wondering why the practice wasn’t giving me more patients.

Eventually, I realized my schedule wasn’t being built in isolation.

The relationships I had with the hygienists, assistants, and front team mattered. Patient trust mattered. The team trusting me enough to confidently recommend me mattered.

Once I stopped waiting for someone else to fill my schedule and started thinking about the relationships around me, things began to change.

If you’re a young associate with an empty schedule, don’t only look at the schedule. Look at the trust you’re building around it.

09/19/2026

As a young dentist, I used to look at experienced dentists and assume they had everything figured out.

They seemed confident. They made decisions quickly. I thought eventually I’d reach that point too.

After more than 25 years, I can tell you that point never really comes.

What changes is your ability to make a good decision even when you don’t have every piece of information.

You learn to trust your experience, ask better questions, and move forward despite some uncertainty.

If you don’t have all the answers right now, don’t mistake that for being behind. Learning to move forward without them is part of becoming an experienced dentist.

09/18/2026

There was a time when almost every question in my practice eventually came back to me.

And for a while, I thought that was what a good owner was supposed to do.

Be involved. Help everyone. Have the answers.

What I was actually doing was building a team that depended on me.

One of the biggest shifts I made as a leader was realizing my job wasn’t to make every decision. It was to develop people who could make good decisions when I wasn’t there.

That’s when a practice starts becoming less dependent on its owner.

Address

Vancouver, BC

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Dr. San Bhatha posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Dr. San Bhatha:

Shortcuts

Share

Category