September’s podcast, a conversation with Dr. Howard Polansky, DMD, MBA of Financially Led
How to Make Your Debt
Work For You
Every practice owner carries some kind of debt.
A mortgage, a practice buyout, a line of credit that's been open longer than anyone would like to admit. Most of it just gets paid down the slow way, month after month, without much of a plan behind it.
I met Howard in a networking group. He mentioned he'd spent 16 years as a practicing dentist before walking away to help other owners restructure debt and build real cash flow strategy, and once we started comparing notes, we realized we were solving different halves of the same problem. He looks at what you owe. I look at what you actually collect. Neither number tells the whole story on its own.
His take is simple. The interest rate on your debt isn't the thing costing you sleep, the payment is. Most owners have never had anyone sit down and ask whether that payment could be smaller.
What you’ll walk away with
Why your accountant, banker, and financial advisor each look at a different piece of your finances, and who’s looking at today
Why the monthly payment behind the debt creates the pressure, and the interest rate can look like the whole story
A real example of restructuring a $9,000 monthly payment down to $400
What waiting to fix a debt or revenue problem costs, both now and years from now
How five minutes a week can be enough to change the outcome
The one thing he’d tell almost any practice owner to set up, even if they never use it
Here it is! Put it on during your commute, on a walk, or over lunch.
Interested to see if your numbers could mean even more debt relief?
Take our 5 Minute Collection Gap Audit
A couple lines from Howard during the conversation worth sitting with:
"The illusion is that the interest rate is the only thing that matters, but it is the fixed payment behind the interest rate which is causing the pressure."
"It boils down to three little words: is this it? Is this it, go to work, bust my ass, try to enjoy whatever money I have left with whatever little time I have left for the rest of the days I have on this spinning ball of dirt. Is this it, when I wake up at 2am in a cold sweat trying to figure out how I'm going to make payroll this week. Is this it, were the dreams and vision that you and your spouse had about your future, and every time they bring it up now, they see that face, and they know they just created a bigger knot in your stomach, so they stop bringing it up. That's the cost. That's the real cost. It's not the monetary cost, it's that you have a dream for your life, a vision for your life, and it feels so far away."
Hi, I’m Taylor Michels
Founder and CEO of BIC Dental Revenue Operations.
I've spent over 10 years inside dental insurance and billing. I've walked into practices with over $500,000+ sitting in overdue claims and aging and helped bring those numbers back under control — without the doctor having to manage the process.
The practices I work with typically see:
A 15–25% reduction in Accounts Receivable within the first 90 days
$20,000–$75,000 in recovered revenue that was previously sitting in aging
25-40+ team hours given back to patient care every week
A 98%+ collection rate
I spent years watching practices lose money that was already earned. The problem was never the production. It was always the follow-through.
So I built something different. A team that owns the process completely, operates with full transparency, and treats your revenue cycle like our own.
We ensure your revenue supports your next move — whether that's growth, expansion, or a future sale.
Our clients often tell us they wish they'd done this 5, 10, or even 20 years sooner.
We'd be honored to support your practice, too.
— Taylor
When I’m not in the numbers, you can find me…
→ Planning the next trip to Florence or Bora Bora, always.
→ Browsing real estate markets for fun.
→ Asking "but could it be a baked potato topping?" — the answer is almost always yes.
→ Playing Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes on repeat.
→ Forcing my brain to take a break with a good book and a French press coffee.
→ Probably already thinking about the next big thing.
Meet the Expert
Howard Polansky is a former dentist of 16 years and the founder of Financially Led.
He helps dental practice owners restructure their debt so more of what the practice earns stays with them. In his words, the work typically reclaims between two and ten thousand dollars a month while preserving the owner’s time and lifestyle.
He starts with the monthly payment behind the debt. A smaller required payment gives a practice more breathing room in a slow month, and he often uses lines of credit to create it. His framework is called Lift, Expand, Deploy, and he explains it in a short video of his own.
Before you call, here are two questions Howard asks in our conversation:
“Who do you have in your corner to help you today, this week, this month?”
“Do we want this to become a crisis, or do we want it to become inconvenient?”
Ready to talk?
In a $1M–$2M practice, an 8–15% collection gap often equals six+ figures that never make it to the bank.
Which could mean you’re working 15% of the year for free.
That’s enough to fund an associate, upgrade equipment, or increase your compensation — without producing a single additional procedure.
Enter your information below to get a link for your 5-Minute Collection Gap Audit to see exactly what your current collection gap is and how to fix it.