Kevin Johnson, Leverage Consulting, on Building an Oral Surgery Practice That Grows Without Burning You Out (Dental Business Radio, Episode 63)
Host Patrick O’Rourke welcomes Kevin Johnson, founder and CEO of Leverage Consulting, for a live, on-location conversation recorded in Orlando during the Florida Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons meeting. Kevin shares how he works with oral surgeons and high-performing dental specialists to move beyond surface-level practice management and build practices that support both profitability and quality of life.
The discussion explores why many practices stall despite strong clinical skills and how issues like inconsistent scheduling, weak new patient processes, overwhelmed practice managers, and lack of team accountability quietly limit growth. Kevin explains why real improvement starts with clarity of purpose, disciplined focus on a few priorities, and creating systems that allow the team, not just the doctor, to drive consistent results.
Kevin also addresses the personal side of practice ownership, including burnout, work-life imbalance, and the unique challenges faced by married entrepreneurs and partners working inside the same business. The conversation highlights why strategic planning, communication, and intentional leadership are essential to building a practice that works as an engine for both financial success and a sustainable life outside the office.
Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient: PPO Negotiations & Analysis and produced by John Ray and the North Fulton affiliate of Business RadioX®.
Key Takeaways in This Episode
- Practice growth requires more than clinical excellence. Strong production comes from systems, accountability, and team alignment, not just surgical skill.
- The team, not the doctor alone, creates consistency. Scheduling, new patient processes, and role clarity allow practices to move beyond feast-or-famine production days.
- Burnout is often a leadership and structure problem. Without clear priorities and boundaries, even high-performing practices can drain energy and purpose.
- Focus beats overload. Progress accelerates when practices commit to a small number of high-impact priorities instead of chasing dozens of fixes at once.
- A healthy practice supports a healthy life. Financial success, time away from the office, and personal fulfillment are connected, not competing goals.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
00:00 Welcome to Dental Business Radio
00:46 Introducing Our Sponsor: Practice Quotient
01:42 Meet Kevin Johnson: CEO of Leverage Consulting
03:26 Kevin’s Journey from Accounting to Consulting
05:50 The Importance of Work-Life Balance
08:20 Strategies for Practice Growth
12:22 The Role of a Good Practice Manager
15:23 Challenges in the Dental Industry
20:53 Interactive Q&A Session
23:27 Discussing the Audience Composition
24:25 The Challenge of Firing a Spouse
25:21 Balancing Family and Business
26:33 The Importance of Communication
31:31 Focusing on Common Goals
33:10 The Role of Practice Quotient
41:20 Concluding Remarks and Acknowledgements
Kevin Johnson, Founder and CEO, Leverage Consulting
Kevin Johnson is a recognized leader in the dental and medical communities, with a successful track record of helping practices transform into more profitable, more effective businesses. Over the past 17 years, Kevin has worked with hundreds of practices, ranging from startups to well-established multi-location and multi-doctor practices. Kevin has developed a series of innovative best practices tailored to each client to achieve optimal results.
Kevin provides insightful, experience-supported guidance on the clinical, administrative, marketing, and business issues affecting today’s medical and dental practices. He brings substantial experience working with various dental and medical office systems, which helps him improve operations from the inside out while using resources that are already in place. Kevin also brings a unique perspective to the office dynamics that affect staff performance and inter-office relations. He is able to provide instant feedback, based on real-world experience, so that clients can move forward quickly with new initiatives.
A professional speaker with experience in team building, tailored consulting solutions, and problem-solving, Kevin offers clients individualized training sessions, team-building seminars, and customized business consulting. He is results-driven and passionate about helping practices grow to their full potential and providing a better life at work for owners and staff along the way.
Leverage Consulting
Leverage Consulting is a boutique advisory firm that helps dental and medical professionals turn clinically strong practices into high‑performing businesses. It focuses on bridging the gap between medical training and entrepreneurship by installing customized systems for leadership, growth and profitability, reduced stress, and a more empowered team culture. Using their vast experience with many practices, from new ones to larger groups with multiple locations and doctors, the company focuses on practical solutions that can be applied directly in the office instead of just theoretical ideas, helping to make.
Founded and led by Kevin Johnson, a recognized leader in the dental and medical communities, Leverage Consulting combines strategic business coaching with hands‑on training for doctors, managers, and teams. The firm provides personalized consulting, workshops, and customized training that focus on improving clinical processes, office management, marketing, and teamwork, all aimed at achieving clear results like higher production, better collections, more new patients, and less daily stress for owners and staff.
About Dental Business Radio
Dental Business Radio covers the business side of dentistry. Host Patrick O’Rourke and his guests cover industry trends, insights, success stories, and more in this wide-ranging show. The show’s guests include successful doctors across the spectrum of dental practice providers, as well as trusted advisors and noted industry participants.
Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient and produced by John Ray and North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of Business RadioX®. You can find the show on all major podcast apps and access the complete show archive here.
Practice Quotient
Practice Quotient is the sponsor of Dental Business Radio. Practice Quotient, Inc. serves as a bridge between the payor and provider communities. Their clients include general dentists and dental specialty practices across the nation of all sizes, from completely fee-for-service-only to active network participation with every dental plan possible. They work with independent practices, emerging multi-practice entities, and various large ownership entities in the dental space. Their PPO negotiations and analysis projects evaluate the merits of the various in-network participation contract options specific to your practice’s patient acquisition strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.
Connect with Practice Quotient
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