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Kiera is joined by Mark Rasmussen, CEO of Moolah, to talk about the landscape of credit card fees and how to reduce them, membership discount plans, and other bonus features offered by the dental payment tech company. (Pssst, Mark was last on episode 866, It's Time to Modernize Payment Processing!) Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am super jazzed because I have a guest here who's going to help us with cashflow leaks, modernizing your practice, figuring out those membership plans, all the things that you need and want. We're going to talk about some case studies. This is one of my absolute favorite guests, Mark Rasmussen, CEO, owner, founder, Moolah. How are you today, Mark? Welcome to the show. Mark Rasmussen (00:22) Hey, Kara, I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing awesome. So, so, so it's connected with you and your listeners and excited to get into all this juicy good stuff about revenue and payments and modernizing things. Let's do it. I love it. Kiera Dent (00:31) Yeah. Let's do it. So I have a slight crush on Moolah. Like truly you guys like just make credit card processing easy. And so what I want to start off, if you guys don't listen, Mark and I have done other podcasts in the past together. ⁓ But I don't know, Mark, what you guys say on your email subject lines, like on your little, what is it your signature, but I feel like it should be like your new favorite credit card processing company. Like that's what I feel like Moolah's tagline should be because I wanted to do a couple case studies with you since we last chatted. Mark Rasmussen (00:40) Hahaha Kiera Dent (01:05) ⁓ Mark knows, like, I do have a crush on Moolah. I try to get them to come and be our processor too. Mark Rasmussen (01:10) I need to like soundbite clip that, like I have a crush on Moolah just like everywhere in social. I love that. Kiera Dent (01:15) I do. do because I like companies that make things easy, but also are like the cheapest on the market and credit card fees are one of my biggest beefs. Like really truly I get annoyed when I look to see how much credit card fees are charging. And when you guys, ⁓ deadly team listeners, just so you know, I'm going to throw it out there. Like anybody who goes through our link literally saves 10 basis points. ⁓ on it, which is huge to get anywhere in the credit card industry. So you're getting below that 2.99. So you're getting 2.89 on cards not present and 2.39. And I hope that Mark, I'm allowed to say that because I'm just going to be bold and brazen. And if not, we'll cut that out. So don't stress about that. Mark Rasmussen (01:52) No, no, no, for sure. And not only that, it's like, that's not just a like teaser rate, like they look, your practices will get that preferred rate forever, right, which is awesome. And, and it's like you and I were talking a little bit earlier, too, of like, a bit of shock and awe of like, I and myself as well, I've been seeing like some statements from potential practices. And I'm like, ⁓ my God, I'm like, I'm seeing like, Kiera Dent (02:03) which is so big and you don't add extra heat. Mark Rasmussen (02:19) six, seven, eight percent, like net effective rates. I know you were saying you have been seeing even higher. It's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. It's almost criminal. Kiera Dent (02:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it does feel criminal because like here's the thing like you might get a cheaper rate somewhere else but when you look and dig into the details and this is where it feels annoying and obnoxious to me and doesn't happen right away it happens like when you've stopped looking at it you're like I've checked my credit card company for years they don't do anything and then all of a sudden it starts creeping up and being eerie and that's where I just get annoyed and that's why like I have a crush on Moolah because you guys don't do it and you guys stay consistent for it so I felt Mark and I, you didn't listen to our last podcast, we'll definitely link it in the show notes for you. But Mark, I felt we should kick today off with some case studies because I have some clients that I've recommended over to Moolah. And I think my favorite one is we were looking and I had a practice and our overhead was high. So like this practice, they don't love to like look at numbers. They have an amazing CPA. Like I will say we do look at numbers, but they're kind of like, yeah, carry it. We'll just like out produce our problems a little bit. And that's fine. Like anybody can have that. But I said, Hey, Mark Rasmussen (03:17) Alright. Kiera Dent (03:21) Your credit card fees are really high. think that they were honestly like 10%. And I'm like, is that really true? Like that just seems outlandish. And they said, well, Kiera, we're in a contract. Mark, do you want to throw up with contracts? Tell me about credit card contracts. Mark Rasmussen (03:33) Oh, I hate contracts. I hate contracts like really in anything in my life. I don't know. So yeah, but that's, it's just crazy. The industry for the longest time has like felt the need to like lock these business owners and not just Dennis, but business owners in like these typically it's like three year contracts. And then, you know, they'll have like termination fees. And so they take advantage of that. And like you were saying, I talked to so many practices are like, Oh, I'm paying X and you know, they were paying X the first month that they signed up. And then they didn't look at it, like you said, and then six months later, eight months later, the processor started like nudging it up, nudging it up, nudging it up. And to the point where when you look at what their rates are, you know, two years from when they signed up, it's like almost 180 degrees difference. So yeah, please you guys out there, please make sure you stay on your credit card processing. Look at those month end statements. Look at, you know, what is being nudged up because Kiera Dent (04:19) Yeah. Mark Rasmussen (04:28) You know, they'll just slip it in a little statement message. They're not forthcoming about it. I promise you they're not like, shooting you multiple emails or calling you and be like, hey, we're going to increase your rate. No, no, no, no, no. They're going to slip it under the table and hope that you never pay attention to it, which is really what happens because you guys are all busy. You guys are all doing amazing care on patients and you're not paying attention to that. That's the reality. Kiera Dent (04:49) And it's creepy to me because it's also done on things that don't make sense. Like I feel like reading a credit card statement with what they're charging is like reading very highly processed foods. And I'm like, I have no clue what 90 % of these words are. And I feel like it's the same thing when you come to a credit card statement. And so back to this practice, what we did, there's two case studies I wanted to bring to the table today that are my own personal clients that I've referred over to Moolah that I signed up with Moolah. So this practice, again, overhead, let's out produce our problems. Mark Rasmussen (05:00) That's a good comparison, I like that. Kiera Dent (05:18) And it was wild because the first month they switched to Moolah, their CPA sent a letter to all of us and said like, hey, what'd you do? Did you switch credit card companies? Your fees are so much lower. Like that fast first month drop down. So we went from about a 10 % fee on what they're producing and collecting to then dropping it down to this 2.89 to 2.39, depending upon if card was present or not, which is super awesome also because then you can get cards. Mark Rasmussen (05:28) guys. Kiera Dent (05:44) on auto renew, like on just processing internally and you don't have to, like you can have cards present or not present within the practice, which is so awesome. ⁓ But I was shocked like that fast. And then another practice that we brought to Moolah, they were locked in with another credit card company. And so I didn't know you couldn't do this, Mark. So this was like rookie mistake on me. Like I was, I'm scrappy and I thought, well, okay, fine. You guys are in a contract. So. just stop processing through that processor, switch everything over to Moolah. Well, you know this Mark and I was rookie so you know what happens. Do you know what happens with those companies? Mark Rasmussen (06:21) No, listen, I said that a lot too because technically, really, if the practice is in a contract, and I've said that before, you probably have these miscellaneous junk fees, these monthly minimums that are gonna hit maybe 20, $30 a month. But even if you're paying that minimum and you saved thousands over here, who cares? Pay that minimum, just write that contract out. What happened here in this scenario? Okay. Kiera Dent (06:44) That was exactly what I said too. So that's what, cause I was like, why not? I thought the exact same thing. I'm like, okay, if we're looking at, you're able to save 3%, 4 % like higher amounts and we're processing, even if you're processing a hundred thousand or 200,000, like that extra two, 3 % do the math. Like that's surely going to offset the cost. Well, what happened is we actually did that. So a client signed up with you guys. They did that. And we got a letter from the other processor saying, Mark Rasmussen (06:54) Yeah. Kiera Dent (07:11) that, we have a minimum and if we don't hit it, it was going to be substantial and to get out of contract, it was going to cost us a thousand dollars. So we literally said, fine, take the thousand dollars because we'd already saved that much through Moolah's savings to be able to like, we're just like, like it's a done deal. Like they were trying to threaten them with this thousand dollar fee, but we were like, that's so minimal to get us out of this contract based on how much we were saving. Now this practice was processing a decent chunk. Mark Rasmussen (07:32) Right. Right. Kiera Dent (07:38) But I think even if you're processing like 70,000, 80,000, that one, 2 % stacks up. Like it's insane how much we pay in credit card fees. So those are like the two that I wanted to bring to the, like I said, this is why I have a crush because I hate credit card fees so much. And that's going to lead into our next topic. But Mark, anything you want to add? Cause these were two cases that I've watched since we last met. Mark Rasmussen (07:45) yeah. I love that. Kiera Dent (08:00) ⁓ I'm constantly on the prowl for cheaper people. I love that you guys don't charge for the terminals. You have it set up the next day. There's no contracts. Like that's where I said, like it's your new favorite, like credit card processing. You don't increase the fees. You give our clients reduced rates. If you have multi locations, you guys also take care of those practices. Like it's amazing what you guys do. So that's my like pitch for Moolah, but if you want to add anything else. Mark Rasmussen (08:22) I love that. wanted to, because you just like rang a memory. So what you were referring to in that practice, right, where like, okay, you can't just skate by and just pay the minimum, right? Or they were gonna hit him with his fee. Well, another thing I'm gonna tell your listeners out there is, listen, if you don't go with Moolah, great, do your homework. But one thing to look out that I've seen in contracts, which is crazy, is that sometimes you'll see a contract, all right, if you cancel early, it's like a 350 termination fee. Okay, fine. but I've seen others out there where the processor says they try to enforce liquidated damages. So the processor will say, oh, we've been making, you're in a three year contract, on average we're making like, whatever, $500 a month on your processing. If you leave us now, it's not early termination fee, we're gonna calculate that $500 for the remaining 16, 17 months and they hit you with this liquidated damages thing, crazy. So just be on the lookout for that. If you're doing anywhere that's a contract, Kiera Dent (08:57) No. Mark Rasmussen (09:20) Look out for liquidated damages, that's no bueno, but better yet, find somebody that's just not gonna put you in a contract. Much easier. Kiera Dent (09:26) Yeah. And also like, okay, Mark, help me understand. And maybe you don't know because you guys don't do this and that's okay. But to me, it feels really funny that I signed a contract with them and there's got to be something in the fine print because I'm like, how did they go from what they told me to being able to add all these extra surcharges later on and increase it when we're in a contract? Mark Rasmussen (09:43) for sure it's in the fine print. yeah. It says that any, it basically says that any time at our discretion with 30 days notice, we can make an adjustment to any of your pre-schedule. And so they'll just do that. And then they'll just put a little message, you know, really small font in whatever kind of notification. And you know, in their minds, right? All right, well, we checked off the box. It's super shady. It sucks, but it's, you know, it's out there. Yeah. Kiera Dent (10:05) Yeah, it is what it is. And I would say they'll like look at it because two clients that were in contract, we were able to send over every person that I've sent to you guys have just loved who you are, that it's easy, that it's fast, that it's the cheapest processing. And there's a few other features that I think we should talk about. I feel like I'm on like a Moolah sales pitch right now. Like I'm truly not. I just get giddy. Like if you guys hear me talk about Swell, Mark Rasmussen (10:27) Ha Kiera Dent (10:30) was Zeke and Google reviews. I have a crush on Swell. They just do Google reviews better than anyone else. And right now, Moolah for sure, you guys are taking the cake on being able to do credit card processing better than any other company that I've come across, which I think is amazing. And so something else that I think is ratcheting fees on practices when we're looking for some of these cashflow leaks is on membership plans. Now, I'm a huge proponent of membership plans. I also think with the economy, with where insurance is reimbursing, ⁓ people are starting to look at like should we be going out of network? And my big proposal is, hey, yeah, of course, if you want to do that rock on, membership plans really can help with that. But ⁓ there are some membership companies that actually charge pretty outlandish fees. I never wanted to pay for that. I was scrappy in a practice. So what I did is I just charged the patient an annual fee. Well, that was like eight years ago that I was charging an annual fee. And I think you look at today's world, no one wants an annual fee anymore. They just want like a monthly fee and they want it to be low. Mark Rasmussen (11:02) for Right. Right. Kiera Dent (11:28) But managing that is nonsense on my own paying for it. And Moolah, like I've heard through the grapevine, you guys are doing something with membership fees. Can we talk about the membership plans? Talk about how you guys do this. Is it easier? Is it something we can do? Because I think membership plans have to come into play with the insurance situation that offices are in. And also possibly a cash leak if you're paying for heavy management fees on your membership plans. Mark Rasmussen (11:37) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So listen, membership discount plans. I've since I've been, I've only been in the industry, you know, dental industry for about four years now. And every year I feel like it's getting traction. More practices are asking about us. I have practices that are doing demos with us and they're like, Hey, I'm doing this demo is driving it because I heard you guys do, you know, membership, discount plan management. And so yes, the answer is we do. ⁓ And as you were looking to, there's a lot of great vendors in this space that just do that, right? And I'm not going to name any names, but there's a lot of great vendors, but they're not inexpensive. Like, you know, there's some decent SAS fees and then you pay per patient enrollment. ⁓ And so when it's, you know, when you look at the net net and you're like, okay, is this really making sense? So what's nice is that we have complete membership discount plan management built into the platform. You can create all your plans. ⁓ You can easily onboard the patient into the system. Kiera Dent (12:21) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mark Rasmussen (12:48) whether the patient wants to go monthly or annual, like you said, you were doing annual and a lot of the practices that I run into have historically been doing it annually, right? Because to think about billing it on a monthly basis has you like pulling your hair out. But the reality is that the patients and the consumers in the world that we live in, ⁓ everybody looks at whatever they're gonna bring into their life, whether it's a Netflix subscription or it's a car payment or it's anything else, everybody kind of looks at at a monthly basis. Kiera Dent (13:02) Too hard. Mark Rasmussen (13:17) And so that is what you want to be delivering. And so with the Moolah platform, you can absolutely manage an in-house membership discount plan and offer both annual and monthly options and truly set it and forget it. Not have to think about it. The system's going to run. The system's going to automatically post that payment into the ledger. In open dental, we even go a step further where when you enroll the patient into the membership, not only are we handling the billing element of it, But we're also going into the PMS and we're associating that patient to that membership discount plan and keeping track. You know, that's what's really doing all the heavy lifting of keeping track of whatever the one free cleaning of the 10 % off services. And we keep that in lockstep. So if there was like a billing issue, we automatically disassociate the patient from the plan to really just kind of make it pain free. you know, membership discount plans are phenomenal. It's a win win for patients and practice. First of all, it brings some really great reoccurring Kiera Dent (13:51) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (14:14) like trackable revenue into the practice, right? Number two, it's bringing patients like butts in seats ⁓ as well. ⁓ Because the patient looks like, I'm paying $40 a month. I should use it. I should be in there. ⁓ And it's bringing value to the patient. So it's literally just a win-win all around. I really love that for, you know, when you're looking at out of network patients ⁓ and the absolutely, you know, the platform has it built in. So you guys, please, if you're looking at discount plans, memberships, I encourage you to look at some of the other great vendors out there and then come take a look at us last and see like the value that you get that's included. Kiera Dent (14:49) That's awesome. Yeah. And again, like there are so many great people out there that are doing it. I just feel, ⁓ when I heard that you guys were doing membership plans, I was like, well, it kind of makes sense because you're already processing credit cards. Like you're already doing the processing. So now something else that is doing a processing is in my processor, into my software, which I just, that was so incredibly clever. And, ⁓ like again, I had another client who, who scoped you against other companies and they were like, gosh, like there's no fees. Mark Rasmussen (15:03) Great. Kiera Dent (15:17) compared to other companies with moolah. So that was something I was really excited about. I'm big on just, it's like my insurance. I've been with State Farm forever. And Jason and I giggled, we're like, we need to go and actually like assess and make sure that we're truly getting the best plans. And so I just think like it's good to periodically go and assess and make sure our credit card fees, what they were when we set up. our membership plans making sense? Is it time to look to possibly renegotiate some certain things? And again, I'm not here to propose one company over another. Like Mark said, do your homework, figure out what's best because there's so many great companies out there. I just really love when it's simple and easy. And that's something I love about you guys, Mark, you guys have the fact that we can send patient statements and like have payments online and they can pay it all times of the day. Like just that alone boosts offices, collections with Moulin. So Mark, I want to go into a dicey topic with you though. because this one's hot. We had it in our in-person ⁓ doctor and leadership mastermind when we were in Arizona and I loved it. It was like a hot, hot topic and heads up like this might be awkward for you. I don't think it will because of who you are, but there's the question of, and it was hot, like the room was split of people who were pro and con. So the question is with credit card fees being as much as they were, we talked about at the beginning, like ways that we can reduce it. Mark Rasmussen (16:10) Let's do it. I know, I wanna hear what the feedback was, because I know where you're going. Kiera Dent (16:40) Then we talked about reducing membership plans. Now there's a question of, should we actually charge patients the credit card fees? Like this is becoming really popular and I don't blame businesses because inflation's high, labor is higher. So now we're trying to figure out like where could we cut? And so people are like, well, sweet, we're just gonna pass on the credit card fees to our patients. And the room was spicy. There was like people that were so pro and people that like literally people were bristly and it was a... Mark Rasmussen (17:05) Yeah. Kiera Dent (17:06) It was quite interesting. So your credit card company, which is where I feel like it's a little awkward to ask you this question, but I want to know, we pro, are we con? Should we charge the patients from your perspective? We're in 2025. So many companies do this. Should people be charging patients the credit card fee? Should they just raise their fees and bake it in? Like, what are your thoughts on this? Because my room was 50 50 split. And I will tell you some of the feedback if you want to hear it, cause it was quite interesting. Mark Rasmussen (17:13) Yeah. Okay, okay. I do. Okay, so the first thing I want to point out is I expect you to say that the room is split, right? Like half of them are like, yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm not paying for my patients' reward points. And I think the other half of the room was like, yeah, but I'm worried about the optics. Does it look like we're trying to be cheesy or nickel and diming our patients, right? Those are the two ends that are battling each other. The interesting thing is that this hot topic, ⁓ if you would have asked that just three years ago, Kiera Dent (17:38) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No. Mark Rasmussen (18:01) it wouldn't have been 50 50. It would have been like 80 90 % saying no way and 10 % made me do it. So the trend is is like it is going right and two or three years from now I have a feeling it's going to be like 80 % are doing it and 20 % are not doing it. So the cat is out of the bag. Let's just get that you know right out there in the open. What do I think about it? I'm to be super Switzerland about this and I'm going to say that I think Kiera Dent (18:06) Agreed. 100 % agree. I would agree with you. Remember he's a credit card processing company. Mark Rasmussen (18:31) Well, no, I'm going to say that I think that as a vendor who delivers credit card processing service, I think that I should enable our practices to make that choice for themselves. I think whatever you think you should do for your practice, I want to support it. So if you don't want to do surcharging, great, we love that. If you do want to do surcharging, great, I love that. I just want to give the tools to the practice so they can make that decision. Now, aside what I think about it, It's a very interesting topic to talk about. Well, what is the net result? I like, all right, how does it work? What does it save? Let's get into it if I may. Okay, so there's a couple ways. There is absolutely there. There is, and there's a couple flavors to this. There's a couple flavors to this. ⁓ there, the, the, what that we do, let me talk about that first. So what we do is what's referred to as compliance surcharging and with compliance surcharging, what is, what you're doing is that Kiera Dent (19:06) I agree. Cause like, are there rules around it? Like, you actually have to do anything? Okay. I have no idea. Okay. Mark Rasmussen (19:28) When a customer's paying you with a credit card, the system, system, I'll just speak to our system, most others are similar, but when a patient is paying you, whether it's in practice on the device or whether you sent a text to pay or it's an online payment, our system automatically, real time, looks at the number that the patient put in or used on the terminal. And within a half a second, we're looking back at the credit card network before we even charge it, and we say, is this a credit or is this a debit? If the patient is paying with a credit card, We then pop on the screen, either on their mobile device or on the terminal, we say, hey, we see you're using a credit card. We're going to add 2.99 % as a fee to you for using a credit card. If you want to use a debit card, you will avoid that fee. So in Compliance Surcharging, what I really like about that is that you're not charging us fee across debit and credit, right? You're still giving your patient the convenience of being able to pay with plastic. Kiera Dent (20:19) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (20:25) and still use a debit card because the reality is if you have a credit card in your wallet, there's probably 99 % chance you've got a Visa debit card in your wallet as well. And so you're not pulling away that convenience of them being able to pay plastic and just saying, hey, if you want to avoid that fee, pay cash or check. That's kind of archaic. So with compliance surcharging, you are going to offload your credit card fees to the patient, only the credit card fees. When they pay with a debit card, you will still pay for that, okay? Kiera Dent (20:43) I agree. Mark Rasmussen (20:55) With doing that with Moolah, if you're going to pay the debit fee and not pay the credit card fee, we see that the overall net effective rate for the practice ends up being below 1%. It ends up being like, I'm going to throw out a weird term that people are going, what the heck is that? It's usually going to be around 75 or 80 basis points. About three quarters of 1 % is going to be your net overall cost, which is huge savings, right? Huge savings. Kiera Dent (21:07) No. Crazy, like insane. Just do some math. If you did a million dollars and you were able to basically save, gosh, so much. Mark Rasmussen (21:28) No, let's just say, the reality is you're probably saving one and a half percent. So on a million dollar practice, that practice is gonna put about $15,000 back to their bottom line. Like, and that's it, and it was painless. And you're still not really, yeah, exactly. Kiera Dent (21:37) Exactly. And that's also for payments you're already collecting. Like this is already money we're collecting, we just get to keep more of it rather than having the credit card processing fee. Mark Rasmussen (21:47) Yes. And it doesn't need to like, you know, break brain cells for you to try and figure it out. Like the system is going to automatically calculate it. We're going to organize it. ⁓ It's just, it's painless. We're handling it in the PMS correctly. listen, the savings cannot be ignored. Like we talked about the cats out of the bag. You're going to see more businesses across more different verticals. ⁓ And the reality is We've all been around it for a long, long time, right? Who's been doing it forever? Gas stations, right? We've seen it on there. Cash credit, right? That's been there forever. And we're all used to it. And you also typically see a lot when you're dealing with like state or federal agencies, you ever gone on and make an online tax payment, they usually charge a fee there. So it's just now getting more, you know, ⁓ rolling out. Yeah. Kiera Dent (22:40) Nail salons for the girls out there. We all know the nail salons. They'll say like, it's a 3 % charge if you use credit card. I'm like, here's your cash. Like it's clever. They push us to what they want. Mark Rasmussen (22:49) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it is listen. So I, I believe in delivering the technology to our clients, I don't have an opinion one way or the other, whatever you feel is good. I will tell you though that I think a lot of practices, especially on the on the one half of the room that are like against it. I think what we're finding is that people are not pushing back as much as you think they are because consumers are just getting used to it. And again, the fact that at least with our practices, you're still giving your patient the ability to have that convenience and pay with a debit card and not have the fee. If they were doing like the model where they call it, know, cash discount, where you're going to hit the debit card and you're going to hit the credit card, I think you get more pushback on that, but you're still giving that convenience. So yeah, I'm a fan of it. We get, like I said, more and more requests of it. ⁓ It's not going anywhere. yeah, we're here to support your practice. If you guys want to try it out, try it out and listen, here's the thing. Kiera Dent (23:50) Yeah. How does it work in practice though? Like, so someone's standing in front of me at a terminal, I'm collecting money in person. How does this work? Because it's not gonna pop up on my like treatment plan that I just gave them or on my ledger. So how do I do that? Mark Rasmussen (24:00) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll pop up on the terminal. so first thing we do, we give the practices, ⁓ you know, some template messaging and they'll just want to put up something by the front desk. And it says something to the effect of that, you know, this office adds a surcharge when using a credit card, ⁓ not beyond, you know, what our costs are, right? This is not a money, additional money revenue is trying to like, you know, make arbitrage between costs and no, I'm only going to pass off. And so. Kiera Dent (24:32) Great. Mark Rasmussen (24:35) the patient is aware of it, they've seen it, and then when they go to use it on the terminal, if they're in practice, when they go to run the credit card, it will pop up on the screen and your team can just show it to the patient, they'll see it, that it's adding it because they're using the credit card. And it'll give them an option if they want to accept it or if they want to back out of it and try again with a debit card and avoid the fee, really easy. Kiera Dent (24:58) Okay, that's actually really helpful. And now I have a question because I don't know this. How does this work? Because technically the practice is collecting more money, right? Like we are taking the fee plus the credit card fee. ⁓ Mark Rasmussen (25:10) Let's say it's $100 and let's just say we're adding that surcharge so now it's $103. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Kiera Dent (25:14) Right, so that's $3 more per $100 transaction. But does that impact them in tax? I would think no, because credit card companies still charging us the 3%. Like, how does this work? Are you following what I'm saying? how does this impact you? Mark Rasmussen (25:26) Yeah, I do. So you don't have anything else to like, you know, break your brain on that. Our system, first of all, will break out the surcharge in the reporting. Okay. So it's really clean. Furthermore, the addition, the $103, right, like the customer got charged, the patient got charged $103. But our system automatically calculates it, that you have a fee of 3 % and that you surcharge the patient 3%. So the practice is still just going to get the full $100. Kiera Dent (25:36) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (25:56) It's as if they took a cash payment. So it's easy for them. They're not getting 10.99 at the $103, so to speak. It's just still truly only taking $100, which is great. Kiera Dent (25:57) Gotcha. Okay. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah, because that's what I was curious like, and like some things have sales tax. So didn't know like surcharges, do they get taxed differently or is it just like accepting cash, same thing for a practice? Okay. Now, so that's really helpful. And that helps me see on the ledger. So are you guys synced into the PMS for it to say, because like if my ledger says a hundred dollars, but I'm now doing 3 % surcharge on it. Mark Rasmussen (26:18) Exactly, total amount, total amount, yeah. Yes. Kiera Dent (26:35) I'm going to be posting $103. How do I make sure that all of my ledgers match up? Mark Rasmussen (26:40) So we'll post $100 in the ledger, okay? And then we'll have a procedure code for the surcharge. And then we'll also have an offsetting so that it doesn't mess up your balance. So you can easily run reports based on the procedure code. I can see what my surcharge is, but it's not messing up and showing that, I took in $103 on this $100 transaction. So your ledger is gonna stay nice and clean. and not be a nightmare, 100%. Kiera Dent (27:10) Okay, because that's I was like, Oh, great. Because there was another office that I heard about. And Mark, I'm just curious about your opinion on this. And then we're gonna get back to this like spicy and thanks for walking through this. There was another practice, I've literally never heard of this before. So I'm curious if you have or if you recommend or don't this practice. So let's say a patient, the total is $100, they pay the $100, the practice literally posted on the ledger. Mark Rasmussen (27:28) Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (27:38) instead of being $100 because now they lost $3, they posted $97 on the ledger and they were taking out the surcharge. Have you ever heard of that? Because I had never heard it. I was, do you recommend that? Because I've never recommended that, right? And I think as a patient, I'd feel really angry though. no, I gave you 100 bucks, but you gave me 97. Like I would just. Mark Rasmussen (27:48) I haven't. That seems wonky. Yeah. Right. Or continue that on. How about now all of a sudden a week later you go to refund it and we're we're refunding you 97. You're like, no, no, no, I paid you 100. It's gonna be messed up in so many levels. Kiera Dent (28:09) Right. I was just curious. I was like, I mean, maybe I'm archaic on how I do this. I used to just do it that way and then accept that that would just be a cost on my PNL. But now there's a way for you to actually offset it with the process. So my question is going back to that, that's actually helpful. Thank you. So if you're doing that, definitely recommend not doing that anymore. ⁓ But I was like, Hey, I've never heard of this. Maybe that is the right way to do the accounting on it. But it felt very messy to me. Now, Do we as the practice need to put in the surcharge as that procedure code when we're charging that out or does Moolah automatically sync it in and put the surcharge of the procedure code? Mark Rasmussen (28:48) We have, yeah, automatically done. There's nothing for you to do. Yeah. So during onboarding, we will set up, we will work with the practice, obviously. We'll make sure that we have a procedure code set up for them. And so during the onboarding, we'll have that so that when you do run a surcharge transaction like that, there's nothing you need to do. It'll all be handled in the ledger correctly. Kiera Dent (28:51) Amazing. I love it. This is why I said I have a preference on you. and you're in all softwares. What softwares does Moolah sink into? Mark Rasmussen (29:10) Yes, so ⁓ Open Dental, ⁓ Dentrix, G7, and ⁓ newer server-based, not Ascend. And we're actually going to be ⁓ releasing, finally, this has been a long time coming, we're finally going live with Eagle Soft ⁓ Beta at end of next week. So Open Dental, Dentrix, and Eagle Soft. Yeah. Kiera Dent (29:28) Awesome. That's awesome. Okay, very cool. And then if you're not in one of those and you can just obviously add this in, it wouldn't be automatically synced. And I think like of those ones though, huge win this way. Okay, now we'll go back to the spicy. I will tell you guys how the room was divided. The room was divided, I'll be right. The do it, don't do it. And then the like, there's a middle ground, which I thought the middle ground was kind of convenient. ⁓ There wasn't, but I did see people like it. I did feel like it was like, Mark Rasmussen (29:45) Yes. Was there any physical fighting going on? Okay. Kiera Dent (30:00) like politics and religion status. Like it was like very cut through the room. I do agree with you. And that's what I said. I was like, you guys, this 2025, this is going to take place in the future and it will be very common. just, think our early adopters going to stay or not. It's your choice. Um, I've always been of the opinion like, no, just bake it into your fee. And now I'm like, well, everybody's starting to charge for it. Like, why not? Um, so it was don't charge for it now. Another was like, no, put it in. People are doing it anyway. And the middle ground, which I thought was Mark Rasmussen (30:02) Right. Right, right, right. Kiera Dent (30:30) of a good way to do it is in person. They didn't charge a fee, but any of their online statements, they did charge a fee because they said most people who pay online know there's usually a service fee associated with it. So I thought that was kind of a, an easy way. If you guys are looking for a navigation through it. ⁓ but I think like, honestly, it's just like anything else, train your patients if you want to, but don't feel like you have to, I think it'd just be something to consider. So, but again, Like get the reduction, like if nothing else, like switch to a processor that's going to be reduced fees anyway. So even if you want to continue offering it, you're still saving on that. Mark, I have one last thing that I wanted to dive into. I'm hearing from a lot of like integrated softwares. So like dental Intel and Flex and some of these other ones that literally make practice lives easier. They're having processors in there that are just integrated right into that. They're using it all the time. Mark Rasmussen (31:20) Yeah. Kiera Dent (31:25) How does Moolah play in those worlds? Like, do you get the same pricing? Do we not get the same pricing? Are some of those better because they're already bundled in? Again, I'm putting you on like really awkward topics, but I just want to know. I want to know how does this work. Mark Rasmussen (31:35) No, no, not at all. So listen, you mentioned Flex. We love Flex, okay? I love Flex, not just because, yes, they're a partner of ours, right? And yes, your Mool account works beautifully and integrated with Flex. But I love Flex just because I think they're like cut from the same cloth that we are. Like we just, at the end of the day, we want to over-deliver, right? We want to over-deliver, whether it's technology, whether it's value, and they have that mindset. And so I love the Flex team. Full disclosure. ⁓ And so we've been an integrated partner with Flex for, gosh now, I think three years. So yeah, I think they deliver a ton of value to any open dental practice. So anybody out there for sure should check out Flex. They are amazing. Dental Intel. So we used to be, ⁓ not to bore the audience, but like we used to have an integration with Modento and then Dental Intel acquired Modento. Kiera Dent (32:33) Yep. Mark Rasmussen (32:33) and then Dental Intel wanted to roll up their own integrated credit card processing. And so they have now. so, listen, ⁓ we wish Dental Intel the best, wish them well, but yeah, we're no longer integrated with Dental Intel, but yeah, Flex, we love Flex. Kiera Dent (32:49) Okay, because I was just curious. Now, I feel if it's bundled, is this a time where offices should just be strategic? I'm not saying anyone's doing it. I haven't looked at it. So I'm not here to like cast judge or I just want to make sure offices are being smart. I would think when they're bundled or they're integrated, offices should still check even using MULA. They should still be watching their credit card statements every single month, right? Like no matter what, just to always make sure things are staying clean and also before we sign up with anybody. Mark Rasmussen (33:08) Mm-hmm. 100%. Kiera Dent (33:19) Like literally read the fine print and look for it. Yes. No. I from like, let's just go all the way back. Mark Rasmussen (33:23) Yeah. And I would always say that, you know, let's just take the Flex example. Flex has, you and I won't name anything, I'll let you guys out there, you go check it out to yourself, but there are three options. I encourage you, especially when we're talking about a vendor that you're looking at, and especially when this vendor that you're looking at revolves around your cashflow, right? Like it's a pretty integral part of a vendor that you're bringing into your ecosystem. call them, talk to them. Kiera Dent (33:46) Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (33:54) Call in the middle of the day. Do they pick up the phone? Do they answer? Can you talk to somebody very easily? Like really pop the hood and take a look at who you're going to get in and do business with, especially when it's, you know, that vendor is like controlling your cash flow on a daily basis. So yes, please you guys out there, do your homework, look at the agreements, ask questions, and see what's right for you. Yeah. Kiera Dent (34:10) Yeah. That's awesome. just, again, I wanted to like go into it because these are things I'm hearing. I'm hearing people say like, this seamlessly integrates. I know you seamlessly integrate. I know you guys are constantly working to refine, to get into more and more practice management softwares to make it easier. Just Mark, as we wrap up, like this has been fun. I love the like, thanks for going into some of the spices with me. ⁓ But just as a quick rundown, like what are some of the features that Moola does? We talked about the membership plans. We did talk about that Dental A Team clients get 10 % basis points less for card present or card not present. Mark Rasmussen (34:33) Always is. Yep. Kiera Dent (34:47) Which to me that alone, I would just look into it and see, like I said, two clients literally saved money by like dumping their contracts and moving over, which I think to me, like before I can have a crush on a company, I test them pretty heavily. So to see the proof in the pudding, I was so just elated and it made me even like you guys more. But what else does Moola do? Because I know you guys do a lot of other things that just make life easy. Mark Rasmussen (35:05) I love that. yeah, yeah. So at the end of the day, we do a lot, but it's all payment related and will always be payment related, right? So we're focused on being like, we try to be like the end all be all payment solution for dentists. And so when you look at like, what does a dental office need from a payment perspective, ⁓ it's in practice payments, right? So we provide you guys the physical devices. So No more having to buy rent or lease those terminals. We're going to include them. you know, not only, yeah, they're wireless. Yeah, they're really cool. Aesthetically, they look really good. Yeah. And, and here's the other great part too, that I think it's kind of underrated ⁓ is of course, not only did we include them. the practice didn't need to buy them, but like normally, you know, with our peers, you have to buy these devices and then you buy them and then it's like one year warranty, right? And then like Murphy's law always kicks in. Kiera Dent (35:37) They're awesome too. They're portable. They can go back to the hygiene operatories. It's amazing. So your hygienist can take it. Like they're awesome. It's so great. Mark Rasmussen (36:01) like it loves to do. like, okay, month 14, the device just, you know, went out on you. And then you're gonna sorry, you got to buy another five $600 device with mula you guys will literally never have hardware expense ever because we give them to you on the front end. And we will warranty them forever. As long as you're with us. I don't care four or five, six years. If there's new devices that come out and your guys age out, we're going to replace them. Even if you drop it off the counter and crack the screen. We don't care, we're gonna replace it for you. There's no fear or premium. So, in practice payments, we have you covered there from a technology standpoint as well as a hardware standpoint. Moving on, there's also, have the ability to, like you were talking about earlier, store patient cards securely tokenized. Nothing's ever touching the practices servers. It's all on our servers, but it's giving you the convenience of having those stored cards for the patient. You can have as many stored cards as you want. You can even send a request to the patient. before their appointment and the patient from easily from home from their mobile device could add their credit card. And so when they come in, it's already stored and it's available to use. So stored cards, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kiera Dent (37:07) With that, can I ask, do you guys have the compliance paperwork? Is there anything you have to do to get a patient to have a stored credit card that we can run for future payments? once insurance pays, because I know that's a big thing of storing cards on file, do you have anything with that? Because I know that this is a zone. Mark Rasmussen (37:23) Yep. What I... Yeah, no. So it's very obvious as far as the process of the patient adding the card. Like when you send the message, it says, hey, would you like to securely store your card on file? Right? Beyond that, what I've seen some practices do is just they'll just include it in their overall like new patient intake forms and kind of include it in their terms of service of that. Hey, listen, if you want to store a card on file with us, you can. And you allow, once you store a card, you're giving us the authorization to utilize that card. Kiera Dent (37:35) Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (37:51) for other future balances. As simple as that, that's all you need to do. Kiera Dent (37:54) which is so smart you guys think about it. This is where so many other industries do this. They have a card on file. I mean, I go to the spa, my cards on file, they run that card when I'm gone, like I authorize it to happen. So they never out of money. They're never chasing money down. Like it just to me makes so much more sense of a way to process. Mark Rasmussen (38:12) Can you imagine if Netflix or all the other subscriptions, if they had to wait for a payment every month and wait, come on, no. Subscription is the way, 100%. So, okay, so store card on file they get. The other thing they get is the ability to create and manage in-house payment plans. And of course, automatically post those payments to the ledger. We have some great things where if the payment fails, right? They're into the plan for three months and all of sudden the July payment fails. Kiera Dent (38:18) No. No. Yeah. Mark Rasmussen (38:41) our system will automatically notify the practice, notify the patient, and what's cool is that the software will allow the patient to self-administer and fix it. So the software is not telling the patient, your card failed, call the front desk. No, we're gonna save a phone call there. The software will allow the patient to tell the software, okay, either A, try to charge that card again, or B, they can actually upload a new card on file. So the cool stat on that is that in failed transactions in our payment plans, we see patients solving it between themselves and software within the first 24 hours at a rate of over 80%, which is huge. So payment plans, and then we talked about earlier, you also get the ability to manage any of your in-house membership or discount plans. ⁓ We have the collecting on a balance when the patient is out of practice, ⁓ sending a payment request either Kiera Dent (39:20) Holy cow, it's amazing. Mark Rasmussen (39:37) allocated or unallocated payment request can attach a statement. ⁓ We also have the ability to host a payment page on their website. So if you want to put a little navigation, click here to make an online after hours payment, we'll host that page for the practice. ⁓ So yeah, we really kind of just looked at it a full circle of like, where are all the payment touch points that our practice is dealing with, and just trying to deliver these really amazing tools. And again, as you know, our model. ⁓ There's never any monthly fees. There's never any set up fees. There's never any annual fees ⁓ All there are these two simple flat rates and again, you can cancel it anytime you want never locked in anything Kiera Dent (40:18) That's awesome. Mark, I appreciate this so much. How do people, like know they just connect with you, schedule a demo. You guys will look at their credit card processing, see how you guys can fix it. How do they connect with you specifically if they're interested? And specifically The Dental A Team, The Dental A Team, perks. Mark Rasmussen (40:33) I would recommend and maybe we can list this in the podcast, but there will be a specific Moolah URL. It's like forward slash The Dental A Team They should go there and then they can schedule a demo. And then if they go there, then we're going to know it came from you guys. That way we can get them that 10 basis point savings forever. So just schedule a demo with us and no pressure. We're like the most like the least salesy organization I think that you guys will ever run into. All we wanna do is inform you. We wanna show you what we have. We're not for everybody. ⁓ But assuming that you guys love what you see, we encourage you to try us out and check us out and see if we're gonna be a great fit for your practice. Kiera Dent (41:13) Yeah, for sure. You guys, honestly, I love Moolah They're incredible. So on our website, we will link it. So the way you get to Moolah, it's on our website, TheDentalATeam.com. And then you can click on the About Partnerships Mulas right there. ⁓ And the actual, like if you guys want our direct link here, it would be TheDentalATeam.com slash partnerships slash Moolah. And that should take you right to Moolah's page. It's also mula.cc slash partners. So that helps you guys will also link that in the show notes mark. I appreciate you guys so much Things are being on the podcast things are going through the spicy with me. I appreciate you so much Mark Rasmussen (41:52) Any time, love you guys, you guys are the best and ⁓ have a great rest of day. Kiera Dent (41:58) Hey, you too, for all of you listening. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.
Artificial intelligence is steadily growing as a presence in our personal and professional lives. In this episode, Tiff and Dana talk about how AI can be used effectively in practices, game-changing technology in recent years, and the never-out-of-style human interaction among it all. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:01.681) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited. We are second month of a new year, and that means you should be tracking your goals. If you're a Dental A Team client, you have this amazing new scorecard that we've introduced that my personal clients have freaking loved. And being able to see where those goals are so quickly in the month and being able to track along and see what we need to do to pivot or change or continue growth has been really cool. So welcome to new month, new year. knew you. Dana, thank you so much for being here with me. I know you have a ton of clients that have been onboarded with that scorecard and doing super well as well. How is this new year treating you? This 2025, how's it going, Dana? Dana (00:46.03) Oh, it's going pretty well. Happy New Year to you and everyone listening. Yeah, I'm super excited about the scorecard. Clients seem to really like it and I think it'll just be a game changer for 2025 to keep everybody just intentional and focused on the things to move forward. So I'm really looking forward to 2025. The Dental A Team (01:04.136) Yeah, me too. Me too. I have a client that I talked to actually this morning that was like, well, we needed to make some adjustments to the scorecard to fit their practice, which is why we say that we're customizable because anything that we do, it's got to be custom fit to that practice. So we had made some adjustments in there and then. I was like, you know, you guys, know that you're tracking everything. Like this office manager is meticulously tracking everything in the practice. So I said, this is like an overview. Like my meticulous tracker is like an overview for you guys. So make it your own. Let's figure it out. But I told her there's so many practices out there that don't know what to track or how to track it or how to see the trends within the numbers. And her mind was just blown. She's the wife, they've owned the dental practice for years and years and years and years. They've been in dentistry forever. So she's learned all of that along the way, but she was just mind blown at how some people just don't know. And I didn't know when I first started managing, I was like, what do all these numbers mean? And we all have to learn somewhere. So it's just been really cool to watch everyone continue that growth in the new year and really, like you said, track along with those goals and see. what can be done to manipulate and change the results to create something magical. Whatever it is that you want, can change those tracking metrics and change those results to create something really cool. Within that conversation, I'm excited about today, because today, Dana, we just prepped for this. And I think your track that you're thinking for this conversation today is so beautiful. We talk a lot about new dental tech is what I'll air quote it as. kind of like new things on the scene. And it's really easy to talk about scanners and lasers and all of those CBCTs and all the different things in the practice that we can implement kind of in the clinical aspect. I really love what you are talking about now with all the other pieces. There's so much AI coming into play. And that's what you had mentioned Dana. And I really want to chat about that because it's so cool. The Dental A Team (03:06.342) I know I chat GPT, especially on my personal side. like, I create and think of so much stuff, you know, for Dental A Team, I'm sure you do the same, you create so much for us and our content. I know on my personal side, I'm like, Ben, chat GPT, tell me what to do. that, like, AI has really come into play strong, I would say in the last year. And this year, even a month and a half or whatever into the year feels like Like it's a do or die. Like you're using AI. There's just no two ways about it. So how have you seen in your practices currently, the AI bots come into play and all those pieces aside from chat GPT that can help with the patient response. But how have you seen those AI tools really be being implemented? And then I want to think about how do we see like the future, what that's going to look like as well. Dana (03:58.528) Yeah, I think it's actually pretty incredible some of the new like dental AI stuff that's coming out essentially now you can use AI to be almost like a receptionist or a part of especially your front office team. Lots of dental tech companies coming out with They can, you know, the chat bot or the AI bot can take care of missed calls or after hours calls. So now patients can have communication with you 24 hours a day, not just when your office is open. Being able to log into your system and actually schedule the patient without you there. The Dental A Team (04:35.067) Mm-hmm. Dana (04:38.23) and doing it really actually pretty well. And then sending, you know, a lot of the AI, the reception, it's like, then they send you, you know, an overview of the call so that you know exactly what was said, you can add in any notes that you want. So it truly can be as if they called while somebody was in the practice. And so AI is really coming in strong this year, especially in the dental world. And I'm excited, you know, I know a lot of offices in my calls, it's like they struggle with call volume, and they struggle with The Dental A Team (05:06.285) That's nice. Dana (05:08.685) getting their team members to be able to handle the volume of calls that are coming in and still get their tasks done. So when you have something that can easily handle that overflow and keep you going and keep you moving forward and you can still have a pulse on it, I think it's actually really cool. The Dental A Team (05:14.163) Yeah. The Dental A Team (05:23.313) I agree, and it makes me think of vacation time too, because there's so many practices that don't have 20 team members that if people are taking vacation or if doctor wants to take vacation, there's not two associates to take over the schedule. And so it's like the practice is closing down. But one of the biggest fears I think a lot of practice owners have is shutting down the practice means there could be a week or how many other days of patient calls and patient interactions that are missed. Sometimes we don't have the staff to be like, hey, sometimes they want to take vacation with you, know, or the same time as you. So that's what it made me think of too, is, well, grab a bot for, you know, that we have somebody maybe checking in on it and looking at it. Obviously, we don't fully trust it yet. They haven't taken over the world just yet. But having somebody monitor it, but for vacations, things like that, you said the after hours kind of extends into that. Or Fridays, a lot of doctors, and it's a lot of new patient opportunities on Fridays because... dentistry. You know, we love being off on Fridays as often as we can as well. But a lot of companies are actually off on Fridays or have flex Fridays. And so sometimes I think for the just humans in general for the population, Fridays are kind of a catch up day where we're making appointments, we're calling in, we're asking questions and we're getting appointments done. And so we miss a lot of opportunities there. And the dreaded Monday fell apart. Dana (06:44.91) Mm-hmm. The Dental A Team (06:45.046) So, you know, it might still fall apart. You might still get those calls, but at least it's not walking into 30 voicemails on Monday morning and then being like, oh my gosh, everything we talked about in huddle is just completely destroyed because everybody fell off the schedule or whatever. So I love that. I love that. Have you seen to I know there's a lot of third party companies, Modento and Dental Intel and Diversion, all those companies. Have you seen to I haven't like looked into it. So I'm asking. For reals, if they're using any of those tools yet within their stuff, think Modento had some stuff like on the wire. I'm not sure, but, any opportunities or anything for like confirmations, right? Cause I know, I guess like Modento has done voicemail jobs. So it's like, we're already partially there with like voicemail jobs and the automated, voicemails or phone calls for re-care and things like that. So how do you think that'll affect having the AI bot I feel like is so much more. customizable and you can like give it rules. can give it lingo and verbiage and just kind of different things. So how do you see that transitioning for companies like that too? Dana (07:55.734) Yeah, I can't say that I've seen any of the companies integrate it yet. I do think it's coming, but I do think some of the newer companies that are doing AI really well and are coming out, they are offering those things like confirmation calls, like re care calls. You can get your basically AI receptionist to do those things for you. And truly, I think because it is customizable, it also does feel more as if it is a human versus those automated text messages that as much as we try to make them warm and The Dental A Team (08:19.937) Yeah. Yeah. Dana (08:25.592) friendly and specific and just from our office, right? AI, think is a little bit of a step above that. The Dental A Team (08:33.717) Yeah, I agree. I agree. think it's caveat, I know I said chat GPT and I know a lot of people love verbiage. think Dana and I get a lot of, and the other, other consultants as well. But I know Dana and I for sure get up so many text messages or emails of like, how do I say this? I want to say this to my team or I want to tell my doctor this. How do I, how do I do this? Give me words. I have a couple of practices that just call it like tiffisms and like what would tiff say? And I'm like, holy cow. which I love and I love verbiage and I love communication. like, warning, I guess, or a reminder, if you are going to chat GPT or whatever AI, any of that stuff, just make sure that you guys are still looking at it and personalizing it, especially if it's you throw some, I've seen a lot of people throw things into a program like chat GPT. that spits out like a patient response. And sometimes it is robotic, because it is a robot. It's not a human on the other side. They did as good as they could so far with it, and they do really great job. But sometimes those things can still come off, like you said, Dana, a little cold or harsh. And so I just stress the importance of taking it, making it your own. I say the same thing about my verbiage when I give it to people. This is a template. I love giving templates, and I want you to make it your own, because it should sound like you. It shouldn't sound like... a robot a shouldn't sound like a script, it should sound like you still. So no matter how you're getting those verbiage tips and tools or what you're choosing to do with it, just make sure there's a human interaction side of it, and you're bringing that humanization back to it. That's my warning, my caveat there, because I do use it occasionally, or sometimes my brain's just dead at the end of the day, and I'm like, my gosh, how do I make this recipe? Gosh, I'm... ChatGPT is becoming a best friend in my personal life, feel like. But aside from the AI stuff, or you're in transition with the AI stuff, I think that pulls into that teledentistry side as well. Because I know a lot of practices that are still doing a lot of teledentistry. Obviously, it was huge during quote unquote COVID times. But I think it spurred something for us in the availability to create more opportunities for our patients. So a lot of practices are doing the cosmetic The Dental A Team (10:50.787) consults virtually. And it's really cool smile designs, smile makeover, all of these different variations of a teledentistry appointment. And I'm thinking with that kind of AI kind of smashing those two together, because that's an easy opportunity to allow an AI bot or someone to schedule those appointments and have someone who's like over the cosmetic consults when you don't have the opportunity or availability in the practice. So teledentistry is still really, really a fantastic idea, I think, and something that we don't consider tech in our brains, but it kind of is. And it's kind of cool to be able to say, let's take a half day Thursday and take three hours in the afternoon and bust out three cosmetic consults or more. And I've seen a lot of success with that. Dana, have you seen that as well? You still have a lot of clients who are using teledentistry or considering it. Dana (11:45.036) Yeah, they do definitely do for different types of consultations and even I have one office that will do teledentistry to like pre-screen for limited right to see if this is something I just need to refer out or do we need to see you in the office? So they'll use it for that to end some PEDS offices using it for like surgery or sedation consulting and I have one office that's even trying to do some just case presentations or treatment. The Dental A Team (12:14.493) yeah. Dana (12:14.786) presentations if the patient left the office, right, and they can't come in, just doing that too. So I think using the technology at your fingertips that make it that it's convenient for the patient, that it's easy for you, I think take advantage of it where you can within your practice. The Dental A Team (12:31.234) Yeah, that's a great idea doing the consults because a lot of practices will have those monster treatment plans. So it's like, okay, let's have you back in for a consult. And we know that's difficult to get patients to come back in, especially if we're not accomplishing something, right? They're not getting treatment that day. So I always tell clients who are doing that style of treatment planning, it's totally fine. And I love it. But just make sure maybe we do fillings with that. treatment console, but I think that's a great idea to doing it by zoom or Google meet or any of those platforms really are a lot of them have free up to while Google meet is free, right for however long you want it, but even zoom has up to I think 35 or 40 minutes of free information that you don't have to pay for. So that's a really great idea because then it just locks it in and I think we've all become accustomed to this being like being in person, you know, I think virtual. has become the norm. It's almost weird to constantly be in person with people. Again, thank you, 2020. And I think it's worked out well for the dental industry. So that's a great idea to be able to do those bigger consults. And I too have some pediatric practices, even the moms who are moms and something happens and we're like, I got to get my kid in. Like right now you got to look at this. And a lot of my pediatric practices will. do the same thing where they'll take a picture, send it in, or let's hop on a Zoom call or Google Meet, and they'll kind of tell the parent how to angle the camera or what have you to show whatever it is. I mean, I remember one time I brought Brody all the way in and I was working in office and I'm like, you have to look at this and it was literally nothing. It was like, he's like, you are just being so silly. You are in dentistry. you know these things, but as you put your mom hat on and you're like, I don't know anything, my kid, like something happened, you just have to look. And so I can't even imagine being outside of dentistry and something happening to my kid and really not having any of that background knowledge. So for my pediatric practices, it's been really beneficial to be able to do things like that and take some of that stuff off their plates. And for pediatric practices too, with the AI conversation, like they're seeing so many patients. The Dental A Team (14:44.728) in any given day, right? They're seeing 45 to 80 patients any given day with one doctor, let alone, you've got practices that have two or three doctors, they're seeing a lot of patients. So for a front office team to have to keep up with the confirmations, even the check-in, the check-out, like, you've got to understand they're spread so thin, and then they've got phone calls coming in and they've got new patients to schedule, and it's hard in a GP practice to be working on the hour, but in peed practices, right? We're really, Dana, working on the 15 minutes. And so every 15 minutes, you have anywhere from one to six to eight patients coming and going every 15 minutes. So I think that's a great idea to really be able to add that tech into practices like that. I love it. I love it. And I love the, I just love the transitions dentistry takes. We think back, gosh. Dana (15:17.774) Mm-hmm. The Dental A Team (15:42.844) Even three years ago, it was like, oh, let's do a scanner, right? We're doing that whole mouth scans was like crazy town. And it's like, now you're doing a whole mouth scan before you ever get to my practice. You're taking pictures of your mouth just so my doctor can do a virtual consult with you and doesn't have to be in the practice. So think it's really cool. Um, hygiene side, I know we've talked lasers before and I think that's still like one of the Dana (15:47.816) Yeah. The Dental A Team (16:10.541) one of the latest and the greatest, but what have you really seen the hygiene side? I know I pick your brain on this a lot, be able to implement maybe not, you know, virtual or AI or whatever, but just how have scanners and CBCTs and all of this new-ish, right, within the last five, maybe even 10 years, how has that impacted the hygiene visits and the care that hygienists have been able to provide to the patients in your opinion? Dana (16:37.676) Yeah, I think the technology advances in lasers, in all of the microscope and the saliva testing and all of the things that are coming out for hygiene right now. It really just allows you to give more individualized care, that you have more options to get the patient in your chair, the best result for them, because patients come in very unique varieties. The Dental A Team (16:56.881) Yeah. Dana (16:59.968) every single day and so being able to say, I have this thing that's going to benefit you. I have this thing that I know will make this area better and being able to have more choices of those to be able to give individualized care. And individualized instruction too. I not even just things in the office, the technology that's available even over the counter to patients to help with home care, to help with the things that hygienists are talking about those things every day. And so I think the technology has been a game changer in the last decade as far as being able to get patients results from adjunct treatments or different products or different. The Dental A Team (17:29.117) you Dana (17:40.108) things that are available now that just weren't. And things that don't necessarily so much of the hygiene products that existed before and still do right it It's patient compliance. So as long as patient does it does it correctly they get results and now there's so many things that actually if I do this in my chair you get the results so I don't it's not so reliant on Patient compliance and patient following through and patient stepping it up It's great come more often and I can do this come more often and I can oversee this and I can get you the results Which I think is incredible The Dental A Team (17:43.447) Yeah. The Dental A Team (17:52.123) Mm-hmm. The Dental A Team (17:59.686) Yeah. The Dental A Team (18:07.731) Yeah. Dana (18:13.264) you The Dental A Team (18:14.173) I agree. I love that conversation of just come more often and something that we've always been afraid of. Having that conversation with our patients, which has always interested me, because I mean, we tie ourselves by these rules that we feel like we're in place by the companies we won't mention today. We won't go on that tangent, but we do like put ourselves in this little box. And it's like, if we are here actually for the patient's best benefit, then all of these things Come into play for that. Come into the practice more frequently. Get your testing done. Like, let's figure out what your saliva tells us. How can we positively impact your dental health and your full body health just by the foods that you're eating or things you're drinking, which is insane and so cool. And again, couple of that with a results-driven conversation over a virtual call. Like, that's incredible. So you can help them. just in so many different ways. And as you're talking, was thinking, gosh, thinking about how different tools like AI can help support the team that you have. I think the first thing, especially from a front office standpoint is like, you're going to replace me with a robot. We're all going to be replaced with robots one day, right? Like 50 years down the road, guess what? I don't know. But the point of all of those tools is not to replace the humans. that we love and want on our team, it's to provide them support so that they can do more and do better for the patients that are coming in, the other humans. So it's like, these tools are being integrated to help support you to give a better experience for the patient base. and to support the patients in their overall health. If I have more time to spend even interacting and having a simple conversation face-to-face with a patient who's in the practice because an AI bot is scheduling someone for me, that patient is likely to say, yeah, that sounds great. I'm gonna stop drinking coffee because it's tearing up my insights based on this test you just gave me results for. Like getting people to the level where they're comfortable. The Dental A Team (20:26.63) Right? They're open that vulnerability space of just having that human interaction. So if we can take confirmations off of your plate, if we can take these things off of the humans and allow human human contact and conversation and AI or bots to text messages, like I don't need to send the text messages. Somebody else, know, a bot can do that. A service can do that. I want to be human interaction. I don't need to be electronic interaction. So. It's really cool. Thank you, for that conversation. You've got my brain thinking, you know, and hopefully those who are listening got your brain thinking too and you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Dana, think we always like to leave with action items, right? And I think action items right now are really that conversation of how can I support my team with tools like this or where do... Dana (20:58.638) No. The Dental A Team (21:18.249) Where do my team members need support so that they can have that more human interaction? So I think that's an item Dana and tell me if there's something to add or if you want to spin this a little bit. But I think that's the conversation and the action item is to really just start thinking about how your patient experience might be better or how your team's experience might be better by utilizing some of those tools. Can we do teledentistry appointments for you know, and not calling it tele dentistry, calling it your consults. Can we do consults by virtual? Can we get a bot or an offsite virtual assistant, someone that can help support our team? I that's your action item guys. Dana, what are your thoughts? What do you want to lead them with today? Dana (22:03.276) Yeah, no, I love that and I think that, you know, leaders, practice owners take time even every year to just look at office optimization and is there a new technology? Is there a new product? Is there a new service or something that can help me optimize, whether it's my patient experience or my team or, you know, services that I've got. for patients, think it's just a great time to sit down and look for opportunities there and how can you, like you said, optimize and help, not necessarily take away. The Dental A Team (22:35.533) I love it. Good. I love the word optimize. Good word to pull out there. All right, guys. This was a fun conversation. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you got some good tips or sometimes hearing something that you've heard before will spin you to think, okay, gosh, now I really actually need to do this or yeah, that was a cool thing I forgot about. So have fun with it. Go enjoy it. Optimize your practice. Go optimize your team. and really, really truly support your team and your patients in the best ways possible. And that's how it comes back to you and they will support you in the best ways possible. So leave us a review below. We love a five star that tells us how much you loved this. Tell us what you loved about it. And if there's anything else you guys ever want to hear, please make sure you send it along. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com And if you need any help with your practice or you need ideas, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com is an easy way to get that as well. you can pop over to TheDentalATeam.com and sign up for a practice assessment if you're not already a Dental A Team client. We love to just honestly give you guys ideas and tools. So thank you so much, Dana. Thank you for being here with me today and we'll catch you guys next time.
The Bulletproof Dental Podcast Episode 345 HOSTS: Dr. Peter Boulden and Dr. Craig Spodak GUESTS: Dr. Trey Tippit and Dr. Dwight Peccora DESCRIPTION In this episode, our Fearsome Four is back in full force as we discuss the state of dentistry in 2024 based on data from Dental Intel. We explore topics such as the stability of practices, the impact of inflation on the industry, and the increase in cancellations and no-shows. We emphasize the importance of tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and implementing strategies to improve patient engagement and reduce no-shows. We also highlight the need for dentists to focus on their mental and emotional well-being to navigate the challenges of running a dental practice. TAKEAWAYS The state of dentistry in 2024 shows a stratification, with top performers doing better than ever and bottom performers struggling. The average practice is experiencing more cancellations and no-shows than ever before, which can be attributed to factors such as lack of patient engagement strategies and deprioritized hygiene programs. Hygiene reappointment percentage is a crucial metric that indicates the stability of a practice and its future success. Mitigating no-shows can be challenging, but implementing systems such as confirmations, scheduling goals, and charging fees for missed appointments can help reduce their impact. Dentists should focus on their mental and emotional well-being to navigate the challenges of running a dental practice and maintain stability in their business. Accountability is crucial in dental practices to ensure that protocols are followed consistently. Creating scarcity in appointment scheduling can increase patient compliance and reduce no-shows. AI technology has the potential to streamline dental workflows and improve diagnostic capabilities. The upcoming summit is an opportunity to learn about the latest advancements in dentistry. CHAPTERS 00:00 - Introduction and Reunion 09:03 - Hygiene Reappointment Percentage 15:03 - Mitigating No-Shows and Improving Patient Engagement 35:49 - The Value of Scarcity in Scheduling 42:28 - The Role of AI in Dentistry REFERENCES Bulletproof Summit 2024 Dental Intel
In this podcast episode, Gary and Naren share a recap of the recent webinar with Dental Intel on the topic of Secrets to Thriving in Dentistry in 2024 and Beyond. Tune into this episode to learn further about the five proven strategies to make 2024 your best year yet, to learn about the data collected by Dental Intel working with 10,000 practices, and The Dental Buyer's journey further explained by Naren. This episode will help you understand the importance of leveraging psychology to convert website visitors into patients. Feeling stuck and unsure how to grow your dental practice in 2024? Tune into this episode to get insights from Gary and Naren.
Feeling stuck in your dental practice? Struggling to attract new patients or keep the ones you have? This episode is your roadmap to success in 2024 and beyond! Join Gary and his expert guests as they crack the code on the modern dental buyer's journey, revealing how patients find and choose dentists in the digital age. Discover five actionable strategies to transform your practice, from mastering same-day dentistry to attracting high-value patients and building a system-driven operation. Stop feeling overwhelmed and start thriving! Tune in and unlock the secrets to a Thriving dental practice in 2024 and beyond.
You can probably tell very quickly how big or a fan we are of Dental Intel if you've been listening to our shows. We had dental intelligence on before with Zach McKinney check that episode out. This time we are talk about Dental Intel's latest and greatest integrations using Modento. Camille Kinne is a product specialist and talks to Michael Dinsio ALONG with PAUA QUINN about how using automation can really help boost a dental start up getting patients in the door DAY #1. To get more info about Modento and Dental Intel - Just Mention "Next Level Consultants" Cam's Personal Scheduling Link:https://dentalintel.chilipiper.com/book/me/camille-kinne Camille KinneAccount ExecutiveDental Intelligence, Inc385‑695‑1783 | dentalintel.com0:00 Music Intro0:30 Introducing Guest Camille Kinne2:47 Implement Patient Workflow for Start Up4:40 Providing Patient Experience7:00 Why is Modento a Great Option?10:09 How Are Patient Forms Automated?13:38 Doing More w/ Less Overhead16:52 Collecting Money Faster/Easier19:41 Collect Insurance Claims via Modento23:58 Sending Treatment Plans to Patients26:19 Automated Recare or Recall Systems27:36 Make Getting Google Reviews Easier30:16 When Do You Start Accepting Patients?As always Michael Dinsio your host Michael Dinsio is available to you as a Dental Practice Start Up Coach. You can reach Michael at: https://www.nxlevelconsultants.com/You can learn more about what he does by scheduling a One-on-One call as well:https://calendly.com/nxlevelconsultants-michael/30-minute-new-client#dentalstartup #dentalpodcast #startupunscripted #dental Intro Music: Do The Math: by SLPSTRM from Artlist https://artlist.io/artist/503/slpstrm
Today we're going to introduce a game changer in the dental practice management software world...This is an innovative, all-in-one, cloud-based practice management software, and it offers an array of powerful features that are custom built for dentists by dentists ready to revolutionize the way you work. If you are a start-up and decide to sign up with Oryx, they will NOT charge you a single dime, until you reached 200 active patients!They are partnering up with all startup practice owners and making sure you succeed, fast! Click this link to schedule a FREE personalized demo and to see more on their exclusive deal!Guest: Brad BillingsBusiness Name: Full ScheduleCheck out Brad's Media:Website: https://dentalbilling.com/full-schedule/Email: brad@mountainwest.healthcareOther Mentions and Links:Pacific Dental ServicesQSI AnalyticsDOSAbundant Dental CareDentrixDental IntelOpen DentaleAssistWeaveForbesAndrés Irlando Forbes top 40 under 40Fortune 500MicrosoftMicrosoft Leadership TrainingsPracticeWorksEaglesoftSQL databaseKois CenterCurve DentalDentrix AscendDentrix EnterpriseHost: Michael AriasWebsite: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer SocietyMy Key Takeaways:Some of the core steps to an effective front office onboarding system are clinical and insurance fundamentals, understanding practice software, phone skills, and financial arrangements.Empowering your employees does not mean handing them a script. Give them some autonomy to make their own decisions under a certain dollar threshold.How should you handle mistakes by team members?Help team members be individually successful and they will make your practice successful.The top 4 metrics that contribute to high profitability are 1. continuing care growth, 2. open hours, 3. number of indirect restorations, and 4. percentage of firm financial arrangements.Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Alright, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Brad Billings. Brad, how's it going? Good. Brad: Thanks for asking. Michael: Awesome, man. We appreciate you coming on. If you can you kind of break it down to us? Tell us a little bit about your past, your present. How'd you get to where you are Brad: today? Oh, that's a, that's an interesting one.So actually worked at Verizon Wireless for a number of years. 15 years and made it to lower level executive status great leadership development program and I had a ton of really good leaders. think what was interesting there and probably what I'd translate into dental is, they just had every metric you could think of all the data that you'd ever want for any.Situation out of every store, every phone, everything, they just had all the data and we use that to, you know, gauge and monitor performance. I was in the sales channel, that's kind of where I started and I'll be brief on that 1. and then I moved to, uh, Pacific dental services and that was my foray into dentistry.And it's probably good that I went to a company like Pacific dental. Specifically because I didn't know anything about dentistry and they had a really good training program, which is obviously something that you need. If you're going to, if you're going to try to enter into a leadership role, within the dental industry, you have to know what you're talking about.So, pretty extensive training in a very successful region. and that kind of was my entrance into the dental world. And then the other thing about Pacific Dental is they also had an exorbitant amount of data. They worked out of a system called QSI. There might be a few people on the station that, that know of QSI.It's really archaic. It was written in DOS and, still running in DOS. You had to do. Manual um, command entries to get it to do anything. And, and then they had an overlay. I forget what the overlay was called for the doctors to enter their clinical notes charting and things like that. But the reason that they had such a hard time transitioning to anything modern, was because of the amount of data that they were getting out of that. And that really was the foundation, That I think helped kind of springboard me into success outside and into, small DSO and, and starting up a private practice.It was kind of that foundation and understanding that, metrics drive decisions. And, and if you're just making guesses about what you should do within the business, you're oftentimes going to, guess incorrectly without those metrics and data. Gotcha. Michael: And so right now, what are you doing? Brad: guess there's more background in all of that. I left for an opportunity to run a small DSO. In Utah, or to help run, I should say. So I got hired as the VP at Abundant Dental Care, a phenomenal DSO. I still have a great relationship with them. I entered in to that relationship.They had about, I think they had four practices, so very small. they were doing about, probably about 500, 000 a month. So a decent amount of money. They were like many small organizations that I saw. They were running they had a really good foundation. So they had like a really good team, really good processes, really good.Atmosphere. And this is kind of why I chose to go with them is because their foundation was so solid, really good clinical work. They had some of the best dentists out there with a really good clinical leader, which is stuff that I don't know. So I didn't want to try to tackle. solving clinical gaps along with solving operational gaps.So that's why I kind of decided to go with them. And then they, this is going to be the most boring podcast you ever.Anyway uh, they were operating off like, you know, sugar house dental care at gmail. com and they had, you know, four practices and they're just sharing documents across gmail platforms and, you know, they were careful not to share HIPAA information across those things, but that made communication super challenging.So, I initially came on, you know, as operations to help with the, case acceptance, closure and, you know, operational performance. And there were just so many gaps everywhere else that did do that. And then I also started to, work on automated reporting is where I started.They were doing these spreadsheets every night. It would take, you know, 45 minutes to an hour of. Office Manager's time. They tracked a lot. They tracked everything. How do they track everything? They, it just does a spreadsheet. And they would pull manual Dentrix reports. So they would, and I don't know if you've ever dealt with Dentrix at all, but say create this report, and then you can walk away.Like you can, Yeah. Go to the bathroom and, eat dinner and then come back and it might be done. And you do that, but you have to do, you know, four or five different ones, and then you take all the data manually off of those. And manually enter them in this spreadsheet. They had four different spreadsheets, which was also really weird, four different spreadsheets.And then they had another operator that would grab, from those four different spreadsheets that were filled out by office managers and manually enter them into this master spreadsheet that the owner would look at in the morning and decide what our day was like the previous day and try to take action, depending on that.Right. far as execution is concerned, like. They did a pretty good job with what they were doing. Like they always filled that out. They always, you know what I mean? There's a lot of people that try to do processes like that and can't execute on it because it takes a whole lot of accountability and follow up to make sure that those numbers are right.So they were doing a good job. But was manual and it took four hours at least each night, plus the hour that it took that other operator put it all together. So you're talking about five hours a day, you know, how many working hours a week. So it was an incredible amount of hours.And then it was, it was often wrong because, human error. So I just, I got a wild hair and I went to the owner. I said, look I, want to make this automated. This is ridiculous. We're doing it this way. and he was like no, I'm not going to give you any resources. You can't do that. I don't believe that you can do that.You don't have the skill set. I was like, sure. Yeah, I, okay. So I just went and did it on my own. Like at night I, I called a buddy of mine that I went to college with. And, at the time he was working for a data company, just basically doing what I was asking us to figure out. Right. And all the time I'm like researching all this stuff too.Cause I there's dental Intel out there and there's, there's a few others, but I researched probably three or four and I found out that bad data in, bad data out. And to get access to that back, that backend of Dentrix was, very expensive. And I don't remember the exact dollar amount, but I already didn't have any funding approval to do what I was trying to do.And so I'm trying to stand up on, this manual SQL backend. So what I did initially was I took this spreadsheet, put it into one, protected spreadsheet, and then had an auto pull from the spreadsheet into this database. so all I really did initially was remove That last hour of the combination from that other operator.And you know, but I worked and I was like, Oh, this is, this can be powerful, but I'm not going to, I don't have the means. We didn't have the means that this is company we weren't profitable enough to go pay the amount of money needed to get under the back end of denture. Yeah. I started to research open dental was the first one that, cause everybody researches up though they start there cause free, right.You have access to everything. You have access to all the tables. It's not an API. all the back end. So we just did like a demo account in this back end to Open Dental. And but I don't, I'm no longer employed by them. I, I ended up growing this big enough to contract with them and move on. Michael: So what is it exactly? Like, if you don't mind me asking the you're doing right now, Brad: I own two practices with a partner, a doctor, that's a partner in Utah. The laws don't make you you don't have to be a clinician to own. It's one of like three states in the US but we're set up as A D S O. So, I can own a portion of A D S O that owns practices. So we are set up legally for me to own in other states as well.But we, right now we just have two practices. And then, I also own a company called Full Schedule, which is, I'm in strategic partnership with eAssist. I'm not a partner of eAssist, so I have to make that very clear. We're a separate company, but I am in a strategic partnership with eAssist, the dental billing company, and we essentially Some of their clients I own a company that has employees that call and fill their schedule essentially.So instead of doing that automated faceless, nameless, kind of process with like the weaves of the world and whoever else we have, we put a face and a name to it, set targets to it and help them get treatment and hygiene scheduled and then, you know, we charge per office for Michael: that. So is it more like, that part, full schedule, is it more like front office services in the sense of like, Hey, I only have one front office right now, I need someone to answer phones and, take care of stuff whenever that person's doing other things. Brad: not yet. It is on the road map to have an answering service. so right now we just are filling schedule. So it's basically like, we're 2 years in our recare list is miles long, but for whatever reason, we're never full.And our treatment is still out there and it's not getting closed. So employ only, Currently, I would say stateside, so that we have, experience that we have hygienists that have been doing this for years and years, scheduling appointments, know what clinically they need to be doing all of these.So we have about 30 offices right now that we. Essentially, we just find out what they want to do, what they want scheduled how they want it scheduled, which operatories they want it scheduled in, what their treatment times are that they want scheduled. And then we follow those standard operating procedures for that office.And we fill the needs of that office, eventually, you know, fill the schedule. if we don't reach our commitments to the office, we reduce our price per each schedule not fulfilled to our commitment. Okay, Michael: man. That sounds legit. cause that is a humongous need, right?as far as when it comes to front office and answering services and things like that. So. That'd be really good. real quick, Brad, if we can rewind a little bit. You mentioned that you worked for Verizon and that they had a great leadership program. What to you, because it made it great, and what takeaways from that program would you recommend someone in a dental practice, your dental practice owner, utilize?Brad: That's a good question. think anytime you have a program at all no matter how good the curriculum is or anything else, it's dependent on the people that are in it. I was lucky. I, I had some of the, in my opinion, and granted, it's my humble opinion. I had some of the best leaders, even in Verizon.I had a. The president of my region that I was in, Oh, Andres Irlando, he was Forbes top 40 under 40, just a amazing guy. He's running another tech company now. then I had a couple of other really, some of the smartest men that I've ever met.I think that Fortune 5 companies draw those kinds of. And then I had another guy named DJ Leckwold and another guy named Shane Schwab. And these guys were just very focused on, you know, personal growth and leadership, what that actually looks like and how to communicate with your teams around performance.Cadence and meetings large workload organization, which was very challenging for me. and that's what I would probably say Verizon had is, and what these leaders did is Verizon has a ton of resources. They have classes going on around the country all the time. Either run even by teams of Microsoft employees to teach you how to use Microsoft more effectively.They have time management trainings. They have, communication trainings you know, trainings based on books like crucial conversations, and, they have all of these trainings going on. And what these leaders allowed their team to do, and a lot of leaders wouldn't because it would affect budgets.They don't understand the, uh, return on investment that you're receiving, but they would allow us to fly around the country all over. I remember flying to, you know, Massachusetts from Arizona so that I could take a time management class for Microsoft and they're not cheap, but, I still use large majority of those practices today, or I wouldn't be able to do what I do.and then on top of that, you know, obviously they modeled what a leader should, what a leader should do, what a leader should look like. So that's probably what I would say. I got, I got out of her eyes on this really good leader. Michael: Gotcha. But how are you implementing that into the practice or how would you, if you were to tell me like, this is what you got to do, Mike, for your practice?Brad: Around leadership specifically? Yeah. I think there's a Appropriate priority level leadership and leadership development. if you're an individual practice owner, we've purchased practices where there's this harsh separation between front hygiene and clinical, right? And your practice will never be successful if you're not running like you have a true leader to follow and that leader is engaged and helping the entire team be successful, and not just, the team being engaged to, make the practice successful, but also they need to feel like you're helping them be successful, whether that's in, you know, their goals and where they're headed, or.In their skill sets in the practice, but you have to be engaged and know what your employees want and what they're trying to do every single day and help them get their goals. And if you do that they'll give it back to you and help you be successful and be happy working for you. And that's, I think a lot of what leadership really is, especially on an individual practice level.From there, I mean, if you're going to go larger than that, then it, it comes to Having a an actual training process from soup to nuts. So from beginning to end, when you bring people on, you can't just assume they know exactly what you're going to talk about. And if you don't have defined training process, there's no way everybody's going to have that same training experience and everybody's going to deliver a different product to every patient that comes in and, and that creates uncontrollables that then create a lower performance.And, so yeah, that, that's kind of the difference between private and as you grow, I think private is you could really just be a leader by. Being engaged with your team and helping them be successful in who they are. And then outside of that you've really got to start formalizing and structuring a training program, leadership training and development.Michael: Do you have one of those for your, both of your practices, Brad: I've only left Abundant. think I've been outside of Abundant for three months. We just bought our second practice. In August. So, do I have one? No. And, have I felt the pain of not having one?Yes. Did I build one at Abundant? I did. We had a very robust training program with videos and tests and the onboarding processes. And I led that initiative and, and built that whole platform. And I also built a like a knowledge based platform so that, Yeah, after the training, they could go back and reference it.So, I desperately need one here. I just, as I'm sure many of your listeners know when you buy that second practice, You're first standing it up, making sure everybody's reducing turnover and, you know, keeping production as high as you can through that transition. Michael: Yeah.And we'll dive into that right now. But when it comes to the robust training, if you can, Brad, could you make us one right now? Meaning like this is what from beginning. The steps you should be in initializing, you know what I mean? Like the, I guess more like the title headline and then the headings and that's it, you know what I mean?Kind of thing. Like, how should it look? Brad: mean, that's a pretty tough question because it you want to. Michael: Could you give us like front office? Brad: Yeah. So like front desk. Yeah. Sure. And also this depends on your structure too, because different people have front desk, do different things. But, it starts with, dental knowledge. You have to have a foundation in dental knowledge and normally.When front desk, when you're hiring front desk because of the wages that they're in they really don't have foundational knowledge and I'm talking like, Keith numbers and surfaces and procedures and really just the basics because people are going to be talking to them about that stuff and they can't be just caught.Blindly in the headlights there. And from there, it would probably be to like foundational again, very basic knowledge of insurances and those sorts of things. So really just foundational knowledge between clinical and insurances. If you're taking insurances, I should say, they should know all the insurances that you take. They should know all the um, leased networks that you take and how to check to see if they're in that leased network, so that they can answer those questions appropriately. And then, the 3rd foundational piece for their job should be a complete understanding of the system they're using.So the PRM, that probably the first 3 foundational things, and then I would move very quickly to and I'm talking probably before they even have face to face interactions. They need to have those 3 things locked in and tested, or you're going to be every interaction that they have.You're going to be deteriorating the integrity of your of the perception of your business, right? And then even before again, still before the 1st face to face interaction, you should set some very clear expectations on. Communication to patients, how to answer the phone, empower them to solve problems without passing the buck all the way till the end, even if they're going to make mistakes doing it.And that takes some training too. We made a lot of videos at Abundant specifically how to answer questions when people say, I can't believe I'm on a 300 bill, let me say. You know, you very quickly say I'm, sorry that you're unaware of this bill. How can I help today? And then if they say, any anger at all, then it's okay, no problem.We'll take care of that for you. If it's under 500 bucks, it doesn't matter. We'll take care of it for you because the value of a patient is way more valuable than 500 that they didn't know about that you're trying to wrangle out of their hands. So. Anyway, so those, that's probably the foundational training for them and then it gets into more I'd say more detailed actually, you know, doing, insurance coordination and entering that into the systems and you're getting more into the details of making sure patients are set up for success while they're there, how to check copays and how to collect money at the front, things like that. Michael: So that's good, man. This is a good like process. And you mentioned something.A lot of great stuff, but one thing you mentioned is, you empower the team to handle problems on their own. It's super huge. So how do you do that? Like how do we, do we just provide them like with scripts of like, what if scenarios or? Brad: that's not empowerment enough you can't script everything.It's literally Hey, I want you to take care of the patients any way you can. Anything that you think is right probably is treat them how you'd want to be treated. If you go outside of the bounds, then we'll have a discussion, but you won't be in trouble. And then it's really you know, you got to hire well.you give them that, let them go. You can't micromanage true patient care. You really can't. And because every patient is going to be a bit, different and so you've got to have, the right front desk person with the right kind of empathy and communication skills to be able to make a lot of those decisions on their own.And yeah, I mean, there's absolutely times where like, Hey, you probably shouldn't have given that. 500 credit because they actually did owe that, but at the end of the day, if they did a very good job and that patient stayed, it's worth more than 500 bucks. So, again, it's, I guess, continual coaching.So that would be empowerment to me is you say, yeah go do it. You said very loose boundaries. Like if it goes over 500 bucks from grab us. But anything else you have full autonomy, just let us know when you're done and we'll talk about it. Yeah. Michael: Interesting. Okay. So like having almost like full confidence in them to, yeah, you made a mistake.And then almost to the point where it's like, well, let's just talk about the mistake. That way they're like, okay, it's cool to make mistakes. I mean, not huge ones, but I'll learn from them. You know what I mean? Brad: I mean, there's been big ones, man, but I still think it's more valuable for someone to have that empowerment and make One big mistake, but have corrected 20 mistakes that the patient was feeling. maybe we got 1 big mistake where they went out of bounds, you know, and they shouldn't have done that. You're still saving those other 20 patients their empowerment. And then you do that correction.And, and that is the attitude you take, like. We love mistakes you learn from it. That's great. I love that you did that. like that man. It's really good that's what empowerment is to me. Michael: Okay, and have you ever gotten like pushback from so you mentioned something about a PRM, right?So have you ever gotten people like hey, man We've been using Open Dental or practice works or Eagle software ever I know like the back of my hand like don't be switching it what happens Brad: And yes, I mean, every practice that I've been a part of acquiring and switched off of all the mainstream archaic PRMs that are out there, clinicians, especially they, they all have just challenges with that change and change is hard, doesn't matter what it is, change is hard.So I get it. And let me tell you the things that we can do after we make this change and why you're going to like this better. I mean, I think we mentioned it, but I use Oryx and all the practices that I've managed and that I own. I think that's the thing, as long as you are open about the challenges that are coming.And then understanding about the challenges that those people are going to be facing through the change. And then also you can express and make sense logically as to why the change is needed. Then most of the time you can get through those transitions relatively easy. We started really early with Oryx, and.It's a thousand times more robust than when we really, when we very first started. those first, you know, few months while I was learning and trying to teach it, I had to be the brand advocate and then I had to, get, one by one by one, these other to say, no, this is the PRM that we want to use and here's why.And, and with that one by one by one, they just kind of starts to spread. And now I mean, I still go back and ask like, Hey, if you had a chance, there's still hiccups in every PRM, but also in works. And occasionally we get a hiccup and they submit to their help team. And, And you say, Hey, would you switch?Like, even after this, would you switch? And every answer resoundingly, every time they'd never go back, there's no way to go back to a server based. Archaic DRM like that, there just isn't. Michael: Why did you decide to go with Oryx? Brad: So I was kind of getting into that before I stop, but it was that whole automated reporting thing.It started with Open Dental, and we spent a lot of money training on Open Dental on a single office. We switched one office over to Open Dental. It was on an, it was on an acquisition that we, so it was a new acquisition that we were doing at Abundant, and decided rather than, you know, Just paying for a year of, because Dentrix charges you a year up front, figured that practice, you have to re sign a contract.Rather than doing that, we were just like, let's just try Open Dental, see what happens. Super painful transition. They had good support. Open Dental was, good support, but just a painful transition. The conversion was rough. everything was pretty rough training. Everything was pretty rough.Posting was rough. Everything was rough. It was just new to me. And it was, and I'm the one training, so I'm trying to learn it and train it. And they had good support and all of that. And then we, we actually stood up automated reporting. So we pulled their backend just straight out of their database.Dumped it into a SQL database, and started running automated reports. And then I showed the owner and he was like, I want more of this. I want all of this. I want everything you can do with this. And so he was just fully body and like, when are we switching to open dental? So I started doing test conversions and all the other practices we had.And at that point, I think we had seven. So I started doing these tests conversions and open dental. I've got a lot of experience in conversions now, and I wouldn't have done it the same way that I was doing it in that first office. But anyway, I had probably 4 test conversions done. I was about to pull the trigger and I had a buddy call me from.Texas from PDS, a doctor buddy of mine. he had just got back from Coyce Institute. And he's like, just talk to me about his great experience with Coyce and comprehensive dentistry. And you know, his plan to make his practice just pop and dude, it was so exciting and he's a very engaging guy, just exciting guy to talk to.So I'm like, that's rad, man. What else, What else did you learn? Tell me everything. And he's like, Hey man, there's this software that he talked about at the end. It looked amazing. Have you ever heard of it? Oh man, I've been, I've been researching and I, I researched everything like curve, open dental, Eaglesoft, Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Dentrix Enterprise.you name it, I probably have done a test conversion during that time period for it. And I was still going with open dental after all of that. I was like, nah, man, I haven't heard of it, but. Man, I just don't see how anything this is. This has got to be the one I've looked at every other one.He's like, dude, just check it out. I called him up and yeah, I was blown away. Like, it's simple. It's intuitive. And this again was, this was four years ago. So it was much less robust than it is now. I don't know how to explain that any other way, but it did not have all the features that it has now.And so anyway I, it was really frustrating, but I remember calling the owner and I was like, Hey, look I, I hate more than anybody that I'm making this phone call right now. Like I've put months into this, I've put nights, evenings, weekends, just to even stand up our one office and open dental, but we got to do more.And he was like, no. And I was like, all right, well you, and we, Abundant was a comprehensive dental model. Which kind of, it very closely aligned, like Oryx and our model very closely aligned. was like, look, I understand. Like I said, I hate this too, but you just get on the phone. I'll get Ronnie on the phone, Ronnie and and our owner got on the phone and kind of talked through, they actually knew each other, which was small world.Yeah. But, yeah, it was very he eventually got, so he saw it and he was like, well, I could work. So we, you know, we decided to make the switch for all of them. So we switched all seven of our practices over to work. Michael: Nice man, that's good. And right now are you going to transition to Oryx 2 with your two practices or already?I do Brad: it. I do it on day one. Yeah, I don't take over a practice with that. Yeah, I've got so many systems built through this now that It just has to be done. Like rather than trying to figure out how to remote in to a server with RDPs and then manually track things I, I already have prewritten programs that pull from works as APIs.And so I, I've switched an office over day one and get API access and we're off to the races. So, man, Michael: all right, good stuff, man. So, cool. Oryx is the winner for you then. That's what you like. Oh, by Brad: far. Yeah. Yeah. and I would just, for anybody that's out there looking like, I am an Oryx fanboy, so I'll get that out of the way.But, at the very least, like, Just stay away from server based platforms. It creates complication and expense. You just don't need, just don't need it. You have to pay an it team any break that you have, like, I have an it degree and it takes me hours to figure out. These complicated setups.So, no, it's just not yeah, I would say stay away from those. Go online. Orcs is a great Michael: base. Yeah. Gotcha, man. Awesome. Awesome. So then I know you've been talking a lot about data and metrics and I feel like that's, that's your thing, right? So it is. Yeah. If you were telling me right now, I'm telling you like, Hey man, I can't, yeah.I'm struggling. struggling in the sense of like, Sometimes new patients are good. You know what I mean? looks like I'm growing, but my bottom line is also growing and all these things. What data or metrics would you say? Hey, these are the top metrics you need to hyper focus on.Brad: Yeah. All right. So this is what and this is A correlation I learned through my extensive training, top 3 most correlated metrics to practice profitability. There's actually more. We talked about 5 or 6. I'll give you top 3 and then we can. expand a little more, but top three, number one is is actually continuing care growth year over year.and it's super interesting because it tells you so many things, but care growth year over year is always the first place I focus. And the easiest way. To start that increase because you can't obviously that's you're waiting a year to see if so it's a very lag metric.It's, you look at it after the fact. So you've got to do something up front and track a metric to make sure that you are even approaching that attainable year over year growth. quickest 1 for that is just reappointment rate. them while they're in the practice? And if you're not anywhere between 85 and 95 percent, then you're actually deteriorating your practice growth year over year.And every practice that I've ever gone to is like, oh, we're killing that. We always reappoint our, then you go look at, they're always at 60 to 65 percent. I'm telling you, everybody right now on the things on your podcast is going to be saying, no dude, we're. We're at 80 percent easy if they had a number that actually pulled the data, I guarantee between 65 and 70, 60 to 70.It's always Michael: there. That causes it Brad: to decrease. And there's statistics and I don't want to butcher them, but there's essentially there's a certain. recare patients that return and a certain percentage of new patients that return. And so if you're below 30 new patients a month, which majority of practices are, I mean, both of these practices that we just got are well above that, but a lot of practices are at that 30 to 50 new patient range.If you're at 30 new patients are below and you're below I think it's 75 percent reappointment rate assuming they're going to come back, then you're going to have an actual deterioration of patients. unless you have obviously some sort of strategy to then reactivate them, but then you're doing double work on the backend rather than just doing it on the front end while they're in the practice.All of a sudden, now you're employing my company full schedule to reappoint your patients for you, which then is another added expense, right? Um, Rather than just doing that job up front and tracking performance of that job, making sure your people are doing it. Gotcha. Michael: Okay. So continuing care growth and then reappointment.Brad: Well, yeah, so really continuing care growth year over year, all that other stuff was just about continuing care growth, but that's where I would focus. Initially the 2nd most correlated is Dr. Days, Dr. Hours, call it whatever you'd like. It's a very easy one to think about, but I mean, the less days that you're open, the less money you'll make.and this is to profitability. I'm not talking revenue. So. There's a lot of practices that have this super concern of like, we don't have enough patients, so I'm not going to open another day. But the statistics show that you open another day, you're going to be more profitable. Even if you think you're not ready yet.If you open another day, you're going to be more profitable. And it's just, you know, open it up on, Google and you advertise for it and you put marketing out for it. You may be down for a couple of months, but for the year, you will be more profitable just to open the day and be there and your people will figure out how to fill it.That's number 2. Number 3 is, number of indirects, and this is a challenging one because you can't obviously set a quota on your doctors doing number of indirects, but it is just a very highly correlated metric. Doctors that do more indirects make more money. Michael: So more indirects. Brad: Yeah, indirect Michael: restorations.Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. The first one, reappointment rates. Man, that's pretty huge. So like when you come, when it goes to that, The system that you utilize that Brad utilizes for making sure reappointment rates happen is Hey, right when they're in the practice, we got to get them on the books for the next appointment Now what would happen and I'm sure you've experienced this many times, but like, you know how people complain like the no shows, right? What do you do for that? Brad: so there's going to be no shows. A good no show rate is actually 15%, which is still a ton. And that's a good no show rate, right? Traditionally, I'd say most practices are probably in between 20 and 25%. Which is a huge slide. And yes, you need to work your very best to capitalize on bringing those patients back in.doesn't really in my metric calculation, it doesn't go into reappointment rate. Because reappointment rate is if you came if you did a dollar of production, we counted as a completed appointment, and then we check for the next appointment schedule.So, we don't count that into reappointment rate. But yeah, we have strategies around and we actually do you know, heavy confirmation, and then. And so if they don't show, we usually know why and then if they're not there within 5 minutes, we call them and text them. And then if they're not there all day, we, you know, we reach out to again, try to reschedule appointment.But I think most practices do that. That's kind of like the easy low hanging fruit. you're not doing that as a practice, you've missed. That to me doesn't even have anything to do with metrics other than understanding your no show rate which brings me to my fourth metric, which is a percentage of firm financial arrangements, which is different than what I was taught historically, but in my data.Now, it has changed and from financial arrangements, this means collect in full for any appointments you put on the schedule with the exception of obviously like hygiene exams and be patient. You can't collect before they're there. But if you're going to put a root canal and a crown on your schedule, have it paid in full before you put it on there. Michael: Okay. Is there a specific script you kind of like mentioned when you're like, Hey, you got to pay us in full. Brad: You know, surprisingly, it's not super challenging. You just say we do collect in full for our procedures. Before we put you on the schedule and then you basically just say, how did you want to pay for that today?And then if they ask questions you just say well our doctor's time is valuable so we really have to make sure that the people are going to show up that say they're going to be here and usually when people pay that means they're going to be here and people really understand it They're not turned off by it at all. Like if they're really planning on being there They're going to pay for it. Anyway, the only thing that we do is If a patient's like, you know, I don't get paid till Friday can you collect for me on Friday? Then we'll say, yeah, and Norix has a great tool.You just send a text link. So you put a little reminder and, in a calendar, and then you send them a text link on that day and they pay over that. And if they don't, then you have to pull them off the schedule because. you can assume Michael: that they're not going to be there if they haven't paid. Yeah, that's true.So then these are like the four main metrics we want to keep looking at. What are, in your experience, what are the numbers or the data that you notice or you see like in the forums or on Facebook or something where practice owners are talking about it, they're looking at it, but in your mind, Brad's mind is like, man, that ain't even that important.Brad: Interestingly enough, new patient count, it is important. get me wrong. You have to have a new patient count to grow your business. But there's so many clinicians that come out of school that are, they don't even care. You're continuing care patient depth. They just care. Like if they're coming on as an associate in your practice, they want to know how many new patients. a crazy skewed metrics. 70 percent of practices established over two years. Their revenue comes from continuing care patients. 70 percent of the revenue. So 30 percent of your revenue only comes from your patients after two years. So if you're in your first two years, yeah, hit the marketing hard.Make sure you're doing your reappointment rate. But after that second year, you should be focusing very heavily on your exams what's going on there. Michael: then, Right now, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is what can a dentist do today, practice owner, to improve their marketing or their business? Brad: marketing honestly. Michael: Or their business, or their business in general. I'll Brad: give you, I'll give you my basic marketing rundown and we're, averaging about.Anywhere from 60 to 80 new patients a month at both of our practices, and it's super basic, and there's plenty of practice out there that can do much more than this, like Abundant was, really approaching 100 new patients a month, but they spent, you know, a ton of time on marketing. This is like me in my spare time while I'm also not managing operations.And helping, you know, look for new practices, but this is, it's super basic. You need, Google ads and you need a really high Google score. and that's it. If you have Google ads a low Google score, you're just torturing yourself. So make sure you have a ton of reviews. Make sure as many of them are as five stars.Don't do anything shady. Give them the experience that they want. And if you have those two things in place, patients just find you and they come. At least that's in my experience. And then we also have strategies that we're on, certain streets with 20, 000 cars passing with high visibility.Like obviously those things matter. But outside of that, that and sandwich boards and the new patient special, we don't do much. Michael: With your Google ads budget, what's the budget look like for there? Brad: 35 an office, we try to stay below 1. 5 percent of revenue. And really right now, we're at like, 0.8 percent of revenue because. We just don't need to keep spending it. So 3500 a month is what we. What we were doing and then we just never really upped it and we don't really have to Michael: you're doing pretty good like 60, new patients and everything like that. So that's really good, man.Awesome, Brad Thank you so much for your time, man I truly appreciate it But before we say goodbye if anybody wanted to reach out to you for questions or anything like that, where can they find you? Brad: man, I got I got a ton of email addresses. Let's do a Brad at MountainWest. Healthcare. Alright, Michael: Brad at MountainWest. Healthcare, you said? Alright, so that's going to be in the show notes below for anybody who wants to to Brad. And Brad, thank you so much for being with us, man. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Brad: talk soon. Bye.
Weston was the most unlikely of accountants, let alone an owner of an accounting firm, but that didn't stop this young entrepreneur from launching his very first venture in his early 20's. From there, Weston's entrepreneurial career was launched into all kinds of directions as he figured out the game of services and SAAS... eventually leading to the founding of the leading and most utilized dental office software in the US, Dental Intel. Join me on this amazing podcast as Weston shares some of his life and business lessons that will leave your notebook full of little gems.
This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental LabFor a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !Guest: Amy MurrayBusiness Name: Dental Practice Management AgencyCheck out Amy's Media:Website: https://www.dentalpracticemanagementagency.com/Other Mentions and Links:University of TampaEaglesoftIndeedDISC AssessmentMarissa NicholsonDental IntelBraving Video - Renee BrownShrekUnreasonable Hospitality - Will Guidara Host: Michael AriasWebsite: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer SocietyMy Key Takeaways:Try not to talk over your patients! Instead, be an active listener to really hear the issues and concerns they have.Resumes only show technical qualifications, so always request a cover letter from applicants to really hone in on values and personalities!Always acknowledge patients when they walk in the door! Even just a smile and a wave can make all the difference.Engaging workshops and motivating projects are essential to an effective team meeting system.Having a third party coach that can see your practice from a bird's eye view is a valuable asset!Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental LabFor a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !Thank you for supporting the podcast by checking out our sponsors!Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Amy, how's it going? Good, how Amy: are Michael: you? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind me asking, where are you located Amy: right now? I'm actually in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, so right outside of Denver. Michael: Nice. Okay, wonderful.So if you can tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are Amy: today? Well, let's see. I've been in dentistry 25 years. Um, how much time do we have? So I've been in dentistry five years and it's pretty exciting. I started off as a dental assistant and then I moved my way over into administrative roles.So I was a treatment plan coordinator, receptionist, financial coordinator. Moved myself up to an office manager, decided at one point in my life I wanted to go back to college and get my bachelors degree and become a dentist, and that didn't work out very well. I actually fell in love with the topic of sociology applied sociology's degree in as soon as I graduated from University of Tampa Dentistry Concierge in Tampa.Absolutely loved it. Um, from there I had an opportunity to move to Colorado and became a technology advisor. So I'd go into dental offices, I would teach about eaglesoft conversions, um, digital CAD cam training. And then from there I started my consulting role, uh, took a little bit of a time, a break and works for a sleep apnea company for devices and integrations into practice.And now I'm back dental coaching and consulting. Okay. Michael: Wow. So you were able to, you did technology training? Amy: I did, Michael: yes. Okay. Wow. So that's interesting. A a lot of this. So then go back to applied sociology. That's what you started falling in love with more. Why? Amy: Oh, well, I took a class in inorganic chemistry, not once, but twice.And so we didn't agree with, I took a class cause I had to in sociology. My PE professor walked in and, uh, he didn't look like a normal professor. And so I, I sat back and I opened myself up to this class. And what I loved about it is that it allowed me to learn more about, race, ethnic background, gender, um, age.And it really breaks it down into how societies work and how they function with one another. And it's so applicable as to what I do today. Okay. Michael: Okay, so then, so what you do today, how does those two mesh together? Amy: How do they correlate? Well, you know, every day as a dental consultant is something new. So in saying that, I have wonderful clients that I work with.They're, they're, they're the best in the business, I feel. And what I love about them is they are female, they're male, they're different age brackets. They come from different backgrounds and they're personal influences. Their professionals, where they went to dental schools, where they did their undergrad.And so having this sociology background, I can help in understanding how they wanna grow their business and also the element of their team member. Team members come from so many different backgrounds. It's like a melting pot. So to be able to really understand them and the ways of communication and how different cultures, genders, ages, blend, that's how you get a beautiful practice.So that's how I see they've kind of correlated. Michael: Mm-hmm. Okay. Gotcha. So this all kind of stems. From the, so how does that apply when you're hiring, I guess a team, you're finding a team member, you're looking for them. We don't, I mean, do we wanna look at their like, oh, okay. Tell me more about your upbringing, or how does that work?Amy: So, you know, it's quite interesting. I love the hiring pro, uh, process that we do with the agency. Uh, we place an ad, it's typically on indeed, When, um, individuals are applying, we do ask for them to place a cover letter, because a resume only shows me where you work and what your job responsibilities are.A cover letter is huge. That's you telling me with your verbiage, who you are, where you excel, what's your background. I, I love a cover letter. That's just wonderful for me. After I received that, I actually called the doctor, or I call the applicant, and the first question I ask them is, tell me a little bit about yourself.Such a really simple question. However, it's a very powerful, whenever I ask that question, I'm not really focusing on the personal, I wanna hear about your business. I wanna hear how you've, you know, grown your career. Where are you at, things of that nature. Then I'll ask for them, what's important for you in a dental practice to be a part of a team?What is important to you? So I capitalize on those things. From there, I actually ask them if I can send them what's called a DISC assessment. And the DISC assessment actually helps me learn what is the best way that they like to communicate. Michael: Okay. So there's like a system to it, a strategy. Yeah, very much so.When it comes to the cover letter to you, what are things you look at where this is a wonderful, like this is should be framed, cover letter or one that's like, this is nothing, this doesn't tell me anything. Amy: Wonderful, wonderful. Uh, question. So in a cover letter, what I wanna look for is a, that you can spell.That's huge. Right? And grammatically, you know, actually how to place those punctuations. Cause think about it, in our industry right now and dentistry, we do a lot of emails, we do a lot of text messages as well. So grammatically, uh, you wanna be on point. Also, you wanna have a beautiful tonality as well. I want something that's really strike me.So what are the words that you're using?What wrong, uh, verbiage and powerful words are you putting in there for me to be like, okay, this person actually has like, much better, much better, has stepped up the game. So that's what I look for. Michael: Okay. Now, so it doesn't, there's no length that you're also looking for like, oh, it has to be like 10. Amy: Oh, no.Now I always say, show me what you have. Show me who you are and why is it that you are wanting to apply for this position? Michael: Okay, that's interesting. So then you, after you decided, we rewind a little bit back to you, you went to apply sociology, you learned, and then you decided to go into some positions where you're, you know, teaching technology a rep and things like that.And then you switched to consulting. Amy: I did. Why I did, I was actually in a training class. I was training a, uh, software and I had this beautiful person named Marissa Nicholson join in on my training. I had no idea who she was. Uh, her client and her, um, team members. She took me aside afterwards and she says, oh my gosh, you had such a plethora of knowledge, not only about the software, you were giving tips and tricks about how to run an administrative role.I said, yes. I said, well, that's what I used to do in my past. And she says, have you ever thought about dental coaching and dental consulting? I was flabbergasted. I said, wow, you think that I'm good enough for that? She says, I think you're amazing. Okay. And so we started working together at that point. And it's been a beautiful friendship and a professional relationship since then.Michael: And so that was the kickstart, the inspiration, the motivation to go into that? Yes. Very interesting. Yeah. Now, when it comes to an administrative role, you said, because that's, I would say that's your forte. Wouldn't that be your area of expertise? Yes. Amy: That, uh, preservation of culture in the practice.Communication. Oh, yes. Michael: Okay, so when it, well, two questions, but the first one, when it comes to an administrative role, break it down for us. What are some things we need to absolutely have to create that system for an administrative role? And then what are some things that are not as important that we feel maybe are highlighted too much in social media or other stuff?Amy: Mm-hmm. That's a good question. Uh, I would say for an administrative role, what's super important is for somebody, To greet patients, answer the phone with a smile, put a smile on your face, you change your physiology. It's amazing the verbiage and the tonality that comes outta your mouth. So I always think that it's somebody who is charismatic, who's very positive, who wants to be there, and who wants to be a team member.They want to learn from there. I would say open communication. I feel as though in our administrative roles right now, we don't have a lot of people that are considered active listeners. We have a lot of people that want to talk over, talk over the patient. The patients are calling you because they need you, and you need to be the active listener.Ask powerful and appropriate questions. Make sure that you're hearing what the patient has to say. Repeat back to the patient what you heard them say to make sure you're capturing it so eloquently, and then take care of what the need is that the patient's asking for. Michael: Gotcha. What powerful and appropriate questions can you like prep us for that normally happen?Amy: Definitely. I always like to, first I thank patients who call, so if it is calling Dr. Speedo's office, you wanna greet them and you wanna say Thank you for choosing Speedo Family Dentistry. This is Amy, I can help you. It's powerful in that introduction because A, it identifies you know who I am. Thank you so much for choosing.If you could choose anybody, and I'm the person that's gonna be able to help you. From there, I like to ask them. Well, typically at that point they tell me what it is that they need. Mm-hmm. So I'm quiet and so it's appropriate for me to ask the next question. I always like to ask, are you a patient of record?And if they say Yes, I've been there before, that's awesome. If they say, no, I've never seen this dentist before. I said, that's great. Welcome to your new dental home. I'm very happy to take care of you. How can I best support you? Or how can I help you? Mm-hmm. And then from there, again, I'm an active listener.I listen to what the patient says and what it is that they need. If they're calling for a traditional profi appointment cleaning appointment, or if they need to get in and have their emergency met, then I'm asking a more key question. What are you feeling? Can you describe to me what location of the mouth is it?So I like to ask all those fun key questions. It's like an onion. You wanna pull back the layers and keep asking and asking until you get exactly what it's. Michael: Nice. Yeah. I feel like sometimes Amy, I remember when I was in the front, sometimes it would be like I'm rushing it, you know what I mean? The phone drinking, somebody just walked in and I'm like, okay, even though we have another front office.And so when it comes to asking questions, it, two things I feel like it made me realize is one. I'm rushing it. And then the second it's like, Hey, how's everything coming along? Is it good? Is it bad? I'm, I'm giving them options to answer instead of being comfortable with the silence. So how can we be better with, comfortable with, you know what I mean?Like asking 'em a question and then shutting up. And then the second thing would be, um, how do we handle not rushing it? Amy: Definitely not rushing am it's, it's hard, right? That's a double-edged sword, especially being in, um, a very busy practice. Uh, as an administrator, you have people walking in, you have people giving you handoffs from the back.Uh, you have other lines that are ringing. I always like to say that when a patient walks in, you should acknowledge them, acknowledge them with your eyes, even if you're on the phone, acknowledge 'em with their hand, um, and smile. So they know you're gonna be with them momentarily. What's most important, especially if there's a new patient on the phone, you never, ever, ever want, stop that conversation.That's why I initially asked in the beginning, are you a patient of record? Are you a new patient? If they're a patient of record and I have all these other things that are happening, I'm very candid with the patient of record and say, you're extremely important to me. Could you please tell me what I can do to help you?And then if it's something that I can call them back, I will gladly take their number and let them know I will call you back in the next five to 10 minutes. You gotta hold it to your word though. Mm-hmm. You gotta call him back five to 10 minutes. If it's a new patient, I'll simply roll through and do what I need to do.Um, I also would hope that I would have strong enough administrators and team members that are cross trained, that if I'm focused on something, they can also help. But I believe that if you just simply smile and acknowledge and let people know, they generally get that queue and know that you'll be with them as quickly as possible.Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So it involves also like. Letting the team members know, kind of Right. Maybe would you recommend like having like a, a signal or something when you're feeling like, okay, I have too much going on, and, you know, or, or what do you think? Yeah, Amy: yeah, you could actually, I mean, we use this for hygiene all the time with the agency, which I love.We have, uh, different colored cards. So what that means is we have green, if things are going good, there's, there's no. There's, there's not a lot of time that are on this phone call. We have yellow. Yellow is like, Ooh, this is a little bit tricky. Patient's asking a couple of questions, and then we have Ray, oh my gosh.They have a whole lot of things that they wanna get across to us. So what you can do is you can have those series of cards and as somebody walks up without you mouthing anything, miss what the patient's saying. You can easily slide over a card and, and so they know. Mm-hmm. Now that's a visual cue, and then they can know that if it's yellow or red, hey, I need to take care of this patient.Our administrator is really focused. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. I like that. The card situation. Yeah. I feel like whenever you're stuck in a situation when you're with a team and you're having a hard time, there should be like a signal or something. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yes. Amy: Yeah. There totally should be. There should be.So, yeah. Uh, we help our teams with that, so it's just a fun idea. Michael: Nice. That's wonderful. And so then you also mentioned one of your area of expertise is maintaining the team culture. Mm-hmm. And so first, how do we even. Find the, like I, for example, I'm just gonna give you an example. Like if I go, Amy, I want my culture to be happy.Do we do, how do we go from there? What do we figure Amy: out? So of course I'm gonna ask you what does happy mean to you? Like, give me some more words. That's just a real general, um, description. So I said, give some more words, more specific. Are you looking for team members? Are you wanting to preserve something that people are excited to come to work day?That you're gonna be excited to, um, I don't know, answer the phone every day, things of that nature. Right. So the way that we go about preservation for positive culture in a practice is we actually do what's called observation. With the agency, which I love because this allows us to be able to float from front to back.We watch admin side, we watch our das with our doctors, we watch hygiene, and we do this because there's certain key words that we want to see how the teams are interacting with each other and then also with the patients. So that's huge. not only do we do the observations and we're very candid, we give great feedback, constructive feedback to our team members and to our doctors as well to accelerate that.We also provide monthly team meetings. Which, uh, we, as the business coaches and consultants, we run those. And what I love about them is that we have an agenda. We do fun workshops, we focus on communication. We do disc presentation, so we'll take disc off of everybody and we'll do a fun presentation on that.Um, we'll actually talk about better strategies of how information is given and received by team members as well. Michael: Okay. So then when it comes to the observation part, what are some things you've seen that you can share with us? Like the three most common, this is what happens and this is the solution for why we can stop making that happen when it comes to a problem.Amy: Yeah, so definitely one of the things that we like to observe is the handoff. Those are critical, right? We like to know exactly, uh, that. Hy I'm gonna use hygiene, for example, if that's okay. Mm-hmm. Hygienist is in with the patient, right? It's a very, uh, it's like a dance of a relationship, right? The, the patient is gonna tell the hygienist more than they're gonna tell the doctor sometimes.So what we like to do is we like to have the hygienist, uh, after they do it, the tore of the mouth. That they specifically write down things and they also tell the patient, Hey, you, I'm a little bit concerned. I see some things here, but let's confer with the doctor. When the doctor comes in. It's important, doctor. It's still great for the hygienist to say, you know, uh, Dr. Sido, today we're seeing Mrs. Jones, and what I saw with Mrs. Jones was X, Y, and z. I'm curious about this. Could you please take a look at this and then to go in if there's perio concerns or anything of that nature? there, the doctor's gonna do their dance, but the doctor is listening to the hygienist.That's the beauty of it, right? That the hygienist is actually pointing out areas. And from there, what I love is that the doctor is gonna confer. Yep. You know you are exactly right. I see what you're seeing. Let's go ahead and get this patient scheduled. I'll see you in the next week, two weeks. There's a time and urgency.That's that appointment. So now the patient's, not the patient has heard what they need to have done. Not once, but twice. And then the third time is when they're handed off from the hygienist to the administrator. So the patient is now hearing what they need three times. This is a beautiful dance because us as humans, we don't listen to things.We don't grasp them one time. So by the time we're ready to get appointed, we're now hearing it three times and we know that is an urgency because the doctor has placed that. That really helps in the scheduling of practice. Michael: Mm. It helps finalize it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like to, to get it in there. Interesting. So do you ever feel, Amy, when you're doing the observations like. Team members act or perform kind of thing in front of you, right? And then they go back to like, because I mean, somebody watching, somebody's watching me. So I'm like, I gotta turn it on. And then maybe like somebody else is like Amy, he really doesn't act like that around here.He just, you know what I mean? Does that happen? Amy: Oh, it happens all the time. Happens all the time. Um, a lot of times myself, uh, Marissa and Nicholson and Chris Hamal, the main coaches, uh, we actually don't do a lot of the observations. We have our administrators, we have two administrators, uh, Jamia and Alexa, who actually go in on our behalf because we know how our team members act.So if it's a different set of eyes, they might get a different reaction as well. you know, we're humans, so we go straight into our automatic, it's what we know. And if we know that somebody's watching us, like you said, we can step up our game a little bit and then we kinda fall back. Um, we definitely go in.We try not to let everybody know that we're coming in so we can actually see them in their natural, uh, capabilities and where they land. Some of the times it's inevitable. If they see us, they see us. Uh, but a lot of times what we do like to do is kinda go in on the stealth mode and a different set of eyes.It might get a different return. So Michael: yeah. Okay. That's interesting. So then how can we main, we figured out how we can find the culture. How do we maintain it? Amy: Maintaining. So it's critical to have those monthly team meetings. A lot of offices, the moment you say, oh, let's have a meeting, all of a sudden people are like, no, I don't wanna have a meeting.Cause it's just by PowerPoint or there's people complaining and that's no fun, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, so I always like to say team meetings need to be motivated. Be transparent with your team about your numbers. We use a great digital software platform, Intel, and I love dental Intel. It only works with certain softwares, however, it will take within that software and put it in a dashboard, um, metric.so doctors are really transparent with their teams and you're gonna get the best outta your teams. Now, they're also held accountable for daily goals. For DR. And hygiene as well. from there I always like to do what I like to call personal and professional check-in, so gimme one one of each and everybody around the room does that.And I love it because a lot of times our teams don't have time to get to know each other, so everybody shares something great that's happened with them personally and professionally. Very clear about numbers. And then I'll actually bring in a workshop. Workshops are huge. You can go on YouTube and actually Google different type of inspirational videos.Brown is one of our. And you can pull from what she's saying and you can actually make that into a really small workshop. Ask your team powerful questions, have them work together and that is beautiful. Cause at the end of the day, you're preserving that culture cuz you're teaching everybody how to properly communicate.Michael: Yeah. What have been some amazing workshops that you've done, Amy? Well, I Amy: love disc. Disc is my favorite. When we make it really fun, we actually use the movie Shrek as a part of our disc presentation. Mm-hmm. Because, uh, you have the dominant person, you have the other person who's very interactive. You have the one that needs and the one that needs consistency. And, uh, so this has to be my absolute favorite. Second would be braving, uh, by Brene Brown. Mm-hmm. It's actually teaching everybody how to trust a team member and how a person needs to be what's called a vault. And when you tell somebody something who is a bolt, you know that they are gonna take whatever you say, to their grave.And so I love that one as well. And it's really learning how to trust one another, which a lot of times is a work in progress. Huh? Michael: Can you give us some steps right now on how we can tell our team, like you, you need to trust, you need to trust Suzy Bell, like, you know what I mean? How can we, yeah. What are some things we can do?Amy: Well, definitely I always say if you have an upset with somebody, you have to go directly to that person, right? And you have to clear the air. A lot of times it's very difficult to do. We do teach people how to do that so they feel comfortable in their own skin and to be able to go to that person. We also like to talk about how in breathing that it's super important to know that. When you set that positive culture in the practice and you know that I can go and I can talk to this person, and this person is not going to, uh, take what I say, take it outta context, share it with other people, um, we teach them that you'll have a beautiful friendship and professionalism for the rest of your life.Right, and it's really, it's learning to like and love each other. And that disc plays an important role because it's how, how can I read that person? Are they very direct? Are they mostly like a high, they're not. Listen, So it's really understanding the disc part and establishing those parameters and boundaries, um, for giving in, receiving information, and the, the three all work together, so Beautiful.Michael: Nice. When you do these workshops and assessments, or even before that, what do you do when you notice there's a team member who you're like, you don't fit, man. Like, you just don't, you're. You're negative or something. Like what? What happens with that? Amy: Ooh. Those are what I like to call crucial conversations.Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Uh, you even see it outside of the team meeting, you can pretty much pick it up pretty quickly, right. Um, what I like to do, always like to believe in the beauty of everyone. I will ask the doctor if it's okay for me to take that team member aside and really one-on-one. I'll ask the team member, are you doing okay?That's the first thing I'll ask them. If they say, yes, I'm doing fine. Say, okay, well I've noticed that there's a little bit of, um, you're not being your best self. And what I mean by that is I see so much beauty in you. How Courtney does that sound right? Me? Just saying that I see the beauty in you. It's true though.Cause look, I just said it to you and you smiled and you left. Mm-hmm. Right? Made you feel good. I see the beauty in you and I can see that you are so much more than what you're giving right now. So how can I get the very best out of you? And usually once I do that, even if you are the highest in their D category of dominant.I can get a pretty good response back and I kinda figure out what's going on with them. Michael: Gotcha. Also, you normally see that in the dominance. Like people who are like I, you know what Do you think it's that? Because it's like somebody else is coming into here and I run it kind of thing? Or, or no? Amy: Oh yeah.Oh yeah. Some of the highs, I love them. Each category has a special place in my heart, but the highs, they're gonna tell you what they need and what they want and everything else just doesn't really matter to them. It's okay. They have a special place in this world. to teach them to be more open and better communicators.That's where I kind of land when I ask them those questions. Michael: Gotcha. I have a question for you then, because I guess what do you do when, what is the best way, if you can tell, like the listeners, this will help facilitate the coach coaching consultant team or coaching consultant practice. So much easier if you do these steps.If you don't, you're gonna put the blame on me, or you're gonna put the blame on somebody else. You're just not gonna see the results you want. What would help Amy: with that? Well, I would say definitely, uh, look at a dental coach, right? They are, I know a lot of doctors are like, gosh, you know, I have, I have so many overhead expenses, and, and it can be costly.I understand that. Hiring a dental coach is taking a third party person who is actually looking for the betterment of you for the betterment of your practice and keeping your team sustainable. And that's huge. I feel as though, uh, bringing somebody on board who has the outside perspective that can look in and be very honest with you.I am honest with all of my clients. Good, better, indifferent at the beginning of our relationship. I tell them at times, you may not like what I'm gonna say, and I understand that I am looking out for the betterment for you guys to be successful. I always tell my my wonderful clients as well, I, I don't plan on being with you forever and ever.Amen. I'm gonna teach you the tools and I want you to fly, and if you need me to come back to redirect, I'm gonna be there. but we are together for a period of time. So a lot of times doctors think, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get this consultant. They're gonna be with me forever. And sustainability and financial agreements, um, our agency doesn't operate like that.Again, we will, uh, teach you how to fish and then we want you to go up and be completely successful and we'll always be your biggest cheerleaders. Michael: Okay. So it's mainly like the communication that you want. All the time. Right to, yeah. Let them know like, hey, yeah. Be, because I remember we, we would have a lot of coaches and consultants, like even with Somewhere, I'm like, where do you come from?Like, you know what I mean? Like, I've never heard of some of these before. Like I'm just like, where are you? Right? And so I never knew what they did in the sense of, oh, now we're just taking Medicaid or Medicare. You know what I mean? Now we're just doing something else. And I would see them kind of run through the door.And I remember our office manager sometimes or other people, they'd be like, yeah, you know what, they don't know what they're talking about. Yeah. They're not gonna come in here and fix it. And I'm like, maybe if we were more flexible, it would've worked. Or maybe if they knew what they were, you know what I mean?Kinda Amy: thing. Yes, yes. It's very, very true. It's very, very true. I always love to give team members, I always like to let them know I am joining to help you grow. A lot of times when team members hear the word consultant or business coach, they automatically think that they're not gonna have a job.And that's scary. So of course their defenses are already up. So when Chris, Marissa, or myself go into a practice, we always introduce us who we are. I give them my background. I always say to administrators, I used to do what you did. I know how important your role is. Mm-hmm. And I'm here to help you.You had three things. Three things you love in this practice, tell me. And then they'll tell me. I said, okay, if you had three things that you wanna make better in this practice, what are they? And I asked every single team member that question, and let me tell you, nine times outta 10, they're all saying the same thing.They might say it differently, there's a common thread. And that's when I typically take that common thread back to the doctor and I say, okay, so this is what I'm hearing. This is what I'm seeing. But I like to let the team members know that I'm there for them. I want them to grow and for them to be successful.Michael: Mm. Okay. I like that. Three common things, you know what I mean? Yeah. Especially if they're all like, what's this one person? Then, you know, like, ok, then we gotta get rid of that one person. Whatever. Interesting. I'm kinda ok. Yeah. Yeah. So these next questions are just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry, working every day in the mouth, right?Yeah. What would you like to see more from a dentist? Amy: Oh goodness. What I would love to see more from a dentist is, Look at your team members, be appreciative of your team members, and know that they are there every day, day in and day out to make you better and to support you. I think a lot of times as dentists, we overlook that.They are so worried about, um, overhead, right? Getting more new patients. How do I market myself better? There's so many things that they're thinking of, and a lot of times we really don't look inside and we really don't appreciate the team that is supporting us and helping us grow. So what I mean by that is I always tell my doctors once a quarter, do an activity with your team.Show them how much you appreciate them. My goodness. Um, order, coffee, things of that nature. It's the small things that really mean a lot. one workshop that we do, it's really great, we talk about value, um, morals and values, and I learn while the doctors there, what their team member values. And some of the times the doctors sit back and they're like, I never knew that that's what they needed.That's what them going in the day. So I, I feel as though that type is, um, really gonna make it better for, for the, for the dentist all the way around. Michael: Mm. Okay. I like that. Like doing activities with them, letting them know you appreciate them. Yeah. Um, understanding that it is true. You need them to, you know what I mean?You need Amy: them. Yeah. You need them. Michael: They're important. Okay. All right. So next question is right now. What do you dislike or hate about dentistry? Amy: Oh, goodness. That's a tough question. I would have to say, uh, what I dislike with dentistry right now is, um, everybody is looking for new patients, right? The, the dentist believe that more new patients I have is the bigger and better that I'm gonna grow, and they miss that.They miss what's most important. What's most important is the current patients that you're serving. So what do I mean by that? Well, when your patients walk, the first question that your administrator needs to ask is, how is your visit today? That's such an important question because that one question, if they had a great visit and the patient responds, oh, it was awesome.It was great. That is so wonderful. We are accepting new patients. Do you know of anybody who's looking for a new dental home? And then again, active listeners don't say anything. Mm-hmm. Don't say anything. And if they say, well, you know, I don't know. Here's some of our cards. We love patients just like you.So if you do, please send them our way. What a beautiful compliment you just gave somebody. Right? And positivity. They're gonna go and they're probably gonna tell other people. And by organic growth, we're getting new patients. And I think that if dentists would take a moment and take a step back and really listen to what I have to say in regards to that, you would be amazed what you would get.Mm, Michael: doing that with every single patient, right? Every single patient. Amy: And it flows, it really does flow. Uh, at first when you tell administrators to do this, they look at you and they say, I don't have enough. That's what they say. I don't enough time. You actually do have enough time. It really just rolls off so easily because you know Mrs.Jones, you know she's amazing and you want more people like her. So give her that beautiful compliment and let her know you guys are looking for new patients and when you want people just like her. Mm-hmm. Michael: Beautiful. I like that. I like that a lot. Okay, so focus on the internal marketing kind of thing.Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. And then right now, what do you absolutely love about dentistry? Amy: What I love about dentistry is, um, all the beautiful team members that I get to work with and the wonderful clients that I have. It's super important. With our agency, we focus on the quality of our clients, not the quantity.The quantity doesn't define us. What definitely defines us as the quality. I love the fact that, um, my clients know they can call me whatever time, day or night, and I'm gonna be there for them even on the weekend. I cherish them. I cherish our relationship. I love the fact that they were like a, they opened their kimona for me to come into their practice and to help them succeed.So, being an open dentist, it really does open you up to so many capabilities and possibilities. It's pretty awesome. That's what I really love about dentistry now. Nice. How Michael: does, let me ask you side note, how does that affect your, I guess, like personal life? If they're always like, you can call me no matter what, whenever.All the time. Yeah. What does that look like? Amy: Oh, it's great. It really is. Uh, a lot of times they don't always take me up on that. However, if it's a nine one emergency, they know that I'm gonna be there. You know, Chris, Marissa, myself, we do like to spend time with our families and outta town. The beauty about our working relationship is that we will cover for one another as well.Mm-hmm. So we communicate if somebody's gonna be non-available, that person, the other coach will be responsible to take those calls. So I try to kinda balance it the best as possible. But again, it comes down to the quality of my clients and not the quantity. I, I love them all dearly and I wanna take the very best care of them.So whatever it takes. Michael: Yeah, that's nice. That's wonderful. And then to you thinking of the general population, what needs to change for people to be more open to dentistry? Amy: Well, you know, unfortunately we live in a populace where we have a lot of patients who are very fearful of the dentist. And so they won't go, and I'd like to think that, you know, unfortunately, fortunately, COVID actually brought a lot of attention to this because it's the oral cavity, right?Oral cavity is the gateway to your systemic health. And so what I'm really, really hoping is, is that people will take their oral health very seriously. So where does that come from? It actually comes from, um, you know, children being in school and they have a hygienist.embrace your child to take them. Find a great dentist that suits you. as a patient, when you call a dental office, ask specific questions. Ask how long have they been in dentistry? What do they special? Do they do history? Uh, let let the administrator know. If you're high fear, you know, gosh, I just don't like coming to the dentist.Right? And find that right practice. That's going to love you and support you and help you in your dental journey. Okay. Michael: I like that a lot. And then, what's one of the best advice you've ever received that you can share with our listeners? Oh, Amy: in general. In general? Mm-hmm. In general, um, you know, One of our, uh, Chris Oval, this one is the best for me.I've gotten better. I've gotten better. I was not the person who was always on time, right? Mm-hmm. And I love philosophy. If you're on time, you're late, so you need to be early. And that's considered on time. I think that that was actually the best piece of advice she has ever given to me and has shown me.Because for me, when you're early to something, it shows that person that you're meeting, Hey, I'm here undivided attention. I'm waiting for you. I'm excited to meet you. So I always like to live with that, that theory of if I'm early, I'm one time. Yeah. And I'm winning. And it shows that person that they're very important.Nice. Michael: Wonderful. Awesome. Amy, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you? Amy: Oh, yes, you can. You can go to www.dentalpracticemanagementagency.com and you will find myself, Marissa Nicholson and Chris Hamal. Awesome. Michael: So guys, that's gonna be in the show notes below.And Amy, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure, and we'll hear from you soon. Amy: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
In this episode, Jasmine Smith, from Versa Solutions, breaks down 5 actionable tips that we can use to ensure a smooth insurance relationship.Get Credentialed - Yes, credentialing can be tricky, and it may be temping to bill under your name instead of the associate performing the treatment, but don't do it! This results in a messy claim and can be a red flag for future audits.Sign up for EFTs - Electronic Funds Transfer methods allow payments to be easily processed and can eliminate the travel time and restrictions of physical delivery.Verify Benefit Eligibility - Always double check a patient's benefit eligibility. Even though they might say they are covered, making sure can avoid future disappointment.Document Everything - The more documentation on procedures the better! Always keep good notes to avoid claim denial.Review AR Weekly - Be sure to review your Accounts Receivable balance at least once per week. If this is close to zero, meaning no money is owed, your account is in a good place!You can reach out to Jasmine Smith here:Versa Solutions WebsiteFacebookLinkedinTwitterInstagram: @versasolutionsincOther Mentions and Links:CAQH Credentialing Service (ADA)Practice by NumbersWeaveDental IntelIf you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041Our Sponsors & Their Exclusive Deals:CARESTACK | Cloud-Based Dental SoftwareSCHEDULE A FREE DEMO TODAY!Click the link below and get 1 MONTH FOR FREE + 10% OFF your Annual Subscription + 50% OFF Your Set-up Fee!Check out CARESTACK now: https://lp.carestack.org/thedentalmarketerDandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental LabFor a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: meetdandy.com/tdm !Thank you for supporting the podcast by checking out our sponsors!Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Hey Jasmine, so talk to us about medical and dental billing. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help us with doing medical and dental billing? Jasmine: Right. So Michael, my experience as a, billing company owner, uh, involves mostly helping practice owners get to the bottom of their slow insurance and patient collections, and not only implement systems, um, to help achieve faster cash flow, but actually keep those systems running smoothly for them.So, We put the work in and do all of the work, . So, um, we help all kinds of specialties, practice management softwares, practice types, whether they're fee for service, p o, Medicaid. So we've seen it all, done it all. but the common denominator I noticed between all of these practices, it's staffing issues.It seems like everybody's having an issue with that right now. Mm-hmm. . So you can't keep your biller who or your office manager who's gonna make sure your claims go out, who's collecting from the patients. Who's sending statements and making follow up calls to the patients about their bills. Um, 1, 2, 3 years go by and you realize you've only gotten paid six to 7 cents of the dollar that you've actually worked for.So the other side of the staffing issues is, um, hiring someone who has good intentions, and they believe they know the ins and outs of dental billing, but they really don't, and they can create some costly mistakes for their practice. So, If as the practice owner, you're not auditing the work, things can pile up really quickly.So we've seen that happen as well. But I'm here because I wanna share five tips that every practice owner should implement that I wish everybody knew about. So the first one is get credentialed. I heard on one of your other podcasts of someone, um, really going into this point, going into depth.That was great. Don't go off and hire an associate. Allow them to treat patients in your office and then bill under your name as the treating dentist. That's not a clean claim. That's an easy way to flag an audit with the insurance company because, um, if you're attaching your narrative for, you know, a procedure whose name is at the bottom, whose name is signed at the bottom of that narrative.So, um, and if you accidentally. A batch of claims with, you know, your associate on them and you get it back and it's out of network or, you know, um, there's a denial. Then you wanna send a batch of, corrected claims with your name on it. That may cause suspicion as well. the a d a has a pre credentialing service, C A Q H, so that's a great, um, tool to use to get credentialed applications.Second one is sign up for as many EFTs as possible. We've seen a claim go out same day as the date of service, and then you get paid the very next day. We've seen these bank accounts get funded the very next day after you see the patient. So that's very, very quick. Um, a lot of the insurance companies are getting crafty with insurance, credit card payments or v c virtual credit card.Um, that's when they send you like, Hey, here's a credit card. You can process your credit card machine, for payment for this, you know, procedure. Um, but you actually. , charged a lot of fees with your merchant service. Mm-hmm. , if you do a annual, you know, credit card mm-hmm. , transaction, so there's no charge to receive EFTs from an insurance carrier.Um, and then, you know, when disaster strikes in an area which we've seen, there's been hurricanes lately. Um, the mail stops, that's tens of thousands of dollars that's waiting To get to you. So, you know, imagine if you just had that direct deposit and you can access it immediately and do what you need to do.Also, the paperwork of getting paper claims and checks all the time. It's just a bummer, . So, uh, my third tip. Is to verify. Uh, when a patient comes in and hands you an insurance card, you really need to verify the eligibility and benefits. You can't just take their word for it, that they have coverage and everything's covered. don't bill blindly don't update the benefits in the system by blindly, uh, yeah, it's the patient's job to know their benefits, but I assure you less than 10%, maybe even 5% of people actually know their benefits. , they're still gonna be upset when they have to pay that 25 dollar deductible that you didn't tell them about.So just find out beforehand. What their insurance is all about, who you're billing, even before they're seen. And if you can't do that, if you just have no time, outsource it. There's many companies that do this. Um, and my fourth tip is documentation. I also heard another one of your podcasts or someone really, um, honed in on this point.not only do x-ray. Need to justify a procedure being completed, but the clinical narrative needs to paint the picture as well. So, for example, we usually see the most denials with crowns and buildups. then we see the narrative template and we're like, oh, that's why , because the insurance carriers want to see whether it's an initial. Or replacement with the prior placement date? Was it a fracture? They need the location of the fracture. I've seen sometimes they were asking for the length and depth of the fracture. was it a fail amalgam restoration, recurrent decay? How much of the tooth had decayed before removal? How much of the tooth was remaining before the buildup?Just so much needs to be in the narrative for processing, and that will make sure that you. Your payment quicker, and if you have a denial, it would be far and few in between. And then my fifth point is with patient billing. Um, we offer a service for patient billing with our company. So we've seen it all in this area as well.Um, at the very least, you should review your new accounts on your AR on a weekly basis. So these are. Accounts, ideally that you know insurance has paid, um, and you need to review the ending balance. Every pr uh, practice management software really has a easy way for you to check this. and then you can send your statements out immediately after you re you reviewed the account.what we do is make notes on the account, just showing us where the balance is coming from. And when the patient does call, we can just locate our note and explain where the balance is coming from really easily and quickly. Um, and then when you make a rule, stick with it. Like, if you deem contacting the patients three times is enough, maybe statement, call statement, write the balance off or send them to collections.Don't let the balance linger. That's how your ar will increase over time. So just take action, you know, make some rules, set a system up with your staff and, um, your AR would, you know, look pretty clean. If your patients overpay you, this is the other hand of it, pay them back. Um, keep your AR as close to zero as possible.So not too many credits, not too many debits. Let's just, you know, keep it close to zero, which is what we try to do with our company as. Michael: nice, Jasmine, I appreciate that. Out of these five, I, I kind of wanna rewind a little bit. When you mentioned, um, the number two sign up for as many EFTs you said Yeah.As possible. Okay. Can that ever backfire or no? Jasmine: Um, I've not seen it backfire. Only when there is a recoupment that needs to happen. you know, patient. Plan actually terminated, but the insurance paid the office, they'll just take it out of the next payment. So you really have no control over that.Usually if you get paper checks, they'll ask for the money back in another check. So you really have no control over that. But you know, they'll take it out of something anyway, . Gotcha. Michael: Okay. Do you guys do medical billing too? Jasmine: Um, we send medical claims for some of our oral surgery offices, when needed, but we don't really dive into the medical billing part of it with the coding and I c D 10.Michael: Gotcha, gotcha. So then where do you see out of these five tips, like people mainly have the Jasmine: most hiccup. most hiccups is probably the verification. Um, there are so many claims that go denied or rejected because the verification wasn't done in the beginning. probably second one would be the credentialingMm-hmm. , um, hiring an associate and not putting them on the claim. It's just kind of, I see that a lot. I know it's a headache trying to credential all of your new, employees, especially if, um, you're going out of network anyway. but it's just good to put them on the claim form. And then documentation would probably be number three.why Michael: documentation, like what is not Jasmine: enough detail or not enough detail? Um, some doctors have their assistance right in the details of the narratives, and maybe they're not just, they're not trained enough or not enough was communicated with them. Um, but yeah, I, I would recommend, you know, at the end of the day, just review all of your notes.Make sure. It's completely, filled out to the brim . Yeah. Too much information is good. Um, especially when trying to get these claims paid the first time. You don't wanna have it denied and come back and wait another 30 days for that to process. So. . Michael: Yeah. Because I feel like that can be a headache, especially when you get a lot of denied claims.I mean, you're on the phone, you're at the front office, you're getting another denied claim. You know, you're, you're dealing with that and people are coming in calling and all these things. Right? So it can be tough. I like what you mentioned when you said make a rule, stick with it to you.From the many practices that work with you guys, what have you seen to be like a really fantastic role when it comes to this? Jasmine: So we, uh, contact patients six times, right? So that's our role as our billing company. If we contact the patients, we we're probably sending three statements, making three follow-up phone calls.that's our role. We stick with it. The offices tend to agree that yeah, that's a good amount of times to contact a patient about their bill. If they're not paying by then, then you know, how many other times do it. So, That's the rule, and that's good. It, when we're done with it, we exhaust all attempts.Patient either gets sent to collections or if the balance is too low, it's written off. Lots of notes are written on the, um, on the account. Popup notes are created, so before the office or the patient even comes in, they have to pay the bill. So it's smooth. It, it works. . I think that's a, that's a good rule.Sometimes they're like, did we contact them enough? I mean, we sent one statement. We, we called them, they said they'd pay it, but they never did call four more times. . Mm-hmm. . That's the rule. And then if they don't, then send it to collection. So, yeah. The amount of times of contacting a patient I think is a good rule to.Michael: Do you ever recommend like texting or emailing them or Jasmine: no? Yes. Um, now, in this day and age, take advantage of as many resources as you can. A lot of dentists have, dental intel. They have a payments feature. Practice by numbers also has a great payments feature. Um, I know we use our offices, if they have Weave, we'll use that on behalf of their office to text, you know, um, the patients and send 'em their bills.So, take advantage of, of that mailing statements is, gonna be a thing of the past Michael: now. Yeah. So then would you recommend, is that part of the six? So like, would it be like, . Then number two would be like text and th like that, or, Jasmine: yeah, yeah. Usually you can send an email and a text at the same time.That'll count as one contact, and then we'll follow up with a phone call and then send another email, text, um, we call, because we wanna make sure they're actually receiving their invoices. and if that method isn't working, we change it up, you know, especially if the patient's older, they probably need a mailed statement, so we'll, we'll change it up for them and send 'em a mailed state.Michael: Okay. Awesome. Any final piece of advice you wanna give to our listeners about medical and dental billing? Jasmine: stick with the pros. If you can't, um, do it or you feel overwhelmed with it, with your office, you don't have to worry. You know, you can outsource it. It's often cheaper than hiring a billing coordinator for your practice, um, or care than, you know, training someone to, um, do everything correctly.Hire, outsource it. If you can't, like I did, like I said with the verifications, we don't do verifications, but a lot of our offices outsource that and they see much more collections in a lower AR because of it. so yeah, don't be afraid to ask for help . Michael: Awesome, Jasmine, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her in the Dental Marketer Society Facebook or where can they reach Jasmine: out to you?Um, our website is www.versussolutionsinc.com. Uh, also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, , everything there. So, um, yeah, feel free to reach out. We're everywhere. Michael: All right. That's gonna be in the show notes below. And Jasmine, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode. Jasmine: Thank you.
In this video, we discuss practice management and how the future will look in the marketing industry. What are 3 tips (recommendations) to improve business or life?: 1. Set concrete goals with a timeline. 2. Have a 5-10 minute morning huddle every day with staff to review goal progress. 3. Have a weekly meeting to review metrics and progress with stakeholders. Dental Intel - www.dentalintel.com Omni Matic - https://www.omni-matic.com/ Practice Management Associates - https://docpma.com/ Thanks for listening! -Don --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/drpelto/message
Zach McKenzie, partner success manager - Joins the show from Dental Intelligence. Dental Intelligence can do SO MUCH!
As we continue June's topic on how to get paid, we had the pleasure of talking to Jordon Comstock of BoomCloud, an app that helps drive revenue growth by managing, tracking, and automating your insurance membership plans. Tune in as we discuss:What membership programs are and what they are notThe impact membership programs have on the average revenue per patientIncreasing patient loyalty with the right membership plansHow to make your membership program succeed and attract When it makes sense to implement a membership programYou can get more info at boomcloud.comTo see a demo of Dental Intel and receive a $50 gift card, visit: get.dentalintel.com/podcast
We're continuing the conversation on getting paid by chatting and learning from Dan Larsen, VP of Product Management at Dental Intel, and discussing outstanding AR. We dive in to what's new in the world of accounts receivable solutions and how automation is changing the game for the better.Today we chatted on:Automating your AR and what that looks like in actionHow automation helps makes your practice human, not lessHow di. Payments takes care of AR from start to finishVisit dentalintel.com for more information and to see how Payments would be like in your practice!
We got to meet @CurtisMarshall with Dental Intel at @Dr. Phelp's Dental Workshop in Charlotte, NC. Dental Intelligence and Med Rank Interactive were both sponsors of Dr. Phelp's event. We instantly saw the value of working together by helping dentists thrive with digital marketing, data analytics and profitability tracking. In this episode, we chat with Curtis Marshall of Dental Intelligence about his philosophy on the two types of patients, how Dental Intel helps with those types of patients, how Dental Intel measures profitability in a dental practice, what tools can dental practices use to automate their marketing efforts, and much more. With over 20 years' experience in marketing and communication, and 15 years' experience in practice management, dental coaching, and operations, Curtis Marshall, a co-founder of Dental Intel, utilizes his passion and skills to help dental professionals nationwide take their companies to the next level. Dr. Bret Tobler said, “Curtis is a fantastic motivator. He is energetic, charismatic and personal. He is the kind of guy who makes friends wherever he goes. He's been a great resource for growing and promoting our business.
Leadership, Management, and Team Engagement (A COVID-19 Conference Favorite) Episode #406 with Josey Sewell Do you find yourself dreading Mondays? Well, 70% of the working world is with you! Employees are disengaged worldwide, and they are increasing in number. And to help prevent you from having frustrated and disconnected workers, Josey Sewell from Dental Intel shares how to grow better leaders and managers and have better team engagement. If you want to create a healthier, more joyful work environment so you can look forward to Mondays, listen to Episode 406 of The Best Practices Show! Main Takeaways: Only about 15% of the world's workers are engaged. Great managers are critical for worker engagement. Lack of clarity creates chaos and frustration. People want to be coached, not managed. Create vulnerability-based trust with your team. Don't be afraid of numbers and data. Quotes: “People are looking for purpose in work, and it's up to us to provide them and help them see that purpose. And when you can do that, it's amazing how your team can support you.” (10:49—11:02) “[According to a Gallup poll,] just 15% of the world's workers are engaged at work or appeared to have great jobs. 70% are just not engaged. And what I mean by “not engaged” is that maybe they clock in, and they clock out, and they're not necessarily super excited to be there, but they're not really that miserable. They're just in-between. They just do enough to not get fired. And, unfortunately, 70% of the world's population is living that. The other 15% are actively disengaged. So, what that means is they are miserable, and they want to commiserate with everybody and make everything difficult for everybody else.” (11:51—12:35) “One of the things that I learned is that that 70% [who are not engaged], sometimes they were on the fence. And what we found in working with a really large team is that their choice to become the active employee or the disengaged employee often had to do with how we dealt with the 15% of people who were disengaged. Because if they got away with whatever, and there was no accountability, and they made everybody miserable, but it didn't matter that they didn't follow the rules, why on earth should I really put forth a lot of time and effort into this team or into this company? So, make sure that you are consistent with your rules. If you say this is the way that it's going to be, you stick with it.” (12:36—13:16) “Gallup says that if we increased even just to 50% of people being actively engaged in work, the world would literally change overnight. Actively engaged employees boom your business, inspire teams, and solve problems instead of creating them. They volunteer in the community, have fewer workplace accidents, have better health and well-being, and make fewer mistakes.” (13:26—13:51) “The single, most profound, distinct, and clarifying finding ever: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. It's the manager that makes such a difference.” (14:24—14:42) “Being a great doer of tasks does not always make somebody a great manager. And there's not a lot of training or things that are available for managers, so you have to put an emphasis on helping them lead and manage people.” (15:29—15:43) “If you're just doing an annual performance review like they used to do decades ago, that is not enough. [Employees] want constant feedback and coaching.” (16:37—16:46) “People don't want to be managed. People want to be coached. And so, the manager has to turn into being a coach. The coach does not only just provide answers with every question that's asked; they ask good questions to facilitate learning. They're not judgmental. They're supportive. They do not dictate what must be done. They facilitate development and learning. Command and control is out, and collaborate and coordinate is in. So, it's much more that your team members, every single one of them, is leading within their position.”...
On this special episode of the podcast, our very own James Grover, CPO of Dental Intel, joins us to share his passion for dentistry and how his mission to help the industry get paid has already been revealing its impact. Here's what we discussed:Exchanging and leveraging strengths to succeed furtherSimplifying the challenge of collecting patient payments What automating accounts receivable actually looks likegrowthindentistry.com dentalintel.com
The Reason Communication is Challenged in Your Office Episode #381 with Katie Poulsen Just like on the playground, there is an in-group and out-group in your practice. And typically, the dentist is in the out-group. To explain why that is and what you can do to close the gap, Kirk Behrendt brings in Katie Poulsen from Dental Intel to share her research findings for why communication is so challenging in your office. There are many key elements to running a successful practice, and one of them is to keep your team happy! To find out how, listen to Episode 381 of The Best Practices Show! Main Takeaways: In-groups and out-groups form because of conflict. Dentists are typically in the out-group of their practice. Communication breakdowns cause conflict. Not communicating expectations can cause conflict. Set a time for discussion so conflict can get resolved. Have consistent meetings, individually and as a group. Effective communication is learned, not inherent. Quotes: “I wanted to study who was in the in-group in a dental practice, who was in the out-group, and why were they in the in-group or out-group, or does it even exist. And I had an idea, but I wanted to verify it. So, through a survey, and interviewing with multiple different roles in the practice, hygienists and dentists, different genders in each role — I didn't want there to be any gender bias — I found that, as you can imagine, dentists are in the out-group of their practice.” (7:27—8:05) “For a lot of dentists, [being in the out-group] happens for a lot of reasons. And what it all revolves around is conflict. For whatever reason — and this is a whole other thing that needs to be studied — most dentists, I don't know if they choose the profession because they don't like conflict, or the profession makes it so that you don't like conflict. Maybe they liked it before, and now they don't because they're in the profession. But it really does draw people who do not like conflict.” (8:52—9:28) “We can make a generalization that most humans don't love conflict. But for whatever reason, there are a lot of dentists who are conflict averse. And so, they want to do their job. They show up, they do their dentistry, and they let the office manager or somebody else in the office deal with all of the drama in the practice. Which, then they're like, ‘I'm the leader, and so I'm going to be over here. You guys work together. Let me know when you have a problem.' Which, really, it makes for a huge chasm in the communication breakdown. It makes it so you don't get trusted by your employees. They don't go to you with problems because you're not approachable.” (9:29—10:16) “Dental hygienists do have overlapping responsibilities in the practice. I did a lot of anesthetics for the dentist. You can feel like your hands are tied a little bit with diagnosing periodontal disease. Like, you can see it, but you can't diagnose it. Or can we diagnose it? It's being seen as a provider, even. I mean, there are a lot of practices where the dental hygienist is just treated like a member of the staff. And maybe they're okay with that. But that's the root of where all the problems exist. And it's not just dentistry. It happens in any place where some of the tasks and expectations overlap between providers.” (12:04—12:50) “Add the fact that there's not time to have conflict in a busy dental practice. You can't approach [your team] over the patient, and the next patient is coming in the door. And by 5:00, everybody's ready to get out of there. So, if you don't set time to discuss these things, then they don't ever get resolved.” (13:23—13:44) “When reviewing and surveying a bunch of these providers, hygienists and dentists, I was looking for common themes of why they were in the in-group and the out-group. And the first and most prominent theme that came about was expectations, setting expectations. And there were a lot of hygienists who felt like the line was always moving. And the same
I keep hearing people in the dental field talk about being burnt out and wanting to work from home. In this episode we talk about working from home opportunities and how to use your skills and knowledge outside of the dental office.Dental Intel is providing FREE growth reports for listeners off this podcast, to request one just go to get.dentalintel.net/PracticeAllygrow-growth-report.
Kiera is joined by Tom Brown of Your Virtual Consult, a system that educates patients about dental procedures and expectations over the computer. Did you know that case acceptance across the United States currently averages 41%? By incorporating Your Virtual Consulat, you can bump that up to 89%! Kiera and Tom talk about how the system will better both case acceptance and patience experience and improve efficiency and automation in your practice all while keeping a personal touch! Listen to this episode to get a taste of what comes with Your Virtual Consult. Be an early adopter and get more qualified patients coming to your practice. About Tom: After a decade in dentistry including stints at Dental Intel and LocalMed, Tom is currently partner and VP of sales with Your Virtual Consult. Tom's love of dentistry (which he's been in for almost a decade!) and technology paired together has made him one of the most well-known faces in dentistry. He enjoys traveling to dental shows, tinkering and refining his teams' processes and of course meeting up with industry friends from across the country. When Tom isn't working on Your Virtual Consult, you can find him hanging with his 10 brothers and sisters, exploring DisneyWorld, and playing volleyball every Tuesday night with his wife. Episode resources: Try out Your Virtual Consult Get in touch with Tom directly Reach out to Kiera Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Become Dental A-Team Platinum! Review the podcast on iTunes
Join the discussion on Facebook!Full Transcript:Jonathan:Welcome to the Tooth & Coin podcast, where we talk about your adventure of being a dental practice owner. In these episodes, we're going to be talking about problems that you will likely face as a practice owner, as well as give an idea about actionable solutions that you can take so that you can get past this problem in your practice. Some of these concepts are really big ones. Some of them are very specific, but we hope that these episodes help you along with your journey.Jonathan:Now, a very important piece for you to understand is that this is not paid financial advice. This is not paid task or legal advice. We are not your financial advisors. We are not your CPAs. This is two CPAs talking about informational and educational content to help you along with your journey. It's a very important piece for you to understand.Jonathan:Another thing that you need to know is if you enjoy today's content, join us on the Facebook group. So we've got a Facebook group that is active with dentists that is going to have content talking about what we're talking about today, to continue the discussion. Agree with us, don't agree with us, have a story to tell, have something to share. Join us in the Facebook group. If you go to Facebook and you search for Tooth & Coin podcast, click on it to join it and be able to join us there.Jonathan:Finally, if you need some more help, we're developing a list of resources that are going to be centering it around our topics of discussion, to be able to help you a little bit more than what the content is doing. So if you'd like access to that, whenever it becomes ready, all you have to do is text the word toothandcoin T-O-O-T-H-A-N-D-C-O-I-N to 33444.Jonathan:Again, that's toothandcoin, all one word, no spaces, to 33444. Reply with your email address and we'll email you instructions on how to get into a Facebook group, as well as add you to a list to be able to send you those resources when they're available and if they're available, we'll go ahead and send them to you as well. So onto today's episode. I hope you enjoy it.Jonathan:Hello, ambitious dentist. So today we are talking about the CFO role in dental practices. One of the things that I talk to about, a lot of dentists about throughout all of my conversations is what a CFO is, what they do, how they are aligned with your business. Do you even need one? I'll be honest with you. There's a lot of confusion in the dental industry around the function of a CFO, what CFOs do and is your CPA your CFO? Is that who it is?Jonathan:There's a lot of misconceptions about it and Joseph and I are going to talk about that today. So if you didn't listen to the first episode, this is episode number two. On the first episode, we outlined a bit about what the podcast is going to be about. In this episode, we're going to talk a little bit more about that CFO role and what it is, how it works and things like that.Jonathan:Joseph was actually the CFO of a medical company that was in the services space and had a lot of success. Seeing that business go from around $3 million a year in revenue upwards to almost eight figures in revenue. So he's got a lot of insight to this and I'm going to be asking him and interviewing him on this topic. So Joseph, why don't we start with that. Let's start with what is a CFO and what do they do?Joseph:Great question. Thanks. So when we think about different roles inside of the organization, I think most people are familiar with a CEO and could probably even tell you what a CEO is, a chief executive officer, and you may have heard terms thrown around like C-suite. When we talk about C-suite, what we're talking about is all of the team leads that have C at the beginning of their name.Joseph:So you may have a CEO, you may have a CMO, a chief marketing officer. You may have a chief operations officer or COO, you may have a chief compliance officer. So the CFO is the chief financial officer of an organization. So I think that's first and foremost, as you look at the traditional C-suite has three seats, a CEO, chief executive officer. Basically the one that is spearheading everything, the CEO has the vision. They typically are the owner of the practice, owner of the deal.Joseph:You're going to have a chief operations officer. So somebody that makes sure that the operations of the company are out there and then you've got the chief financial officer who are making sure that all of the money works. That's as simple as I can break it down. What are your thoughts when you think about what a CFO is, Jonathan?Jonathan:Same. The financial side, the F in there which obviously stands for financial, not the other F, it is there to talk about money. It's talking about the numbers. Talking about the ways in which that business has measures and manages its money in terms of the way it's coming in and the terms of the way it's going out. Definitely that's what most people think about when they think about CFOs. What I find in small businesses though, is that there's not always room for a CFO. So the owner usually takes on in smaller businesses.Joseph:I think first and foremost, you got to have cash to run a business. You can't pay payroll on an IOU. So at some form or fashion, you've got to have somebody that is managing cash. So that is cash that comes in the business. That's cash that comes out of the business, that comes in and goes out lots of different ways. It may come in through a line of credit, a beginning working capital draw.Joseph:It may come in through patient sales and collections. It may come in through credit card transactions, and then it's going to go out by writing checks, paying credit card bills, paying employees, all of those different things. So first and foremost, a typical owner of a small practice is going to be the one that's making sure that the cash comes in and the cash goes out. At the basic, most simplistic level, that's the first role that people are doing.Jonathan:I agree. Usually the person who is the owner or ends up being the dentist, they basically have to be all three of those things. They've got to be the CEO, they've got to be the COO and they've got to be the CFO. In that CFO role, they've got to make sure that the money going in and out is going to the right places and that there is something to manage and there's things happening.Jonathan:So it's this unique problem that is in the dental industry, that you have to be all of these things in this organization. Now, pretty much every small business has that problem. Obviously I'm the CEO, CFO, COO of Tooth & Coin but I have other people that help me with those things, but I haven't always had those people because we haven't always been as big as we've had.Jonathan:So we've had to grow people into those positions as our company has grown and evolved and things like that, but in terms of that small dental practice owner, you mentioned you got to have cash and you got to move those things in and out. What is it that you see in the dental space, being the dentist are doing, maybe even unknowingly as CFOs? What is it that they're probably, whenever they're thinking about their practice at night, they're probably doing in terms of like what a CFO would normally do for you?Joseph:Great question. So I think that a lot of them are trying to figure out top line revenue which when we talk about top line revenue, what is the amount of services that have been delivered? We can measure revenue a couple of different ways. As someone comes in the practice and as they get a treatment and they get a cleaning, they get an exam, once that service has been performed, you are owed that money.Joseph:So that could be one way that we measure revenue. One of the ways that you can pull that out is pull that out of your practice management software. So they're trying to get an idea of how much revenue is generated. So the next piece of that, that I think that a lot of practice owners are looking at is how much cash is coming in the door?Joseph:So there are certain times that 100% of the service that you provide turns into cash the same day, or within a couple of days, if somebody writes you a check, brings you cash or pays with a credit card. So there's not often a lag time between those. What is most common is that there is a lag time between when the service is performed, when the revenue is generated and when the cash actually comes in the door. That's where there's often a difference in timing.Joseph:That timing, if you've got a great front office billing person, that's billing and pushing claims out the door, that may just be five days between the time we send it to the PPO insurance company and the time that an EFT shows up into our bank account. We may have patients that are paying us out a month to month to month.Joseph:We may have somebody that pays in full with care credit, or with a credit card that turns into money in the bank account within a couple of days. So all of those things, I think that small practice owners are trying to get their arms wrapped around all of these different things as money comes in the door, as revenue is generated. Then what they're trying to do is they're trying to figure out, okay, did I make enough money this month to pay rent, to pay my people, to pay my supply bill, to pay my lab bill, and hopefully to pay myself?Joseph:So if I'm set up and I've got payroll running out, hopefully I've generated enough cash coming into the practice to cover all of those expenses. Then at the end of the day, whatever is left over, it depends on who you talk to, but we'll just call it profit. Profit is the simplest way of doing that. As the money came in and the money went out, do you have more money in your bank account today than you did 30 days ago? Then I would call profit.Jonathan:So try and get some type of an understanding of how they're making money in practice from revenue to expenses, and then eventually paying themselves and profit and things like that. All within the responsibilities of that dental practice owner, who also is generating production and revenue every day, and managing employees, doing the marketing, doing all the different things that go along with their business. So, with that in mind, what was it that you saw whenever you went to your ... When you started your role as a CFO?Jonathan:Again, I could see many of my practices, and many of our clients here at Tooth & Coin are having the same issues as the business that you got into at the time that you got into it as the CFO. Around that $3 million in revenue mark, you got a lot of practices that are around that level, half a million, a million, 2 million, 3 million, but $3 million mark.Jonathan:They get to be pretty busy in a small business. So what is it that you saw whenever you walked into that business in the first day in the role of the CFO, that really just hadn't been done that needed to be done from a CFO perspective. Because again, that owner of that business couldn't do everything. There's just no way that you could have that type of skill set to be able to do everything on your own.Jonathan:There's a reason there's a million employees at Bank of America. The CFO there is not ahead of every financial element. The CEO doesn't do all the COO and CFO and all the other roles and things. There's reasons why there's more than one person doing all of these things. So what was it that you walked in at day one, your becoming a CFO from the smaller medical business to grow into where it was?Joseph:Sure. I think the first thing I noticed is the wild swings and cashflow. It wasn't a matter of, we had the same exact amount of money that would come in every month and every day and we were pretty product heavy. So we had to spend quite a bit of money to provide these specific devices and services before we ended up actually delivering the service. So as you're paying your lab bill, as you're paying your supply bill, there's all these huge outflows that go, and they don't always match up with your revenue perfectly.Joseph:So I would see these wild swings in our cashflow. So, as an inquisitive person, if you see wild swings in the cashflow, the first question you're going to ask is why. So the first question I started asking was, "Well, how do we get to deposits into the bank account?"Joseph:Well, insurance companies write us checks, patients write us checks, we take credit cards, all these different things. That's how money turns into the bank account. I'm like, "Okay, well, how much did we generate in services last month, for example?" Okay, we'll pull the rapport and we got all the billing done. We got all the services delivered and we would pull the report and they'd say, "All right, well, we did 300,000 this month. That was a great month."Joseph:I was like, "Oh, okay. Well, what kind of service was that?" "Well, we did 300,000 this month." I was like, "No, no, no, no. Like specifically, you've got eight lines of business here. How much did you do in each one of those?" They're like, "Well, we can think of those couple of big ones that we delivered. I know that our shoe business was big. We had some big shoe," but it was very clear early on that they were not measuring revenue by line items.Joseph:So when you translate that to the dental practice, it's like, well, how many cleanings are you doing? How much hygiene are you doing? How many crowns are you doing? How many are you doing that are implants? It's like, the first thing that you've got to do is you've got to measure what specific revenue pieces you did in each month. So, if we're looking at the month of January, I'm going to say we did X amount on this, X amount of that, X amount on that. Then we as accountants, what we like to do is we'd like to compare.Joseph:So I came in and said, "Okay, well, you did 300,000 this month. Well, what'd you do last month?" "Oh, we'll have to go back and rerun that report. We don't remember what we ran. Oh, but we remember that May, of last year was a really, really good month. We should run that month." So it became very clear and apparent that they weren't measuring how the practice was doing month by month by service line.Joseph:So that was the first thing. So the first thing I did is okay, why don't we categorize our sales? Why don't we just make it simple and just have three or four different big buckets of sales that are all kind of related and we'll just measure those specific line items, rather than trying to do some kind of procedure code, because the healthcare practice that I was in, we had a thousand different procedure codes. Some of them were the big numbers and some of them were the small numbers and there's all these add-on codes for these additional things.Joseph:So it's like, I don't want to look at a revenue by code line item because I've got a thousand codes that we use in the course of the month. Why don't we break that down and summarize that into three or four different ones that we can measure? Why don't we look at that for this month versus last month versus the month before, and let's figure that out. So the next thing that I figure out, I get in there and I'm like, "Okay, so that number of 300, tell me what that number is? What makes up that number?"Joseph:They pulled it up and I started looking at the individual patients that made up that line. It became very clear that what they were calling revenue was usual and customary. We may refer to that in the dental world as the UCR, the usual and customary rate, or you could just say, that's your general fee. I said, "Okay, well, of this 300,000 that you generated in revenue, is that going to be what turns into collections in the bank?"Joseph:They're like, "Oh no, no, no, no, no. Insurances, they all take their discounts." I'm like, "Okay, well, that's probably where we need to start measuring revenue. We didn't do 300,000 revenue. We did much less than that. So let's come up and figure out what's the allowed charge." The next thing that I figured out is that whenever I went into the allowed charge, they had taken a standard discount off of everybody.Joseph:So we had, in the business that I was in and we had the Medicare allowed fee. So basically what they did was they keyed in the Medicare allowed fee for every single patient that came through the door. What's the problem with that? Problem with that is not every single patient is on Medicare. We've got Blue Cross Blue Shield, we've got Humana, we've got UnitedHealthcare. We've got TRICARE, we've got a number of these different ones and I'm like, "Well, how do we know what Blue Cross is going to pay us whenever Blue Cross comes in?"Joseph:They were like, "Oh, well, we just adjusted off the EOB, or the explanation of benefits whenever it comes in." I said, "Okay. So what you're telling me is whenever we've measured that revenue, we measured it at the Medicare allowed rate, but we're not going to make an adjustment for the Blue Cross rate until next month when they pay the claim or next week when they pay the claim or whenever they decide to pay the claim?" They said, "Yeah, that's what we do. That's when we adjust it."Joseph:I said, "So this $300,000 number is not a real number. The $250,000 is not a real number. So why don't we drill in and figure out, well, what are our contracted rates for all of these different insurance companies?" And as you can imagine, Jonathan, they were all different. Blue Cross had a certain percentage off of the Medicare allowed, United had a certain fee schedule that they had determined. TRICARE had something different. We had a workers' comp that would take a percentage off of our usual and customary rate.Joseph:So one of the things that I've always subscribed to is the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule. So I was like, okay, why don't we 80/20 this thing. What 20% of our payers make up 80% of our revenue? So obviously to go through, we had hundreds of contracts. To go through hundreds of contracts and trying to get all of those fee schedules immediately ready, that would have taken months.Joseph:So I was like, why don't we just take the top 20% of our payers, the ones that pay us the most money and why don't we go ahead and make sure that that is correct inside of our billing software so that we were able to get to an allowed fee. The other thing that I figured out was that the Medicare allowed fee changes every year. Some years it goes up, some years it goes down. I'm like, "Well, what's that Medicare allowed fee?"Joseph:They were like, "Oh yeah, we loaded that in a couple of years ago." I'm like, "Okay, we should probably upload the current Medicare allowed fee. We should probably upload the current Blue Cross Blue Shield fee." Because one of the things is that as your accounts receivable people have money that's coming in the door and they have an EOB, we should know and expect to know what Blue Cross is going to pay us for this specific client, for this specific line item and if they pay us different, we need to know about that.Joseph:We need to investigate that, we need to follow up on that and say, "Well, is it because they paid us incorrectly? Is it because this is a Tennessee Blue Cross Blue Shield versus a Texas Blue Cross Blue Shield?" What are these differences that are inside of this? So I think that was where it first started was we need to start measuring revenue.Joseph:We need to start measuring revenue. We need to record it. We need to be measuring it month to month. We need to figure out what is revenue and it's obviously not your usual and customary. I was having this conversation with the dentist the other day. I said, "What was your production for the month of January?" She said it was $30,000.Joseph:I said, "Okay, well, tell me more about that number. What is that number?" She's like, "Oh yeah, that's the UCR." I said, "Okay, you understand that the UCR is not what your insurance company is going to pay you that you're in network with?" She was like, "Well, yeah, that's not the right number." I was like, "Okay, well, the first thing we need to do is we need to figure out what are you generating."Joseph:Because her question to me was how much can I afford to spend on you know, this next thing or this next loan, or can I hire another employee or can I increase my salary? Can I take a draw? Is my rent too high? She started asking these questions. I said, "Well, the first thing we got to figure out is how much money is coming in the door and how much revenue is coming in the door."Jonathan:There's usually a reason that revenue is the first thing on a profit and loss, because it's the first thing you're supposed to be able to know about. I find a big misconception inside of the dental space is that the CPA equals the CFO. When I try and tamper expectations with all of our clients is that, look, there is a lot more to revenue than just that first line item. Whenever you file a tax return, you file income. Sometimes you have a cost of services or whatever it is that you put down there as well, but revenues is a one line on the tax return, but it's much more than that. So would you say that's a fair statement to say that one of the jobs of the CFO, one of the responsibilities of small dental practice owners in their role as the CFO is to understand their revenue?Joseph:Absolutely. I think that's got to be where it starts. It's got to be where it starts because we got to understand ... So we've got to put expense models together and figure out how much we can afford based on our revenue. Obviously your revenue is going to fluctuate month to month, year to year. I'm looking at financials in January. Financials in January look a lot better than December. Why is that? Well, we took a week off for Christmas to New Year's.Joseph:So January, we worked full month. February will probably be shortened because we've got crazy snow storms that have hit the United States and people have been shut down for a week. So there's always going to be some fluctuation of revenue, but it's got to start with that. So then if we can figure out, well, what's a general rolling average that we can forecast out for revenue, then we can break that down per month and we can say, "Well, what did we do in July of last year?"Joseph:"Well, July is always a great big month for us, but it never is quite as big as August. August is so big because the kids are coming back to school. They want to get all their dental work before they go back to school. So August is always a big month in dental. March is always a big month in dental because of spring break."Joseph:So then we can forecast that stuff out and understand what our revenue's going to look like so that we can build our expense models based upon that. I think that's a big thing for CFOs is, people like to talk and use the word budget all the time. They're like, "We need a budget."Joseph:I'm like, "Well, we need a forecast is what we need." How many patients came in the door last month? How many of those were new patients? What percentage of that? What was the percentage of each one of the different service line items? So can we expect that to come back? If it's a hygiene client, are they going to be expected to come back in six months?Joseph:Well, we had X amount coming in January. That means that we know that we're going to get a certain percentage of those to come back in July and we can look and compare that and say, "Okay, well, what percentage of hygiene clients actually keep up with every six months?" Okay, well, it's not 100%. We wish it was 100%, but it's not 100%. Is it 90%? Is it 80%? Is it 50%?Joseph:Well, if it's 50%, we've probably got some things that we need to work on with our front office staff to make sure that we're confirming appointments, whether they were doing all the things that you guys know that we do in order to make sure that people are coming in for their six month checkups, but we can start forecasting and start getting a picture of what things are going to look like from here on out.Joseph:We can say, "Okay, well, if revenue, this month is $30,000, but our goal is $50,000 and we know that we're projecting that next month is going to be $40,000, we know that we've got 10,000 that we got to make up. So where are we going to make that up? Is it going to be new patients?" All right. So let's say that it's going to be in new patients. How many new patients do we need? How many of those are going to be hygiene patients versus emergency patients versus some more complex procedures that we're running specials on?Joseph:So these are all the things that when you try to get a handle on your top line revenue and get a handle of the money that the business is generating, these are things that are all going to project out so that you figure out what you're going to do money-wise moving forward.Jonathan:So you mentioned a lot of strategic game plan that was coming up. To me, it's like, step one, understand revenue. Step two, create a baseline of what it is we know is happening currently and then step three, would be to design some type of a game plan to effect those numbers, to try and create something around those things.Jonathan:So like you said, maybe it's that where we find that our deficiency is in our hygiene recall rate. Do we have enough of our patients coming back in for hygiene after they come in for the first time? Do we have enough people to getting back on the schedule today compared to whenever they come back in the future? Or do we let too many people just walk out with our unscheduled treatment?Jonathan:How many treatment plans did we do today and how many of those were actually on the schedule? Did we have a conversion issue? Understanding those different components after you have a bigger picture idea and understanding of that revenue allows you to start optimizing and influencing those numbers. So is that what a CFO's role is or is the CFO's role to influence those numbers or is it to unearth those numbers?Joseph:So I think it's both. I think a great CFO is going to do both. I think that if you look at the accounting world, one of the things that's tough about the accounting world is we're always looking backwards in time. We're looking at what happened last month, what happened last year. We're generating a tax return four or five months later after the year's closed. So, if you're trying to figure out what you're going to do with your business in May of a year, but you're waiting on last year's tax return to get done or last year's books to get done, you're always looking backwards.Joseph:I think the best CFOs that are out there do a combination of both. Number one, they're reporting the results in a way that'll help us understand the past, but they're also looking at all of the different pieces that we know that are going to happen in the future.Joseph:We're going to take some projections. We're going to make some assumptions. We're going to look forward and try to figure out what is life going to look like moving forward. Then we say, "Okay, life looking forward. If I take the snapshot of it today, that's not where we want to be. So let's figure out where we want to be. Why don't we create some goals around this? Why don't we create a monthly goal? Why don't we create a daily goal? If it's a number of new patients that are coming in, how many new patients should you be getting per day?"Joseph:Then we can start to influence those numbers and we can say, "Okay, we know that where we're at today is X. We want to be at 2X of where we are. What's the plan to get there." So that is where I think good CFOs are able to really, really hone in on a practice and really help you move forward and help you project to the future and make good, smart business decisions and influence those decisions and help your team understand how they influence those decisions.Jonathan:So how would it be, again, this is, this is a question that I get a lot is do you think that a CPA, someone who works as a CPA for a dental practice, that that CPA should be the CFO of that company?Joseph:I just think that it's got to be a lot more granular than that. As CPAs, we're typically reconciling banks daily, weekly, monthly. We're looking at financial statements, we're trying to get everything to tie out. We're doing everything that we can to make sure that the books are right, which is a very important part of your financial picture is understanding what your books look like. But I don't think that CPAs are equipped to be out there and to be in your practice to know like, well, how many confirmation calls did we have on patient schedules today?Joseph:Okay, well, we can track that. We can get it in the software. We can create all these different systems that are out there, and then maybe the CPA can look at that, but I think that that's outside of the CPA's role just because we don't have access to all that. We don't have the boots on the ground.Joseph:Now, if you have a full-time CPA that works in your office, many practices do. Huge, huge practices. Once you get to several, several millions of dollars, you're going to have a controller onsite that's going to help you out with some of this stuff. Maybe they're going to have a CFO on site once they get to that 10 or $15 million mark so that you can do that. But if you're a CPA and you're working with 20, 40, 50, 100, 200 clients, there's just no way that we can project all of that granular detail out in order to to do that and to fulfill that CFO role. That's certainly my opinion anyways.Jonathan:I agree. I see a lot of it because I speak to Dennis every week and it's not uncommon for me to hear someone say one of two things. One being that I need a CFO and they think that they need a CFO because they need someone who's going to help with all of these things. Then we can start digging into it and it's like they're doing three, four, $500,000 a year in revenue. Or even all the way up to say a million to $2 million a year in revenue.Jonathan:I need a CFO because I need someone who's going to do all of these things for me. Completely get an understanding of my revenue, which just for the listeners out there, that means we're going to have to understand your production philosophies, we're going to have understand the way that you view dentistry, the way that you view your patient care.Jonathan:As you dentists know, every other dentist is going to be different. So every CFO is going to have to understand that about you as the provider, as well as any other providers in your office. The way that we do that as data people is, we look at the production procedure code, service mixes, things like that, to be able to see what that looks like, but that's on a very high level.Jonathan:If we were to be the CFOs for you, that would be what we would have to do from a provider standpoint, for us looking at our provider level. What I tell most of these people is, "No, you don't really need a CFO. You just need more production right now. You need more revenue, you need to do more dentistry or have more patients," and that's basically all I can tell you.Jonathan:That's exactly what a CFO would tell you if they were to be engaged with you right now is, "We don't have enough revenue, we don't have enough production and we don't have enough patients." There might be some small problems that that person could uncover, but the amount of money you would have to pay someone to be able to do that, to uncover those problems would be a negative value compared to what they find, because you'd be paying them a whole bunch of money because it takes a whole lot of time to understand all of these elements for every business.Jonathan:While dentistry, yes is an industry and single office owner practices are similar in nature, they're all different. They're all different nuances and things like that and most of that nuance comes from the provider, the person that is doing the production.Jonathan:So I completely agree that the CPA role is not designed around this and the cost structure is not designed around this. If we're charging someone say a $1,000 a month for accounting, bookkeeping, tax planning, tax prep, projections, keeping updated on all the things that are going on in the dental ecosystem from a financial perspective, we don't have the ability to be able to make sure that Susie in the front is entering in the production correctly into the computer. That's not what we're engaged to do. The amount of money that we typically are getting paid for that, we don't have enough time in the day to be able to be helping with those types of things.Jonathan:So it then falls back on the dental practice owner to do those things, unfortunately. So I completely agree. It's, CPA does not equal CFO. I guess that's the point I'm trying to make with that, is that people sometimes think that they're the same person. It's a very specific subset. It's a different skillset, number one, and number two, it's not typically what you're paying your monthly fee for whenever you're seeing these people come in.Jonathan:So I mentioned earlier, there's two things. The first one was the person I'm talking about. They need a CFO and I don't think they really need one, and the second one is that they'll have already had a CFO and they'll be looking for someone new, which is the reason they're talking to me and I'll look at the work that's been done and it's literally just CPA work that's been done. It's not CFO work.Jonathan:So it's what you're saying here. It's financial statement analysis is all that that CFO is doing. To me, financial statement analysis, yeah, your CPA can help you with financial statement analysis. Almost every CPA can do that. I'm asking this to you, Joseph.Joseph:Yeah, absolutely.Jonathan:So every CPA can help you with financial statement analysis. Financial statement analysis is like one line item of things that CFOs do out of hundreds of things the CFOs do. So CPAs can help you with financial analysis, which is the things we talked about. The way that our firm does that is through a management report that we send out every month, where we're calculating out and are rolling quarterly averages and doing overhead analysis and things like that, but that just is the overall picture of the results of the practice.Jonathan:It is not the granular detail of, we did, say, three times more crowns this month than we did the month before. That does not exist on a financial side, on the traditionally prepared financial statement done by a CPA firm. So a lot of times what I'll tell people is lean on these softwares that can pull these data elements out of their practice management softwares, like Dental Intel is really good. Practice By Numbers is really good and they can do some of these practice management data calculations for you, but don't lean on your CPA for those things because we're not traditionally trained for those types of roles.Jonathan:A lot of the times what I tell people is that CFO role, we can find the problems, but we can't usually find the solutions if we're not in that practice every day. So you're paying a lot of money for someone just finding problems. Whereas in this industry, to me, if you're a smaller business, you have to be paying a practice manager consultant to find and fix those problems a similar amount of money. So when is it to you that a dental practice should consider having an outsourced CFO or a CFO and just in general, that is not that owner of that business.Joseph:I think that all the stuff that you're hitting on definitely says to that. So the question is, we're dealing with dentist who are very, very intelligent people. They're all very entrepreneurial because they went out and started their own practice, or they're thinking about starting our own practice and want to start their own practice.Joseph:So they've got that grit and grind about them to figure all of this stuff out. I really don't think that it's something that they can't handle on their own. I think that it really boils down to time. Do you have the time to devote to this? Do you have the resources, the manpower that you've got in your office to help you out with it? At the point where you're doing dentistry five, six days a week, and you're busting at the seams and your schedule's full, that's probably time that you can probably hire somebody else to do that.Joseph:I certainly think a lot of startups can benefit from having an overall plan and just kind of having some goalposts to operate on to help them out with that, but I don't know that there's actually a magic moment where you say, "I need to outsource a CFO." Certainly as the practice grows, if you had 50, 60 employees or more, I think that's kind of like the traditional, that's the point where you need to have a CFO.Joseph:Once you're probably at probably 25 or 30 employees or more, you probably need to have some kind of a controller in place. Another question is like, well, at what point do you have an HR manager in place? Well probably when you get to about 75 employees. So I say that to say like the businesses that you and I work with, almost all of them are single office, two office, way, way smaller than that.Joseph:I think that they'll be able to wrap their arms around a lot of it, maybe with a little bit of coaching and some help on the side from some consultants and some practice analytics, different pieces that they can figure out there and certainly podcasts like ours, where they get a chance to go out and learn, like, what are the things we need to be looking at and measuring?Joseph:Okay, well, this is what we need to be looking at. Let's go measure it now inside of our software. We knew that we probably could, but now we know this is what we need to go look at. So I don't know. What are your thoughts on that, Jonathan? That's a really good question. It's probably one that several of our clients hem-haw around about.Jonathan:So to me, I don't see much of a reason for a CFO on a practice. From a traditional CFO role, I don't see any reason for a dental practice that's doing less than, probably at a minimum, 2 million a year in revenue. I don't see much of her need for a CFO. The money that you're going to pay for a CFO ... If we're talking dollars and cents here, if you're going to have a CFO, that's actually going to do the work that the CFO needs to do, you're talking like at a minimum, outsourced a day a week, maybe four grand a month, five grand a month is what you'll end up paying that person, if you're lucky.Jonathan:So 40, 60 grand a year for, not financial analysis, hopefully it's more than financial analysis, but basically looking for little problems and little tweaks that are going to have ... Let's say it adds a 10% increase to your revenue. That's great. That pays for that, but you got real lucky if that person finds a 10% change. More than likely what they're going to do is they're going to be overseeing stuff and helping set plans and game plans up and things like that.Jonathan:I just don't see that creating that much of an impact on that business. Conversely, you get a really good practice management consultant in there that can help you do a better job with your treatment planning or do a better job of turning nos into yeses when it comes to getting patients to accept care. Then that money spent is going to have a much higher impact on your practice from a dollars and cents perspective. So almost like my best financial advice is to not get financial advice from a CFO until you get to a level where the tweaks can be worth that dollar output effectively.Jonathan:To me, it depends on the practices and things involved. To me, it's probably at the three to $4 million range and about what you said. Somewhere 25, 30 employees. So for example, you hear about these practices and we have a few practices that are similar to this. That could be if expand and scale, but they'll do $2 million, $3 million in revenue and they'll have 20 or 15 employees.Jonathan:So they'll hit the revenue number, but not have as many employees. Those practices, they're probably already doing most of these things already because they got probably really high production per patient. They got really high operatory usage. They got really high efficiency from their employees, probably have really strong protocols in terms of their collections and payments and things like that. So those things are probably already in for those types of offices, but we're talking about is whenever there gets to be a lot of people involved, a lot of revenue and a lot of patients.Jonathan:That's, to me, when optimization starts creating an unexpected value that's high enough to be able to pay someone else to come in and help analyze and optimize and strategize around those numbers. So that's kind of my thing. So real rough numbers, but at the bare minimum, 2 million a year in revenue, probably closer to 3 million before you start having that conversation. Then also somewhere around that 30 employee and up mark is where you start having someone that can start doing this for you, or start paying someone to be able to do that for you.Jonathan:Real rough numbers, but every situation is a little bit different case by case basis, but that's in general what I would be saying. So we talked about some of the problems today that the dentists are facing is one, an understanding of revenue. Understanding what revenue is, how to analyze it, how to record it, how to you ... See what it is that you're doing.Jonathan:What does revenue equal, and what does that mean in dollars and cents perspective? Then what does cashflow mean? Then coming up with a game around those things. So one of the things that we're doing on this podcast is we're highlighting problems and then we're going to try and create episodes around how to address those problems. So expect in a future episode for us to talk about these problems and give you different ways, as a listener, to be able to come up with solutions and to be educated in these problems so that you can do some of these things on your own.Jonathan:So that is our episode on the CFO role in dental practices. We may do a follow-up episode in the future, but that is the episode for that. So any closing thoughts on the CFO's role in dental practices, Joseph?Joseph:I think the dental industry is just a great industry in general. It's something that I'm excited to be out helping dentists. Super, super smart men and women. Very, very, very hardworking. Very entrepreneurial. So a lot of this stuff, at the smallest of the small scales, at the small offices, they'll be able to figure it out. They'll be able to make those decisions internally and as you grow, that's going to be the point where you've got to figure out at what point does it make sense to invest in additional health.Jonathan:As a final thought, what are some of the other problems that a CFO can help with? We talked about understanding revenue, we talked about coming up with a game plan and I guess another thing would be to track the success or failures of that game plan. Is that accurate?Joseph:Yeah. I think one other things that I think a great CFO will help you out in the dental space with is figuring out what does your insurance reimbursement look like. I know there was a point in time where pick a company shows up and says, "Hey, we want you to be a network with us," let's say at Cigna, "And we're going to offer you X," and that's significantly below what your usual and customary is. So the question becomes, can we afford to take this contract?Joseph:It could be United or Concordia, or it could be any number of places. What's that look like? What's the financial impact of that look like? I talked to a client one time that was in the Midwest that was close to an insurance headquarters and they wanted to drop their reimbursements by, I think it was 30%.Joseph:I said, "Hey, by the way, we're making cuts. You guys are on the hook for 30%." So then the question becomes, and this is a great CFO question. So what percentage of your patient base does this insurance carrier represent and how much dollars in revenue does that mean per year and if we take a 30% hit in that specific insurance carrier, how does that project out? What this practice was able to figure out was that it would have been a couple of staff members.Joseph:I think that the impact of this was like two staff members. So they wrote the insurance company back and said, "We're not going to be in network with you anymore if you continue to say this, because every one of our staff members are important to us and you're taking away two jobs from our practice, and we choose not to do that."Joseph:That's a great CFO project to look at. Certainly, there's smaller contracts that you can afford to take bigger losses on and that kind of thing if you wanted to, but I think that understanding insurance reimbursements and your contracts and all those things. Of course, there's always plenty of people that you can outsource, you can do this with, but that's a big CFO role.Joseph:What's the impact of this specific contract going to be and how's that going to go? One of the markets that I was in had a big, huge FedEx plant and the FedEx switched insurance carriers and the insurance carriers dropped everybody that was in network. So it was like, oh my gosh, are we going to survive? Because so much of this town's employees ... And it was like, well, let's run the numbers. Let's see.Joseph:Well, it turned out that out of, let's say, 100% of the total revenue, only 5% of it was this specific insurance carrier. So I think we're going to be okay. It's not going to be great. It's not going to be helpful, but I think those are great things for CFOs to get a chance to look at for you.Jonathan:Cool, awesome. So we will follow up with those in future episodes. Stay tuned to the Tooth & Coin podcast to hear more about the different problems inside of the dental industry, from a financial management perspective that we will be addressing here on the Tooth & Coin podcast. So we thank you very much and we'll see you next time.Jonathan:That's it for today, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Tooth & Coin podcast. If you are going to be a practice owner or a new practice owner, and you're interested in CPA service, head on ever to toothandcoin.com where you can check out more about our CPA services. We help out around 250 offices around the country and we'd love to be able to have the discussion about how we could help your new practice.Jonathan:We do specialize in new practice owners. So people that are about to be an owner of a practice they're acquiring, about to be an owner of a practice they are starting up or has become an owner in the past five years. That is our specialty. We'd love to be able to talk to you about how we could help you in your services with your tax and accounting services.Jonathan:If you enjoyed today's episode, again, go to the Facebook group. Talk to us about what we've talked about. Join in on the discussion and let's create an environment where we can talk about some of these things so that we can all help each other get through these things together so that this adventure of business ownership is more fun, more productive, and better in the longterm.Jonathan:Lastly, if you want access to those resources that we are currently building, just text the word toothandcoin to 33444. That's toothandcoin, no spaces. T-O-O-T-H-A-N-D-C-O-I-N to 33444. Reply with your email address, we'll send instructions in the Facebook group. We'll send you the resources when they're available and we will see you next week.
(Audio) How to Produce 30% More Without Adding Any Hours or Raising Your Fees Episode #308 with Curtis Marshall Work smarter, not harder! Increasing your hours isn't the surest way to produce more. And today, Kirk Behrendt brings in Curtis Marshall from Dental Intel to teach you how to produce 30% more in your practice. His secret is the morning huddle, and you can have more production without getting more chairs, working more hours, or raising your fees! For more on how Dental Intel can help you and your team, listen to Episode 308 of The Best Practices Show! Main Takeaways: Working more hours isn't a sure way to increase production. Data helps you know where you are so you can move forward in the right direction. Morning huddles are the secret to higher production. Don't undervalue the huddle, and make sure your team is on board. Have good, accurate information. Have actionable items and know what to focus on. Huddles should be quick — 15 minutes is almost too long. Make sure your patients have a future appointment. Make sure your patients accept treatment. Quotes: “[You can] produce more without doing what most people tell us, which is, ‘Get more new patients, open more hours, put more chairs in.' That's typically the answer for producing more, is, ‘Well, you need to work harder,' and that's not necessarily the truth.” (05:05—05:23) “Why is data important in your life? The same answer is what we're saying for dental practices. The reason why data itself is more important now more than ever is because it's giving us the true, actual status quo, ‘This is what's happening' whether you like it or not.” (07:04—07:25) “If you don't know where you are today, then you cannot move forward in a timely fashion. That's why data is so important for every dental office in 2021 and in the future.” (07:58—08:11) “The more information we get, the easier it is to be more productive. For example, when I was in high school, for weight training, the main thing that they did was said, ‘Go do bench and go do squats. You need to get really good at your bench and get really good at your squats.' That's how they trained you on how to become better, faster, stronger. Well, now, what they're focusing on is plyometrics. They're focusing on core. They're focusing on the true things, because now they've tested and truly found out that it's not necessarily — even though you want the big guns for the girls — this right here isn't where it's at. It's more in the core.” (12:45—13:31) “The important information to know [about morning huddles] is, first, make sure everybody's on board. The team members have got to be on board. Second is having good, accurate information. Lastly, actionable items, what to really focus on.” (15:52—16:07) “If I'm having a huddle, the main goal is to do, what? That's probably the biggest thing to realize when looking at the data, or the information, the reports, whatever it is, the discussion. What's the outcome that we're wanting? Is it just to check off morning huddle? If it's just to check off morning huddle, you will fail every time.” (21:04—21:27) “The morning huddle is not to say, ‘Hey, we need to do better as a company.' That is a meeting. That's your weekly, monthly meeting with your office managers. That is not what morning huddle is for. It's to say, ‘How can I better care for my patients?' And there's really only one of two ways that we can take better care of our patients when talking about the morning huddle. Number one, making sure that they have a future appointment. Simple, right? Number two, making sure that they accept the treatment that we're presenting them.” (22:48—23:31) “New patients are not rescheduling, and we're not discussing it. It's okay that K.C. left without an appointment. My question is why, so that today we don't repeat what we did yesterday. And then, the follow-up is, ‘All right. Sam, the action item is for you to reach out to K.C. and make sure she gets a future...
I'm sitting down with Josey Sewell, the very first guest on the show as well as the first repeat guest. Josey is a wife, mother, and incredible entrepreneur, making waves in her industry and beyond. She started off 2020 working with Dental Intel and made a huge pivot after the start of the pandemic. Today we got to catch up and chat about what those changes were and how they've been a blessing in disguise walking into 2021. Read the Highlights: www.joshuascott.com/videos/creating-a-productive-work-environment GO LIVE is an interview show hosted by Joshua Scott. Episodes are hosted live every week on Facebook and include some of the dental profession's top influencers and thought leaders. Learn more about Joshua Scott at www.joshuascott.com. Subscribe to the Podcast Apple | Google | Stitcher | Spotify
In today’s podcast, Curtis Marshall joins us from Dental Intel, a software that helps dental practices easily track and understand data in their practice. During this episode, they look at the meaning behind the data of a current practice and identify opportunities that will create the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. They look at the data in a current dental practice and dive into the story those numbers are really telling, and how the practice can make easy changes to increase case acceptance, double their production and improve patient care. You’ll Learn The first and second things you want to ask yourself when looking at your data What number you should be looking at first thing in the morning and how that can explode your production. Knowing data just identify opportunities, but taking action on that data is even more important. The importance of knowing your reality versus making decisions based on your perception of your reality Why increase production should never be your only focus How improved patient care will always lead to higher production Guest Bio Curtis Marshall is a founding member of Dental Intel, a software that helps practices analyze everything, automate your day, find hidden revenue, fill your schedule & so much more. Resources 1. All listeners of the Double Your Production Podcast are welcome to schedule a customized Practice Analysis Amplifier where we will review your current production and create your personalized roadmap for doubling your production. Click here to set up your call 2. All listeners of the Double Your Production Podcast, can test-drive our Double Your Production Membership where you have access to the trainings, videos, and live Q&A's with both Dr. John and Wendy. Check it all our for just $1. Click here to see everything that is included. 3. Follow us on Facebook for our live updates: https://www.facebook.com/TeamTrainingInstitute/ 4. Recession Recovery Checklist found: here. 5. Grap our bestselling book "How To Double Or Triple Your Dental Practice Production" where we'll show you the 5 step system doctors are using without additional cost in advertising or staff. Grap you copy here.
The Dentist Money™ Show | Financial Planning & Wealth Management
On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan welcomes special guest Curtis Marshall of Dental Intelligence. As master of all things data, Dental Intel is well-known for helping practices follow a daily roadmap to reach greater long-term success. Almost every practice can find a way to tweak its performance and create greater profits. The trick is to know where to look. Ryan and Curtis examine four areas within every practice where additional profits can be found.
Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap to Practice Ownership | Custom Made for the New Dentist
After one analytics software took Shared Practices to where it currently is, there is only one that will take Shared Practices to where we all want to be. George and Matt discuss directly Rob Bay, president of: Dental Intel!
Are you making financially sound decisions in your practice? Do you even have the right and timely data to make those decisions? Today, Dino interviews Curtis Marshall, co-founder of Dental Intelligence. Curtis Marshall has over 20 years' experience in marketing and communication and over 15 years' experience in practice management, dental coaching, and operations. Curtis brings his passion and skills to help dental professionals nationwide take their companies to the next level. In this episode, they discuss the importance of making sound decisions in order to grow your dental or orthodontic practice. They also tackle the hindrances to making those decisions and how Dental Intel can help you in making sure that making sound decisions is just at the tip of your fingertips. REFERENCE: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie For more info and any queries you can send him an email at curtis@dentalintel.com DINO'S BIO: Dino Watt is a dynamic, highly sought after keynote speaker, private practice business advisor, best selling author, and certified body language and communication expert. As a business relationship expert, Dino understands that people are the heart of any business. His interactive training style will bring your audience to roaring laughter and move them to tears. Whether he is training on C.O.R.E Culture, Sales and Sales Support, or Making love and business work, your audience will rave about Dino and the energy he brings to every event. Dino has spoken for MKS, American Association of Orthodontists, PCSO, Pitts Progressive Study Group, The Shulman Study Club, Keller Williams, Sotheby's, DentalTown, Ortho2, OrthoVoice, and many others. Out of all the accolades Dino has received, the one he is proudest of is title of PHD, Passionate Husband and Dad. Dino has been married to his wife Shannon for 24 years and together they have raised 3 amazing adults.
Jordon Comstock is the founder and CEO of BoomCloud. BoomCloud exists to help dental practices create, organize, track, and automate an in-house membership program as a strategy to reduce dependence on dental insurance. Jordon started his career in the dental industry managing a dental lab over 10 years ago and soon realized the need for our industry to create membership programs. He studied UX/UI design, web development, and marketing at the Art Institute of Salt Lake City. What You Will Learn: Four significant ways dental memberships are working for practices during the pandemic How in-house memberships can generate substantial amounts of recurring revenue Why memberships are an ideal solution for patients who are losing dental benefits How memberships can improve patient retention in your practice Why members typically spend 2-3x more than nonmembers Why practices need a cash flow strategy now more than ever Dental Intel's prediction for the scheduling hole in Fall 2020, and what practices can do to prepare The typical implementation process of a membership program How to contact Jordon Comstock: Website: //www.boomcloudapps.com/ Website: //boomcloudapps.com/book/ Website: www.boomcloudapps.com/university LinkedIn: //www.linkedin.com/in/jordoncomstock/ //www.linkedin.com/company/boomcloud/ Facebook: //www.facebook.com/boomcloudapps/ Twitter: @jordoncomstock Check out the Talking With The Toothcop podcast on ApplePodcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Spotify, and the Dental Compliance Specialists website.
This episode Wendy discusses the current crisis from both a practice and data standpoint with Curtis Marshall from Dental Intel. They lay out strategies on how to move forward now and not only weather the storm that is coming but how to take advantage of this time and come out with some of your best production months yet. All while creating a higher patient care and attracting even more patients! Incredible information on this episode, you will not want to miss it! Find the link to the video version here: www.theteamtraininginstitute.com/podcast
Many dentists are experiencing a surge of patients in June and July, and may not be preparing to fill a barren hygiene schedule in the months quickly approaching. On this episode of Dentistry’s Growing with Grace, Grace Rizza sits down with Weston Lunsford, CEO of Dental Intel, to discuss the actual, real time data and its implications for your practice.
On this Facebook Live series converted into a podcast, Len sits down with Kelly Schwartz to discuss how to improve your systems and how you can use technology to do so. Things you will learn from this episode: - The need for systems - Dental Intel and Local Med usage - Overall practice management Kelly Schwartz of Schwartz Consulting Group, Inc., is today's standard for in-office practice management. A graduate of Ferris State University, Mr. Schwartz earned his degree in business. Working with a “Fortune 500 Company” for almost a decade, Mr. Schwartz quickly developed skills and ideas to customize a training program that is now utilized by many dental professionals across the country. Having worked with over seven hundred (700) dental offices nationwide over the past Twenty Seven (27) years, Mr. Schwartz offers a diverse, comprehensive and customized coaching program that is guaranteed to get results. Mr. Schwartz's vast knowledge, and hands on experience makes him uniquely qualified to share his knowledge with the dental profession.
Are you making the most of your morning huddles? Dental Intelligence is the smartest software ever built for dentists. Their innovative technology helps dentists keep on top of tracking, analyzing, and growing their dental practices. Dental Intel has recently launched a new Morning Huddle software that helps practice's make the most of their morning huddles. The morning huddle is arguably the most important time of your day because it gives the entire team the opportunity to come together, review targets, celebrate victories, track progress, and so much more. I was so excited when I found out about Dental Intel's Morning Huddle that I couldn't wait to invite my good friend, Jarom Dastrup, onto the podcast to talk about this amazing new software feature in more detail. In this episode, we discuss: What a traditional ‘morning huddle' usually looks like Why your practice needs to start every day with a morning huddle How morning huddles can help you reverse engineer success How Dental Intel's new Morning Huddle software works The importance of having a morning huddle New features included with Dental Intel's Morning Huddle software update How Morning Huddle can help your practice drive more revenue Want to find out more about Morning Huddle and how to make your next morning huddle a complete success? Download Dental Intel's e-book – a 30-page document that explains everything you need to know about morning huddles, including why they're so important and how to structure a morning huddle for maximum impact.
This is another Facebook Live converted to a podcast episode. Len and Josey sit down and talk about various topics How to overcome being closed after COVID. Things to make your return a strong return and leading a team through a crisis. Dental Intel and Local Med technology and how they can help Josey Sewell is the Vice President of Education for Dental Intelligence and Local Med. She is a hygienist and the previous COO of a dental group. She is passionate about the growth and development of others.
AKA The Naked Dentist, Curtis educates dentists on the importance of Business Intelligence on a daily dashboard and how it is a crystal ball for the practice. He loves to smile and is often found laughing with friends. What You Will Learn: Curtis's journey into the financial side of dentistry What inspired the creation of Dental Intelligence How the Dental Intelligence software works The importance of using real-time data to make financial decisions for today, not for yesterday The secondary functions that Dental Intelligence offers How Dental Intelligence will help you keep more of what you make How to contact Curtis Marshall Website: //blog.dentalintel.com/ Facebook: Dental Intel LinkedIn: //www.linkedin.com/in/curtmars/ Email: info@dentalintel.com Twitter: @Dental_Intel
In this episode of The Art of Dental Finance podcast, Art speaks with Curtis Marshall from Dental Intelligence. Dental Intel is used by over 5,000 practices nationwide and is a sophisticated dashboard program that extracts information from Dentrix, Eaglesoft and Open Dental. From the dashboard, dentists (and their advisors) can find areas in their practice that, if addressed, can improve revenues and profits. Art and Curtis discuss why it is important for dentists to increase the number of visits from patients and production per visit, what pre-appointment and re-appointment percentages mean, how this program can help them see what percentage of exams a dentist performs results in a diagnosis, and much more. This podcast will hopefully motivate our listeners to work ON their practices, and not just IN their practices, using powerful tools like Dental Intel.
What gets measured, gets improved. Wendy & Curtis Marshall discuss common errors when analyzing your office numbers. Dental Intel is “the world’s #1 software for tracking, analyzing, managing & growing your practice” according to their website and have helped our clients world wide with real time data that will continue to aid providers, leaders and team members create a culture of patient care that remains consistent. ADDITIONALLY, our listeners receive a FREE practice analysis just for listening in! Don’t miss this opportunity, or this episode! Like what you hear? Find us at: www.theteamtraininginstitute.com/podcast
Jason and Alan are once again joined by Dr. Rob Ritter! Rob had just stepped off the main stage at the Spear Summit and sat down to talk about integrity marketing and really good suits. Some highlights include: How can dentists harness social media in an authentic way? How should your team be involved with social media marketing? Authenticity is about showing what kind of human you are, not what kind of veneers you do How has social media changed dentistry? Why should you log where your phone calls/new patients are coming from Why does he love Dental Intel and other dashboards? How important are websites in 2019? Your Google My Business page and how to use it Why you shouldn't wait on new technology Is CBCT standard of care for endo? Some links from the show: The Voices of Dentistry is approaching! We have an amazing speaker line up and the best party in all of dentistry! Go check it out and register at www.voicesofdentistry.com! VoD 2019 Highlight video The Dental Hacks Nation closed Facebook group has 28,000 members! Head over there to interact with other Dental Hacks listeners, guests and Brain Trust members every day, all day! Remember…if you don’t have anything “dental” on your FB page, we might decline your membership request. So IM the group or email us at info@dentalhacks.com! Not all "paperless" is the same. A lot of people think a PDF is paperless. Did your patient print out that pdf? Did someone scan it into your system? If someone is printing, scanning, even retyping or copying and pasting then it’s not truly paperless. YAPI was the first and the best at paperless. Why don’t you go check the menu at dentalhacks.com/YAPI. It’s a funny name but serious software! To effectively do chairside CAD/CAM, you've got to be organized. You want to have the right inventory of blocks, but you don't want to overstock. Most importantly, you need to be able to find exactly what you're looking for when you're looking for it! Zirc understands the needs of the chairside CAD/CAM community! If you're doing CEREC or other chairside milling, you should control block chaos with their CAD/CAM Block Locker! They're offering a 20% discount for the Dental Hacks Nation using coupon code CADCAM20 at dentalhacks.com/blocklocker. It's the best way to organize your CAD/CAM blocks! Cosmecore is a dual cured core material from Cosmedent. We use it all the time. It cuts just like a tooth with no gouging! and now it's 20% off until the end of October using the coupon code "CORE" at check out at dentalhacks.com/cosmecore. Go get yourself some! Go Hack Yourself Alan: Berman Instruments wingless, black coated rubber dam clamps If you have any questions or comments for us please drop us an email at info@dentalhacks.com or find us (and like us!) at www.facebook.com/dentalhacks. Or, if you prefer…give us a call at (866) 223-5257 and leave us a message. You might be played in the show! If you like us, why not leave us a review on iTunes? It helps us get found by like minded people and might even help us get into “What’s Hot” in the iTunes store! Go to this link and let the world know about the Dental Hacks! Finally, if you aren’t an Apple person, consider reviewing us on Stitcher at: stitcher.com/podcast/the-dentalhacks-podcast! If you would like to support the podcast you can check out our Patreon page! Although the show will always remain free to download, our Patreon supporters get access to special bonus content including (at least) one extra podcast episode every months! Also be sure to check out the Dental Hacks swag store where you can find t-shirts, stickers coffee mugs and all sorts of other things that let the world know you’re a part of the Hacks Nation.
Today's Episode: New and established dentists spend a lot of resources on marketing. Even those that say they don't pay for marketing put time and resources into making sure that they have happy patients who will give referrals. What if there was a way that you could generate more patient acceptance and earnings without paying for business? Well there is, and it's all about data. If you don't have data or don't have accurate data, your decisions are based on guesses. Curtis Marshall is the Director of Partnerships for Dental Intel a platform that helps dental practices track, analyze, and grow their practices. They provide actionable data to offices, so that they can find and correct where business is falling through the cracks. On this episode, we talk about how important accurate data and tracking is. Curtis also shares a technique that can increase your profits without paying more for marketing or advertising. For full show notes, links and resources, please visit: https://actdental.com/podcast/ (https://actdental.com/podcast/)
I'm so excited to introduce you to my special guest on this episode of the podcast, Weston Lunsford. Together, we discuss how you can find your ideal patient and the things you can do to attract more ‘rockstar' patients to your practice. As CEO of Dental Intelligence, Weston oversees the strategic direction of the company and its products. While he is responsible for the revenue growth and future expansion plans, he dedicates a large part of his time to be intimately involved with their clients, the dentists, to fully understand their needs, wants and experience with their solutions. Weston spent the previous 10 years as the founder and principal partner in Lunsford Peck, a Certified Public Accounting firm providing services for medical and dental professionals with nearly 2,000 clients. Weston and his team are passionate about what they do. They trust in each other and in their abilities to create something special, something unique, and something impactful. As Dental Intel always says, “we make incredible happen!” On the podcast we discussed: Weston's professional background and how he got into dentistry with Dental Intel How to increase production in your practice Why it's important to identify the type of dentistry you want to do Efficient ways to target your ideal patients Why and how you should rate your patients How to increase patient retention If you'd like to get a FREE practice analysis from Dental Intel, whereby you'll discover strengths and opportunities for growth in your practice, click here. For more information and to explore other episodes, click here.
AADOM Radio & Dental Intelligence Present Weston Lunsford Podcast Summary: Would you believe practices that do a morning huddle outperform practices that don't by 30%? That’s right. The lowly morning huddle can be a “force multiplier,” meaning that participation in a huddle can improve almost every part of your practice. Here are just a few of the many common issues that an effective huddle helps to resolve. -Holes in the schedule -Patients on the schedule with unscheduled treatment -Cancellations & no-shows -Team collaboration In this podcast, we will share the morning huddle blueprint that will help you and your team do more and better dentistry. Learning Objectives: 4 Principles of a successful morning huddle 3 to 1 rule for employee feedback How to motivate your team with data More About Weston: Weston Lunsford, CEO of Dental Intelligence, loves helping people and teams to achieve their potential. This is his passion and focus. As co-founder and CEO, Weston leads a growing team committed to guiding dental practices in their efforts to master the business of dentistry. He especially enjoys meeting with and teaching practice owners, dentists, and other team members effective principles of success. A father of five, Weston loves spending time with his family on Lake Powell, mountain bike riding (including coaching a local high school team) and serving others in his local community. Learn More about Dental Intelligence: www.dentalintel.com A great tool from Dental Intel: https://goo.gl/ui31tu Learn More about AADOM: www.dentalmanagers.com
On this exciting episode of the podcast, I welcome my good friend, Mike Buckner, onto the show to talk all about how you can cut through the noise with help from some powerful technology. Mike Buckner has been working in the Dental Technology Field for eight years. He has worked as a Business Development Executive for Solutionreach, as well as a Director of Business Development for Dental Intel. He is currently the Director of Business Development for Weave, and speaks at various meetings about patient retention and building patient loyalty. And, on top of all that, he has twin baby boys that keep him on his toes! On the podcast we discussed… What makes patients reluctant to come back to your practice How to improve patient retention by focusing on relationships The action steps you can take to maximize relationships with your patients Why you should use text messages to bond with patients and increase case acceptance Using the Weave App to help improve efficiency and communication Weave is a powerful and unique platform that improves your customer response, team workflow and revenue generation. Go to https://try.getweave.com/deliveringwow/ to save 50% off activation! If you'd like to get in touch with Mike to learn more about Weave or to ask him any questions, you can email him at mike.buckner@getweave.com Want to find out more and explore other episodes? Head to: deliveringwow.com/137
What's up guys? I hope that all is well. Welcome to another episode of our podcast. I actually wanted to jump on, I am right in the middle of organizing my Google Drive for a new product that we're going to be launching which is our Delivering WOW funnel program. We have had almost 1,000 people to go through our Facebook Bootcamp, and inside of the bootcamp we give a Facebook ad for every service. We give about 20 or 30 images, we also give a Done For You funnel and email copy for dental implants. But what's happened is that, a lot of our members are like, this is really, really good can you provide us more content? So we want to be able to get for example, images every single month for Invisalign as well as maybe, an article that we can share with our patients. As well as fresh Facebook ads, as well as fresh images, right? And so what we've been working on for the last six months is actually, creating all of that content. So for actually 12 different dental services: implants, Invisalign, cosmetic dentistry, cavity risk assessments, pediatric dentistry, sleep apnea, braces, safe amalgam removal, Wisdom teeth, Six-Month smiles, teeth whitening, peri ... I mean, it's just a whole list. We've actually been working on this as a secret project, listening to our members, right? Now, I want to talk a little bit about what we're doing ... What I'm actually working on right now and how this applies inside of your dental practice. And this is a pretty big project that we're working on. Again, every single dental service that was spoken about we need to provide images for regular ads, images for funnel ads. As well as short copy ads and long copy ads and articles and like, its just a whole bunch of stuff. We want to make sure that we're over delivering. But, the question is that, how do you keep things organized? And how do you ensure that you're not getting overwhelmed? Well, a lot of it comes to simple processes, right? And so, a lot of times you guys see me launching different things. So we have our Printables Program, which is so crazy because I actually thought up that idea probably about three or four weeks ago. It has not even been a whole month, and I came up with this idea and then what I did was I just kinda mapped out the process and I spent about a day mapping out the process of how it would work, where we would get the content for, for the articles, which is typically coming from our writer. And then passing that onto our graphic designer, and then passing that onto the person who uploads the printable, to an Amazon file that we can get a downloadable link. To now putting it inside of the emails that we sent out, right? So it's creating a process. Now, because we took the time to create the process, what happens is that in about two weeks we actually were able to launch it, which is crazy because it's a pretty big project, there's a lot of moving parts. But, quite honestly, the reason why we're able to get that up and running, which has been crazy successful. So far we've had almost 1,000 people who have signed up for our weekly free Printables, which is great because we are now allowing people to learn more about Delivering WOW and how we can help them, our podcast, our free Facebook group, and all of our different programs. But the reason why we're getting ... Able to get it launched, which is why I'm talking about that today is that, I actually took the time to map out the entire process. And because of it we got it launched very quickly and the same thing with our funnel program that we're about to launch. Like, it's a lot of moving parts, we probably have about 20 people working on this project. We have three different writers, we have three different graphic designers. We have just a ton of people that are working behind the scenes. The only way is that we're organized, right? And so inside our ... For example, our Google Drive, I took time to say, "What are all the services? What are all of the content that needs to be complete? Whose going to actually complete it, right?" And then sharing links of where everything can be saved. And I say that because even yesterday, I'm helping my sister ... She's a pre-K teacher and she's been working with ipt by Rev.com helping pre-K teachers with like, their curriculum and lesson plans and she's been doing a lot of Facebook Lives and really helping them. But now they've asked her for ... And she's been doing that just as a hobby. But they are now asking her for content. And they want to get access to, for example, monthly lesson plans. And so I said, "Okay, let me help you map out the course." And we did the exact same thing like, I spent about an hour just, organizing because she's like, "I'm overwhelmed I don't know where to start." I'm like, "Just take some time. And just write out like, what 12 things can you help people with?" Okay, so the first step is to create those videos. Now that you've created the videos, what's going to be the next step that you will want to create an additional resource that will help them so that they won't get stuck, right? So that would be a checklist or a PDF, right? From there what is the next step? From there the next step is to say, "Okay. What are we going to create for them?" So if it's going to be lesson plans, if it's going to be an activity sheet. All of the things that you're going to deliver to them outside of say for example, the 12 learning topics that you want to give them as a bonus, right? And then she's like, "Alright I get it." So step one is, what are your 12 videos? Step two is going to be what's ... What additional resources? And then like, for the monthly deliverables again, the lesson plans. What are you giving? Again, how many lesson plans are you going to give? And then based on that, are you going to do a video with them? And again, it can get super overwhelming. But the way that we broke down the process is like, alright let's map out all of the steps. Now let's just focus on what you have to do for step one. Don't worry about all of the other steps, you've already written them down. Let's just focus on these 12. So the first step is creating your first 12 topics. Once that's done, create the first 12 videos. Once that's done create the templates that go with them. Once that's done, then you move on and we created a really cool spreadsheet inside of Excel where she could actually just, map through seeing how the content is moving as well as like, having an Excel link to the folder where the content is and she was like, "Oh my gosh! This makes so much sense." Now, the reason why I'm talking about this again, on this podcast and relating it to dentistry, is that a lot of times we say that we want to launch a marketing campaign, or we say that this quarter we want to be able to create a process for our account receivables collections. Or we want to create a process for how we answer the telephone, or we want to create a process for how team members can request time off, right? So there's a lot of things that we want to do. Unfortunately, a lot of times it's just talk and talk with good intention. But without an actual plan of how you're going to get there, it can be super overwhelming of how you're going to actually do all of these things. And so, one thing that we started to do within my practice as well as, with our inner circle practices. As well as now, within our Dental Profit Academy, is we're actually teaching the process of 90-day planning through using tools. So using a tool such as, Asana. And Asana is great for task management. And even within our Printables Program, even within our Delivering WOW funnels, it's the same thing. So we use Asana so we can see progress move and then the content is saved within like a tracker. And the content is saved also in folders in Google Drive. So the Asana is kinda like how we move things over. But, we do the same thing for our dental practices and so we say, "Okay, with the 90-day plan, what three things are going to work on this quarter? What are we going to work on for January, February and March inside of marketing?" And then, just like ... Just mapping it out, right? And the same page in Asana ... Or you can do this if you're not using Asana, if you're writing it down. So just take this tip. If you're going to do marketing, what are three campaigns that you're going to do? So, you're going to a clothing drive, you're going to be doing a Valentine's promotion and a March Madness promotion. So you just dump it out, right? And then from there, okay what are we going to do in terms of training? What training does our team need? So they need training on case acceptance, need training on answering the phones. They need training on how to use a specific tool such as, Asana or Dental Intel or whatever it's going to be. So you just write those three things down and then from there you're like, "Okay well, what are we going to do in terms of processes? What processes do we need to build out?" Again, do we need to create an operations manual? Do we need to create a process again, of how we communicate with a patient when they have an overdue balance? Like, a written documented process, not just something that's in someone's head, right? So again, all of that can be super overwhelming. But if you just jot it down, then take time after that ... And that can be super fast. Like that can be accomplished typically in like, 10 minutes. Then you can say, "Okay, now let's break this down further and let's just look at marketing. Who's going to own that on the team?" And so, you just talk to the marketing team and say, "Okay. What are we doing now, now that we're doing for ... Now that we know what we're doing for the first three months. What are we doing for the first month, right?" So the first month, we're going to work on a back-to-school ... Or we're going to work on a clothing drive, right? So, within that again, we're not worried about everything else so it makes it super easy and it's just the marketing team. Not the Doctor, not the office manager who is looking at overseeing everything. But just the person that does marketing. For me, it's a lady who is also at the front desk. And then, the question for her is like, that's the only thing she has to work on. And so, what are you working on ... First you need to know like, who are you going to give the clothes too. And then, how many weeks are you going to collect clothes. And what it's going to be the process? Are you going to give a prize? Is it going to be like, anybody who donates gets an ability to win a $25.00 or $250.00 gift card to the practice. Like, what is that going to be? And then, from there the person would create a Facebook post to promote it on Facebook and Instagram, of how people would be entered to win and where they need to drop off the items, right? So, that can technically be done by a marketing person in an afternoon. Just like, writing down like, who's going to do what? What's going to be done, what ... when? And then now they have their checklist. So they're checklist could be like, alright by tomorrow I'm going to find out who we're going to donate clothes too. You know what? We're going to do it for two weeks and then I'll go ahead and task myself out for Wednesday to go ahead and create a Facebook ad, you know, just the words and go ahead and kinda, map out what we're going to type up. Or if you're inside a Dental Profit Academy, we actually have campaigns that we've created for you. So, we've got campaigns for about 35 different campaigns and we just provide again, two or three examples every single month, so you can get in there and get that content. I actually, created that because my person ... My office was getting stuck. And I was like, "Would it help you if we just created a whole library of images and everything where you could just literally copy and paste it?" And she was like, "Yeah. That'd be really awesome." But anyway, whether you're using our content or not, that's how you would breakdown for example, marketing. If you start looking at, okay well, processes, right? You can say, "This quarter we're going to work on these three processes." Well, who's going to own like, creating a documented process of what happens when a patient has an overdue balance? Who on the team is going to own that? And then you can be like, "Okay. That's going to the financial coordinator." And that might also be the office manager, or it might not be. But it's certainly not going to be the person who is necessarily doing the marketing, right? So that person can say, "Alright. I will go ahead and document a process of what needs to be done." Maybe they're doing a screen share using like, Screen Castify to do a video of their screen, of them recording what happens when ... Or maybe they're taking screenshots and actually just putting it in a typed document, right? So now again, if you have a new team member that joins the practice, it's already documented. You don't have to have any confusion, it's super clear. So you're creating that documented process. And again, because they're only focusing on one documented process per month, right? It's not overwhelming. And because it's just one person, it's not overwhelming, right? They can certainly just focus on that one thing. So, I hope you guys are starting to see how you're able to get a whole lot of things done, just be being organized in the beginning. Like, that's the whole purpose of this particular episode to talk to you about putting in the time first and planning and mapping out what you're going to do. And then from there what you can do is say, "Okay. Who on the team can oversee that part of it?" And then from there, they have their roadmap. They know, for example, if you're the business own or you're the Doctor, if you want to create and map out what you want to have done. Or maybe your team can work with you and you do ... Which is what I recommend, a team meeting to decide what areas need to be worked on, right? And do your 90-day planning together. But again, once you start breaking it down like that, it becomes super easy and super clear. And the team is like, "Yeah. I can take a whole month to just, write down what I do for this every single time." And what happens is that, before you know it you're like. "Oh my gosh! I've gotten so much done." And after a years' time now you're like, "Wow! I have 12 documented process and we've done 12 impactful campaigns in our community, which has brought awareness to our practice and allowed us to serve and give back." We have focused on having our team trained on again, case acceptance or having our team trained on how to use a specific tool or how to answer the telephone, right? And before you know it, at the end of the year, your team is like, rock stars because they've had all of this training. Again, what's the important message of this particular episode? Is to just take time and to map out what needs to be done. And then before you know it, things are happening. They're happening very, very quickly. People are not overwhelmed and again, just going back to the example of me working with my sister yesterday, at first it seemed like super overwhelming for her to create a course for teachers with giving them free lesson plans every month. Free checklists of activities that they can do and materials. And when I broke it down and I was like, "What are ... If you're gonna do that, how many are you going to give?" And she's like, "Well I'll give two lesson plans." I'm like, "Okay. Then, what else are they going to get?" And she's like, "Well they'll get an activity sheet and a coloring sheet." And I'm like. "Alright great. So let's not think about that now. Let's think about the 12 extra little five minute videos. You can give them a tip about this and this and that and the other. And so, let's just focus on that first. Can you tell me the 12 you want to talk about?" Like, she spat it out so fast. I'm like, "Alright, can you create a five minute video on each one of these?" She's like, "Yeah." She's like, "Well what about this?" No, let's just focus on this. She got that in her mind so she's like. "Alright, I can get that done by the end of this week." And I'm like, "Great. From there, those are done. Now you can go ahead and crate a resource that would attach with that. And then you're done. And then now you can focus on your ... The actual lesson plans. And then you can focus on the activity sheet and like, a coloring sheet. And then from there you can move it over onto a platform, you know, such as Quick Funnels to deliver it. And then you can focus on marketing the program." So again, I hope that this was helpful for you. This is how my mind thinks with all of the different things that I do. Whether it's, how do we get more stuff done in our dental practice? How do we get more stuff done with Delivering WOW, when I'm also helping ... Which I find myself now, doing a lot of helping other people who are wanting to ... Want to launch courses and help people. A lot of them are coming to me now. This is the same process that I go through with them. So again, I hope this helps and I look forward to chatting with you guys really soon. Click here to join the Delivering WOW Facebook Group: http://www.deliveringwowhangout.com
Hi, guys. I hope that all is well. I actually wanted to jump on. Something really interesting happened to me when I was looking at the podcast stats, and it was quite interesting. It really related me to what happens inside of our practice where we really drop the ball in terms of looking at what is happening in our business, looking at what drives our performance and our success. So, I wanted to tell you a quick story. So, I actually, as many of you guys know, we're starting this new podcast format, right? Where I am giving you quick tips, telling you what's going on behind the scenes in Delivering WOW. So, I actually went into our podcast audio player. What's up, guys? It is Anissa Holmes. Wanted to jump on really quick. Hey, guys. What's up? Wanted to come on and tell you a quick story about the power of tracking, looking at numbers, and how it affects your performance as well as your behaviors. So, I actually want to start off with a quick story. So as many of you guys know, I decided to take you behind the scenes of Delivering WOW, let you know what we're working on, why we're doing certain things. What's interesting is that when we decided to shift over to doing more podcasts and using this format, I actually went into Libsyn, which is the place where we store, upload all of our podcast files. Interestingly, I actually ... I no longer upload my podcast. I have someone that does that for me on my team, and so I haven't actually looked in there in a really, really long time. Now, I looked in there actually today, and it was really astounding. So number one, it was really, really cool to see that we typically have about 9,000 downloads per episode of our Delivering WOW podcast. But what's really interesting is I looked at our stats for December. Now, in December, we actually had half of the number that we typically had. We had almost 4,000 downloads of our podcast in December. So, you might be asking, "Okay, well, what happened in December?" Well, what happened in December is December happened. I was on vacation with my family. A lot of things were happening with Delivering WOW wrapping up the end of the year. Quite frankly, I probably was just tired and needed a little break after traveling so much in the months of October and November. So, we actually only released maybe one or two podcasts in December. And when you look at the metrics, it really tells a lot. It shows us that, number one, if you're not being consistent, you're not going to get the same results. But what was really interesting as well is it really showed me the power of looking at numbers and metrics really in any area that you want your business to grow. So with Delivering WOW, we're tracking all sorts of things. We're looking at how many email subscribers do we have, how many people are joining our Facebook group, right? Because if we can get in front of more people, we can help them. The same thing in our dental practice. We're tracking how many new patients are we're getting. We're looking at the reappointment rate, how many people are getting a next appointment. It happened for me with the podcast, and I was like, "What if we were looking at this number more often, right? Would we have decided to be more consistent in terms of not only doing our normal four podcasts, but even starting this program a little bit earlier where I'm podcasting a lot more often and taking you behind the scenes?" And you know, what's interesting is that now that we are adding on this new section of podcasts, these short little bites where I'm coaching and giving you strategy to grow your business, it'll be interesting to look at the data and see based on data what happens if you guys like it, if you don't like it. And the numbers actually tell the truth, you know? So, looking inside of our practice, the same thing is so important, and not just in a dental business, but any business. Again, with Delivering WOW, we're tracking lots of little things and it's not necessarily money that we're tracking, but it all ties into the profitability of the company because many times it's those specific things that you focus on that really make the biggest difference. One thing that I've learned from my mentor, Russell Brunson, is, what is the one domino that if you just tip over that one domino, it makes them all fall down? That's the power of metrics. That's the power of using scorecards. So what we decided to do about, well, maybe it was the middle of last year, was to start using a weekly scorecard inside of my practice. Not only did we start using it, but we started using it within our inner circle coaching program. We also, toward the end of the year, released it for Dental Profit Academy so that they could also get access to the template. But what was really neat is we started tracking specific numbers, and those numbers were things like, again, new patient numbers, the dentist production per visit, the hygienist production per visit. We were looking at, again, the reappointment rate, how many patients who have not been seen within the last 18 months are now being scheduled, right? Are now being rescheduled. We started looking at the number of visits. How many visits were we actually getting done per week? We were looking at our accounts receivable over 30 days. What's really interesting is that we decided to, again, use that scorecard. We had a team member and their job, not only in my practice but in all of the practices that we work with, was to go in. We actually use Dental Intel for just about all of our inner circle practices. The office manager or the scheduling coordinator, someone on the team goes in and pulls that number or those numbers. And then what they do is they quickly, from a weekly report, just enter them on the scorecard. Now, a lot of times people will say like, "Why are you having your team do that? Can't that be automated?" And interestingly, I spoke to Weston, who's the founder of Dental Intel, and he was like, "You know, if you want, I can actually get this custom created for you and all of the people that are in your program so that it's automated." I was like, "No, Weston. I really want to have a team member to go in and look at the numbers. That's going to drive them back to Dental Intel every single week to really dig in and see what's happening, make sure that they're using the software to be able to dive deep, get the numbers, and names of the people that need to be called, and just take action, you know?" And it's also, again, a form of accountability versus just having a number that they are actually physically having to move. It means that you're going to look at it, you know what I mean? But anyway, sometimes I go down a rabbit hole. So anyway, the purpose of the scorecard really is to look at the numbers. What was really interesting is that many times goals were set. So, say for example, a production per visit goal. I know I said it in my practice that we would double it, and I mean maybe I was a little bit aggressive, but I just wanted to see if we were tracking it, if we could actually do it. The interesting thing is that we actually met that goal, which is crazy, before the end of the quarter. But, I started looking at, again, not just my scorecard, but the scorecards of all of our inner circle members, and the same exact thing was happening. The hygienist production per visit was increasing. The new patient numbers were increasing. And the reason why is that instead of focusing on lag measures or looking at things that happen after, you actually were using data and real information, real, real, real useful information to make decisions. So again, if the hygiene production per visit was consistently low and in the past nothing was done, now they were able to go in and say, "Okay, the production per visit is not where we want it to be or it's not as much as it was last week. What's gotten us off track?" And then you can say, "Okay, let's make sure that we're talking to all of our patients about why scaling and root planing is absolutely necessary if they want to make sure that there's further destruction of bone. Or, let's really try to make it convenient for our patients and instead of scheduling one quadrant at a time or even two, we just block time out and we get the patient in and we get the treatment completed in one day. Or you know, let's go ahead and run a report to see all of our patients who have unscheduled scaling and root planing and let's get those people as a priority, even over perhaps people who have unscheduled hygiene, right?" Because again, the production per visit would be more by actually scheduling those patients versus, say, for example, a prophy patient, right? So, it's really interesting what happens when you start to look at numbers and you allow it to influence your decisions or really hold you accountable to things that you need to be held accountable for. And again, going back to the podcast, if I had been looking at the number of the drop of podcast downloads, I probably would have not let a week slip, you know? But, we all learn. It's a lesson here. Hopefully this will encourage you and inspire you to start looking at your numbers again week by week. It's something that can be done very, very quickly. And if something is off inside of your weekly team meeting or in your morning huddle, a quick mention can be made of what one thing or one or two things that need to be focused on for that week and it will significantly improve the profitability of your practice as well as patient care because things will not be dropped. The ball will not be dropped. And again, looking at the numbers, which is all that to me is the truth, right? It reveals the truth. When I looked at the performance of the practices that we're working with that are using scorecards, it was like a massive, drastic jump in performance in the quarter once they started implementing scorecards. If you haven't started tracking your numbers, you definitely want to go ahead and do that. We're here to help you if you need us. But again, I just wanted to make light of this because it's super important, super critical, and it can really change everything for you inside of your practice. All right, guys. So, that is it. I will talk to you guys really soon. And again, I look forward to chatting with you inside of our Facebook group, so make sure you head on over to http://www.deliveringwowhangout.com.
With thousands of active practice providers, Dental Intelligence is the market leader in providing dentists and their teams with any time, anywhere actionable metrics in a cloud-based dashboard, designed around the objectives of improving patient care, profitability, and overall team performance. http://get.dentalintel.com/sayno/
Text ‘bulletproof’ to 345345 to stay in the know about our upcoming book release and the Bulletproof Summit in fall 2018! Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast Episode 56 Hosts: Dr. Peter Boulden & Dr. Craig Spodak Guest: Elijah Desmond Watch full video of the interview by clicking here! Key Takeaways: There is a commonality in all successful people. It’s hunger for more. If you aren’t making mistakes or haven’t made one in the last year, you are playing it too safe. Elijah Desmond runs a Facebook page called Trapped in an Op for those professionals who want to venture from the traditional clinical setting in dentistry. The main issue dental teams are suffering from is drama. Either you have the wrong people or the wrong culture in the office. If you are lacking alignment how can you work well as a team? Everyone is a consultant these days. Business owners are more self conscious than ever with social media outlets being readily available with information. Stop listening to everyone else. Focus on your goals and what you want out of your career. There is currently a changing of hands. The older generation is passing the baton and a new generation of influencers is rising. What is the reason why you entered in this profession? For most, the number one reason to be in this profession is to make people smile. Focusing on the big picture and changing lives What is your hygienist supposed to do? Focus on complete oral health Don’t brush off hygiene checks this is where treatment is converted! You have already established a connection with these patients. They more likely to agree to recommended treatment with the help of your hygiene team. Dental Intel will track which Doctor/Hygienist work best together in converting over treatment. Mention Bulletproof Dental Practice and sign up for Dental Intel w/no activation fee. Tweetables: “Magic is hard work.” – Dr. Craig Spodak “Motivation and determination without procrastination is the key to success.” – Elijah Desmond “The way you get to the top is by helping other people get there too.” – Dr. Craig Spodak
Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap to Practice Ownership | Custom Made for the New Dentist
Welcome to another episode of the Shared Practices Podcast! We’ve invited Rob Bay form Dental Intel onto the show to help us understand how to use metrics and apply them to a practice acquisition. We touch on the topics of what dental intel is, how to apply dental intel to acquisitions, and how to apply metrics to managing a practice. Rob even offers to help out the listeners of our show. This was one of our most informative episodes so far! Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Shared Practices Podcast! To be the first to have access to the Ownership Accelerator and our launch special join the Waiting List! Our Episode Resource Page where you can find all of the resources from our episodes - for free! Join our new Facebook Group! Reach out to George- George@sharedpractices.com Dental Intel- http://www.dentalintel.com/index.html Rob Bay is the co founder and president of Dental Intel. Rob loves numbers,data, and excel. There is nothing that he loves more than helping a customer understand how numbers and data can change their life significantly for the better.
Are you getting better? Are you getting worse? How are you producing in relation to your peers? Are you measuring up with your goals? Find, understand and manage all of this data and more with the information in this episode. A way to benchmark how we are doing in our profession with Dental Intel Data Analysis. Listen in to Dr. John and Rob Bay from Dental Intel discuss how we can increase our bottom line by 17% by utilizing this one tool. For more information on The Team Training Institute or Dental Intel, visit www.theteamtraininginstitute.com/podcast
Hey Ambitious Dentists, I have a really exciting interview for you today, with the one and only Weston Lunsford, CEO of Dental Intel… Dental Intel is one of the most popular tools used by dentists to help track the metrics and numbers that matter, so you can focus on dentistry. In addition to running Dental Intel, Weston is very active in the dental community and is always looking for ways to help dentists make breakthroughs in their practice. As a numbers guy myself, I couldn’t be more excited about our conversation today. In today’s interview, you will learn... And much more. If you’re looking to make better use of your metrics, and increase case acceptance for your practice, you won’t want to miss our conversation. Here are a few things you'll discover in today's episode How Weston has seen some of his clients see case acceptance by 5,10 or even 15% in a little as just a few weeks. Why knowing your numbers is only the first step… and how to turn your metrics into actionable insights How Weston got into the dental industry and what he’s learned running Dental Intel Weston’s view on failure… and how it’s helped him find success. The golf club analogy and how it applies to your practice. Now here’s the interview, with Weston Lunsford.
After doing lots of recording from the ole homestead here in Nashville Peyman and I decided to head south to ATL for the Hinman Dental Meeting. We actually did a neat video for Hinman on why Peyman and I are passionate about going to these large dental meetings! We love digital learning like the rest of you, but it doesn't replace these meetings! Check it out first so you see what these episodes are all about. So yeah, at Hinman we went around to different vendors that we thought were interesting and got them on the podcast. We wanted those who couldn't attend to hear about some of the new companies out there as well as their take on different aspects of dentistry. First up we have Dentist Chats who were great to talk to. I am currently using a different chat company, but these guys were awesome. I am a big believer only a month or two in that a chat person on your website is a must! They are doing a special deal for our listeners in waiving the first month fee if you mention us!! Secondly, we interviewed Weave. Weave is basically a company that replaces your phones and integrates with your practice management software to maximize your front desk team. I am personally a user and a big fan. We saved a good bit of money by dropping AT&T. The biggest complaint your going to hear about Weave is if internet is down, so is your phones. Having good internet is key and Ill say for us personally that the amount of good things about weave outweighs the minimal outages we have had over the past year. However, everyone should look into some sort of software that helps your team up front! Skye said mention us and get your first month free and no contract! Thirdly, we got a chance to catch up with Rohit, the founder of Practice By Numbers. I am a big believer in the fact that all practices need some software that helps track numbers. If your not tracking it you can't improve it, its that simple! I am currently a Dental Intel user, but both would be worth looking into. Rohit is offering your first month free here as well! Our last interview was with Banyan, a social media/review company. Everybody is starting to see those new signs pop up at dental offices. They are using a company like this to help market on social media. Although I love the idea and their concept I think its a bit overpriced as you will see. Unfortunately, we havent heard from them so you will get a good laugh at the end! Thanks for listening and please share with your friends and give us a review on iTunes!!
Rob Bay is the President and Co-Founder of Dental Intel, the leader in business analytics software to help dental practices improve their performance, profits and value. Dental Intel is one of the fastest growing companies in dentistry with 2800 dentists utilizing their software since its launch in April 2015. Rob is a numbers geek and the mind behind the formulas and algorithms of Dental Intel. He loves analyzing practices to see what is happening, why it is happening and how to solve it. http://www.dentalintel.com/
Brad Petersen is the CEO of Sharp Edge Marketing Group, an leading marketing firm that helps dentists maximize their strategic and financial goals by proactively monitoring and managing their patient base. Sharp Edge's 12-month marketing plans include best-in-class lead generation and conversion strategies, real-time analytics and ongoing training and education. Petersen has led companies, non-profits, government agencies, and individuals to maximize their potential for more than 20-years. In 2012 Petersen was recruited from the private sector to be appointed by the Governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, to start a new government agency that has since been recreated in five other states, facilitated acquisitions for the Intel Corporation, and founded and sold his own company. You can reach Brad at brad@sharpedgemarketing.com or by visiting www.sharpedgemarketing.com/Veritas. Rob Bay is the Chief Sales Officer for Dental Intel. Rob is responsible for expanding Dental Intelligence's technology solutions into the corporate dentistry sector and international markets. Rob loves numbers and data. There is nothing that he loves more than helping a customer understand how numbers and data can change their life significantly for the better. He has spent his entire career growing successful technology businesses including within Telecom, Managed Services, Outsourcing and Saas. He has a proven track record of success and is able to capitalize on new opportunities, avenues and verticals for continued growth. Rob always has a brain teaser to share and when not working he likely is watching his children dance or play soccer. He also enjoys canyoneering, hiking and backpacking. You can reach Rob at rob@dentalintel.com and check out Denta lntel at www.dentalintel.com. During this episode Brad and Rob talk about where the dental industry is with marketing and where it is heading. For offices looking to join or drop PPO's Brad talks about key marketing strategies that may affect your PPO game plan. Rob addresses key analytics numbers you should know about when analyzing effective marketing strategies.
Shared Practices | Your Dental Roadmap to Practice Ownership | Custom Made for the New Dentist
Welcome to Season 2! In today's episode with Dr. Scott Leune we dive into what it means to implement clinical and business systems in your dental practice. Visit BreakawayPractice.com to sign up for Dr. Leune's course in San Antonio or learn about their other services. Dental Intel was the resource Breakaway uses for automatically monitoring key indicators from practice software. Dr. Leune graduated from UT Health Science Center School of Dentistry in 2005. His dental career began with three startup practices in San Antonio which grew to 80 staff, 10 dentists, and a call center in a very short time. These practices continued to average a combined total of over 700 new patients per month and were all managed by Dr. Leune working a mere 4 days per month. In 2011, Dr. Leune started seven practices in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, opening them within a two-month timespan. Over the last 4 years, through the Breakaway Affiliate Program, Dr. Leune has helped build approximately 80 startup practices nationwide. For the last 8 years, Dr. Leune has lectured to thousands of dental professionals & executives sharing his proven systems, marketing and practice design, leading to consistently sold-out seminars. He has been featured in numerous dental publications and listed as the ‘most-subscribed-to-person’ on Dentaltown (the premiere online dental community). Dr. Leune has also created and grown Breakaway’s Support Services and Affiliate Program to include over 270 practices nationwide, adding several more each day. He has continued to redefine practice management, as the leader & expert in profitable dental practice systems to maximize success.
As CEO of Dental Intelligence, Weston oversees the strategic direction of the company and its products. He manages Dental Intelligence's revenue growth and future expansion plans. He also dedicates a large part of his time to be intimately involved with our clients, the dentists, to fully understand their needs, wants and experience with Dental Intelligence's products and solutions. Weston has spent the previous 10 years as the principal partner in Lunsford Peck Certified Public Accountants providing services for medical and dental professionals with nearly 2,000 clients. Weston's vision and desire to create value has emanated passion throughout the company. During this episode Weston explains data analytics in dental but also talks about important numbers to follow when you drop insurance plans. While our podcast is not intended to promote insurance boycotting we recognize that many doctors are better off being out of network. This episode will provide some feedback about how a certain client of Weston was successfully able to drop insurance plans and achieve the goal of working less for more. To contact Dental Intel visit www.dentalintel.com or call them at 855-776-2673 or email Clay Shubin at Cshubin@dentalintel.com.
Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast Episode 7 Host: Dr. Peter Boulden Atlanta Dental Spa Guest: Rob Bay President, Dental Intel Key Takeaways: Dental Intel is a cloud based software which can be used as a practice management and financial management system. Dentists are busy with their practice so they have no time to pore over the data presented. So Dental Intelligence learned to take the data and turn it into reports that dentists can easily understand. They provided action items on the things dentists can do in order to improve. Causation data is understanding what is causing the managerial data being measured. The next and deeper level of data is called action items. It tells you what you need to do with the data you have. It tells dentists specific things that needs to be done in a specific time to specific patients. Dental Intel takes the data and processes it into actionable items that can be assigned to other people - not necessarily the dentist himself. Caring about your patients and understanding the numbers should not be mutually exclusive. They can blend together and go hand-in-hand. Dental Intel measures things that allows dentists to provide exceptional care for their patients. Patients, on average are only accepting 25% of what is being presented to them. Usually, this has to do more about the practice and the systems than the patients. Dental Intel can help by measuring this data in order to increase cognizance of the issue. This leads to improving the issue. Understanding data increases awareness of what your practice is doing right and wrong. Do not focus on the negative but rather view them as opportunities within your practice. It is not an emotional decision, it’s a binary decision. It’s just data. Utilizing data and information to make decision can make you a better business owner and help you provide better care to your patients. Ask why the numbers are where they are even if the numbers are good. You want to replicate the good thing that is being done. Dental Intel, or a data analyst, can help a dentist become accountable with the data being measured. Dental Intel provides correction but with recommendation. They make it optimistic. Dental Intel Rule: Find 3 good things (celebrations) before giving a helpful observation (correction). Highlight areas of success and build up on them instead of focusing on the terrible things someone, who was never measured before, is doing. Let the number do the talking instead of pushing down a person. Dental Intel Goal: Help individual dentists become successful in the midst of corporate dentistry boom. Resources: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Glip - by Ring Central Intercom Tweetables: “In measuring and tracking things, you can modify things.” Rob Bay “Using data and information to figure out how systems can be improved is a replicable skill.” Rob Bay “There’s nothing more powerful than having everyone in your practice do one little thing everyday to bring in more production.” Rob Bay “If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business. If you don’t know your business, you’re putting everyone at risk.” - Dr. Peter Boulden “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates. - Thomas Monson.” - Rob Bay “It’s not emotion, it’s just a binary decision about changing x to get to y. It’s just data.” - Dr. Peter Boulden
"If something ends up on your financial statement, it's too late to do anything about it" - Weston Lunsford As CEO of Dental Intel, Weston oversees the strategic direction of the company and its products. He manages Dental Intelligence’s revenue growth and future expansion plans. He also dedicates a large part of his time to be intimately involved with our clients, the dentists, to fully understand their needs, wants and experience with Dental Intelligence’s products and solutions.
We had a great time chatting with Weston Lunsford of Dental Intel, which is a web-based practice intelligence platform that will change the way you conduct business, keep records, analyze data and eventually grow your business and increase your revenue. It was pretty fascinating to hear about Weston's journey from being a rancher to CEO of Dental Intel. Reach out to Weston at weston@dentalintel.com and chat with him about your practice for 30min and he will, in his words, light your practice up! He also brought on a special guest of his own— the Co-Founder and CEO of the Productive Dentistry Academy (PDA) in Washington state. Do yourself and your practice a favor... definitely check out Dental Intel http://www.dentalintel.com at and Productive Dentist Academy at http://www.productivedentist.com/ "At Dental Intelligence, we have one simple purpose - To help dentists improve team performance, value and overall culture in the practice. Everything we do emanates emotion, inspires engagement, and enables enrichment around that one purpose. We're all about creating value. We're passionate about what we do... and how we do it. We trust in each other and in our abilities to create something special, something unique, something impactful. We make the difference... for our team, our customers, our partners, and shareholders. We invite all dentists, dental practice owners and dental practice team members including coaches and consultants to try us out. Give us a call and let's see what we can do together. You'll be glad you did and I know that incredible will happen!" — Weston Lunsford, CEO
The Dentist Money™ Show | Financial Planning & Wealth Management
Weston Lunsford, CEO of Dental Intel and self-diagnosed “data geek,” breaks down the numbers behind successful practices and offers a simplified solution for measuring progress. He also explains the meaning of proactive planning, four categories of money making, the impact of broken appointments, and why certain dentists struggle to reach standard benchmarks.
In business you make something, sell something, and watch the numbers. Learn how watching the numbers is essential to increasing profitability, and how merging financial and practice-management software is vital for a healthy practice. Weston Lunsford, CEO: As CEO of Dental Intel, Weston oversees the strategic direction of the company and its products. He manages Dental Intel’s revenue growth and future expansion plans. He also dedicates a large part of his time to be intimately involved with our clients, the dentists, to fully understand their needs, wants and experience with Dental Intel’s products and solutions. Weston has spent the previous 10 years as the principal partner in Lunsford Peck Certified Public Accountants providing services for medical and dental professionals with nearly 2,000 clients. Weston’s vision and desire to create value has emanated passion throughout the company. “We are passionate about what we do… We trust in each other and in our abilities to create something special, something unique, and something impactful. We make incredible happen!” www.dentalintel.com Kirk Behrendt, President: Kirk Behrendt is a practice performance coach, international speaker and author. Kirk has invested his entire professional life studying the elite practices in dentistry and the leadership that guides them. As the founder of ACT, his vision is driven by the commitment to provide highly personalized care to the dental profession. By creating a talented team of experts, Kirk and his team continue to positively impact the practice of dentistry on practice at a time. The Pankey Institute and Dr. Peter Dawson's treatment philosophies influenced Kirk early in his career. Since then, his mission has been to provide the most ethical and value driven service known to the dental coaching profession. His personal mission is to use up every ounce of his potential. Kirk lectures all over the world to help individuals take control of their own lives. Kirk has competed internationally in 4 Ironman Triathlons and 9 Half-Iron Triathlons. He currently trains with some of the best triathletes competing in the world today. His feeling is that there is no greater parallel to optimal business performance than optimal athletic performance. He loves cycling, basketball, stand-up comedy, and most all, spending time with his wife, Sarah and children Kinzie, Lily, Zoe & Bo. His email address is kirk@actdental.com. www.actdental.com
Adam Smith, VP of Analytics at Dental Intel, shares his expertise on practice overhead, accounting in a dental office, uncovering embezzlement and more! DentalIntel.com
Dr. Howard Farran and Curtis Marshall of Dental Intel discuss top secrets that corporate dentistry is hiding from single practitioners.