Most orthodontic practices don’t have a growth problem. They have a management problem.
If you’ve been at the same revenue plateau for two or three years, your team is bigger than it used to be, and the days feel longer than they should, the issue probably isn’t your marketing budget. It’s the operating system underneath the practice.
Orthodontic practice management consulting fixes that operating system. It’s how a practice goes from being a job you can’t leave to a business that can run, grow, and scale without you in every chair.
I’m Luke Infinger. Over the past seven years, my team at HIP Creative has helped drive more than $200 million in growth for orthodontic partners across the country. I’ve watched a $2.4 million single-location practice scale to $26 million across eight offices. I’ve watched a practice on pace for $4.5 million in production close out the year at $9.5 million. The difference between those practices and the ones still stuck wasn’t talent or location. It was the way they ran the business.
If your practice is producing somewhere between $1.5M and $20M and you can feel that growth has stalled, this is the page for you.
What Orthodontic Practice Management Consulting Actually Covers
When orthodontists hear “practice management,” some assume it means scheduling software or a part-time bookkeeper. That’s not what I do. Practice management consulting, the way I run it, covers every operating lever in your business that lives outside of clinical work.
There are five buckets I focus on with every partner. They are not optional. If any one of them is broken, your growth ceiling stays right where it is.
1. Scheduling and Capacity Systems
Most orthodontic schedules are built around the doctor’s preferences and the team’s habits, not around throughput. I help you rebuild your template so that exam slots, adjustments, debanding appointments, and emergencies all flow without bottlenecks. The goal is simple: more patients seen with less stress, no double-booked panic days, and a clear path to add chairs or providers when demand justifies it.
2. Overhead and Financial Management
If your overhead is climbing past 65 percent of collections, you’re working harder for less. We rebuild your P&L so you can see exactly where every dollar goes: payroll, supplies, lab fees, marketing, rent, and tech stack. Then we make decisions on where to trim and where to invest. Most of my partners find six figures of margin sitting in their existing P&L within the first quarter of working together.
3. Team Structure and Standard Operating Procedures
If your office runs on tribal knowledge, growth will break it. I help you document the role of every position, build SOPs for the workflows that matter (new patient intake, consult flow, financial presentation, recall, recare), and put accountability structures in place so the doctor isn’t the only one solving every problem. This is the work that lets you take a real vacation without the practice falling apart.
4. KPI Dashboards and Weekly Decisions
You can’t manage what you don’t measure. We build you a weekly KPI dashboard that tracks the numbers that drive growth, including new patient leads, exam show rate, case acceptance, same-day starts, production per chair hour, collections ratio, and overhead. Once that dashboard is live, every Monday meeting becomes a 30-minute decision session instead of a two-hour debate.
5. Leadership and Owner Operating Model
The biggest constraint in most practices is the doctor’s calendar. If you’re still approving every supply order, sitting on every consult, and hiring every new team member, the practice can only grow as fast as you do. I coach owners through the move from clinician to CEO so the business can grow even when you’re not in the building.
The PARF® Framework Behind the Work
Everything I do is grounded in the Patient Acquisition and Retention Framework, or PARF®, that we built at HIP Creative. PARF® has four pillars: brand development, patient acquisition, conversion and consult systems, and team training. Practice management consulting is the engine that powers two of those pillars (conversion systems and team training) and exposes the gaps in the other two.
If you’ve been running a marketing-only program for years and growth has flattened, this is usually the missing piece. Marketing brings the patient to the door. Practice management determines whether they start, stay, refer, and pay.
Who This Is For
Orthodontic practice management consulting is not for everyone. The owners who get the most out of working with me usually share a few traits.
- You produce somewhere between $1.5M and $20M and you’ve been stuck at the same number for at least 18 months.
- You’re willing to look at the business honestly, including the parts that are uncomfortable to admit.
- You’re ready to delegate instead of personally owning every decision in the practice.
- You can commit to weekly accountability for at least 12 months, not a one-and-done assessment.
- You believe a great practice and a great life are not in conflict.
If that sounds like you, the program works. If you’re looking for a quick playbook to read in a weekend and never speak about again, I’d point you to my book Front Desk Secrets and we’ll part as friends.
What Working Together Looks Like
Every engagement starts the same way: a deep audit of where you are right now. We look at production by location, overhead by category, conversion by step in your funnel, team structure, scheduling templates, and your current KPI cadence. From there, we build a 90-day plan and we run it together.
Most partners see meaningful operational change inside the first 60 days, financial change inside the first six months, and a fundamental shift in how the practice runs inside the first year. Some of that work is fast. Most of it requires patience, a willingness to stop and rebuild, and a team that’s willing to grow with you.
Real Numbers From Real Partners
Dr. Carter Thomas of Harvey & Thomas Orthodontics came to us in early 2023. The group was on pace for $4.5 million across three locations and feeling stuck. We rebuilt their team, installed PARF®, and over one weekend they hired more than ten new people to support the expansion. By the end of the year, they had invoiced over $9.5 million.
Dr. Ben Fishbein started with a single $2.4 million practice. Seven years later, he runs eight locations and over $26 million in annual revenue. The marketing got better. The thing that actually moved the needle was the operating system underneath.
Dr. Ed Wentz already had a nine-office practice when we met. Year one of working together added $4.5 million to his top line and grew new patient exams by 61 percent. Same doctors. Same locations. Better systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from a traditional ortho consultant?
Most traditional consultants come from inside the industry. They’re former TCs or former office managers, and most of their advice is about scripting and chair-side technique. I come from outside the industry. I built a marketing agency, scaled multiple companies, and helped develop the PracticeBeacon software. My lens is the lens of an entrepreneur looking at your practice as a business that needs to scale, not a job that needs better scripts.
Do you work with single-location practices?
Yes. Some of my favorite work is with strong single-location practices ready to break $3M, $5M, or $10M without adding offices. Multi-location is just one path.
How long is the engagement?
The Breakthrough program runs in 12-month cycles. Real operational change does not happen in 90 days, and I don’t pretend it does. We renew with partners who keep growing and we part with partners who don’t want to do the work.
Will you also handle our marketing?
HIP Creative handles marketing for select partners, but practice management consulting and marketing are separate engagements. Many of my partners run their own marketing and bring me in only for the operating side.
How do we get started?
Apply to work with me. The application is short. If we’re a fit, we’ll set up a strategy call to dig into your numbers, your goals, and what the next 12 months should look like.
Schedule a Strategy Call
If you’re ready to stop guessing about why growth has stalled and start running your practice like the business it deserves to be, let’s talk.