Podcasts about gary you

“Why do we have this problem with such smart people, the brightest of the brights, attorneys at such top firms, getting wrapped up with shady people?” asks Dan Binstock, who returns, with Gary Miles, to the podcast to discuss the less-than-ethical practices employed by legal recruiters that potential candidates need to watch out for. Part of the problem, they explain, is that for all of their advanced education, most candidates are woefully uneducated in this area of recruiting, not to mention many firms fall for the fallacy that if they're not actively growing they're shrinking. So, a fast-talking, sales-focused recruiter who's willing to cut ethical corners and appeal to a candidates' healthy ego, can convince the candidate to make a decision that could alter the course of their career.    The answer, they agree, is doing the same due diligence as a candidate that one does as a lawyer. Ask the right questions, many examples of which are provided in today's discussion. Take your time; listen to what is said and what is not said. Don't fall for fast answers or, as Gary says, give the recruiter an inch of rope and let them think they're a cowboy.    Dan and Chris act out a series of role plays to give you a better idea of how to remain in control of the conversation with deceptive legal recruiters. They'll also go over the importance of expressed consent when closing out a conversation.    Quotes “A lot of people who are drawn to recruiting or sales in general tend to be people that, maybe are really good talkers, and may not have the highest ethical barometers and may fudge the corners a little bit.” (7:32 | Dan)  “A lot of firms think that if they do the deal with the “unethical recruiter” at least, for some period of time, according to their fee agreement, the person will not call in their lawyers to try to move someone out of their firm. So it gets to be a cost/benefit analysis.”  (14:12 | Gary) “You do so much diligence, so much preparation, so much finding out what is going to impact your clients' situation in any given context or business that they're involved in. Yet, when it comes to a partner's career, and making one of the most important decisions they're going to make if I'm going to move from my firm, if so, where? What will be the best fit for me and my practice? What is the potential for long term success? A lot of partners won't do any diligence.” (20:25 | Gary)  “If they can't speak about the search for at least 60 seconds, they don't know. They're just going off, you can hear them looking at a website. ‘Oh, this is a firm that has offices in Washington, DC, New York, Charlotte, Chicago, Boston, yeah, nine offices in…' And if it looks like they're reading through a script? Bulls**t.” (29:42 | Dan) Links Connect with Dan Binstock: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/legalrecruiter/ Garrison: https://g-s.com Lateral Partners: https://lateralpartners.com/   Connect with Gary Miles: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-miles-aa7b28103/ Miles Partner Placement: https://milespartnerplacement.com/   Connect with Chris Batz: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbatz/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theliongroupkc  Instagram: @theliongroupllc Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Trigger warning: Gambling addiction, suicide   Welcome to Episode 91 – Strong Men Struggle with Gary Fahey Men who identify as Alpha males can often feel trapped when dealing with their internal struggles. The expectation to be strong, dependable and unwavering amidst chaos can clash with an internal voice that's reaching our for help. But there is a way to balance the two, and this week's guest is a prime example of this. Gary Fahey is a mental strength and performance specialist, mental health and addiction counsellor, highly sought-after speaker and bestselling author who embodies the mantra of “Lived it, Learned it, Earned it.” Gary spent 18 years with the Australian Federal Police, leading the Australian Prime Minister's Personal Protection Team, directing the strategic and operational responsibilities of the Office of Commissioner as the AFP's Executive Officer, and managing international operations. And he did this while fighting a deep, dark and destructive battle with mental health and gambling addiction which cost him $2 million, his career, his reputation and saw him question the value of his own life.   In this episode Gary shares:   -      Where he started and what life was growing up in a low socio economic area -      How he got into the Australian Federal Police and came to work with Kevin Rudd's security -      The way his career took a toll on his personal life -      How things outside the AFP were unconsciously happening and it took him a while to realise what was falling to the side of his high pressure career -      How gambling was the place where the noise wouldswitch off in his head -      The moment he lost his job due to his gambling addiction -      His rock bottom/scary moment in his life where he researched taking his own life -      The reason his earlier attempts to stop his addiction were not successful -      The work he's doing today to help and inspire others going through similar challenges -      The frameworks and techniques he draw on to help his clients -      The reason he doesn't conduct sessions in offices -      The importance of lived experience especially for helping men   Key quotes:   "I found it very difficult to acknowledge to myself that I was struggling.”   "I wasn't very conscious about building the man outside of the AFP, I was more focused on climbing the ladder.”   "I thought I had a gambling issue and tried to fix a gambling issue and didn't realise the depression was underpinning that.”   "I needed to build skills when I was in rational thinking so that when I was irrational I might have had a chance to do the right thing."   More about Gary You can find out more about Gary and his services via his website: www.strongmend.com  And follow Gary on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrongMend Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strong.mend Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyfahey/ Gary also mentioned Physiological Sighing, which you can find information about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBdhqBGqiMc&t=11s   For more from Mindful Men Check out the website at www.mindful-men.com.au   You can also follow us on social media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindful.men.aus Instagram: @mindful.men.aus Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-rinne-246207247/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mindful.men.aus Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbXBNQmbj4ZQj3rzFAZALTA   ***If anything triggers you from today's episode, please reach out to your support networks or seek professional help*** Cheers, Simon --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mindfulmen/message

Gary: Thanks for joining me. Let's suppose that we are screening someone for an important role. It could be anything from fixing our computer to becoming a regular date. What all do we take into consideration? Sure, there are many factors that may be important but two stand out. Let's explore can and did. It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who said, "We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." Although Longfellow's pronouncement has superficial plausibility, it's merely an example of polar logic. One pole is what you feel capable of doing and the other is what you have already done. The judgment reduces to can and did. You judge yourself based on “can” and others judge you based on “did” according to Longfellow. The reality is that such judgments rarely reduce to either can ... or ... did, for you or for others who judge you. Let's look first at can. If this is a judgment you make about yourself, is it reasonable to make it without considering “did?” Relying exclusively on what you think you can do, without considering what you have done, places no value on prior experience. It also acknowledges an inability to learn. Alternatively, if you consider did to the exclusion of can, your behavior is simply repetitive; and you will need to take Albert Einstein's observation to heart, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Look next at “did.” If others are expecting change, improvement, innovation, or new approaches and strategies, you aren't the person they need. They can only expect you to do again what you did before. Unless “can” is considered, nothing new or different ever happens. The conclusion is that can ... and ... did aren't separable. They are the head and tail of the coin of progress. Marc: Hey Gary, May I take a shot at this to see if I'm getting your point? Gary: Sure, have at it. Marc: Ok, here I go. How then should one approach success? What is the best strategy for blending did and can? Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, “a man can do as he will, but not will as he will.” The message is that you can't simply “will” things to happen. You have a wide range of options for doing but no magical powers. Alexander Graham Bell said, “The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion … It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation, persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.” Gary: You make a strong point. It really is true that the best clue to how well any of us will do with anything we undertake is how we have dealt with things in the past. As someone wise once said, “Success begets success.” The basis for judging ourselves or anyone else is now clearer. You and those who judge you focus on both did and can. Success is a blending of the two sides of the coin; and if your goal is to get a thumbs-up from you and from others, you need to get high marks on this short quiz. – Good luck! Marc: Let me play teacher and ask the questions. Gary: You have the microphone. Marc: Are you carefully advancing, step by step? Is your mind becoming wider and wider? Are you persevering in what you know to be practical? Are you concentrating on succeeding? Gary: You may have missed your calling. Let's move on. It's simply a variation on the old story, “Nothing succeeds like success.” As we imagine our future successes, this is just a warning to take care to be sure that the view behind us is as exemplary as we hope the view forward will be. Susan: If I can also join in, let me share a perspective that may at first seem to have nothing to do with can and did. On the surface, it doesn't.

Gary: Thanks for joining me. Let's suppose that we are screening someone for an important role. It could be anything from fixing our computer to becoming a regular date. What all do we take into consideration? Sure, there are many factors that may be important but two stand out. Let's explore can and did. It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who said, "We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." Although Longfellow's pronouncement has superficial plausibility, it's merely an example of polar logic. One pole is what you feel capable of doing and the other is what you have already done. The judgment reduces to can and did. You judge yourself based on “can” and others judge you based on “did” according to Longfellow. The reality is that such judgments rarely reduce to either can ... or ... did, for you or for others who judge you. Let's look first at can. If this is a judgment you make about yourself, is it reasonable to make it without considering “did?” Relying exclusively on what you think you can do, without considering what you have done, places no value on prior experience. It also acknowledges an inability to learn. Alternatively, if you consider did to the exclusion of can, your behavior is simply repetitive; and you will need to take Albert Einstein's observation to heart, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Look next at “did.” If others are expecting change, improvement, innovation, or new approaches and strategies, you aren't the person they need. They can only expect you to do again what you did before. Unless “can” is considered, nothing new or different ever happens. The conclusion is that can ... and ... did aren't separable. They are the head and tail of the coin of progress. Marc: Hey Gary, May I take a shot at this to see if I'm getting your point? Gary: Sure, have at it. Marc: Ok, here I go. How then should one approach success? What is the best strategy for blending did and can? Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, “a man can do as he will, but not will as he will.” The message is that you can't simply “will” things to happen. You have a wide range of options for doing but no magical powers. Alexander Graham Bell said, “The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion … It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation, persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.” Gary: You make a strong point. It really is true that the best clue to how well any of us will do with anything we undertake is how we have dealt with things in the past. As someone wise once said, “Success begets success.” The basis for judging ourselves or anyone else is now clearer. You and those who judge you focus on both did and can. Success is a blending of the two sides of the coin; and if your goal is to get a thumbs-up from you and from others, you need to get high marks on this short quiz. – Good luck! Marc: Let me play teacher and ask the questions. Gary: You have the microphone. Marc: Are you carefully advancing, step by step? Is your mind becoming wider and wider? Are you persevering in what you know to be practical? Are you concentrating on succeeding? Gary: You may have missed your calling. Let's move on. It's simply a variation on the old story, “Nothing succeeds like success.” As we imagine our future successes, this is just a warning to take care to be sure that the view behind us is as exemplary as we hope the view forward will be. Susan: If I can also join in, let me share a perspective that may at first seem to have nothing to do with can and did. On the surface, it doesn't.

“The law firms usually take their cues from their clients. If there's layoffs at the big banks and financial institutions, there's going to be a slowdown in the corporate work as well,” explains Sharon Mahn,CEO and Founder of Mahn Partners. Today, Sharon and Gary Miles, president and CEO at Miles Partner Placement, combine their experience to discuss the current legal market, predictions for the future, and the impact on legal recruiting and law partner compensation. The market is cyclical and currently in a downturn. But that does not necessarily mean that law firms will no longer be recruiting. Top talent that brings in high revenue will always be desirable regardless of the state of the market. Firms will likely be more discerning about hiring during a downturn and may not offer as high of a compensation rate. It is important for law firms to be very transparent with recruiters and clients alike about how the market conditions may impact their practice. During a recession it is important to be very smart about hiring. Larger law firms can handle more of a loss than smaller firms, but they will still likely offer a lower law partner compensation while the market is down. Whenever there are many layoffs at banks and financial institutions, that causes a slowdown in corporate work and the law firms tend to restructure around that. Quotes “Law firms usually take their cues from their clients. If there's layoffs at the big banks and financial institutions, there's gonna be a slowdown in the corporate work as well.” (4:49-4:57 | Sharon) “You don't want to lay off too many people in your firm and then have to rehire them when the market is on the upswing again.” (7:49-7:54 | Sharon) “Be transparent in the process and understand how market conditions might impact your practice.” (10:25-10:36 | Gary)  “You just have to learn to see around corners as best you can.” (16:52-16:55 | Gary) “The law firms are now more specifically focused on partners and their business regardless of credentials, regardless of anything else.” (23:17-23:24 | Sharon)   Links Connect with Sharon Mahn: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonmahn/   Connect with Gary Miles: Miles Partner Placement https://milespartnerplacement.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-miles-aa7b28103/ Connect with Chris Batz: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbatz/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theliongroupkc  Instagram: @theliongroupllc Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

In today's episode, Jenny discusses auction services with Gary Messner - Owner/Broker Messner Auction & Land Company.  Jenny and Gary have been working together on estate auctions & liquidation for 6 years.Jenny shares what a wonderful resource Gary has been to her both professionally and personally.  Gary is able to empathize with people from all walks of life as he has experienced the highs and lows of life himself. From bankruptcy, gathering aluminum cans for money and living in his car to becoming a successful business owner, Gary has gained much perspective from his experiences.Messner Auction Company not only has experience working with real estate auctions and liquidation, but they also have experience in selling livestock. Gary shares about his background in agriculture, starting with his summers spent at his grandparents' farm during his childhood summers. In addition to auction services, Messner Auction Company also has a contract cleaning service that prepares the real estate for listing. Give this episode a listen to learn more!Episode Highlights: Information about Messner Auction & Land CompanyBackground on Gary MessnerDifferences in types of hoardingFind More on Guest:Gary Messner - Owner/Broker Messner Auction & Land Co.Messner Auction Company WebsiteOffice # (605) 718-3507Cell # (605) 391-3564Email: glmess@hotmail.comAddress: 2843 Samco Road Suite R  Rapid City SD 57702Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on Black Hills Advocate:www.blackhillsadvocate.comCall us at 605.519.5051Check us out on FacebookContact UsLegends of SuccessQuotes: “The impact we were able to make in that person's life was profound.” - Jenny“You are one of the most non-judgemental people I've ever met and I mean that in the highest form of compliment.” - Jenny to Gary“You won't have success the second time around if you don't get back up after you've been knocked down.” - Gary

Evolving a business in the financial services industry can be a steep hill to climb. But Principal Financial reached the summit of digital transformation to become a more customer-centric, knowledge-based, and technology-driven brand. Hear from former CIO Gary Scholten as he breaks down the strategy behind Principal’s digital evolution, what benefits it’s had for their customers, and how it fundamentally changed their employee knowledge base.   Key Takeaways: [1:37] In 2020, Gary retired from an 18-year stint as CIO at Principal Financial. This is rather extraordinary because the CIO role has famously been known as shorthand for “Career Is Over.” [2:15] If you think back to the early 2000s, you will notice a lot of our technology has changed. One of the challenges of embarking on a digital transformation in 2002 was that most of the technology that exists now in our digital world such as mobile apps, clouds, and blockchain weren’t even around yet. As the technology evolved, Gary worked with business leaders to make sure that business strategy evolved as well. At Principal, this meant developing a strategy dedicated to putting the customer experience at the center of their work. [3:35] Gary explains how once you start to develop your technology strategy from the view of the customer, you actually make it more simple. [5:35] Gary’s role as CIO not only entailed pushing Principal to adopt a digital strategy but helping customers and employees access their benefits more easily. These “nudges” were a new kind of customer engagement that helped them take greater advantage of the benefits available to them. In the enrollment process, based on the questions, they could guide users who both wanted to DIY the process and those that desired as much assistance as possible. [7:15] Was it hard for Principal’s employees to adapt to customer-centred digital strategy? Yes, Gary says. When he first started, about 75% of employees were transaction workers and 25% knowledge workers. When he retired in 2020, more than 80% were knowledge-based roles, due to both automation of transactional work and the economy. [9:18] Knowledge-based roles are fundamentally different from transactional, and you need fundamentally different skills to fulfill them well. Gary speaks about redefining job descriptions and hiring practices to prepare for this digital development change. [10:10] Principal rebranded IT to now be more of a technology community where critical thinking and a comfortability around analytics were two important skills. [13:21] We’ve seen attempts at big cultural shifts from many transformers across many industries, but it’s no easy task. Any culture change takes time, but why are financial services so slow to move the needle?  Financial service companies tend to be great at innovation in finance, but digital presents a different kind of innovation. The more they see how this makes the customer's life better, the more they will tend to put resources into efforts that really move the dial. [15:06] Gary shares his advice for CIO’s: get an ally in Senior Management, have a consistent message, and talk in business terms. The CIO should embrace their role and encourage others to get tech-savvy in a welcoming way. Gary also recommends digital immersion trips with management and getting regular feedback. [18:00] Principal was ahead of the curve when virtually the whole world had to shift to remote work overnight, a lot of it thanks to Gary. [20:34] Gary talks about the importance of diversity and inclusion from a workforce perspective at Principal. The war for talent has always been a problem for leadership, and another remedy was to aggressively recruit talent. However, he knew that diversity must be far more than a recruitment strategy. It would take wanting to actively look at unconscious bias, and really knowing that the more diverse a company is, the wider perspective you get. [23:08] So after Gary’s 40 years in technology, does he believe it can make the world a better place? Yes. For example, Principal helps people get ready for retirement, when not many people are soundly prepared for the future. If you make things simple enough and help guide the choices in the right way, it can change the world.   Quotes: “Technology and business strategy should be completely immersed.” - Gary “Technology is not just the responsibility of IT.” - Gary “You need to experiment with what works. You need to let strategy evolve.” - Jeanne “Diversity must be far more than a recruitment strategy.” - Gary   Continue on your journey: pega.com/podcast   Mentioned: Gary Scholten Principal

“Life is gray. It's not black and white. It's possible to admit that the FBI made mistakes and at the same time recognize the ultimate responsibility of Koresh to have led his people out peacefully, as we encouraged him to do every single day.” Gary Noesner Gary Noesner, author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career. During this career, Gary was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series. I had the pleasure of speaking with Gary about the gray nature of life, what distinguishes wants vs needs, and the game-changing power of making adjustments at half-time. Listen in to find out how Gary’s discomfort with conflict in his youth led to his career as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.   Show Highlights [7:29] The fatal mistake of assuming that high rank equals expertise [14:07] The realization that life is gray [19:00] Saving the most lives possible [22:29] Making adjustments at half-time [26:40] Distinguishing between wants and needs   Links | Resources Gary on LinkedIn Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator   About the Guest Gary Noesner, author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career. During this career, Gary was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Gary Noesner. Gary retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career, during which he was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series. He's also author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator.  Welcome to the show, Gary. Gary: Thanks. It's a pleasure to be with you. Douglas: So, Gary, I'm always fascinated to hear how people got their start, especially in the world of facilitation. And I’m sure negotiators are no different. While there’s certainly a course at Quantico, there’s not readily degree programs, like, “Oh, I’m going to go become a negotiator or become a facilitator.” It's a quite circuitous path a lot of people take. And I'm curious. All the way back to the Lakeland High School, you know, talking about some of those early situations you found yourself in, at what point did you really start to realize that you had this gift of kind of working with people? Gary: Well, I think as an early age, I was always uncomfortable around conflict and always sort of stepped up to the plate to de-escalate confrontations and arguments, whether it's between friends or others. It just seemed like a natural and appropriate thing to do for me. So when I got into the FBI, after wanting to do that since I was young, I had no sense that anything about negotiation existed because it didn't when I joined. But when I first got in the early part of my career, the FBI had sort of taken on this hostage-negotiation concept that had been started by NYPD. And there's something about it that really attracted me, and I thought it fit my personality and skill set. So I got the early training, and it was an auxiliary function for me for many, many years. And eventually I became a full-time negotiator and chief of the Crisis Negotiation Unit for the last 10 years of my career. But it was very challenging, and, yeah, there's a lot of similarities with mediation, facilitation. It's all about building relationships and influencing people in a positive way.  Douglas: And it must have been kind of—it's like coming full circle as you were one of the first to take the course, and then you ended up taking the program over. What did that feel like when you remember it? Like, what was that like? Gary: Well, in those days, when I first got involved, the FBI, perhaps more so than today, played a pretty significant role in training police departments. Police departments didn't have a lot of money for training back then, so part of the FBI's mission was to provide it at no charge. And one of the areas, of course, was negotiation. It eventually became the thing we taught more than anything else, except for maybe firearms. And it gave me an opportunity to really interface with a lot of police officers in ways that I might not have had a chance otherwise. And that was a really valuable piece of my learning as an agent, as a human being. And, you know, I certainly got as much from those officers as I gave. It became apparent to me very quickly that the skills and the approaches we were teaching had a real impact. It wasn't theoretical. It allowed officers to exercise some specific skills to prevent violence and come home alive to their families. So immediately I recognized it as rewarding and meaningful and certainly something I always enjoyed. Douglas: Something that really caught my eye—and I kind of can parallel it back to even the theme of the show, which is control, and how much control do we lean into, and how much do we back away from? And I really struck a chord with this notion of maintaining balance. And you were talking about managing yourself and the people around you. And in fact, I think there is a quote that really caught my eye, which was, if you cannot control your own emotions, how can you expect to influence those of others? Gary: That's literally the first line that comes out of my mouth when I teach negotiations, because it's so true. I mean, if you want to influence others and yet you yourself are emotionally charged or dealing not in a logical, thoughtful, empathic way, then you're probably not going to be as successful as you would otherwise. So self-control is terribly important. And you tend to see people that perform at the highest levels in certainly law-enforcement negotiations are typically people who have a lot of self-control.  And one of the chapters in my book, Stalling for Time, I start each chapter with a quote. And a quote I always like, it's a partial quote from Rudyard Kipling about if you can keep your head about you when all else are losing theirs.  And I think that says a lot to me about the kind of person that makes a good negotiator and what is required. It's somebody that can think clearly in the midst of a situation where others might be so overcome with various forms of reaction that they're not optimally performing. You know, it's kind of like—I always do the comparison of a trauma surgeon. You know, when mass casualties are brought into an emergency room, the trauma surgeon, it's not that they're not human and don't see the damage that some people have suffered or perhaps been deceased, but they focus immediately on what has to be done, which is to save as many lives and determine which ones need their most immediate care. So they put those emotions aside so that they can function at an optimal level or highest level they can. And I think negotiations is very akin to that. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of the, never confusing getting even with what you want. Gary: Yeah. And it's a good phrase we used to use for our commanders because even law enforcement, somebody can be a fairly high rank and have a lot of different experiences in an agency. It doesn't mean that they've had a lot of experience managing with these kinds of crises.  And law-enforcement officers are human beings, and when a perpetrator, particularly one that is maybe not a model citizen or somebody that may not have any attributes that we would find commendable, when they refuse to do what we want and they don't cooperate and they back out of promises, they engage in any number of problematic behaviors, you really got to maintain your self-control because if you respond and react to that, you may get even with them, but are you really accomplishing what your goal is, which is to get your way? And “to get our way” in the context of negotiation means we get people to peacefully surrender, to comply, to do what we think is not only in our best interest, but in their best interest. We don't want anybody to get hurt. So I found a lot of my career time was helping on-scene commanders and decision makers, chiefs of police, sheriffs, understand that concept.  There's always an assumption that people of a high rank know how to do everything. And of course, that's a fatal mistake you can make, because they don't necessarily understand, especially—someone might be a great internist as a doctor, but can they perform brain surgery? Probably not. So, you know, just because you have the MD in front of your name doesn’t mean you can do everything there is that could possibly come before you. So we have to know our limitations, and we have to understand that there are people who have more expertise that we probably would be wise to listen to. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of your points in the book around just the crises within the crises and these other negotiations that have to happen. So you're managing quite a lot at the same time. Gary: Yeah. I mean, and of course, I know we'll be talking about Waco shortly, but I got asked this on a recent interview, and I never really thought about it from that complexity point of view that while out there, I had three very distinct roles. I had to manage the negotiation team, maybe 15 or 20 people, and ensure that it was functioning properly and proceeding in a strategic way, the way I wanted it to. And at the same time, I had to convey what we wanted to the bosses and convince them to support the strategic approach we were taking, and that could often be a challenge. And then, last but not least, is dealing with David Koresh and all the unique issues and problems that he brought to the table. So, you know, you find yourself sometimes being the ringleader in a three-ring circus, you know, and trying to keep everybody functioning in the right way so we can achieve the outcome we want. Douglas: Yeah. And speaking of Waco, let's talk about that for a moment. I was really curious to hear your thoughts on how well it portrayed the negotiation process, because from a storyline perspective, when I compare your book to the show, there's definitely some sensationalism on the Branch Davidian side. My depiction was that it demonstrated the conflict with the kind of more forceful approach and also just the kind of slow, intentional approach ya’ll were taking. But I’m just kind of curious as far as, like, anything about the negotiation process that you felt was maybe skewed in the presentation. Gary: It's a big question, and there's a lot of variables. Obviously, they bought my book to show the FBI side of the story and what perspective we had from outside looking in. And then they bought David Thibodeau’s book—he was a surviving Branch Davidian—to get the perspective of someone inside looking out. And I liked that approach, to look at it from both angles. But specifically addressing the negotiation part, they got a lot of parts of the negotiation very right. What was the Hollywood dramatization part is they had my character doing all these things on his own, when in reality I'm leading the team, and there's eight, nine negotiators per shift. It's quite a complex and many-moving-part operation. So obviously, Hollywood doesn't want to pay those additional actors and introduce their characters and get the audience to know them. It's a whole different level of challenge, that they wanted to showcase Michael Shannon, who was one of the two main stars of the TV show who played me.  Douglas: I got to say, if I'm ever played by anyone, I would say Michael Shannon wouldn't be a bad—that’s not a bad deal to get. Gary: I had seen Michael Shannon in Boardwalk Empire, that TV show.  Douglas: Mm-hmm. Gary: I was very impressed with him in that show, and I didn't even know his name, to be honest with you. And they came out and said, “This Michael Shannon's been hired to play you.” And I looked him up right away. I said, “Oh, it’s that guy.” Well, he is just an incredible actor and human being. And, you know, during my time on the set, we had an opportunity to become quite friendly and had basically drinks and dinner every night while I was out there. And what an incredible actor. And he certainly was not trying to imitate me, but he captured the tenor of my philosophy, which goes back to your earlier question. I think those issues that came up, including the conflict between the tactical side of the FBI that wanted to take a different approach, I think that's very accurately reflected. Again, not so much in the exact form, but certainly in terms of substance. And he had it down very, very well and, I think, did an incredible job. And let me add another thing, Douglas. You know, what I found is I felt that part of the reason I wrote my book was to educate current and future FBI leaders. And one of the things they need to be educated on is to understand not only the mistakes that the FBI made there, but the good things we did. And there were far more of those than not. But if someone doesn't write that down and record it, those things fall through the cracks and they're forgotten, and sometimes mistakes are repeated, and good behaviors are not appreciated or replicated. So I wanted to write it for that reason. And I also feel that in the FBI, we serve the American people. If we do something wrong, we should step up to the plate, admit what we did, demonstrate that we are making changes and corrections, and I think we owe it to the American people that we serve to do those things. So for all those reasons, I wrote that book and stand by the portrayal of the FBI overall.  What I'm not quite as happy about is I think the portrayal on the other side of David Koresh came up a bit short for me because in reality, David Koresh was a far more dark and sinister, manipulative guy than was portrayed. The other great actor there—there were several of them—but Taylor Kitsch, who played Koresh, was just phenomenal. And he's such a nice guy in real life that I think that came through. And the producer, directors wanted to show the charismatic side of Koresh, what allowed him to attract followers and gain their total allegiance. And they did that, but I just don't think they showed sufficiently. They showed some dark things from him but not enough to my satisfaction. And I talked to them about that and tried to change that. But what you find out is when you sell your book to Hollywood or somebody else, you have some influence, but you don't have control. Douglas: Yep. I think that echoes my read on it as well. It’s a little sensationalized on the, like, kind of making people want to have a little more sympathy than maybe you would have if you were watching it go down from the sidelines. Gary: You know, you’re into facilitation, and I think the biggest takeaway for facilitators, if you want to use Waco as sort of an example, is the realization that life is gray. It's not black and white. It's possible to admit that the FBI made mistakes and at the same time recognize the ultimate responsibility of Koresh to have led his people out peacefully, as we encouraged him to do every single day. So you don't have to say, “Oh, these guys were all good, and these guys were all bad. The big old bad government came in and just wanted to kill people.” I mean, it's actually intellectually lazy to take on those extreme views and not very realistic. There were good people in there who were practicing their faith, and there were highly dedicated FBI agents who wanted nothing but everybody to come out alive. So to make those general derogatory statements, I think, is just showing you haven't done your research, and you haven't read about what really happened, and you don’t understand. Douglas: Coming back to your goals for the book around really cementing the positive impact so they're not lost, it also jumped out to me when you were talking about these post-incident reviews and applying these lessons learned, it was interesting because it seemed like the popularity of the techniques within the FBI began to grow as you started to celebrate some of these wins. But the irony of it all was, maybe one of the ones that I was the most tickled by and I thought that you guys did such an amazing move was the steaks and gravy and cakes for the prisoners. So they're all having a Thanksgiving coma while the tactical thing went in, and clearly, not much credit was given after the fact for that. Gary: Yeah. You know, it's funny. A lot of people in law enforcement are really not well versed on what negotiators do and why we do it. It's sort of a soft science, and you know there’s more to taking action than here's a bad guy. We're going to do this to suppress them, arrest them, whatever we have to do. And, you know, when you do negotiate people out, which we do, in the 90 percentile, people say, “Well, it must not have been so hard. That guy must not have been that dangerous anyway.” And they sort of make some excuses for it. Of course, I always want to say, “Well, you try doing it when somebody's life is on the line.” But it's a hard thing to define.  But just as in facilitation, we're building relationships, and people expect in these situations law enforcement to show up and be very confrontational, very demanding, very dictatorial. You will do this and you better do that, or we're going to do x, y, z. And instead they get somebody like me show up and say, “Hey, David. This is Gary. What's going on in there? I'm here to help. I don't want to see anybody get hurt.” It's something they don't expect, and it gives us an opportunity to listen to them and to better understand what their motivation is, what their feelings are, how they interpret what has happened. It allows us slowly and steadily to lower the tension, to de-conflict and de-confrontate. And it allows us to begin eventually to have some influence over their behavior. And, you know, you typically will get to a point where a guy like David Koresh, which you didn't hear, he said, “You know, I just don't know what I can do. I don't know what to get out of, how to get out of what I got into.” And you say, “Well, you know, here's some ideas for you, and here's something you might want to think about. And come out to jail and tell the world your side of the story. It needs to be heard.” You know, those are things we did, and with some effect, we got 35 people out during the first half when I was there, including 21 children. That’s a fact that many people forget. And it was not an easy task, and I'm very proud of it. I’m no less disappointed that we didn't get more out or everybody out. But you got to recognize that human emotion is a really challenging thing. And when there's been loss of life, like it was at Waco before we even arrived as the FBI, I mean, we were already in a deep ditch, and we got to dig out of that. It's pretty tough. Douglas: You know, as you were speaking, it reminded me of some notes I wrote down around there's a lot of similarities between facilitation and negotiation, but there's some clear differences as well. We’re not dealing with—life and death is usually not at stake. And the fundamental contradiction that you mentioned, which I thought was really fascinating, we don't really struggle with that so much, right? Like, we're all about building trust, but we never, ever have to bend the truth, or we never have to potentially send them into harm's way. And when I think about that story, was it in West Virginia, where Cheryl's husband, her and her child. And there was a lot of interesting dynamics there from the perspective of opening up options and demonstrating a future when you know that that future may not exist. So I’m kind of curious how that unfolds, just as you're kind of regulating your emotions. Gary: Well, it's a tough case. And, you know, my book is about the importance of negotiation and how it is a tool that law enforcement should even use more, and then I start off the first chapter of my book with a situation where we have to use deadly force to resolve it. But it was a very dramatic case. It showed how even in those cases where the behaviors, the actions of the perpetrator are so extreme that our chance of getting them to comply and resolve it peacefully are pretty slim and, thereby, someone else is going to die. So then the negotiator has to segue into a role that allows you to become more supportive of the only option we have left, and that's using force.  In Sperryville, I talked him into coming out to a helicopter, where a marksman ended his life. In the Talladega prison, that you alluded to earlier, we knew hostages were going to die, so we gave in and gave them a very sumptuous meal for the first time in eight days to sort of, excuse the expression, fatten them up and to lure them into a sense of victory and empowerment. And they took the bait and gorged on the food and basically went into sweet slumber that allowed the Hostage Rescue team to make a really terrific, well-executed entry and save everybody's lives.  So there are times where negotiators have to recognize reality, that while we will be successful most of the time, there's nothing in what we do that guarantees success and certainly not 100 percent of the time. So we have to be adaptable and flexible. And the bottom line is, how do we save the most lives possible? Douglas: Yes. That was the thing that was going through my mind in both of those scenarios because Sperryville, you saved a woman and her child; and then the prison example, I mean, how much more carnage would have happened if they would have been bracing for it? Gary: That’s right. I mean, if we had continued to deny them food until they released the hostages, I mean, I think we stood a good chance of having them kill one of the hostages to try to force us to do what they wanted, and that's one less human being alive today to survive that. So we have to take all that into consideration. And you make the best decisions you can, and you have to weigh all the facts. That's why we function—in Waco, I get a lot of credit operating by myself, but in reality, we're leveraging a team of very skilled and talented negotiators that bring a lot to the table from their training and their personal experience. We said, “What do you think? What are your ideas? Did you hear something I didn't hear?” And we really use that to full advantage to try to come up with the best approach that we think will achieve what we want in this particular incident. Douglas: That brings to mind something else I wanted to bring up, which was the comment of you write good notes. And it really resonated with me because I often love to facilitate with a co-facilitator, and I find that when, especially when we're exploring really tough issues that, like, a team is really struggling, like, they can't seem to get past some personal issues, or they're just stuck on some things, when you’re there working directly, it’s sometimes hard to see the big picture because you’re in the content, you're in the moment. But if you're on the sideline kind of just observing, you can see interesting things. So I was just wondering, is that similar in the negotiation world? When you're observing and writing these notes, do you find that you see things you wouldn't have seen if you were just on the phone, in the moment with them, like, watching every word, that kind of thing? Gary: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's akin, Douglas, if you want to do a comparison, you think of a college or a professional football game. You ever notice how sometimes—not all the time—the second half is dramatically different from the first half? I mean, dramatically different? And you say, “Boy, what happened? That must've been a hell of a speech that the coach gave.” Well, what it really was is the coaches up in the booth, they’re studying what happened. They're making adjustments at halftime. It's coaching. It's not being personally involved in playing that position out on the field, but watching it and seeing where changes or improvements can be made to get the outcome we wanted.  So negotiations is no different. If I’m the negotiation coordinator, or the coach, it allows me to listen to the interplay between the primary negotiator on the phone and the perpetrator, and then either in between calls or through passing a short, cryptic note, help nudge them to something I've seen that I think they may not have fully appreciated.  The quote you're talking about is in Waco. This mother was very angry that her son was by himself. He had been released in the Child Protective Services, and we sent a video in of all the children. And she was very angry at us for his forlorn status. And, you know, rather than just trying to defend ourselves, I passed a note to John Dolan, our primary negotiator at the time, and he read it, and he smiled. And it just said, “You know, Kathy, what little Brian needs now is a hug from his mommy.” And you could almost hear the arrow strike her heart. And, I mean, it was the one phrase that kind of brought it home to her that she was the missing piece. It wasn't us that was causing trauma to her child. It was the fact that she sent him out, and she stayed in to fight for Koresh, that it was her maternal responsibility to do this. And I think that shot hit home, and she came out the next day, and she was the first, essentially the first, adult that came out. And that was a very meaningful goal that we’d achieved. Douglas: It really struck home for me when I read that because sometimes people aren't even necessarily self-aware or why they're upset. And if they're lashing out to you, and you can—it's almost like judo, which is redirect their energy, kind of become more aware of where the center is. Gary: Yeah. You know, when you look at negotiations broadly—I'm not talking specifically Waco here—really, very few of them are actually hostage-taking events, where someone's being held to force somebody else to do something. Probably 90 percent of what police do around the country are dealing with highly emotionally charged situations. Often the jilted lovers, romantic situation gone bad; somebody holding an employer who fired them; an argument with a neighbor. There are people who are expressing anger, rage, and frustration who don't even have a clear goal of what they're trying to achieve. In other words, they've gotten themselves into something they have no idea how to get out of. And that's the role that the negotiator could play to try to understand those emotions and those drivers of their behavior, and to try to deal with those and diffuse those. That's what makes us successful. It's an approach that people don't expect from law enforcement. We certainly got that from the mental-health counseling community. And it's very effective in getting people to, for the first time, hear themselves what is driving them, and they may not appreciate, you know? Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of another note that I had taken around you had talked about the role of the negotiator was to help people express their fears, so allowing them to open up. And it was interesting because as I read it, it was definitely similar to things that we're trying to do in the workplace, because often people have these unstated fears. It's just they're not vulnerable enough to say it out loud because they're worried someone's going to judge them or maybe they haven't even figured it out yet. And so simply stating what might be clear to you but not to them and allowing them to acknowledge it or even just to say yes, I thought that was pretty interesting.  Gary: You know, we used to talk about helping people understand the difference between wants and needs. So somebody involved in one of these situations may say, I want this and I want that, but it's our job to find out what they really need. Do they really need their job back? Or is it the loss of respect and the embarrassment of having to go home and tell your wife you haven't got a job anymore? I mean, you know, we don't always get that right. But that's kind of our goal, you know? And when we're communicating with them, and we say, “It sounds like you're really embarrassed by what happened,” and if he hasn't articulated that and that, in fact, is what he feels, then we've just really scored some big points because he said, “Yes, that's exactly right. I’m embarrassed by having been fired.” Well, that’s important for us to know if we're going to deal with how he's viewing what happened to him. Douglas: So, I had this—it was one of the last kind of sentences in your book. And I wrote it down because I thought it was pretty spot on. So I'm just going to read it, and then I'd love to just hear your thoughts today on this. But, “The happiest and most successful people are the ones that can remain calm in difficult times and put aside emotions like pride and anger that stop them from finding common ground. We need to be good listeners and understand the problems and needs of the other side.” Gary: Yeah. I guess it's never been more true than it is today in our very acrimonious political climate. And I'll bring up some recent events: the protests around the country. When people go out on the street and they carry signs and they're yelling and singing songs, whatever they're doing, what they're basically saying is, “We want somebody to hear us.” Douglas: Mm-hmm. Gary: And if instead of finding ways to creatively listen to them, we simply attack them, we're probably not going to be successful. I suspect if you had 100 people in a room and 50 were pro-life and 50 were pro-choice, you could even have great meaningful discussion all night long, and at the end of the evening, you'd probably still have 50-50. But that's okay as long as we've avoided name calling and shouts and threats and violence and so forth. That's the major goal. It's a slow, steady process to try to create an atmosphere where we can listen to others and appreciate their point of view, even if it's different. And I just hate to see that today, particularly in our political environment, we seem to be going in the wrong direction. Douglas: Yeah. I think that there's a real beauty—I had underscored the statement you made at the end of one of the early chapters, which was, “Listening is the cheapest concession we can make.” Gary: Yeah. It is. It costs you nothing. And, you know, you can acknowledge someone's point of view, “Let me make sure I understand. You're angry at your boss because he fired you. You don't think he appreciated your work, and you felt as though he mistreated you,” and so forth and so on. I'm not saying to him, “Yes, I think you should kill your boss.” I'm saying to him, “I understand how you feel about what happened.” I mean, that's a powerful thing. If you think about it, the whole evolution of communication between human beings, and we're social animals, we want other people to understand what we're saying and how we feel about it. And if you do that as a facilitator, as a negotiator, you're going to be successful. Douglas: Gary, it's been so great having you on the show today, and fun chatting and hearing about just the riveting life and career you’ve had in negotiation. Would you like to leave the listeners with any final words? Gary: Well, I would suggest that people really work on listening. Listening is such an important tool. So when you go out, not so much these days with COVID, but when you have an opportunity to have a social interaction, pick out somebody you don’t know very well or somebody that's a little quiet over in the corner or whatever, and go and talk to them and find out about their life and ask good questions. “Can you tell me more about that? That sounds very interesting. I'd like to hear about that hobby that you have or that trip that you took.” And you'll find that people are far more interesting than you might have realized, that people have done and seen things that you had no idea, and you will learn a lot. And they, in turn, will appreciate the fact that you have taken the time and demonstrated the interest in learning more about them. It is a very, very powerful tool.  And you know, what we all want to achieve is cooperation with other human beings, and we get that through being likable, plain old likable. Just be a person that strives to be likable and to automatically not think the worst of others and blame others, but seek to understand. Even the business guru Stephen Covey says, first seek to understand, then to be understood. So I’m not sure if that helps, but I would urge people to really make an effort at that.  Douglas: Well, thanks again for being on the show. It's been great.  Gary: My pleasure. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

In this episode of The Best Practices Show, we revisit an interview that occurred during the COVID-19 Conference with Dr. Gary DeWood about treating patients in the middle of the COVID pandemic, (DISCLAIMER: They are not providing legal advice, but merely talking through their perspectives.) The team talks to Gary about a number of situations in this episode, but the one that rises to the top is the question of how to continue to treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic. The first problem that comes up is the legality and the risk of seeing patients. There is some concern to treat emergency situations, but it's difficult to discern what is and isn't an emergency. The dental community has a decided interest in keeping patients out of hospitals, if only to limit their exposure to COVID. Gary and others believe in the safe practices of dentists' offices, but there are still situations to discern. The most important takeaway is that dentists should be doing all they can to actually serve their patients during this time. Often, that means not seeing them in the office. There are bigger forces at play than worrying about next week's paycheck. The way that you handle yourself and your team during this time, they all repeat, will have a lasting impact on how things run when this is all over. Do what you can to stay in contact with your patient base. Show them that you care about their well-being—we are all isolated right now—and you may find that you actually strengthen your practice in the process. Main Takeaways: The ADA recommends that you should only treat people in emergency situations in the time of COVID. (3:00) This is the time to step up to be a leader and lead your team. (5:30) Do aesthetic emergencies still qualify as emergencies? (9:25) Things you're afraid of don't go away—you can only change how you respond. (18:40) In a time like this, you either show that you care or you don't care—it's just money... (25:45) Quotes: “The downside is that everything we're reading now is just opinion.” – Gary. “What risks are you willing to take?” – Gary “You're thinking of so many things to do—why don't you think of one?” – Gary. “Do you have enough masks to replace it after every patient?” – Gary. “Closing your office is okay, but the best thing you can do is get emergency patients out of the medical system.” – Gary. “What is the most important thing I can do to be of most service?” – Gary. “You have to deal with what you can see.” – Gary. “Go fishing for social distance...make your decision and then be ready to talk about it.” – Gary. “Vulnerability is not a weakness; it's a strength in times like this.” – Kirk. “The way we manage this...is going to shape who we are when it's over.” – Gary. Snippets: Making the decision to treat during COVID. (2:00–4:30) What are you telling the dentists looking for leadership? (5:20–8:30) Patterns of the great dentists who make it through. (17:50–20:55) Stay in touch with your patient base. (23:25–25:00) Let's be open to all possibilities for us to get through this together. (30:00–32:00) Bio of Our Guest: Dr. DeWood is Executive Vice President of Spear Education. As one of the founding members of Spear, he directed Curriculum and Clinical Education for nearly a decade prior to joining in the launch of Spear Practice Solutions. Today, he splits time between teaching and consulting. Dr. DeWood serves as an instructor in multiple Spear Workshops, including Facially Generated Treatment Planning, Occlusion in Clinical Practice, Advanced Occlusion, Sleep Medicine in the Dental Practice and a special focus workshop on temporomandibular disorder. He also maintains a limited private practice on the Spear Campus in Scottsdale, Arizona, and lectures nationally and internationally on practice management, treatment planning, case management, case acceptance, TMD diagnosis, appliance therapy, occlusion, and esthetics. Prior to his contributions at Spear, Dr. DeWood maintained

Oftentimes patients have a better relationship with their hygienists as they spend more time interacting with them. In today’s episode, Gary examines the role of the hygienist in increasing your case acceptance. Gary highlights the importance of measuring your case acceptance rates as well as acceptable benchmarks dentists should strive to attain when it comes to case acceptance. This episode is full of tips to help increase case-acceptance rates for your ideal treatment plan significantly.  Intro to topic > 01:30 Benchmarks > 03:56 How to get there > 08:02 Tips to make hygienists your partner > 10:35 Raising the bar > 21:50 About the last MBA of 2020 > 23:30 Resources LEARN MORE REGISTER LEARN MORE Transcript Naren: This is the Less Insurance Dependence podcast show with my good friend, Gary Takacs and myself, Naren Arulrajah. (Gary’s voice): We appreciate your listenership, your time and most of all, we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Our goal is to provide information that will help you successfully reduce insurance dependence and convert your practice into a thriving and profitable dental practice that provides you with personal, professional, and financial satisfaction. [Music] Naren: Hello, everyone, welcome to another awesome episode of the Less Insurance Dependence podcast show. This is Naren, your co-host. Today, we are going to be talking about something interesting. This came because Gary and I were having a conversation the other day about some of our common clients. And one of the things that I asked Gary about is, "Hey Gary, what's the secret for the common clients, meaning the coaching clients who also happen to be, you know, our Ekwa clients, doing so well in case acceptance and specifically some of the comments I heard about, you know, them working as a team towards case acceptance". So Gary said, "You know what, let's make it a podcast episode", and here we are. The topic today is ‘Hygienist as your partner in case acceptance'. So this comes from Gary's experience, working with 2200 practices, you know, fine-tuning LifeSmiles and the client practices. So let's jump in. Gary, how are you this afternoon? Gary: Naren, I'm doing great. And I love this topic, you know, and I'm so glad you noticed in our common clients, some really great results with our clients. And I'm talking specifically is our case acceptance percentage. We measure that. You know, we measure that. You've heard me say, Naren, that data never lies. People do. When I say that, I don't mean that cynically. But let me, let me get very specific about what I mean on case acceptance. If you do not measure your case acceptance percentage, you may have a very different perception of what's going on in your practice than what's really going on, because you're likely to remember it anecdotally. Let me explain what I mean. If I talk to a doctor and I say, "Doctor, tell me how your case acceptance is and others when you present dentistry, how are you doing with patients accepting that," If they don't measure it, they might say something like this: "Well, Gary, I think I'm doing pretty well because yesterday we had two new patients. Both of them needed treatment. I presented the treatment and they scheduled. So I think I'm doing pretty good." You know, remember what their memory time is, it's yesterday, you know, and it's their most recent experience. Conversely, if they don't measure it, the doctor might say, "I don't know, Gary. Yesterday, I had two new patients. Both of them needed treatment and neither one of them scheduled. I think I suck at that". And neither one of them is accurate because it doesn't have a  ... it's not scientific. It doesn't have a long enough, you know, range of measurement. But when we start measuring it, it actually gives you information out. Naren, you know, I'm going to quote Stephen Covey and, you know, I'm going to quote the second habit. You know, Stephen Covey, the epic author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And the second habit was 'Begin with the end in mind'. So is it okay if we start there? What should (00:03:52 – 00:03:53) case acceptance be? Naren: Great. Let's start there, Gary. Gary: Okay, so these are the benchmarks we use with our clients. At emergency dentistry, in other words, the patient came in on an emergency, they've been awake the last two nights, haven't been able to sleep with a toothache, and you present what should be done. What should our case acceptance be on emergency dentistry, Naren? Naren: I think it should be close to 100 percent, maybe 90 percent. Gary: Well, I'm gonna correct you, say 100 percent, one hundred percent. If it's a true emergency, you know, the patient hasn't slept in two nights and we can help them. Can we agree that that should be 100 percent? Naren: Absolutely. Gary: Yeah. So now but let's talk about the, what would be likely more common. Let's talk about necessary dentistry, where the situation is asymptomatic, where it's asymptomatic. No, it doesn't hurt. And a great example of that would be old amalgam fillings that are clearly breaking down. And you can see every different way you measure, you can see it through radiographic evidence, you can see it through photographic evidence, you can see it through visual inspection. And then you even ask the patient, "How long ago were those placed?" And they'll say, "Geez, I don't even know. Gosh, it has to be 25, 30 years ago". You know, we often hear that, right? So for general dentistry, that's asymptomatic, that it doesn't hurt. Our goal is 70 percent case acceptance. And notice I didn't say 100. And the reason I didn't say 100 is, we always like to set our goals realistically. Realistically, there will be some people with those asymptomatic old amalgam fillings that need replacement, "Oh, doc, I'm just going to wait till it hurts", which is not a wise decision, but that's what their thinking is. But our goal for general dentistry, that's asymptomatic, we should for 70 percent case acceptance. Now, let's go a little deeper for optimal dentistry. In some cases, you're going to think of elective treatment. They don't need to have it done. Optimal treatment, ideal treatment, comprehensive care. We look for a case acceptance somewhere between 30 and 40 percent, 30 and 40 percent. And the way I like to share why we benchmark it there, Naren, I happen to enjoy baseball. I grew up in a baseball family. And on a professional baseball, a player, Major League baseball player, if a Major League baseball player has a career batting average of, say 350, Naren, I know I'm going to ask you this question and I know I might be taking you slightly off-field /afield (00:06:38 – 00:06:40) because you're in Canada and you probably think more about hockey than you do baseball. But I'm going to take a chance and ask you that question. What would we call this Major League baseball player that had a career batting average of 350? What would we call that person?   Naren: Hall of Famer? Gary: OK, you got it right. I was a little worried there for a minute. If I asked you a hockey statistic, I'm sure you'd get it right, but you got it right. We'd call that person a Hall of Famer and let's break that down. What does that mean? That person got a hit 35 percent of the time, 35, and yet they're a Hall of Famer. That means they didn't get it 65 percent of the time. So let's translate that to case acceptance for ideal care. Then we're going to look for somewhere between 30 and 40 percent, somewhere in there. Even 30 percent on the low end of our goal is pretty awesome. You know, if a career Major League baseball player had a career batting average of 300, yeah, that person had a very, very, very good career. So that's how we benchmark that, 100 percent for emergency dentistry, 70 percent for asymptomatic general dentistry, and somewhere between 30 and 40 percent for ideal care, comprehensive care, elective care, the care that we like to say things to consider, you know, things to consider. Now that we have the measurement, we begin with your mind (00:08:00 – 00:08:05), let's talk about how to get there, right? And I love thinking about your hygienist in particular as your partner doctor in case acceptance, your partner in case acceptance. And think about it for just a minute. Sometimes, sometimes doctors don't want to recognize it, but I think we need to recognize it, sometimes the hygienists have a closer relationship with the patients than the doctor. Would you agree? Naren: Hundred percent, that's the case for me, you know, like because I see the hygienist for a longer period of time and I see the hygienist more consistently, especially if you have the same hygienist. Definitely, I kind of look forward to seeing her because, you know, I know her. I know her kids. I know, you know, and we have similar kids in similar ages. So we chat, you know, because when I'm sitting there, you know, I have to do some thing, so I chat, yeah. Gary: Well, there's another dynamic here. You know, a patient might have a little bit of a cynical perspective if a doctor is recommending treatment, you know, they might be saying, "Well, of course, you're going to recommend that, doctor, it’s your practice. You know, you have a lot to gain from that". Now, I don't think everybody looks through that lens, but some people might. But they view the tier team members as more independent and they view your team members as they're likely, think about your patient base. Your patients are likely to identify more socioeconomically with your team members than they are you. That makes sense? Naren: That makes total sense. I think, I have even overheard some people say, "Hey, you know, doctor said this. Do you think I really need this?" Gary: We hear that routinely, as approachable as Dr. Paul and Dr. Tim are, you know, they'll ask the patient, "You know, do you have any questions?" And the patient will shake their head, "No". And they'll leave the room and then they'll practically tackle the dental assistant or the hygienist and say "I don't know, what do you think?" You know, I don't, I wouldn't take that personally. I don't think that has anything to do with Dr. Paul. or Dr. Tim's demeanour or the presentation. I think they're looking for validation for, subconsciously they're looking for validation from someone that seems more similar to them. Naren: Yeah, this is Dr. Cialdini's principle called 'Similar others'. So, you know, "Hey, I can relate to this hygienist. I'm kind of like her, you know, socioeconomically, family, you know, etc., etc... So, hey, I want her opinion. What does she think?" Gary: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's talk about some techniques and some tips for a hygienist to be partners with your doctor. And one of the things I want to encourage our hygienist to do is to prepare for your appointments, to look ahead. We get this in the morning huddle, but you can do it on your own, you can do it in the morning huddle. But look at the patients that are on your schedule today. Look in their treatment plans and see if there is any unscheduled part of their treatment plan. In other words, treatment that's been recommended but hasn't been scheduled. Now, your practice should have a good system for noting that in your digital records, somehow. Pretty much every practice has, they have a system for checking off what's been done and what remains to be completed in the treatment plan. And let's go back to that example that we used earlier about the asymptomatic old amalgam fillings that need to be replaced. So let's say, I'm the patient and I have some fillings on the upper left that have been recommended by the doctor to be replaced. But I haven't scheduled that yet. The hygienist can bring that up in a very educational way. You know, she can say, "Gary, I noticed the doctor recommended some fillings for that area on your upper left. You know, the one thing, the reason why the fillings were recommended is there's very likely to be decay underneath those existing amalgam fillings that you have. Very, very likely." And you might be thinking, "Well, I'll just wait till it hurts." But if you wait, decay never fixes itself. It can't scientifically fix itself. Decay only gets worse. And if we wait till it hurts, what now could be treated with fillings, in other words, replace it with new filling material, might be more comprehensive treatment like a root canal and crown. Now, that'd be good for us, but not good for you. “I'm going to have doctor take a look at that when Dr. Paul comes in to do the exam today. I'm going to have Dr. Paul take a look at that. Just give you a status report, so you can, you know, you can kind of decide what to do from here”. And that's it, you know, just a heads up, I've noticed that, so now you're earning favor with your patients because you're paying attention. "Gary, I noticed that doctor recommended fillings on the upper left that remain to be completed. I'd like doctor to take a look at those today and kind of give us a status report." And then when doctor comes in the room, make a verbal pass off, you know, in front of the patient. That's called the 'overhear' (00:13:05 – 00:13:07)technique. And it might sound something like this. "Dr. Paul, would you do me a favor and take a look in the upper left for Gary? I noticed that he has some old amalgam fillings that you've recommended replacing, that remain to be completed. Would you do me a favor and look at those and give Gary a status report on those? I'm concerned about that area." Notice what I just said. "I'm concerned about that area". Naren: Right. Gary: Now, Naren, put yourself in the position of being in the chair as a patient. If the hygienist says "I'm concerned", what just happened to your ears? Naren: They're gonna perk up. Gary: You just perked up. Naren: Yeah. Gary: Right Naren: Yeah. I mean, I think the people who go to hygiene visits regularly, they want their teeth to be maintained. So that's the mindset they already bought into. So when the person who's responsible for that, the hygienist says, "I'm concerned", I'm concerned too, meaning, me, the patient is concerned too. Gary: Right. Now, and that conversation can be held with any patient that has recommended treatment that remains, remains to be completed. And of course the doctors listen to this. Doctors, I want to help you with verbal skills as well. When the hygienist, you know, does the verbal transfer of information to the overhear technique, I want you to say, don't script this, but in your own way, "Kelly, thanks so much for pointing that out. I'll absolutely take a look at that. Thanks so much for pointing that out to me." And it's just the patient's going to feel like "I'm being taken care of by a team of professionals. They are on top of it, they've got my best interests at heart. Right? But now let's talk about how the hygienist can actually be, you know, kind of a scout, an advanced scout for elective treatment for what we call a high value treatment. And this is so powerful and it's something that you're seeing it now in our clients. Now we're talking about that 30 to 40 percent of ideal care. You know, the ideal care, the elective care, the comprehensive care, the things to consider. So imagine you do adult orthodontics. i just like this (00:15:24 – 00:15:26), I'm going to role play with some information. Imagine your office provides adult orthodontics. And imagine that the hygienist notices that the patient has some crowding in his lower arch. His lower teeth are crowded. Okay? She can say something like this. "Gary, let me ask you a question. If there was a way to correct the crowding in your lower teeth, relatively quickly, would you have any interest in that?" "Oh, yeah, yeah, I really would, you know, I just, I don't want to look like I'm back in middle school again, you know, and have it take two years and, you know, but if it could be done quickly, yeah, I'm interested in that." Well, we offer adult orthodontic treatment for our patients today. And one of the really cool things about the advances in orthodontics, things can be done much quicker than they were in the past. "I'm gonna have doctor, when doctor comes in and does his exam today, I'm going to ask him to take a look and see if you're a candidate for adult orthodontics today". And then when doctor comes in, make the pass off and the pass off might sound like this. "Dr. Tim, Gary's interested in learning if he... in the crowding in his lower arch, he's interested in learning if he could be a candidate for adult orthodontics, would you do me a favor and take a look at that?" And hopefully it's good news. "Great news, Gary. Absolutely. You're like the perfect candidate for Six Month Smiles, for Invisalign, whatever it is you do". But notice the role and notice how it was done, Naren. If I say, "I'm going to ask Doctor to take a look and see if you're a candidate for that", how does the patient feel? The patient is anticipating, right? "Okay, I hope I am." You know, hope I am. And most of the time, you know, I'd say 95 plus percent of the time, they're absolutely a candidate for it. And one of the things you can do, doctors, is you could run an in-service training for one of your team meetings and just educate your team members about who are candidates for some of the procedures that you do. You know what? Who are perfect candidates and just let them understand that. But notice the questions she asked. "If there was a way to correct the crowding in your lower teeth, would you have any interest, and relatively quickly?" Or if there were, "I noticed there are spaces in your lower teeth, if there was a way to correct those spaces relatively quickly with adult orthodontics, would you have any interest?" Very simple. We're not looking for occlusion, we're not looking for posterior occlusion, we're not looking for canine guidance, what is it I’m just looking for, crowding or spaces? Naren: Right. Gary: Is that within the bounds of a hygienist to identify crowding and spacing? Naren: Absolutely. Gary: Absolutely, it is. Naren: Absolutely. Gary: In fact, if it's crowding, she can even say, “One of the concerns that I see there, Gary, it's hard to keep that area clean when you have crowding. It's hard for you to do your home care with that,” and so it's a right within her authority to identify that. Now, interestingly enough, as I presented this to hygienists over the years, most hygienists get really excited, "Oh, yeah, I, of course, I can identify crowding and spaces." I had a hygienist ask me one time. Said, and she had a good question, she said, "Are patients ever offended if I say they have crowding or if they have spaces?" And I answered it as I'm going to answer you in this podcast, Naren, "I've never heard the patient respond with any offense. They know their teeth are crowded. They know they have spaces. It's not, it's not like news flash. But now you're, you are viewed and, this is what I want a hygienist to take away, you are viewed as one of their providers in this practice. They respect you. They respect your wisdom. And I, up to date, now maybe that will change in the future, but I have never heard a patient respond in being offended by the fact that the hygienist said crowding or spaces. Naren: Gary, is it okay if I share something that I noticed about what you do with your coaching clients real quick, Gary? Gary: Please. Naren: See, many of these things are not like one time you learn about it and we are done, right? These are things that are ongoing. And the thing I love about your approach to all of this is you look at it like, you know, let's say you have a BMW car and you are with a BMW dealership. They treat you like a VIP. They do things for you. They pick you up, they drop you off. They'll tell you when things need to be taken care of. And the damn car is solid. So it usually doesn't break and they just take care of things, so you don't have to worry about it. So I think, you have kind of built that model, in even though we are using the word coaching, it's really practice management support where, you know, you have verbal skills training, you have team training, you have book clubs where you did a book club on, you know, case acceptance. So, you're constantly reinforcing these ideas. And then, of course, your practice management support team just, you know, checks in with people to make sure all these things are happening consistently. And of course, you check the numbers, you and your team look at the numbers and say, "Hey, is it working or is it not? If it is, then great, good job. Keep doing it. If it's not, let's troubleshoot. Let's figure it out." So, I think you have figured out something Gary, that is, is like a game-changer. And you are doing this virtually, so the cost is also like really, really low. Gary: You know, it's an empowering exercise, Naren, when you have good team members. They want to contribute to the success not only of your practice, but they want to contribute to happier, healthier patients. And let me go back to this adult ortho. I can't, you know, adult ortho's a big part of our practice. We love helping adults have beautiful, healthy smiles. And I can't tell you how many times the patient, you know, has come back as, "I am so happy I did this. You know, I am so happy. I mean, I've never felt better about the appearance of my teeth." And that's heart-warming for patients. You know, it's very much patient-centered. I think maybe that's where we can close today's episode. This is about really raising the bar on how patient-centered you are. Are you really patient-centered? If you see something that needs attention or that could benefit the patient and you don't bring it up. I mean, I think we let our patients down. Now you're not intentionally letting them down, but I think we let them down if we don't share, you know, information with them. What we want to do is we want to share information with them so they can make great decisions. Hey, if the patient says, "I don't care one bit about the spaces in my teeth”, make a note in the, you know, in your digital records and don't bring it up again. Don't pound a square peg in a round hole. You can respect that decision. But most people, and I'm talking about way, way, way above 90 percent, are going to respond with interest. They want to improve that. So think about it in the context of really being of service to your patients and truly being patient-centered. It's like you have this information, and you keep it to yourself, that's not helping them. Let's share it with them, share it with compassion. Let's listen. And like I said, if the patient doesn't have any interest, no harm. And on the rare times where a patient doesn't have any interest, they don't feel offended that you brought it up. They're thankful, but they may be, for whatever reason, they don't have any interest. Gary: Well, Naren, as we wrap this up, I think this episode will be a good one for our Less Insurance Dependence listeners and remember those benchmarks. I want you to shoot for those goals on your case acceptance. A last reminder, as you're listening to this, very soon after, we have our very last Thriving Dentist MBA livestream workshop. That is Saturday, December 5th. That's the last one of 2020. It's coming up on Saturday. December 5th, it's eight hours. I go through the 10 elements of a thriving practice. I want to encourage you to attend that one because you will have all kinds of information to allow you to set goals for 2021 that will, in fact, result in 2021 being your best year yet. Come join us. It's all done livestream. It's eight hours of CE. (00:24:04 – 00:24:06) We do it in a workshop format. We go through 11 different exercises so you can apply this information to your practice. And at the risk of sounding proud, this will be one of those CE events that you will look back on in your career 20 years later and say, "I am so glad I took that MBA livestream workshop because it literally set me on a course that changed the direction and results of my practice. Come join us. I'll put a link in the show notes. You can register for that. They do sell out. I would encourage you to go to lessinsurancedependence.com/mba. And if there are spots available, I would encourage you to sign up. You'll notice that the tuition is very affordable because of the livestream format. We strive to make that as affordable as possible. On that note, let me thank you for the privilege of your time today. Hope I get to see you at that Thriving Dentist MBA workshop.

You know that choosing to be less insurance dependent is favorable for your dental practice. However, it's important to convince your patients that this choice is beneficial for them too.  It may seem challenging but, using the right words will help you gain the trust of the patients. That will result in customer loyalty and ultimately increase the retention rate of your existing customers.  Highlights Intro to today's topic > 01:01  About the built-in support system > 02:00 Addressing a question that makes almost every dentist cringe > 03:15 How to answer the question "Doctor, is this covered by my insurance?" > 09:15 About Gary’s upcoming MBA program > 21:39 Resources DOWNLOAD PLAQUE #1 DOWNLOAD PLAQUE #2 DOWNLOAD GARY'S LANGUAGE LEARN MORE REGISTER Transcript Naren: This is the less insurance dependence podcast show with my good friend Gary Tackas and myself Naren Arulrajah. Gary: We appreciate your listenership, your time, and most of all, we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Our goal is to provide information that will help you successfully reduce insurance dependence and convert your practice into a thriving and profitable dental practice that provides you with personal professional and financial satisfaction. Gary: Welcome to another episode of the less insurance dependence podcast. I’m Gary Takacs, your co-host and we have a great topic for you today. As you saw in the headline, the topic is how to respond to the dreaded question from your patients, is this covered by my insurance. We're going to get into that question in detail and share some wonderful responses that will help your patients think differently about their dental insurance from this day forward. Hey before I do that, I just have a comment I want to start with on this episode. Recently I had a chance to talk to a number of our clients who are in the process of going out of network with PPO plans and one of my clients made the comment to me that he really appreciated having a colleague that he could talk with about the journey. Another dentist that is midway like him going through the process of successfully reducing insurance dependence and he said it's almost like a built-in support system where this dentist could talk to a colleague about the things that they were experiencing in their practice and he just made the comment that he really appreciated the fact that he could speak to someone else that's a colleague that was experiencing the same things, not only for support and encouragement but also just for perspective. So, I have a request. My request obviously if you're a listener of the less insurance dependence podcast, you're interested in reducing your insurance dependence, I bet someone that could maybe be a colleague like that for you, maybe it's someone you went to dental school with, maybe it's a dentist that you've really connected with in your CE courses, but I invite you to share the less insurance dependence podcast with a colleague, with a friend, plural even because i do think the idea of having others that speak the same language and are on the same journey can be very helpful. So please share this with one of your colleagues and that can help you as well. Anyway, let's dive into this topic, how to respond to the dreaded question, is this covered by my insurance Naren: Hello everyone this is Naren your co-host of the less insurance podcast show. Today we are going to be addressing a question that make almost every dentist that I know cringe. The reality is that if the number one way your dental office attracts new patients is by signing on to PPO plans, the number one question they'll be asked is, is this covered by my insurance? This is going to happen day in and day out and as more than 90 percent of practices in the United States and Canada have some type of insurance, you're going to hear this every day. Of course, this question gets so frustrating both for the dentist and the team member, sometimes they just accept it, they accept this is the reality. But in today's episode Gary will share some effective ways to respond to this question. So instead of letting it kind of frustrate you and instead of giving up Gary's going to talk about how you can respond to the dreaded question, is this covered by my insurance Gary: Hey Naren, I hear that question from when I’m in offices and listening, I hear that question almost incessantly when doctor is presenting treatment to the patient, especially treatment that's asymptomatic, that doesn't hurt or that's elected, doesn't necessarily need to be done and I’ve actually heard dentists in an experience of lower emotional intelligence actually sigh when they get asked that question. The patients say doctors just covered by my insurance and I’ll hear the dentist say, they're so frustrated. They know they can help the patient. They have the clinical skills and they know how it's going to benefit the patient but the truth is, the only way the patient wants to have it done is if it's covered by their insurance and if dentists hear this enough, it’s kind of creates a defeatist perspective. It's like here we go again, you anticipated happening. If something happens enough you pretty much accept it as reality. Well here it comes, here comes, here comes, and what happens sometimes Naren is that dentists quit recommending ideal treatment or elective treatment because while here comes, here comes, I don't need to bang my head against the wall. I’m not even going to present it. Naren: Can I share? Gary: It's a downward spiral, it's a downward spiral that doesn't help the dentist the practice or the patient. Naren: Yeah, let me share something that our mutual inspiration Doctor Stephen Covey said. He talks about his time quadrant and he talks about urgent and important, right, things that hurt are urgent. Of course, we're going to do it, right, like the ring phone, the burning house etc. But the benefit comes from working on the important stuff, the elective stuff, the things that you're doing today to prevent future problems, benefit both for the practice as well as for the patient. What you're saying is the patient who's typically on insurance is trained to just deal with the urgent and the doctors also give up, they're also dealing with the urgent. So, neither the practice is growing nor the patient's health is growing. So, they all are like stuck in this urgent loop and never working on the importance. So, this I think is, I mean, just reminded me of what you're saying work on the important stuff, not work on the urgent stuff. Gary:  The by-product if that happens is the practice evolves into a tooth at a time practice because you think about what are the benefits covered by insurance whether it's a thousand dollars a year twelve hundred dollars a year or rarely fifteen hundred dollars a year, that's basically one tooth. Naren: Right Gary: And so, doctors start subconsciously evolving the way they diagnosed to basically just the tooth of the year club let's just treat the most urgent tooth because that's all the patient's going to accept because that's all the insurance is going to pay for and you think about Naren: Right Gary: Think about how contrary that is to their training, to their training to be comprehensive, to help people prevent future problems Naren: Right Gary: They're literally just doing the tooth of the year club. Can you imagine if let's just relate it outside of dentistry and let's say someone wanted to carpet their house, re-carpet their house but that isn't something that would be covered by homeowner’s insurance but if there was such a thing as homeowners’ dental insurance, the insurance company would say what, one room at a time. You'd only do one room at a time and how long would it take you to re-carpet your house? Of course, that's how many rooms you have but that could take years and years and years. Is that what the consumer wants? Naren: No Gary: Does the consumer want and it'll never match, even if you buy it from the same mill if you're buying the carpet a year apart, you can guarantee where there's seams that's never going to match, Naren: Even the shade, right, one's going to have a different shade the older one then Gary: Even if you use the same lab Naren: Yeah Gary: When it's a year apart, it might be a different ceramic, there might be different materials a year later. It's never going to match; you're not serving the patient. So i want to share a response that I have taught our clients, my coaching clients to use, and i have to tell you that they have reported back to me, they say Gary I can't believe how powerful that response has been and i can't believe how looking into my patients eyes, I see them literally changing how they're thinking about their dental insurance. So, drum roll please Naren, here it comes, here comes, the patient says, is this covered by my insurance? And let's say the answer is no. Which is what it's going to be most of the time. Of course, we're not going to say no just outright like that. We're going to say no, but we're not going to say it like that. We're going to say it like this. So Naren asked me the question is if you're a patient doctor is that covered by my insurance? Naren: Doctor yeah, I would like to do it but is it covered by my insurance? Gary: Naren, unfortunately your dental insurance doesn't care about your health. In fact, they ultimately, their ultimate goal is to have you never visit the dentist because Naren if you never visit the dentist, guess what, they never have to pay claims. So, their goal is to have you never visit, they don't care one bit about your health as you know Naren, I care deeply about your health and my team cares deeply about your health. So, the ultimate answer to that is unfortunately your insurance company doesn't care about your health and as a result of that they aren't going to provide any benefits for the care that I’ve recommended. I’d like to switch the conversation here Naren, to why this treatment is beneficial to you. Now let's pause on the role playing, think about that for just a minute. Let's break it down for a minute. What did I say? In the beginning unfortunately your dental insurance company doesn't care about your health? Now let's pause here. Is that a true statement? Naren: Yes Gary: Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, they ultimately hope you never go to the den. Now some of you might be thinking, oh my gosh, that's absolutely right. Wow, and when you say that to the patient, unfortunately your dental insurance company doesn't care about your health, ultimately, they hope you never go to the dentist. What's happening now when it comes to helping the patient understand whose side, we're on. Whose side am i on, as a dentist in that role? I am on the patient side. Naren: Exactly now you're my colleague you're my you're my partner. Gary: Yeah and I’ll tell you what else is likely happening in the patient's mind. They're thinking, right, you're right. I had to fight my auto insurance company because they didn't want to pay on a little fender bender I got into. They tried to do everything they could. I had to fight my homeowner’s policy when my homeowner's policy tried to fight. They’re wonderful when it comes to taking your payments, accepting premiums, but as soon as you have to submit a claim, they're now the enemy with you and that's what goes on because everybody I know and I know that's one of those absolutes. Everybody I know has had, tried to have the wool pulled over their eyes by auto insurance, homeowners’ insurance, other kinds of insurance Naren: Speaking of that Gary just today my mother-in-law, had a leak on a roof and there's a lot of damage and they wanted to call the insurance company and they said nope. It's the guy who did the works fault, the rufus fault. So, we won't cover it. Gary: Always trying to always trying to get out of honouring their commitment Naren: But she has paid thousands and thousands maybe even tens of thousands of thousands Gary: Tens of thousands but I want you doctors I want you to really think about this. It's a great way to respond to the question. Unfortunately, your dental insurance company doesn't care about your health. Ultimately, they hope you never go to the dentist. If you never go to the dentist, they never have to pay a thing and now the patient is suddenly making a shift and notice how I finished that role playing, I said I’d like to switch the conversation to a conversation with you about why this treatment would benefit you, would benefit you. Now I’m not saying 100 percent of the patients are going to go, oh okay then let's do it, but it's changing the dialogue, it's changing the context, it's changing the dialogue and I believe our listeners here at the less insurance dependence podcast, I believe that their patients do understand the doctor and dental team is on their side. They get derailed because they fall back into those patterns of that, this is covered by my insurance but they get derailed and one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation and do this episode is that when you go out of network, when I’m not if, not if, when you go out of network, doctors did you hear that subtle optimism in my word selection there, when you go out of network, one of the things that's going to happen is you'll have much more patient retention of your existing patients that are in network when you go out of network because they know you're on their side. They trust you and they know you're on their side and they don't want to roll the dice and go to someone else that they may end up not trusting and they don't want to go through all of the emotional effort to re-establish trust as trust is emotional and they already have it established with you. They don't want to have to go do that somewhere else. My clients have reported they said, Gary when you first taught me that I had to take pause because it was very different from the way I’ve responded in the past three years, well unfortunately this is one of those uncovered benefits and that is an answer. It's just not the most effective answer. Naren: Gary, can I add something real-quick. We both are fans of Doctor Robert Chaldini and the number one thing he teaches as the most powerful influence principle is what he calls commitment consistency which is mindsets. So, the patient is coming with the mindset of, does is it covered by my insurance. Before you can before they are ready to listen, you need to shift that mindset and what you did just then Gary that language you used about saying insurance doesn't care about your health which taps into a mindset they already have which is insurance doesn't care about me, it's home insurance or whatever. So no point trying to convince them anything till you switch that mindset. So, I really think what you're teaching is it's so simple but from a psychological perspective, it's so powerful. Gary: Naren, years ago, I found a wonderful plaque in one of my clients, one of my clients offices in their room where they present dentistry, in the area, in the office within their practice where they present treatment and financial options and the plaque said this, think about this, this number of years ago, said beware of bargains in parachutes, hand grenades, and dental treatment, and this is a client who you'd have to understand the appropriateness of that plaque because he has a wonderful sense of humour and all of his patients know that he has a sense of humour and it said it was printed on a brass plaque that hung on the wall and it said beware of bargains in parachutes, hand grenades and dental treatment and it was kind of tongue-in-cheek but not really. Naren: Yeah, you're setting the mindset you're just making them realize guys, if it's cheap, you're going to be on the watch out Gary: Think about this Naren, can you imagine, now you're a marketing genius. Naren: Yeah Gary: Marketing savant. Can you imagine a billboard in any major city in North America? Naren: Yeah Gary: That says, the cheapest open-heart surgery available, go to can www.cheapopenheartsurgery.com. Imagine that Naren: Exactly Gary: Why doesn't that billboard say that? Naren: Because nobody will buy it and actually there is an interesting case. My daughter is in an MBA class, I mean she got into an MBA school and one of the classes, one of the professors talked about a case where India launched the cheapest car. It's a 100 000-rupee car. Nobody bought it because nobody wants to be seen as buying the cheapest car. It flopped. Gary: Conversion, how much is that in I think US dollars? Naren: I think in the us dollars you're looking at two-thousand-dollar car. So, the car was good they really, really, worked on the engineering they spent hundreds of millions but the minute they called it the cheapest car, they don't want to touch it at that time Gary: As a car nut, car aficionado, I have a two word answer no thank you. I guess that's three words, no thanks. So I have, you're going to see this in the show notes, we're going to we're going to provide this for you in the show note. So, I want you to go to the show notes, it's at lessinsurancedependence.com. Consider a plaque in your office that says something like this. Have an open mind, have an open mind, if your insurance dictates the quality of treatment you expect to receive, please let us know so we may refer you to another dentist. We choose to treat our patients better. Let me, let me read that again. Imagine a brass plaque in your consultation room or somewhere in your office that said something like this. If your insurance dictates the quality of treatment you expect to receive, please let us know, so we may refer you to another dentist. We choose to treat our patients better. Radical Naren: Yep Gary: Radical but it's the truth Naren: Yeah but I love the other quote, the other one that your client had. Gary: Hey if you have a sense of humour use the other one, the other one. Beware of bargains in parachutes, hand grenades, and dental treatment. So, if you're more serious, use the comment about we choose to treat our patients better, if you have more of a sense of humour, consider the other one. Naren: We'll put that in a pdf format. So hopefully if anybody wants to even just take it and do something with it, they can we'll do that in the show notes. Gary: And maybe it's something you could share with your team members and the point is that it is sadly nothing short of a war, a battle between your office and the dental insurance company and in between in the middle of the crossfire, are your patients, and that's what it is. If you think about it as anything less, you're not thinking about it in a clear-headed way and I think it's perfectly okay to be so bold as to say unfortunately your dental insurance company doesn't care one bit about your health. In fact, they hope you never come to the dentist. If they if you never come to the dentist, they never they never have to pay a claim. However, as you know, we care deeply about your health. That's a conversation doctors I want you to be comfortable having with your patients and our client my clients tell me that Gary I had to had to referred, I had to work on this but once I worked on it and worked on how I could present that to patients it has been received extremely well and patients have said you're right doc, you're absolutely right and I do trust you. Many times, the patient would say, tell me why I should have this done? And then it opens up a wonderful conversation about health, instead about insurance. Naren: So, you said Gary just before I wrap up, you said after that part one, then you talk about the benefits, right, just want to make sure that if somebody else Gary: You have to have a benefit statement, Naren: Yeah. Gary: Yeah and you talk about the benefits and talk about it in in the framework of the patient. Well hey I want to go ahead and put a ribbon on this one. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the less insurance dependence podcast. Hey as a closing announcement, we have a thriving dentist MBA workshop coming up on the first Friday of December, first Friday of December, and we have very attractive tuition for that. That one will sell out. In that workshop although it's a live stream it's done virtually, although it will sell out. We offer the lowest pricing in advance of the workshop. So, go to thrivingdentist.com. Look at the one day thriving dentist MBA workshop. You'll see some very attractive tuition. In that workshop I cover the ten elements of a thriving practice and one of those elements just one is how to successfully reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Hey thanks again for listening and thanks for sharing this with your colleague’s thanks so much.

We just reached Episode #100! Woohoo! Gary wanted to do something very special for our awesome listeners to show our appreciation to you for being with us & supporting us throughout. We know that It’s every dentist’s dream to be 100% FFS. But many dentists are afraid. Afraid to lose existing patients & think it wouldn’t work in their town. In this episode, Gary decided to interview Dr. Tracey Hughes. Dr. Hughes is one of Gary’s coaching clients who have successfully resigned from all PPO plans & is 6 months into her journey being 100% Fee-For-Service. Just like all of us, her practice too was shut down for more than 30days but has now re-opened and continuing their Fee-For-Service journey. Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 00:55 Introduction about our special guest: Dr. Tracey Hughes > 1:31 Tracey’s experience in going out of network, especially about how she resigned from Delta which represented 51% of her patients > 4:00 Tracey talks about the experience in her practice during the first three months being completely out of network > 7.38 Tracey talks about a fun side story that took place when her practice re-opened after COVID-19 > 4:11 Tracey explains how they are a strong relationship-driven practice & how it helps when you are Fee-For-Service > 20:39 About the after photo’s displayed in the practice and how it helps in the ‘new patient experience’ aspect > 22:40 Resources SPIN NOW LEARN MORE SCHEDULE A MEETING WITH GARY Transcript Gary:  Welcome to an another addition to the Less Insurance Dependance Podcast. This is a very exciting episode for us because its episode number 100. What? Yeah, its episode number 100! So I wanted to do something very special for episode 100. And I wanted to actually do an interview. Now those of you who are faithful listeners of the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast will know that normally its just Naren and myself and we share information that will help you successfully reduce your insurance dependence. But, I kinda thought it would be super cool to have a guest on the 100th episode. And let me introduce her, her name is Dr. Tracey Hughes. First of all, hey Tracey how are you? Tracey:  Hi Gary! Thank you so much for having me, I’m doing great! Gary:  Oh, its my privilege to have you. Now let me explain to our listeners why I wanted Tracey to be on episode 100. She is a client of mine and she has also successfully navigated insurance in her practice and is now completely free for service. Its great! You know if I can share a little bit of history. In December of 2019, Tracey resigned from the last PPO plan that she was on. And the last one was Delta— Tracey:  A big one Gary:  —A big one. By the way, it represented Delta about 51 per cent of her patients. So this was not a light hearted decision. Is that a fair statement Tracey? Tracey:  That’s quite a fair statement. I was quite nervous about that actually… Gary:  You were...Rightfully so, 51 per cent of your patients were on Delta PPO. Well, she successfully resigned in December. And I’m gonna let her talk a little bit about what’s happened since. Ofcourse this year’s been different for all of us. But she had January, February, and about half of March out of network. And then like so many offices she was shut down, like all of us. She’s in Louisville, Colorado. She was able to re-open around the middle of May. In fact, I think it was May 18th. Does that sound right? Tracey:  Yes, that’s exactly right. Gary:  I only remember because it was two weeks later than us. My life smiles practice opened up May 4th and Colorado was a little bit behind us based on the numbers and you were able to successfully re-open on May 18th. Since then, you’ve had about half of May, all of June, all of July, and now all of August. Tracey:  Right...All of August...Last day of August today. Gary:  The last day, as we’re recording it is the last day of August. You know, now we have your practice, you know somewhere around six months of experience being out of network. Tracey, can you talk a little bit about your decision to resign from Delta, because I imagine there are many of our listeners thinking “gosh that sounds like me! About half of my patients have Delta, I’m not sure whether I could ever go out of network”. So would you share a little bit about your thought process? And then maybe we’ll talk about what’s happened. Tracey:  Right. I had been in-network with Delta essentially my whole dental career and I’ve been in Dentistry owned practices for about 20 years...and it just got incredibly difficult. Delta got incredibly difficult to work with. I really felt the financial strain. I think my average write off with Delta dental patients was 40% - 42% every procedure I do I had to discount my fee by 42%. And I tell you what, I was feeling it. I just didn’t have enough at the end of the month. Sometimes, it was very month to month and the strain financially of having to discount my fees was almost suffocating. I really really felt the strain of having to discount those fees and the extra work on the back end of having to track down these past-due claims and all the effort that my team members will have to put into it. There was a lot of stress and pressure on my team members, having to keep up with all the hoops we would have to go through just to get the check. Gary:  Tracey, I appreciate you for many reasons, you’re an amazing dentist… Tracey: Thank you. Gary: ...you’re clinical skills are absolutely amazing. But one of the reasons I really appreciate you is because of your integrity and I’m gonna tie this specifically into your practice. And you had one standard of care, whether the patient was a fee for service patient or a Delta patient. Correct? Tracey: That’s accurate. Gary: So you weren’t using different labs if it was a Delta patient, you weren't using like folding chairs, I’m being facetious— Gary: You have a beautiful office...absolutely beautiful… Tracey: Thank you. Gary: And your patients receive one standard of care, there’s no compromise there. So the person that was getting short changed while you were in network was you. Tracey: Right. Gary:  You were the one that was taken out a 40 to 42 percent of a cut on your fees. Tracey:  Right. And it was even above the bare minimum so I would maybe say I’m doing 10 units and the maximum was 1500 dollars and I would still have to discount all 10 units, which was really really difficult. Gary:  You know that’s one of the things that really irritates me about PPO plans. According to their contract, they can set your fees on uncovered services on services that they don’t cover at all. And they have in most states, in most PPO contracts, they have the right to set your fees whether they provide any coverage at all, which seems to me just fundamentally wrong. I mean if they don’t do service like if they don’t have any coverage for implants they shouldn’t be able to dictate your fees. However, that’s not how the PPO plans work, they use it as a lever, to adversely affect dentists and frankly, it’s one of those irritants that I feel are very unfair. Tracey, talk a little bit about what happened, as the holidays completed, we had to give a 30-day notice to Delta. All of a sudden, now here we are at the beginning of the New Year, and you’re out of network. Because there’s a fun side story about your daughter. But before we get into that talk about what happened in January February and March. Tracey:  Well, right from the start of the New Year actually it was quite exhilarating to really receive 100% of my fee for treatment. The patients were very understanding for the most part. We took several months to talk to our patients in person—thanks to your coaching Gary—my team became extremely well-trained and confident in their ability to talk to patients and explain why we were going out of network and I think that was a huge key point to our success. And as we went through the New Year and eliminated the Delta dental contract and started seeing patients it was really refreshing to see how understanding our loyal patients were. They said, ‘oh, that’s easy...You’re gonna submit the claim and the cheque will still come to me within 7-10 business days...Oh, no problem. Sometimes they needed to be reminded and they would say, ‘whoa wait, you’re not taking my insurance anymore..’ and we would just remind them how easy the process was and they were like ‘oh, that’s no big deal’. So for the most part they got it, sure I had a few people leave...um, not nearly as many as I thought so I was very happy with the patient retention. Gary:  What was my message to you? I’ll put you on the spot here Tracey— Tracey: Oh boy (laughs) Gary:  When you were thinking of going out of network and I said Tracey you’re going to lose some, there’s no getting around that if a patient only comes to you because you’re in-network, you know you may lose some. But I remember sharing with you and I said, ‘Tracey, you’re going to lose fewer than you might think’. Gary: And that became rather prophetic. Yes? Tracey: Yes, that was true, very much so. Gary:  I have vivid memories of getting text messages from you, after the first of the year you know saying ‘woohoo I’m free for service, I’m actually getting my full fee. You don’t know how liberating this feels!’ Tracey:  Its very true and I have absolutely no regrets. And I would do it all over again. And my biggest regret—oh, okay—I just said that I have no regrets, I do have a regret. I regret that I didn’t do it sooner. That’s my regret. Gary:  You don’t know how good that makes me feel Tracey. Especially for our listeners. You know, one thing that might be useful for them to know, you’re in Louisville Colorado. Tracey: Right. Gary:  Which is a suburban...Well, there’s parts of Louisville that are semi-rural still. But I would characterize it as very much a blue-collar community, is that accurate? Tracey: Yeah, I would say so. Gary: You certainly have a mix of patience like we do in Life Smiles. Tracey: We do Gary:  You have some executives that are patients of yours. You're not far from Boulder and you have some highly educated people associated with the University of Colorado. Tracey: That’s true. Gary:  Most of your patients are really just great, solid, middle class.  Tracey: They are. That’s true. Gary: So it’s not like majority of your patients are affluent. They’re working-class folks.  Tracey: They are. They very much are. Gary:  Which is very eerily similar to my own practice. We’re in Phoenix kind of our sweet spot is, right in the middle blue-collar, working-class folks and we love em. Tracey:  Yeah, and they’re very loyal people as well. They like to return the loyalty and I think, the willingness for them to stay and come back, even though we made these changes is very apparent. Gary:  How did that feel to you on an emotional level when you know the patient has made a conscious decision to stay with you. Even though it would be easier for them to go to a networked dentist. How did that feel to you emotionally? Tracey:  Well, it really warms my heart. My philosophy in practice is relationship dentistry; to create relationships with people. And we work very very hard to do that. And we see one patient at a time in our practice. We write down little notes, and when they come back, ‘oh, did you have your have your grand-baby join your family this year?’ and we kind of carry on the conversation. So, it’s very personal. And to have them being somewhat hesitant, you can see the wheels turning a little bit when we first talked with them about the changes that we were implementing. And then now we’re to the point where we’re actually going through the second appointment and re-care with them. And it’s like ‘oh its no big deal’, and they just really get it.  Gary:  Especially when you explain to them that, although we aren’t contracted with Delta you can still use your benefits here. You know, a point that I’ve made throughout this podcast is although reducing insurance dependence we’re still gonna be patient-friendly and insurance friendly. Now, the words that the patient might use, maybe not so much to you Tracey, but maybe to a team member is, ‘so you’re not taking my insurance anymore?’ Which isn’t accurate. Tracey: Yeah Gary:  Your team really had great verbal responses. “Oh no, no, we will be happy to do...we’re gonna go bat for you like we always have. We’re gonna use every dollar of benefit that you have and we’ll still file your claims. We’ll do everything we’ve done before, we’re just not gonna be contracted with it.” Tracey:  And that was a big part of it. ‘Oh, I don’t have to do the paperwork, absolutely not we’ll submit the claim electronically for you. I think that’s a big part of it too. People don’t wanna have to do the paperwork. So we still advocate for the patient, to do that for them, to be patient-friendly. Gary:  Right. Now, I’m privy to a side story, that happened when you re-opened. And your daughter, your 16 years old daughter… Tracey: Just turned 16 Gary:  Just turned 16, deserves massive compliments. Would you fill in our listeners to that side story? Tracey:  I would love to, its a fun story. I’m very proud of my daughter.  Gary: As you should be Tracey:  When I called my team to come back on May 18th, for a respectful reason my office administrator decided not to return to work, so I was short-handed at the front, coming back after being closed and figuring out all these new protocols and a little bit of higher stress because of that, and I threw my daughter into the front office administrator position. She’d never had a job, a little bit of an awkward 15-year-old in their communication. Hardly every talks on the telephone— Gary:  Wait, an awkward 15 turning 16 years old? Gary: Remember I raised four of them.  Tracey:  Right. Right…Communication skills, well I thought, well let’s just have her answer the phone and help out. And the fact that we were not in-network with Delta dental anymore or contracted with any insurances really helps streamline the efficiency of the front office. And I truly believe the fact that I was out of network wit hall networks allowed me to really come back, open the office and take the bull by the horns and really move forward successfully. And she was able to talk to patients about insurance, she was able to process payments, didn’t have to deal with all that back end following up on outstanding claims, she was able to spend her time doing what was most important. Which was establishing relationships with patients? It really made the role of an office administrator easy, that a 15 just turning 16-year-old girl came right in and...Honestly, she was probably one of my best friend’s office administrators that I’ve worked with. Now she’s back to school and I miss her and we’re training somebody else. But again training new employees without having all the restraints of the insurance is so much easier, streamlined, and efficient. Gary:  Well, and you’re being very soft-spoken about how incredible your daughter was. But I will simply report that she did incredibly well completely belied her age or experience. She was all about taking care of patients. She was all about letting people know how appreciated they are in your practice. And she gets an A++ on my report card and the data shows, the numbers show that she did extremely well. You know, I don’t think that would’ve happened if you would have lost your office administrator and still been involved...You know one time you had many plans in the practice. Can you imagine, forget her age for a minute, but anyone stepping in with no dental experience and having to navigate all the land mines of insurance? Tracey: No way. Gary:  No, she did incredibly well. So hats off to Cambie she did incredibly well. Now she got some of your value systems for sure and she may have been paying attention at home when we weren’t quite sure whether she’d been paying attention. She might have been paying attention, a little bit. Tracey: She might have  Gary: But she did incredibly well and really the success story has simply continued because now you’re in the stage as you mentioned where you’re now seeing patients returning for the next visit in hygiene. And you’re just seeing loyalty, appreciation. They are letting you know, they are voting with your feet. They are letting you know “Dr. Hughes, I’m not going anywhere else”. I would never leave your practice, I’m a patient for life. Sometimes they also use those words, but I’d rather watch their behavior. Because their behavior is, they’re with you. Tracey:  They are, they definitely have developed trust and confidence in our practice and we’ve even had a patient that was...So we allowed patients, if they seemed hesitant at all to go through this process we said ‘you know what we really understand, this is a new territory we’re treading into and we really want you to be able to try this out. Before you make any decision to leave our practice and stay with us as an outer network provider. There were a handful of patients that we would sort of trying this on. And if they were Delta as you know, the cheque would have to go to the patient. So these patients that we had long term relationships with we allowed them to go ahead and have the check assigned to the patient. We would carry the balance and we would follow up with them or they would call us and say, ‘you know I got my cheque, just as you said within 7 to 10 business days. No problem’. And they were comfortable with it then we collected their balance with a credit card. I had one patient who didn’t have such a great reimbursement out of network and he had already found a new plan with another company that had better out of network benefits. So he was so loyal, he didn’t wanna go somewhere else where maybe Delta would pay 100% he found an out of network plan, but out of network sometimes pays pretty good, it pays 100% of our fee, and he had already switched. Gary:  I mean, talk about loyalty. A patient literally on their own finding an insurance policy, that pays better out of network because they don’t wanna go anywhere else. It just warms my heart, you know to hear those stories. Tracey, we’re kind of coming to the finish line here, um one of the points that I’ve made, you know repeatedly to our listeners here on this podcast is that... a couple of things. One if you are going to be successful going out of network, one of the strongest things you can do is build the relationship-driven part of your practice. And in many ways, I think your practice is a model, relationship-driven practice. I don’t know how to ask you this question without setting you up...But would you agree? Tracey:  yeah, I agree. Its actually on the front door. That’s kind of our tagline as relationship dentistry, but yeah its really really hard. Gary:  It is at the front door. (laughs) Says relationship dentistry… Tracey: Yeah. I work very hard for that, and that’s the way I want to practice. Definitely patient loyalty in return for that is very very high. Patients want to come to us, they don’t want to go to another office and not everybody does, you can’t be everybody's dentist. Some people are more insurance-driven and that’s fine. But that opens the door for more of these patients. But we developed a relationship very early on with the initial phone call. And I like to call and welcome the patient personally. We have little things that, people like—the paraffin hand dip, the TV on the ceiling—but I think more to it is that we just take time for the patient. We see one patient as a time as I mentioned earlier. And I can really get to know the patient and they come back because of that. Gary: You know, I’ll talk about a couple of other things, as we wrap up here, the point I wanna make is that you give your patients many reasons to come to you, other than you’re on their insurance. You give them many reasons. Tracey: Right. I hope so. Gary:  You do. It’s a full list, it’s a very rich list of things that you provide. Technology, you have state of the art technology in your practice. One of the things I love about your office is that the way you have some really beautiful after photos of your patients. That’s something that you’ve really kind f taken it to an awesome level. You ask the patient to sign the after photo and write a short note. Tracey: Right Gary: Those photos are…You can’t help but be drawn to those photos. And you can’t help but read what they have to say. Every one of them has glowing praise of their beautiful smile. Tracey:  It is, and my assistant makes sure as she’s bringing the patient back that she does a tour and she stops and pauses and says, please take time to read these or take a look at these if you’d like to take your time after your appointments. So as they’re coming back up from the treatment room to the consulting room they take time to look at those photos and to read what the patients have written. Gary: Yeah, yeah...You know there are so many reasons for people to choose your office. Well Tracey, thank you...You know Dr. Omar Reed shared with me that um, sometimes people need to know that it’s been done before. Dr. Reed used to use the quote ‘if it’s been done before it must be possible.’ I’m sure you’ve heard that. Tracey: I take that one to heart actually. Gary:  Omar probably said that one time when you were at his courses...But Omar often said that ‘if it’s done before, it must be possible’. I wanted our listeners to hear from you. Hear from this 100th episode. You’ve done it, its possible, you’re in a highly competitive area. I mean it’s not like there aren’t other dental choices… Tracey: Very much so Gary:  Everywhere...You’ve done extremely well and I’ll repeat what you said earlier, you said your only regret is that you didn’t do it sooner. Tracey: That’s true. Gary:  So I just want to thank you. I treasure our coaching relationship, I’ve loved working with your team. Really when we do team meetings, their pens are smoking taking notes. And I know they’re going to apply the information that they learn. But you’re also a wonderful leader in providing them the leadership, the encouragement, and the resources to do their job well. So let me take a minute and say thanks to you Tracey, and thanks for being a voice here on the podcast. Our first interview in 100 episodes and thanks for being like a lighthouse that points the way. And nothing would make me happier than the listeners of this episode to think ‘wait a minute, if Dr. Hughes can do this, I think I can do it too.’ I’m inspired, I’m encouraged. Tracey: That’s very true. Gary: Thank you, Tracey, for being that guiding light.  Tracey:  Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate all your help and coaching to get us to this point. Its something I’ve been wanting to do for many many years. So thank you so much. Gary:  Oh, it’s mutual. Want to take a minute and thank our listeners of the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast, we love what we do here. Couldn’t do it without you, three things you can do to support our work; number one you can tell a colleague about the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast, there might be some dentists out there that haven’t discovered podcasts yet. Hey, let them know about Podcasts and let them know about the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast. The second thing you can do is, you can jump on iTunes and write us a review, help more dentists find us. And the third thing you can do is to hit the subscribe button. You can so that on iTunes or Google Play or whatever your podcast directory of choices. Just hit subscribe and every Thursday when we upload a new episode it’ll be automatically uploaded for your listening convenience. On that note let me simply  thank you for the privilege of your time and tell you I will look forward to connect with you n the next Less Insurance Dependance Podcast. Thanks so much.

Gary believes that nearly every dentist would love to resign from PPO Plans but only very few of them actually do. "Why is that?" In Gary’s 40+ years of coaching 2,200+ dental practices, he discovered the 5 most common reasons why dentists don’t resign from PPO’s. In this episode, Gary and Naren talk about these 5 reasons in-depth while also sharing suggestions on how you can overcome each one of them. Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 00:51 About the number one dental podcast: The Thriving Dentist Show > 01:10 Reason #1 - The Dentist doesn’t actually know the financial impact of being in-network with dental insurance > 07:09 Reason #2 - The dentist doesn’t know how to market to patients without insurance > 08:47 Reason #3 - The dentist doesn’t have any role models to inspire them > 09:38 Reason #4 - Lack of support from team members > 10:53 Reason #5 - Dentists feel like it can’t be done in their city or town > 13:22 Resources DOWNLOAD The PPO Write Off Calculator FIND WRITEOFF AMOUNT SCHEDULE A FREE MEETING SUBSCRIBE WRITE A REVIEW NOW Transcript Naren: This is the Less Insurance Dependence podcast with my good friend Gary Takacs and myself, Naren Arulrajah.  Gary: We appreciate your listenership, we appreciate your time we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependency in your practice. Our goal is to provide information to you that will allow you to successfully reduce insurance dependency in your practice and make this your best year yet. Thank you. Naren: Welcome to another episode of the Less Insurance Dependence podcast, I am Naren your podcast cohost – today we have an exciting topic. The topic is The 5 Biggest Reasons Dentists Don’t Resign from PPO Plans. Before we jump into the episode I have a quick announcement – many of you know that Gary is the pod-father, he is the very first one in dentistry to start podcasting, and that podcasts called the Thriving Dentist Show. You can access it by going to the website the thriving dentist. com, now a couple of trivia points – number one it is your first podcast that was every launched in dentistry – number two it is listened to in more than one hundred and eighty five countries across the globe and the farm ad is also very interesting, every week without fail Gary goes through a topic that is based on the question he gets either from his clients or from him many many many fans all across the globe and for example the latest topic was – this s the last episode we published and as we are publishing this, it is called the one metric you must know if you are a PPO practice – so if you love listening to the Less Insurance Dependence you are going to love the thriving dentist show that is four hundred and forty eight episodes that are already live and by the time you listen to this we have already crossed four hundred and fifty episodes, so binge listen to it if you want or just listen to one or two episodes that you like so that is just our invitation to you to go check out the thriving dentist show and lets jump in – Gary how are you doing today? Gary: Hey Naren I am doing great – thanks for talking about the thriving dentist who we know we get new listeners every week that find the Less Insurance Dependence podcast and it occurred to us  that some may not know that we have another pod act called the thriving dentist show and we know that if they loved the  Less Insurance Dependence show that they are going to love the thriving dentist show, now they are different but they go hand in hand because they both help develop a thriving practice Naren: Yeah, the way I see it they get to listen to their number one coach on the planet when it comes to the business and people side of dentistry and it is free you know and they can listen to it anytime they want – so that is two big benefits! So feel free to check it out any time you want. Gary: we will be sure to put a link in the show notes so if you are driving don’t take your hands off the wheel, but when you are stationary got to the show notes – right here in the Less Insurance dependence if you scroll down you will see al ink and it will take you directly to the thriving dentist show - or you can fund it on iTunes or Google Play. And we have a fun topic for today - The 5 Biggest Reasons Dentists Don’t Resign from PPO Plans. It is interesting because I believe that nearly every dentist would like to resign from PPO plans but very few of them actually do – so why is that? I sort of started asking this question a couple of years ago – well why not? And I discovered some commonalities – so there was some common thread so I actually identified 5, 5 of the biggest reasons – there are more than that, but I will bet that every one of our listeners will identify with either one or more of these reasons, because it is these reasons that are blocking you from taking action, so there is some kind of fun here Naren. I’m going to identify the 5 Biggest Reasons and then I am going to suggest how to overcome each one  Naren: Awesome Gary: And I think maybe this will inspire our listeners our doctors to identify their own reasons and you know and maybe they will recognize and say they wait a minute that is me! That’s what I was thinking! And that is why I am frozen. Naren have you ever set out to do something and whatever it is whatever realm it is kind of just frozen because you did not know where to start or you did not know how to overcome some hurdle you saw? Has that ever happened to you? That happens to me every week  Naren: I mean absolutely – I will give you a personal example. Early on in my career I did my own taxes and I hit you know those details and numbers and just hated it – I just liked big ideas and the 10,000 foot – I mean every bill and every dollar – and twenty-four cents so what I would do is I would ignore it ignore it and then finally when something bad is going to happen – I wake up and realize – I do not need to do this – I can hire someone who can do this and take care of me. Gary: Right Naren: And version one was we just took all these papers and gave it to them, but now we found a  better firm that just lets us automatically upload things – so it is all in the cloud and it Is connected to our bank we do not upload anything it just magically everything shows up and the only thing we have to do is kind of categorize and make sure it is in the right bucket so it is the same situation but my mindset and maybe the approach that changed and all of a sudden no big deal – it was handled. I don’t know if that is a good example but – Gary: that is a great example – oftentimes, when we are handling something we hit, the big hurdle Naren: Yeah  Gary: and the big hurdle just stops us and in this hurdle, you are going to find out how to burst through each one of those hurdles and take some action on reducing your PPO involvements. So kind of fun, can I dive right in? We have 5 of them Naren: Yes Gary: I have numbered them one to five and they are not numbered in importance – they are of equal importance but I will number them so that there is some structure to the podcast. So number one – remember that these are the five biggest reasons dentist don’t resign from PPO plans. Number one - the dentist does not actually know the financial impact of actually being in network. Now think abbot that for a minute Naren. Naren: Yep Gary: They don’t know and I think this is a big one – because if they truly knew it would be perhaps the most inspiring information they could have as to why they should be out of network, so let’s list each one of these and come back to suggest solutions – so before I go to number two though I think what is common is I think the dentist knows that PPO participation has a negative effect but they just don’t know how bad, how much Naren: Yeah Gary: You know it is like I know I shouldn’t eat this but you plug it in Naren: Yeah McDonalds Gary: Yeah fast food – I know I should not eat this I know that but they don’t really know how bad it is  Naren: Right Gary: And if they knew how bad it is they would say no no I am not good to do that  Naren: Right Gary: So number one the dentist doesn’t actually know Naren: Gary really quick – is it okay if we include that podcast episode that you did? Gary: Yeah that is what I am going to- you got ahead of me Naren that was the solution Naren: Oh okay never mind okay keep going  Gary: We are going to help them understand what happens in their practice including the PPO write off calculator so they can know what that actually is. I’ll come back to that Naren: Perfect Gary: Okay number 2 - the dentist doesn’t know how to successfully market to get patients other than being on an insurance plan  Naren: Right Gary: The practice is infected with PPO plans which means the vast majority of ways in which the patient chooses them is that they are on the plan and as a result of all of that activity coming in they have never really been inspired to market any other way to attract patients other than the ones on their plan so they do not know how to market Naren: Right Gary: And there is a good solution for that one – each one of these have a solution which is I hope you are interpreting this as good news. Number 3 – the dentist doesn’t really have any role models to motivate and inspired them to let them know that this can be done – you know if the entire world that you live in and all your dental colleagues are in dentistry network then you might kind of resign to the fact that – well I guess that is just the way this is  Naren: Right Gary: Apparently nobody is out of network – I mean they kind of are the kind of unicorns do they really exist? Naren: That is a saying isn’t it – you are the five most people you spend time with  Gary: Yes you become the 5 people you spend the most time with an if most dentist statistically are your colleagues are going to be PPO providers if that is the world that they travel in – they network in then that is all they see and pretty soon it becomes kind of a self- perpetuating process – well I guess that is just how it is and you kind of resign well as much as I would like to do that I really think it is actually kind of wishful thinking g I can’t do that, so that is reason number 3. Reason number 4 – lack of support from their team members, the talk to their office manager and their office manager goes oh no no doctor we could never do that, if we do that we would lose all of our patients and the doctor just got confirmation of a fear that he or she has. Can you imagine that Naren?  Naren: Yeah Gary: Going to your office manager and saying Linda I am thinking about resigning from Po plans what do you think, oh no no no doctor we will lose all of our patients – right oh okay never mind Naren: Just give up exactly Gary: And I am not faulting the tam member there- the only experience she has in dentistry is with the PPO practice and so the lenses that she looks through, I believe her heart  is in the right place, but it is  - she is not informed and she does not have an experience base outside of that and I don’t believe she is trying to torpedo the dentist I believe that she is genuinely concerned for the dentist which is fair but imagine if it were that blunt oh no doctor no doctor we would really lose all of our patients – that would really, if the doctor was kind of fragile on thinking about whether I can do this or not and they get that from a trusted team member that’s going to kind of heavily hit the brakes you won’t tap the breaks  Naren: Right Gary: You are going to hit it as hard as you can Naren: Right Gary: And no I am not being disparaging to a team member who holds that perspective that is a fair perspective Naren: Absolutely and again then again that is all they know so I mean like we went to school in Chicago and my school IIT is outside of Chicago was in the south side of Chicago where there are a lot of projects and t is very sad because most of these buildings have bullet holes and if you are growing up in an environment where this is everything you see and this is everything you know it is hard to kind of you know escape that  Gary: Yeah it is really a cycle that is hard to break Naren: Yeah Gary: Yeah that cycle outside of Chicago is a terrible cycle for many but also the cycle of PPO plans is something that is hard to break through – the reason number 4 – lack of support from team members and reason number 5 – they think thy can’t do it in their town or their city or their area I don’t think I will be able to I adjust don’t think I will be able to do it here and you lug in the reasons why and it becomes irrational – I think this can be done somewhere but I do not think I could do it here. So those are the 5, so those are not arbitrary those come up after me asking that question from thousands of dentists, doctor what stops you from resigning from a PPO plan and those are the 5 common answers, so let’s go through and find a solution for each one. Naren: Right perfect so let’s jump in Gary let’s give the solutions Gary: right so let’s go back o number 1 – actually know the financial impact of being in network.  You know we mentioned at the top of the show of the other podcast we do called the thriving dentist show. We did an episode recently about the one metric that dental insurance companies don’t want you to know and it is all about essentially covering up what the discounts are what the adjustments are so you don’t know the impact of that. So what I would like to do is put a link to that episode in the show notes and that’s our thriving dentist show link, and while we do that, in that episode we talk abbot PPO insurance plan calculator to calculate exactly what your adjustments and discounts are from PPo plans and we will put a link to that calculator in the show notes here as well and the reason why – if I can just know the top off it, the reason why dentists don’t know is – nine out of ten dentists enter their adjusted fees into their practice management software – no the actual fees but the adjusted fees and that is on the guidance of their dental insurance practice management – their practice management software – so whether it is Dentrix eagelsoft open dental or soft dent, whatever software they use nine out of ten dentists enter their contracted fees not their UCR fees. Naren: Right Gary: And they don’t know as a result they never know, you know I ran through this exercise earlier this week with a potential client and this was a nice strong practice and I asked him do you know what your write offs are – your insurance write offs? And he said Gary I don’t know I entered my fees I followed the advice of Dentrix and I entered my contracted fees. I asked him if he would be interested in knowing he said yeah and I went through the calculator with him and we discovered that this office had over 400,00 dollars a year in insurance write offs  - 400,000 if you, let’s use 400,00 as a round off but it was actually more than that, but 400,00 divided by 12 a month is 33,333 dollars a month so I told this doctor – doc you are spending 33,333 dollars a month on marketing and he said no no Gary I think you are looking at the wrong this on my profit and loss statement, I know I spend money on marketing but I am not spending that much. We were on a zoom meeting like this and he can see my face and I can see his face in the video. So I said doc look at my face in the video and I said doc you are spending and I used air quotes and I said doc you are spending 33,333 dollars a month on marketing and when I did that the light bulb went off in his head – and he said oh my gosh I am paying that. The reason why I say you are spending that much on marketing is because the insurance comp any is providing you with patients  Naren: Right Gary: And as soon as I said that to him it was literally like the flood gates of understanding were opened to him. That’s why I said the number one reason is that they don’t know the financial impact to participate in the plan. When I tell you that – did you realize that you are spending 33,333 dollars a month on marketing? Instantly they think wait a minute there is a better way – I may be doing that now but I am not going to do that in the future. Naren: Right makes sense because they don’t know like you know out of sight out of mind 0 you don’t realize it because they don’t know and it doesn’t hurt you and you don’t see it Gary: You don’t know Naren: Yeah Gary: And know they know, you know that would be a good quote to accompany this episode when we know better we do better. Naren: I love that quote – yeah. Gary: You two when we know better we do that – and that is just a specific example, of hat quote and that can apply in may avenues of our life but certainly it applies to this area making decisions right, okay he second one – the dentist doesn’t know how to market for patients other than being on the dental insurance plan. And I am just going to be very direct – follow my lead just do what I do. We are an EKWA client – EKWA is your company Naren. My practice - Life Smiles is a paying EKWA client and it’s the best marketing return on investment that I have ever got on my 13 years of ownership of my life smiles dental care. We are one of your platinum clients  Naren: Yes Gary: And we play 1200 dollars a month for all inclusive comprehensive services, it ids a flat fee and it is all inclusive, it doesn’t go up it is fixed and it provides us with 80 new patients a month and every one of those are choosing us for other reason – other reasons hat were influencing them to choose up – and just do what we do on that one – what a great way to instantly get on the oath to mastering marketing in your practice. Naren: Right and you spend 1.8% compared to the 38% that you used to spend  Gary: I mean think about that – if I analyze that – the doctor who is spending 33,333 dollars a month if he was to go with EKWA he is now going to spend 14,400 a year? Naren: Yes If I get my math right, let’s call it 15 just to round that up – so let’s spend 15,000 dollars a year instead of 400, and get t the added benefit of having his patients choosing him for other reasons on their plan – Gary: Right So there you go, okay – role number 3 – no real role models to inspire the dentist to break free and move from insurance. Here I would like to invite our listeners I can be your role model. Naren: We were just talking to a client of yours recently Gary – he first was our client and he then became your client – he has been listening to you to two years now since your launched the Less Insurance Dependence show and he literally told me that every day I am surrounded any someone who really knows what he is doing had done it before and is part of the community he is part of the I love dentistry Facebook group so he gets positive reinforcement every day along with the other 5500 members. So I believe you have created tribe of people – you know I love that quote – if it has been done before it must be possible something- Gary: I was about to; say doctor reed taught me that one. I believe it came from somewhere else but I always give him credit because that is where I learned it from – it has been done before so it must be possible and let me go a step further Naren. On the thriving dentist show I am owing to put a link in the show notes her of three dentist who have done fee for service practices and they are youg dentist who have successfully created fee for service practices – we are going to put a link to those 3 in the show notes here so they can listen to these again because it is not just me but others who have done this Naren: Right Gary: It is very cool ND these are awesome young dentist – and it gets better I had to think about it, all 3 started a fee for service practice from scratch in a highly competitive area by the way what do you think all three of these dentist heard as they announced their plan to their dental friends?  Naren: Yeah not possible  Gary: You cant do that that’s not – don’t you realize how competitive it is?  Naren: Yeah Gary: And all three of these docs seemed to have the same kind of temperament that I do – I love it when people tell l me I cannot do something.  Naren: Right Gary: Sometimes I think my wife does that to me because she knows exactly how it triggers me in a positive way Naren: exactly Gary: She knows something you know literally at the core done at the cellular level I can go yeah just watch. So how cool is that – they can have 4 mentors and 4 different voices different areas different perspectives – all showing them that it can be done. Naren: Right Gary: Number 4 lack of support from team members – here’s what I want you to do on that one doctor start talking to your team members about what is in it for them – as you work to resign from PPO plans – think about that. Think about Linda the office manager – think about what she said, oh doc you can’t do that. Think about this is what would our life be like as my office manager if we didn’t have people from the PPO plans? Start talking to them about what is in it for them – and I don’t mean a one bullet point conversation – multiple bullet points. Doctor if you feel like a hamster in treadmill as a dentist providing care in a PPO practice how do you think your team members feel? They are also hamsters on a treadmill Naren: Right Gary: And you know how you feel how patients say I don’t want to come if they don’t have my insurance and imagine how your team members feel when thy – your team members want to help people and the truth is when you are in network you are not able to help people as fully as you can, start talking to them about these things. Naren: The other thing you taught me Gary was you didn’t make your podcast – this one no insurance you said less insurance dependence right so one step at a time, one foot in front of the other – it is not over whelming but if I tell you need to do a full minute mile tomorrow you are going to say forget it, but if I tell you les go for a 7 minute I don’t know what your response would be  Gary: You experienced that! Naren: Yeah  Gary: Use the process that we can follow Naren: Exactly  Gary: It is baby steps that I cn do that Naren: Yeah Gary: I can do that –  Naren: It is like driving at night all you can see is the next hundred meters but that all you need. Gary: Yes that’s all you need to start – yeah that s a great point so we want you to provide you some information to your team members so that they can support you in this. Number 5 they think they cannot do it in their town. Well I would like to answer that right now – we have been successful as a coach, I have been successful as a coach with dentists in every type of location environment big cities suburban locations big towns smaller towns small tons, rural remote and every kind of practice environment has been successful. Hers how I want you to think about this – how many patients do you need to have a great practice? Really again it all depends on your goals your size as so on but I think that any of our listeners would agree that somewhere between 1500 and 2000 active patients would make a really good practice –  Naren: Right Gary: And you can find those people in every kind of location and you can find people who don’t have insurance because when they don’t have insurance they don’t ask you two questions – one are you in network? And two when you resent treatment they don’t ask you to cover by insurance  Naren: Right Gary: And three groups of people you can find think of them as silos of people – one would be retirees – retires wouldn’t have insurance –typically another group would be the other end of the age spectrum – millennial, people who in their 20s and 30s – they have not reached the point in their careers where they have accorded benefits and then the third group which is kind of  a catch all group and is kind of a big group is the gig economy workers – gig economy workers are independent workers they are freelance workers, independent contractors – Uber drivers, lift  drivers, freelance workers Etsy shop owners BnB owners and that group is expanding so I ask myself are those people – we found those people in every type of location , and If you are in an area that is highly corporate maybe you are in an area like Huston or a city like Chicago that is highly corporate – ask your self could I find myself patients who are retirees millennial and gig workers and every time the answer is oh yea and those groups of people are much larger than you think when you start to circulate in those areas, it’s like that comment about buying a new care that is a red car what happens? We start to see red cars everywhere. Naren: Exactly Gary: And when you start trying to attract retirees you think here is all the places I can find retirees in my community  Naren: Right Gary: And so there is the 5 ways, the 5 biggest reason and then the counteract to all of those is how to overcome each one f those well Naren I hope this has been inspiring for our listener to overcome what I hope have been the hurdles for them and I hope that this inspires them to take action and to continue down that path just to successfully reduce insurance dependence – we are in the middle of creating our grass roots movement and I am so encouraged by the results we are seeing  you know it’s all about helping the dentist – it is about providing personal professional and financial satisfaction and perhaps the most strategic thing you could do to achieve those ends is to successfully reduce insurance dependence  Naren: Absolutely Gary and going back to what I said at the beginning of the podcast – if you are a fan of the less insurance dependence show you are going to be a fan of the thriving dentist who and we are going to put in a link and we want to give away some swag so do us a favor go to the thriving dentist show – you can listen to one episode, 5 episodes or even 50 you can binge listen if you want and then write us a review so if you write a review of r the thriving dentist show and you do I in the next week or two we are going to pick a winner and you are going to get swag – so you will get a thriving dentist swag Gary: And we have some cool swag Naren I have to admit we’ve got some very cool swag so yeah jump on tunes and write us a review and get some fun swag to go along for it and if you write us a review for less insurance dependence we will send you a less insurance dependence swag so we will pick on the winner each week. Naren: Well thanks so much for listening I look forward to the next less insurance dependence podcast.

The permission statement is a really cool way to introduce comprehensive dentistry to your patients. It’s truly a game-changer! In this episode, Gary and Naren discuss the permission statement and how it allows you to introduce the concept and involve the patient, in a conversation about their oral health. Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 01:29 About the upcoming MBA workshop > 01:37 How the permission statement can be a game-changer >04:23 What the permission statement is > 04:50 How to Introduce them into a conversation with your patients > 05:49 The six photos for patient education > 09:13 How to present the necessary treatment > 15:08 How to ask for a Google review > 17:38 How to schedule a follow up > 21:10 Resources REGISTER DIGITAL PHOTOS FOR CASE ACCEPTANCE SUBSCRIBE SCHEDULE A FREE MEETING Transcript Gary: Welcome to another episode of the Less Insurance Dependence podcast, I am Gary Takacs your podcast cohost along with my great friend Naren Arulrajah. Hey Naren, how are you? Naren: Hey, Gary, I am doing great, I am just enjoying the few months of summer that we have in the city of Toronto. Gary: You are enjoying it and we are ready to turn summer off! *laughs* Naren we are so not- it has been a record heat summer for us – July, the month of July has the hottest month, in the history of Phoenix Arizona *laughs* Naren: Wow Gary: So I think it is time to turn the corner of this so kind of looking forward to some reasonable temperature for sure. Hey Naren our topic for this week is a really cool topic, we are going to talk about The Permission Statement and this is going to make a lot of sense as we go through this episode, but before I get to that one I want to make an announcement about our upcoming MBA thriving dentist live stream workshop – this is on Friday, September 11th, all day it is an eight-hour workshop. It is from 10 am eastern time to 7 PM – if you do the math that is actually 9 hours because we kind of give you a lunch/dinner break in there, and the workshop is all about the 10 elements of a thriving practice, and Hey Naren as you know one of those elements is guessed what? Naren: Reducing Insurance Dependence! Gary: Reducing Insurance Dependence! And we go into a deep die about all the things you need to do to successfully reduce insurance dependence so that is covered in detail along with the 9 other elements that make up a thriving practice – hey so consider this an invitation to come to join us on September the 11th 10 AM to 7 PM Eastern time and that is 7 AM to 4 PM Pacific time. We will put a link in the show notes and by the way, there is some very attractive pricing now that we do theses as live stream we have much reduced expenses to put on these workshops so no air travel no meeting rooms no catering and we have cut the tuition to the bone and you will notice some very attractive pricing for you, so come join us and get a massive amount of CE and as well as everything you know, everything we know that will help you develop a thriving practice, and I also want to read a really fun review that we have received on iTunes for the Less Insurance Dependence podcast you know for those of you who have taken the time to write a review for us on iTunes – we want to take the time to say thank you. A review for us on iTunes is very much like a Google review for your practice let me read one to you; ‘What a perfect podcast with very valuable information – insurance is ruining the great profession of dentistry and these guys are saving it – must hear – 2 exclamation points’ Gary: Thank you! I will not repeat the doctor’s name as we did not ask for his permission - but thank you and Naren I do not think I can say it any better when he said insurance is running the great profession of dentistry – and we are on a mission a grassroots mission to change that Naren: Absolutely Gary: So thank you for that review. If you haven’t done it already if you could be kind enough to jump on iTunes and write us a review much appreciated – it would help more dentists find us and it will help us on our grassroots mission to save and preserve private practice dentistry. Hey, Naren this topic - The Permission Statement – I learned it many years ago and it is a game-changer. Naren: Yes Gary: And I do not want to buy hype-y about it, it is not like there is some magic phrase that everybody is going to accept your treatment recommendations I truly wish we could bottle that if there was such a thing and sprinkle it over every practice in the country but it doesn’t work like that. What the permission statement is a really cool way to introduce the concept of comprehensive dentistry. Let’s face it – do you think comprehensive- the term comprehensive dentistry, do you think that is on the mind of the average dental patient? Naren: No Gary: No it is like, they think of it more as ‘I have a problem – fix it’ Naren: Right Gary: Right? So the language we use inside a dentistry which we would love our patients to you know experience as a comprehensive treatment plan and accept comprehensive dentistry – that is not a concept that is even bouncing around the mind of our patients Naren: Correct Gary: It is more – just like I said, ‘I have this problem …’ Naren: ‘Fix it’ Gary: ‘I want you to fix it’ and what the permission statement does is to allow you to introduce the concept and invite them into a conversation about dentistry in a different way – you know that term invite you into a conversation is something our dear mutual friend – Dr. Leanne Brady Naren: Yes Gary: And I want to give Lee credit for that because I first heard it from her and she may have heard it somewhere else but I want to give Lee credit for it I really think it properly describes what we are doing, and it is so intrusive Naren: Yes, and it is kind of linked to doctor Robert Cialdini most important principles of influence which are mindsets or you know commitment and consistency and stuff so when you ask for their permission and they say yes – now they are inviting you to help them and they are inviting you to tell them more and take them down that journey. Gary: Can I be blunter about it Naren? Naren: Yeah Gary: You ask their permission and they say yes, if you do not do it is being rude! Naren: Right *laughs* exactly Gary: It is not giving them what they want Naren: Want – right it flips the who equation to you preaching to them wanting it Gary: Now let’s just kind of – let’s do some fun little sidebar here and I guess we have to kind of think about this in the pre COVID world. Naren: Yeah Gary: So back when we all used to go to restaurants you know all the time and you know we would enjoy our time at restaurants, and there will be a time again where that will happen but Naren can you imagine maybe you and your wife going to a restaurant and can you imagine the server at the restaurant, the waiter or waitress at the restaurant and this is someone who loves their job – and totally believes in the restaurant that he or she works for – they love it, and as they are sharing the menu imagine the waiter saying something like you, as you are looking at the menu let me take a minute to share with you one of my favorite appetizers from the menu? What are you going to say as a guest? Naren: Absolutely! Gary: Please! Naren: Yes! *laughs* Gary: Now you may have different- you may not act on it Naren: Yeah Gary: You may have a different choice or different taste, you know that is on the appetizer menu but I think that would be a cool discussion – hey man can I share something with you that is one of my favorite appetizers on the menu Naren: Right right – I mean it comes from a different – as opposed to hearing the three specials you are asking for their permission and they want it now – they are saying yeah if it is one of your favorites I want to know, I am here like you know – I took the time to come here and I do not want to waste my time here having the wrong stuff tell me all the good stuff Gary: And in fact, I would be the kind of person that would engage Naren: Yeah Gary: In what he would say – cool why do you like that one? Naren: Yeah Gary: and he might say it is a seasonal appetizer it is not always on the menu, I want to make sure our guests know about it as it is not always on the menu Naren: right Gary: so I would say count me in, bring two of them Gary: but let’s go to the – let’s go back to the permission statement again – I have to set this up a little bit but I believe that our listeners will be on board – I am going to make the assumption that you are using the 6 digital photos for patient education, okay and now if you are new to the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast we are going to put a link in the show notes about the 6 photos for patient education so we will put a link in the show notes about that but I am going to assume that you are using the 6 digital photos for patient education and also part of that Naren one of the big details about that is that we show the photos on a laptop as opposed to showing them on a screen – now Naren I will put you on the spot – you can call a friend if you want but in case we have new listeners who have not heard that can you take a minute to summarize why we have them shown on a tablet and not upon a monitor. Naren: It is for the very same reason – because when there are no tablets they are engaging, they are playing with it they are looking at it and they go oh I see that coloring and I have to change it or that there is a gap in my teeth and it doesn’t look very nice, as opposed to it being on the big screen, I can’t engage, I can’t – it is kind of another way of asking questions – giving permission to you to answer those questions without giving them the Ipad they cannot engage – Gary: It is passive on the screen Naren: Yeah Gary: I do not care how big the screen is Naren: Yeah Gary: when of course now we have technology where you can get really big screens but it is still passive but as soon as we put the tablet – now I am an apple fanboy, I will declare it, my allegiance – it could be any tablet by the way I happen to like the apple products the iPods, the Ipad excuse me – I would recommend the Ipad pro because it is big – it has a twelve-point nine-inch diagonal screen and it is big – the bigger the screen real estate the better, Naren: right Gary: because now the patient can zoom in and they can see everything in micro detail but the simple reason is that when it is on the tablet – it converts it to an active process that engages – it becomes multi-sensorial for the patient to engage with Naren: Right Gary: and they become much more engaged as opposed to the passive act of just watching or just looking at something on the screen – Naren: Right Gary: So imagine now, the patient has the tablet in their lap and now remember there is one more detail, I am sharing this in case there are new listeners who have not heard the strategy behind the photos – we also make an excuse to leave the room and leave the tablet in the patient’s lap, it is a theatric move that is done intentionally and we will say something like – Naren if you were the patient, and Carly one of my new patient coordinators would say hey Naren remember when we, remember when I took the photos of you earlier today? Naren: Yeah, yes Gary: have them with me and have uploaded them to the tablet – the tablet looks just like your smartphone if you want to see the next photos just take your finger and flick it and if you want to zoom in just take your fingers and kind of pinch on them to zoom into infinity. Now the doctor and I need to take a look at your digital x-rays – while we are doing that will you do me a favor and take a look at these photos? And make a mental note of any questions that you might have and when the doctor and I come back in the room we will be happy to go over any questions that you have. We will leave the room for 2 or 3 minutes. Now the psychology there Naren is that it is an important detail – the psychology there is that when the patient is left alone with the photos with nobody looking over their shoulder and with nobody being critical, of course, the intention is never to be critical of course but the patient might feel you know of course might feel that – so when the patient is left alone they could totally get into those photos. Naren: Yeah, autonomy –people are much more engaged when you give them some freedom to – Gary: Yeah I give them the freedom – you give them the freedom to do it and no imagine that Doctor Paul and doctor Tim come back in the room and the patient may have some questions – nowhere is the permission statement, now Naren I would like to go over those photos with you but before I do that as you and I are going over these photos do I have your permission to share with you absolutely everything is see? Naren: Absolutely – so you are asking for my permission and you keep your mouth shut Gary: And your specific question is ‘you and I are going over these photos do I have your permission’ and let me slightly change the wording here ‘do I have your permission to share every concern that I see’ Naren: Right Gary: do I have your permission to share every concern that I see’ now I do not think I have ever heard- I do not remember every hearing patients say no – oh no no no no if you see something please keep it a secret - would not want that Gary: I mean It is kind of silly if you think of it that way in fact sometimes the patient can even resist- if you have a patient who can be sarcastic or has a sense of humor, they would say well doc that is why I am here – Naren: Right Gary: Of course *laughs* which is really what you want him to say right? Naren: Exactly Gary: And what do you think most people Naren just role play what do you think ninety-five percent of the time people say, Naren as you and I are going over these photos do I have your permission to share with you every concern I see – what do you think most people say Naren: So ninety-seven percent would say yes absolutely or some variation for that – absolutely a hundred percent Gary: and I think this solves the biggest decision matrix that dentists struggle with and let me put that on the listener’s screen – I think every dentist on the planet struggles with this – when do I promote just necessary treatment vs. the who enchilada Naren: Meaning the ideal treatment? Gary: Meaning ideal treatment Naren: Right Gary: And I get it and I get the dilemma because you might think I know that they are here for this thing on the upper left but if I present comprehensive treatment am I going to blow them out of the water, you know it is either am I going to blow them away and have it be something they were in a position to hear Naren: Right Gary: And when you ask them their mission statement you have their permission now Naren: Right Gary: To be thorough and to be comprehensive Naren: Right let me ask you a question Gary just to make sure I got it – I have heard you mention this type of a concept not just in this context but in many other contexts I can think of examples where you have shared this with me, can you maybe – rapid-fire give us a couple of other, a few other examples where you could ask for permission, one example that comes to my mind is I did not feel that shot and you say thank you so much for sharing that with me I am repeating so why do you not repeat it Gary: Yeah so the context that you are using as an example there is when a patient is delivering a compliment Naren: Right Gary: And it could be – one we hear a lot you know Paul and Tim all our hygienists in Arizona all hygienists can give an anesthetic and all our hygienists give a significant portion of shots in their practice and they are awesome – they are like as smooth as can be and you know we hear it all the time, the patient will turn to doctor Paul, ‘doctor Paul my goodness I never felt a thing – did you give me a shot? I never felt a thing’ and think about what the reaction is if you are not really intentional about what you are doing – what the natural reaction is to kind of stick your tail between your legs and say thanks Naren: Right Gary: Instead of a bold response that is – Naren thank you so much for sharing that you just made my day Naren: Right Gary: Now that made my day – of course that is our goal – to make every visit as comfortable as and do not stop there Naren: Exactly Gary: Keep going Naren – there are many people in phoenix who are afraid of going to the dentist because of the shot – would you do me a favor when you get a chance and write a Google review and you can say the same thing you said about me – about the shot and that is going to help more people overcome their fear by going to the dentist because now you have taken away the dragon – you have taken away the fear of the shot and you will be helping people get good oral health – thanks in advance. Naren: Right Gary: To remove an aversion Naren: Their permission, you are asking for their permission – you are not saying write a review you are just asking for their permission – would they do this? Gary: Yeah Naren: Ninety-eight percent of the time they are going to say yes – that is the beautiful thing about the permission statement it is a question but really the answer is a yes I en you have tested it for about a thousand times Gary: Yes - Yeah I mean we will do a future Less Insurance Dependence podcast on the whole concept of the benefit statements Naren: Mhmm Gary: The benefit statements and I love benefit statements because it answers the question of why should I do this and a lot of time people – the high Ds on the DISC and the personality styles Naren: Yeah Gary: The high Ds might even ask you why should I do ti – but ninety percent of the people that are high Ds may not ask it but they might be thinking it so what was the benefit of the benefits statement in that example – the benefit was you are going to help people Naren: Right Gary: And we all want to help Naren: Yeah Gary: You are going to help people overcome their fear but when you and your team really get onboard doctor with benefit statements you are going to see the figurative light bulb g off you know in a patient’s mind because now they know why they should do something Naren: And another example real quick – you have told me this – is sorties you have a certain an out of patient time for an appointment – let’s say you are coming in and checking on hygiene patient starts asking questions you start asking permission – do you mind if we set up 30 minutes to ask a question no charge -where we can really sit and discuss, can you give that verbiage can you- Gary: A lot of times this happens when you are going through photos it is a blessing and a curse and all of a sudden the patient is totally into their mouth because they have never seen their teeth before and they keep asking questions that are going down this rabbit hole and you can quickly see the train wreck of you know really messing up your time, Naren: Schedule Gary: Schedule that day – so what I – I teach my clients to do this – figuratively call a time N– obviously we are not doing this but I like the thinking around this - figuratively call a time out, say something like Naren I wish all my patients were as interested in their mouth as you are about yours *laughs* you are such an amazing patient. I want to take the time to answer all of your questions so you have the information you need to amok the best decision about your health, I also want to be respectful of your time today – Naren we have you scheduled for 2 o clock and we are kind of fussy about being a long time office but I want to make sure we get you out of here at 2 o clock as promised but here is what I would like to do – I would like to – before we leave set up a follow up appointment – now we can actually, now this is where we have the fork in the road - in the old days before we had virtual consult, we used to bringing them back for a face to face consult – so that, we could still do that with Naren we have a cool way to do this with technology where we can do that ad follow up virtually and do that via a zoom call, I am sure you are familiar with that Naren – I know we can do that, so that is another example of you know that way to sort of you know direct permission and to basically give the patient what they ask for – but let’s go back to the specific verbal skills that they ask for on the permission statement – Naren as you and I are looking at these photos od I have you permission to identify every area of concern I see – and doctors watch that – watch the magic of that and watch your patients nod their head and say yes of course not – please do, an now you have solved the biggest dilemma of comprehensive vs. episodic recommednations Right And as you are making recommendations one of the things you could say – I love this, I would kind of put a ribbon on it with this – you could say and I in response in going over all these concerns I want you to know that whatever happens next is completely up to you – we can go as fast and as a sow, as you like – we could get started with the immediate concerns and face thigs in overtime or we could get you healthy as quickly as possible – notice what I said, it is kinda like I think I like that one. Right I like that one, I mean right? So it si a great way to combine that with a permission statement – well doc I want you to get comfortable with using that phrase if you, use the the photos the photos are a great way to make the patients see their teeth in a way that they have never seen them before and this has made a big difference not only in our practice but also in clients all over the country and of course this fits our topic so well – because when we present comprehensive dentistry so much of that is going to be about being outside of what is being covered by insurance because basically insurance is kind o meant for the tooth of the year club you know and now you are breaking outside of that and you know many people are going to be interested in moving quicker that the tooth of the year club because the insurance plan is sort of designed for that – well I am glad you have enjoyed his episode, practice it – Naren thanks for being my cohost and also thanks to you and your team at EKWA for all you do for us to generate new patients that allow us to sustain our new growth I our practice -we will put a link in the show notes for EKWA and if you have not already set up a free marketing strategy meeting with EKWA – I would encourage you to do that, you meet with Lila Stone - Lila is director of EKWA’s marketing that is normally a service they provide at a fee at a fee of nine undred dollar s howwver they have done, naren has been kind enough to offer that to our listeners at no cost we will put a link in the show notes to encourage you to shcedue thanks so much and I look forward to connecitn gwith you on the next less insuarance dependence podcast

In this episode, Gary and Naren discuss the dreaded last-minute cancellations and appointment no shows. Gary goes into detail on how to create an ASAP list that will help you reduce these last-minute cancellations and no shows in your practice. Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 01:00 Learn about the upcoming MBA > 01:27 How to handle patients who are always canceling or not showing up > 05:19 Learn more about the ASAP list > 13:28 Learn more about the VIP list > 14:15 How to building your ASAP list > 16:15 Come join the I love Dentistry community > 20:06 Resources: REGISTER NOW JOIN THE TRIBE Podcast Transcript Naren: Hello everyone. Welcome to another awesome episode of the less insurance dependence podcast show. This is Naren, your co-host. Today we have an amazing exciting topic for you. This was something that many, many, people wrote in and asked Gary about. We called it your ASAP list. Gary has spent a lot of time over the last 40 years in his coaching work as well as in his life smiles dental care practice figuring out how to handle patients who have a pattern of cancellations and no-shows. So, this is going to be a treat. Before I get into the podcast, I have an announcement. We have MBA coming up on July 17th and 24th, 4 p.m. To 8 p.m. Eastern. I wanted to first talk to Gary about what happened with the MBA he just got done yesterday. So, Gary good evening. How are you this evening? Gary: Hey Naren, I'm doing great. As we're recording this, I'm sort of feeling the afterglow of having just finished our June one-day thriving dentist MBA. Now this we needed to retitle the name because we didn't do it in one day. We actually took three evenings. We want to try to present different formats to try to be accommodating to folks’ schedules and so we did it. A nine-hour program. We did three hours on Tuesday night, three hours on Wednesday night, and three hours on Thursday night. And man, that was fun we had so much engagement by our attendees. One of the things we do in that thriving dentist MBA workshop, the workshop is all about the ten elements of a thriving practice. We actually turn the workshop into a coaching experience and we do that two ways. We do it through exercises. So, each one of the elements, each one of them has an exercise. A simple exercise but it's something for our doctors and office managers to do in the workshop that will allow them to take the information and apply it to their practice and the second thing we do is throughout the entire course they're invited to submit questions and then we have specific time to have Q and A sessions to answer their questions and I know you were there the entire time there and helping me moderate it but man the engagement level was amazing and I feel like we are turning out ambassadors to go out and apply these ten elements in their practice and I felt really good about it and it was such a great experience. I can't wait till the one in July. Now July is a little bit different. Again, we're experimenting with formats. Same content but we're going to do it in two sessions and two four-hour sessions. So, four hours on Friday the 17th of July and then the following Friday we're going to complete the one-day workshop and that should be convenient for some and I just want to consider this an invitation to come join. If one of the elements of course is becoming less insurance dependent. So, if you listen to this podcast, you're going to absolutely treasure that one-day MBA because a big part of it is all about successfully reducing insurance dependence. Naren: Thank you so much Gary for that and I do think you're also doing a big service because you're not only offering this to people who don't know anything about the 24 elements and sort of 10 elements in the 24 systems but you extended it to your coaching clients. So, they now can train every one of their team members especially the office managers with these fundamental principles of how to run thriving practice. So, kudos to you for doing that and I really appreciate it, Gary! Gary: Man, it was fun and July we'll have a blast with that. So, if you like attending CE where you get lots of content and you also have a great time, I think you're going to love this. So, come join us and the pricing, because we're doing these live streams, we don't have airline expenses, we don't have hotel expenses, we don't have catering expenses and so we have cut the price to the bone and it's very affordable. I think it's probably the most affordable way to get six hours of CE that you could possibly take. So come join us. Naren: Let's jump in Gary. This is a question that I’ve seen maybe tens and tens of times maybe even a hundred times. How to handle patients who have a pattern of cancellations and no-shows? Gary: Naren, I would love to tell you that I don't know what you're talking about. We don't have cancellations and no-shows in life smiles and I would not be telling the truth if I said that. So, hey every prize, so if you feel like, oh my gosh we're just getting deluge with cancellation no-shows and that might not be true right now, right now, in the COVID era where you've been shut down for 7 10 12 weeks. We're not experiencing a high percentage of cancellation and no-shows and if we do, we've got a call list as long as our arm. So to get people in, but think back to February maybe beginning of March and if you are pulling your hair out because of cancellation and no-shows just know you've got a whole lot of company. I mean every practice has that, and I wanted to come up with some strategy to deal with it because it's a pattern that keeps happening and it's like what you do and we came up with something that  has worked brilliantly in our practice. It works brilliantly in our client base. Every time I share this with their clients their eyes get as big as saucers, they're like oh my gosh why did I not think of that, why did not I think of that. So Naren, is it okay if I dive right in? Naren: Yes please Gary: So, let's begin by recognizing that you have to start looking for patterns. If you have a patient that has routinely shown up for their appointments, I mean their pattern is that they're routinely showing up and then they have an aberration and they call you in the morning for a hygiene appointment and say, Carly, I'm  so sorry I have an afternoon appointment with Kelly this afternoon for hygiene and I'm not going to be able to make it. I just got called into an emergency meeting at work. I am so sorry I know I'm supposed to give you 48 hours’ notice and I just I didn't know until now. If I don't go to that meeting, I'm losing my job, now Naren can we recognize that that's different than a pattern of cancellation and no-shows? Naren: Absolutely Gary, yes! Gary: That's different and I think common sense for all of our listeners prevails in a situation like that. Say of course, thank you for the courtesy of the call we understand and then we're going to scramble to fill it, but now what do we do with George and I'm going to make it a male patient because it's more likely to be a male patient Naren: Yeah Gary: I hate to say it but it is, and I am going to make this example, George, and when we look at George’s record, he shows up maybe 20% of the time that we've made appointments for him. If you look at it in Reverse Naren: can I share, I'm going to put myself on the line here and Gary: Okay George, go ahead George Naren: so, we all have mindsets, right? We run our lives based on our mindsets, the way we think. In my mind if I have to choose between a meeting with Gary and my dental appointment, I am choosing my meeting with Gary. I'm being honest, right? Gary: I will take that as a compliment, Naren. Unless you were a life smiles patient and then oh man I get it Naren: So my problem is they typically ask me to book 6 months in advance. I don't know when I'm going to have these meetings that I really want to have because I have fun in it, I enjoy it. So usually what I tell my dental office is please call me a couple of weeks before. That way I can definitely make sure that I find a time when and I don't tell this to them when I don't have those fun meetings like the meetings I have with Gary, so that way it's easier for me because a week or two ahead of time all my meetings with you and now the other stuff that I enjoy is already in my calendar. Six months ago, if I asked you Gary when are we going to talk six months from now you won't be able to tell me. So, I'm one of those patients Gary who won't show up if you book an appointment with me six months in advance. I'm being honest. Gary: Well let's go back to fundamentals, Naren. Here's the fundamental on that one Naren: Yeah Gary: and I want to raise my hand and say Mia culpa I’ve been part of the problem on this and let me explain what I mean. In 1982, my goodness thirty-eight years ago, I was the guy that stood up and said nobody should leave your office without making their next hygiene appoint, their next hygiene appointment, and I started teaching that in 1980 and I said they're right in front of you and back then we didn't have in computers and so we had to get the book out the big book the big appointment  book where the scheduling team I would have to flip the pages six months out and she'd make you an appointment and I was the guy who said nobody leaves your office without making their next appointment and I taught that from 1982 to 2007, okay? Do the math on that pretty quickly. I believe that's 25 years. Naren: Right Gary: 1982 to 2007 and then I experienced in my own practice the mistake of that and how I discovered it was, I have to tell the story because it is imprinted on my mind. My office manager Stacy, we had a seven o'clock appointment and the seven o'clock appointment was Charlie Raggle. I know I'm violating HIPAA but Charlie won't be listening to this, so I think it's okay. Charlie's a football coach for Chaparral High School and he was there at seven o'clock in hygiene, and I was excited I happened to be in the office that day and I was excited that Charlie was coming in because I wanted to talk to him about setting up our are coming mouthguard project that we're going to be doing for the team and anyway 7 o'clock rolls around. No Charlie 7.05 rolls around no Charlie. 7:10 no Charlie and I walk up front and in my most emotionally intelligent manner I say Stacy, where's Charlie? She said Gary, I knew he wasn't coming. I said well Stacy if you knew he wasn't coming how come you made the appointment and without missing a beat she said because you told me to and I like aha I did guilty as charged because I told Stacy nobody leaves our office without making their next appointment. She said Gary Charlie, single guy, football coach. What does he care about? He cares about football. Naren: It's like me like I have other things that I have fun with I would rather go to the other stuff if I have a choice Gary: So, she said Gary I knew he wasn't coming and right then I said this is a teachable moment for Gary. Hey Stacy let's look at our digital schedule. Let's look later in the week. This was a Monday. Who else isn't coming? And she went right through the list and she identified about 10 hygiene patients that were highly likely of not coming, okay? Naren: And knew who these people are Gary: She knew it like I mean her instincts were amazing. So right then I made a shift I said quit reappointing everybody and what we learned after the fact that about 90% of the patients in any practice, you can appoint in advance whether it be three months, four months, for six months. But about 10% again that could vary your practice it could be 92% you for your point it could be 85 but it's in that range, it's in that range. In the 90% rate but for those 10% don't pound a square peg in a round hole. Don't pound a square peg in a round hole. Don't try to fit near in with your noted priorities and I'm not going to try to pound you and you, I’ll call you the square peg. I'm not going to pound the square peg in the round hole Naren: Right! Gary: Now that's one but now let's go to this ASAP list. Now let's play Naren and you're the guy that historically 20% of the time, you've shown up. So, here's what we do with you. We say Carly will say to you, hey Naren and this is after you've broken another appointment. We've no showdown another one, Carly will say Naren, I can't make appointments for you anymore because when I make appointments you don't show up. Now Carly has the best temperament tone of voice style to do this and nobody has ever felt insulted. They always say oh I know Carly I'm such a knucklehead, I know I know and then Carly says I get it, Naren, here's what we're to do. I'm going to put you on my VIP list. Now just I’ll come off the role playing for a minute. It's actually not the VIP list it's actually the what list and I won't say it because we want to keep our clean lyrics rating on iTunes but it's the other list that starts with a four-letter word list. But we are not going to tell you, we're going to say Naren, I'm going to put you, we care about you and we know if we see on a regular basis, we accomplish two things. We keep you as healthy as possible and reduce your future dental expenses. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put you on my VIP list. Here's what that means: let me make sure I have your current cell number. Oh, yep that's it, okay. Now I'm going to shoot you a text now and again. It'll be the text message, it'll be a text message, it'll be the same day. It might be an hour from now, it might be two hours, it might be five hours from now. But I'm going to send you a text message and the text message is basically going to say hey we can see you for a hygiene appointment at two o'clock. If you want it, text me back. Now understand I’ve got a few other VIPs. Now they're not quite as good a VIP as you Naren, but I’ve got a few other VIPs. So, if you want it to respond back quickly and so now, I want to knock on wood, Naren. So, my desk is made out of wood. I’m knocking on wood because I don't want to curse myself here. As of this very moment that we're recording this since we started doing that if we have at least an hour advan10ce notice at least an hour advance notice, we are 100% at filling that opening appointment later in the day. Now someday we will be able to say and notice I said at least no no's because this doesn't work for a no-show and here's why because by the time we know you're not coming and get the message out you don't have time to get there for the hygiene appointment, got it? Naren: Yep Gary: But this applies for the patients that will give you a courtesy of a call and many will. Then we can use the ASAP list. Now here's how you build your ASAP list. I want to be firm about this. It should have no more than 12 people on the list, 12, because if you send it to too many it will be overwhelming and if you send it to too few you might not be successful with it so 12 is the number, we tested it. 12 is the number. Half of those people, maybe six of them, will be people that would like to be seen sooner. They told you oh if someone was up call me, let me know. The other half are these chronic cancels or no showers. Now when we started this I had no idea if this was going to work but i've been surprised pleasantly at how often the people that fill those appointments are look at out of the chronic counsellors a no-shows because they're like you they're good people they just are not organized enough where their priorities aren't sorted enough to be able to keep an appointment three four six months in advance but meanwhile you're sitting, now this would be you, Naren because you're busy but maybe this guy George is sitting at Starbucks. He gets a text message from Carly, Hey George turns out we can see this afternoon or two. Let me know if you want it. Hey this works George text’s back and we found, I can't say a hundred percent but most of the time they are really loyal about keeping that appointment later in the day because it works for them Naren: Yeah Gary: That's how we've been able to fill those short notice cancellations, very simple. It's done with a group text that goes out and it goes out to those twelve people and it simply says hey we can see you this afternoon or if we know the hydrogen hey Kelly can see you this afternoon at two o'clock thought of you if you want this appointment text me back. Now, many times will two or three people want the appointment? We'll go to the first one but we get two or three and then we respond back to the other two or three and say too slow next time be quicker with fingers, okay? I will keep you in my list and it's a great way to handle those short notice cancellations. Now Naren: I have a quick question, Gary. See I hate people when they cancel on me and I hate to not show for appointments. So, I ain't on me. I'm very outspoken. So I literally fess up and say what, let's mark something six months in advance but knowing me can you do me a favor can you call me a couple of weeks I had just because I know when I booked something couple of weeks ahead I am rock-solid but it's just a little too advanced for me to kind of like for example there might be an even that I want to go a lot of things can happen in six months right. So, I don't know if I'm breaking the system. Is this kind of one of those crazy buckets that? Gary: You might be an exception to that because really, I want this to be the same day. Naren: Same day, okay! Gary: So you are probably not the right situation for this but I'm surprised at how many of our what we're calling VIP list patients Naren: Show up Gary: sure love this system. They respond back and it just so happens to work for them and because we've got 12, it is going to 12 people. Naren: Right Gary: You have got a 100 percent chance in finding one, all I need is one. Naren: one exactly Gary: Now again some details on this. You want to send out by text. You want to send it to 12 people and the message is just a simple straightforward message that says, it turns out Kelly can see us this afternoon at 3:00 thought of you, text me back if you want it, and that has quite literally solved our short notice cancellation problem in hygiene. It's quite literally solved it. Hey as we're kind of coming to the finish line here, Naren I want to share something with their listeners but I want to share with our listeners. We have an I love dentistry community, Facebook community. If you're listening to this and you're not part of the I Love dentistry Facebook community, let me invite you to come join us. It's a private Facebook group. It's doctors and office managers and team members. Come join us and you can go to I Love Dentistry on Facebook and you have to request admittance it's a closed group just say you're a listener to the less insurance dependence podcast show. We will let you in. We will give you a secret key and will let you in and we'd love to have you join us. It's a group. It's all about what the name says it's people that absolutely love dentistry and we're there as a supportive community, lift one another up to share information and it's a place to go to recharge your batteries when you need that and to connect with an amazing group of people that'll be your new best friends but recently one of our community members posted something very cool. Naren you'll remember that she said hey Gary, hey Naren I just over the weekend binge listened to a whole bunch of less insurance dependence podcasts and I can't wait to apply this in my practice and so she discovered and I don't know if she's a new podcast listener or something but she discovered that she could download all of the episodes. As this one's coming out, I think this one might be episode 91. 91 or 92 something like that, but all of those episodes can be downloaded and she kind of did like a Netflix binge listening exercise and she had all kinds of cool information she's going to plan her practice. So if you haven't done this, know that you can download all of the episodes, they're free, and it's our way to help you successfully reduce insurance dependents. We're creating a grassroots movement. I'm all about preserving private practice dentistry and we want you to be part of that and please, if you haven't done it already download any of the episodes, they're all free and maybe you could be one of those binge listeners as well. Well listen. Thank you, guys thanks for, joining us we appreciate each and every one of our listeners here on the less insurance dependence podcast. Thanks so much. If you haven't done so, there are three things you can do to support our work here. You can share less insurance dependence with your friends. Maybe some of your friends don't know about this. Share it with them. Secondly you can jump on iTunes under less insurance dependence and write us a review. That'll help more dentists find us. By the way, for those of you that have written recent reviews, thank you so much and then the third thing you can do is you can hit subscribe. If you hit subscribe you can do that on iTunes or Google Play. That means that every Thursday when we upload a new episode, it'll be automatically uploaded for your listening device, for your listening convenience. Thank you so i'll add note let me simply say thanks we consider your time to be precious and I hope we've shared some useful information with you today.

Becky doesn't like her carpet. This episode is not explicit. Written by David S. Dear. Performed by Sarah Golding and David Ault. David is an Audible Approved Producer produces and performs in numerous audiobooks as well as the audio drama A Ninth World Journal and performs in several other audio dramas. https://ninthworldjournal.com https://sarahgoldingvoiceactorandmore.weebly.com/ http://www.davidault.co.uk/ TRANSCRIPT BECKY This carpet is so stupid. I need to get rid of it. GARY You don't like the color? BECKY No, I mean it's actually pretty stupid. Watch. Carpet, what does one eat between breakfast and lunch? GARY It's spelling something out in the naps... it says ""A snack"". BECKY See what I mean? GARY Yes, indeed. You are absolutely right. That carpet is a complete idiot. Music is "Music to Delight" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Recorded April 16, 2019. Sweeps, playoff officiating, and what even is the message, Gary? You know, the usual. Our brackets are busted, Taylor Hall is a witch, Alex Ovechkin knocked a guy out. Situation normal.

Episode 112: Taking Students to Competition   How do you handle competition with your students? How do you circumvent the win, win, win mentality, especially if you don't win? Teacher Gary Rodgers competes every year in his region and talks about his experiences. Show Notes Layers Lose Not Thy Head Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and theatre educators everywhere. I'm Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello, I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Welcome to Episode 112. You can find all the links for this episode at theatrefolk.com/episode112. So, aside from playwriting and teaching, I also adjudicate. I'm around a lot of competition and I've been adjudicating individual events – monologues and scenes – for about… I think, about eight years. But, in the past four years, I've actively sought out adjudicating one-acts and full-lengths, and I do it. I like to sit on that side of the table because I like the analytical part. I like watching and analyzing a production. It's very interesting to me and I like sharing the thoughts that I have about that. But, too, I got really, really tired of hearing student's stories about being ripped apart in an adjudication. It's one thing to be critical of a student production, and to be critical is fine. You know, if there are things that need to be worked on, that should be addressed. But I'm really not a believer in “tough love” for students because there is a way to provide constructive criticism where it becomes a learning experience. You know, where they can work on things for the next time. And, you know, I know a teacher who, just this year, after an adjudication, said the experience made her students feel defeated, and I don't get that. I don't get why that's good for an adjudicator to make a student feel defeated. Again, this is not about making everything sunshine and roses – that's not helpful either. But what are we supposed to be teaching? Are we supposed to be teaching students to not ever want to step on-stage again? Or do we want them to learn and grow? Granted, you know, sometimes I give a comment and you can tell when a student is not going to do anything with it, but that's fine. I still have to offer it in a constructive way, and that's my goal as an adjudicator – to find that line where criticism is a tool to build something and not a hammer to smash it down. So, that sort of segues into our podcast today. We're going to talk about competition – what it's like on the other side of the table, to take students to competition. How do you handle adjudications? How do you handle the competitive atmosphere in a constructive manner? I'm going to talk to one teacher who takes his students to competition on a regular basis and see how he does it. Lindsay: Hello, everyone! I am here today with Teacher Gary Rodgers. Hello, Gary! Gary: Hi! How do you do? Lindsay: Oh, I'm excellent. How are you? Gary: I am very good. Thank you. Lindsay: Tell everybody where in the world you are situated. Gary: I am in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. Lindsay: Ah! Newfoundland! Gary: Center of Newfoundland, yes. Lindsay: For the majority of our audience who are in the States, they might not know where Newfoundland is. Us Canadians, we better know, but you guys are at the easternmost province of Canada. Gary: We are. We are the easternmost province or part of North America, really. Lindsay: When I was in Newfoundland, there were some people who actually referred to Canada as “the mainland.” Gary: You do hear that. You will hear that a lot here. Oh, we are an island. Lindsay: Yes. Yes, a lovely island. My other memory of Newfoundland is we arrived in June and it was four degrees. Gary: Yes. Lindsay: It was very cold. Gary: We had an exceptionally hot summer this year but June was four degrees.