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Get ready for a wild ride on the latest transmission from the Star Wars Escape Pod! We make a surprise long-distance call straight to the Black Spire outpost to chat with co-host Kirk, who is live from Galaxy's Edge for the very first time. You'll get his fresh take on the park, including a rave review for the Ronto Wrap and a less-than-stellar verdict on the infamous Blue Milk. From there, a massive spoiler alarm and dive deep into the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle video game, revealing the mind-blowing final treasure. The galactic news is just as exciting, covering the record-breaking $3.6 million auction price for Darth Vader's lightsaber, the confirmed return of everyone's favorite pirate Hondo Ohnaka, and a debate on the bizarre new wedge-shaped LEGO Death Star. To top it all off, we check out the new trailer for the mixed-reality game coming soon, Star Wars: Beyond Victory, where you get to be mentored by none other than Sebulba himself in the ways of Podracing! EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Ripple / XRP / Swell | & The Global Aftershock of Charlie Kirk's Assassination Ripple Swell is back in NYC this November, bringing together the biggest voices in crypto, banking, and policy. We cover the latest XRPL innovation—from multi-purpose tokens solving the $5T trade finance gap to Anodos Labs launching the first XRPL-focused hub in 2026. Plus, XRP Seoul 2025 sets the stage for Asia's largest XRP/Web3 event. Meanwhile, the world reacts to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. From U.S. tributes to moments of silence in Poland, rallies in the U.K. and Australia, and a heated battle over free speech—it's clear the impact goes far beyond America. Join Jeff and Chip as we connect the dots between Ripple, XRPL adoption, free speech, and the global political storm. SUPPORT ON THE CHAIN GRAB A BADASS YETIS COFFEE – Fuel your crypto grind! ☕ Visit: otc.one/BadassYetisBrew MINT YOUR BADASS YETIS NFT – Own a piece of the legend! Visit: otc.one/mint OTC MERCH IS HERE! – Represent the community in style! Visit: onthechain.shop BUY US A COFFEE – Help keep the content flowing! Visit: otc.one/buy-us-a-coffee JOIN THE CHANNEL – Get exclusive perks & behind-the-scenes content! Visit: otc.one/join ********** ON THE CHAIN – CONNECT WITH US! Listen to the OTC Podcast – Never miss an update! Visit: otc.one/podcast Visit Our Website – The home of crypto insights! Visit: onthechain.io Follow OTC on Twitter – Stay updated in real time! Visit: otc.one/otc Join the OTC Community on Twitter – Be part of the discussion! Visit: twitter.com/i/communities/1599435678995062788 ********** FOLLOW THE OTC TEAM Follow Jeff on Twitter:
Variety on a FridayFirst, a look at this day in History.Then, The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Don Ameche, originally broadcast September 12, 1937, 88 years ago with guest Bette Davis. Edgar Bergen discusses the coming start of the school year with Charlie McCarthy. Dorothy Lamour promises to help Charlie with his homework. The orchestra plays a medley of hits by Irving Berlin. Bette Davis appears in, "It's A Swell Night," by Joan Austin (?). After the story, Charlie flirts with Bette. W. C. Fields tells about his new picture, "The Big Broadcast Of 1938" and jousts with Charlie McCarthy. Find the Big Broadcast of 1938 by Clicking Here! https://youtu.be/yWynvckaoskFollowed by True or False with host Harry Hagen, originally broadcast September 12, 1938, 87 years ago. Male Postal Workers take on Women of the League of Women Voters. Then, Breakfast in Hollywood starring Tom Breneman, originally broadcast September 12, 1946, 79 years ago. Tom tries on a large sun bonnet.Finally. The Couple Next Door starring Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce, originally broadcast September 12, 1960, 65 years ago, Cat in the Washing Machine.Thanks to Richard G for supporting our podcast by using the Buy Me a Coffee function at http://classicradio.streamFind the Family Fallout Shelter Booklet Here: https://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/the_family_fallout_shelter_1959.pdfhttps://wardomatic.blogspot.com/2006/11/fallout-shelter-handbook-1962.html
Dr. Len Tau, aka the Reviews Doctor, is on the podcast. With Kiera, he goes into the most critical nuts and bolts of making sure your practice stands out (or at least keeps pace with) online reviews amid AI. He explains jargon terms like ranking power and factors and velocity of reviews, whether or not you should actually be responding to reviews of your practice, and a ton more. Visit SuperchargeYourDentalPractice.com and enter the code RAVING to save $100 on registration for Dr. Tau's annual conference. About Dr. Tau Dr. Len Tau thrives on helping practices maximize their online reputation, marketing, and social media strategies. As a speaker, Len is known for his lively and engaging presentations packed with ready-to-use strategies. He regularly travels the country sharing his marketing brilliance and passion for practice growth with audiences. As a consultant, he offers practice leaders with real-world solutions tailored to fit their specific challenges and opportunities. Len loves to help doctors and their teams understand and implement successful online systems to build their practice. He currently serves as general manager of the Dental for Birdeye Reputation Marketing Software. Selected as one of Philadelphia's Top Dentists by Philadelphia Magazine, he continues to experience growth year after year in his fee-for-service practice focusing on general, cosmetic, reconstructive and implant dentistry. Following his father into the dental profession, Len graduated from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and continues to pursue ongoing continuing education opportunities. He has had the privilege of serving patients for two decades. He is an active member of numerous professional organizations including the American Dental Association, the Pennsylvania Dental Association, the Academy of General Dentistry, the Eastern Dental Society, the Northeast Philadelphia Dental Implant Study Club, and the American Academy of Clear Aligners. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I am so excited. This is one of my dear friends. We've known each other for several years in the industry. I'm super freaking pumped. I'm going actually be at his event next year in September. Little teaser. Stay tuned. He's got an amazing event he does every year in September. I have Dr. Len Tau. He is one of my faves. He is better known ⁓ as an authority in the dental consulting world, reputation marketing, and a practice growth. He's recognized by dentistry today as a top dental consultant for eight straight years. He is the author of Raving Patients and 100 plus tips to 105 star reviews in a hundred days. Like this man knows how to do it. He's one of my faves. We really do collaborate on so many fun things. After 20 plus years in clinical practice, he now helps dentists nationwide, increase revenue, case acceptance and visibility. He leads the dental vision at BirdEye, hosts the Raving Patients podcast and runs the Supercharger Dental Practice Conference, which is the one I was alluding to that we're gonna be at next year in September, empowering practices to thrive in today's competitive landscape. He's truly one of my faves. And today we're gonna dig into like, how do you get online reviews? But Len, welcome. I'm so happy to have you on the podcast. How are you today? Dr. Len Tau (01:06) I'm good, thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here. Kiera Dent (01:08) Of course. And this just came about because Len like, let's just do a little teaser. You're prepping full like steam ahead right now for your event that's coming up in September in Florida. ⁓ I love like the last time you and I were on the podcast, we talked about you in clinical dentistry. And then we reconnected after some time and you've left the chair, you're living your best life and you full blown gone into the event space. So just like, I know we're gonna get into like online reviews and how AI is changing that it's going to be just a really, really fun episode today. But tell us a little bit like How is it going from like full blown dentist in the chair to now full blown events, like running these awesome events that we're super excited to be a part. Just kind of give me a little insight to that. Dr. Len Tau (01:46) Well, it's been, it's been a lot of, a lot of fun. It's been very different, obviously, you know, for 23 years, I practiced dentistry, um, for about 12 of those, 13 of those who was full time. And then I went part time in 2017 until I sold and retired in 2022. Um, but one of the things I've grew up on in dentistry was going to dental events and, the big, the ones, the small ones, you know, all over the country and as a dentist first, and then as a vendor. Kiera Dent (02:08) Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (02:15) Um, since 2013 or 14, so a long time in the space. know, one of the things that really hit me was that the events are not really put on very well. They're not, um, you know, whether you, if you're a dentist, there's issues when you're a vendor, there's issues. And I said, you know what? I want to change the game. And, um, one of my goals when I retired from dentistry was to start putting on events. So in 2023, um, in, in September, we did an event in Delray had 208. Kiera Dent (02:25) Right. Dr. Len Tau (02:44) Dennis there, 33 sponsors. was, first day was business, second day was marketing. Excuse me. First day was marketing. Second day was business. Had a 13, 14 speakers. It went off better than I could ever imagined. I then moved to the last year in 2024 to Scottsdale. And we were at the Scott Resort and Spa, which is a beautiful hotel and the event was good. It wasn't great. Definitely moving to different coasts. I felt there was not as much, know, engagement, excitement about the event. So I, my family and my wife and I decided, Hey, we're going to do this. Let's have people come down to me. I live in beautiful, you know, part of Florida. we're having this year's event and the next three of them at super at, ⁓ at pure 66, a brand new hotel, ⁓ in Fort Lauderdale. It's literally half hour from my house, five miles from the airport, easy to get to. So this year event is September 26th and 27th. Kiera Dent (03:32) Bye. you No. Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (03:45) We've got 14 speakers, ⁓ mixture of business and marketing. So we've got people talking about social media, about content. We have people talking about saving money on taxes. We're talking about how to become a fee-for-service practice. ⁓ So a lot of different great content and top speakers, Steve Rasner, Paul Goodman, ⁓ Jeff Buski, ⁓ Richard, Rich Maddow. So some real, real heavy hitters. And then some people who people haven't really heard of, Melanie Diesel, who's new in the dental industry. So, but I like to do it differently and my events are very high end. You come, you're going to see things you probably have never seen before. I give a ton of time to the vendors so the vendors love me because they make sure that they get integration or interaction with the attendees. So you're going to be speaking in 2026, same weekend at September 25th and 26th in 2026, same hotel, pure 66. Kiera Dent (04:28) Sure. Yeah. Dr. Len Tau (04:40) We're ramping things up right now. We're literally a month out from the events. still have people signing up. I still have people wanting to reach out as sponsors. And it's, it's, it's, is the fun time for me. Cause when I'm done, I'm, you know, I get a couple of months of break and then I start promoting 2027 again. So ⁓ it's been a good time. I really enjoy it. And I find that I've kind of ⁓ created something that's very different and the attendees really enjoy it and the vendors really enjoy it. So if I can make everybody happy, Kiera Dent (04:45) No. Dr. Len Tau (05:09) That's all I'm looking to do here. Kiera Dent (05:11) ⁓ and Len, I hope the audience, if they can't see it, they can hear it. I think it's so fun because I mean, I've seen you in different spaces in your career, in your life. And there is just this like giddy, like younger version of Len that I feel is emerging of like, it's like giddy boyhood, like excitement of I'm excited to put these on. I'm excited to do these events. And it just makes me so happy for you. And what I think I'm hearing is yes, attendees are happy. Vendors are happy. But I also hear that Len is very happy and to do something in dentistry is just very, very fun. It's very exciting. And so we're jazzed. I'm really excited. I love good events. I love great time. I love to help. love business marketing. Everybody can take that. That's not Kiera's jam. Like I, that's why I wanted to bring you on. You guys are very good at marketing. You're very good at that space. but to talk about how to help people have their best lives to grow the practices that they want to grow. I think you and I are so synergistic in that. So we're super excited and I love, I mean, I'm not going to highlight the fact that there were a couple of sixes in that is September 26 at Pier 66. You guys hopefully like, I like the alliteration. Don't put anything weird on it guys, but I do appreciate that you made it easier. September six and nines flipped upside down are a six. Like hopefully everybody can remember September 26, Pier 66. It'll be a good time in 2026. I mean, we got four lines, so we're okay. We've at least got four sixes, not we didn't end on three, but I really hope an exciting step. We'll make sure we put some info for people. For this year and for next year, I think it'll be a fun time. Dental A Team will be there, so come hang out with us. ⁓ Len, I'm super excited. I will not spoil secrets, but a lot of the things he told me for the events, I will say he does put his heart and soul into it. So Len, excited about that. Thank you for sharing. Good luck for this year. We're gonna be rooting you on this year and next year. And now let's pivot. Let's go into like your jam. You're in BirdEye, you're in marketing, you're on online reviews. AI has come into the scene. Practices are changing. I also will say, I hope everybody listens to you of their like succession story. You hung up the hand piece, but you are still full steam ahead in dentistry. And so I hope people see that like there is no path to dentistry. Like you just, it's a, it's a beautiful world that you're in. So let's talk though, online reviews, AI, how is this working? How do we make sure that practices are still being visible? Chat GPT is on, on the prowl. There are clients signing up with us now that have found us on chat. GPT, which is so random. It's changing how people have been doing things. Walk me through. What are you seeing with these online reviews? The importance, how to bring AI in? Like, let's just kind of go in a rift on how practices can still be visible with AIs. Like just showing up to the scene. Dr. Len Tau (07:43) So I wanna talk about chat CPT for a second. ⁓ I refer to it as my best friend. ⁓ It helps me edit. No, I haven't named it yet. No, I haven't named it. ⁓ you have? Kiera Dent (07:50) Have you named it? I've got to just ask Len. Have you named? I have! Me and Chet, I had a name and now her name is Wanda. I don't know why, I don't even know where Wanda came, but people are like, here, are you hanging out with Wanda again? Cause I agree. Like they're our best friends. So go on Len. I can't wait to hear what you name your Chet GPT cause mine is currently Wanda. Dr. Len Tau (08:06) I'll have to, I have to name it now that I have to think of something. ⁓ but no, I started using it. I'm like, this is really helpful and it's only gotten better. And, just to give you an idea is, ⁓ my wife and I, and my son, my son just graduated high school. He's literally just started his freshman year at, university of Florida on a free ride. ⁓ smart, smart ass kid. I'm very proud of him. But, you know, and I travel a ton, but I travel a ton for business and I made a commitment. I think I told you that, Kiera Dent (08:25) Boo? Yeah. Dr. Len Tau (08:35) during the summer when he was going away for school, I was not going to travel. So from March to literally next week, beginning of September, I haven't traveled at all for business. we did plan some really great travel for our personal lives. And one of the things we did was we had a cruise, a 17 day cruise to Europe. ⁓ And when I decided I did not want to do the excursions to the cruise, cause they're really expensive and you're with all these people. I prefer to kind of just go and tour myself. Kiera Dent (08:44) It's awesome. Dr. Len Tau (09:05) So I use ChatGPT in every city. And I said, I'm going to the city. This is what I'm going to get in. This is the cruise I'm going on. It got the cruise itinerary. And I said, I want to set up private tours in every city with different people. And it helped me pick the best tour guides. They referred me to a website called Tours by Local, which is an amazing website that you can meet people who are local that will take you around. show you the city and it was amazing. It was amazing. So I thank Chachi PT for doing that because I wouldn't have known about half these things if I didn't do it. And in fact, one of the women, and actually the very first place you went to, which was in Split, Croatia, which was beautiful. I told her that literally that's kind of how I went down this road was I asked Chachi PT, what should I do in Split? And they said, you need to use this tour guide. She's the highest rated tour guide and has the best reviews on tours by local. like, What's towards by local? And that started this whole thing. So she was, she was amazed to hear that. So, ⁓ I have been using Chad GPT for a long time, like I said, and even now it is people I know type in, know, get me to the best dentists in the area. And it's very much based on reviews. So you have to be a highly rated practice. you may not believe in reviews and if you do, think you're not smart, but you know, if, if you want to be at the forefront of where people are looking, Kiera Dent (09:58) Yeah. Yes. Dr. Len Tau (10:25) You have to generate reviews in a significant amount. Velocity now, which is how often you're getting them, is one of the biggest ranking factors on Google, whether you want to believe chat GPT or not. ⁓ But you have to get reviews. You can't, you know, rest on your laurels and say, well, I have enough because you never have enough. Okay. And, ⁓ and you've got to let Google rank you high. And there's been a big discrepancy in the industry, a big, I don't want to say a misunderstanding. Kiera Dent (10:43) read. Dr. Len Tau (10:52) But I've been in the review space now since 2013, so 12 years. And in the past, dentists thought that if they get reviews, they're going to rank. And that's not the way it is anymore. If you have reviews, but don't pay attention to the other ranking factors, you actually don't rank well. And that's a problem. So, chat GPT AI is so important, but you still got to dominate Google. You still got to get to the top of the pages. And that's really where the direction is going. and if you aren't there now and you are ignoring it, you're never going to get there. So I would love to talk to you about our list in instruct or educate the listeners and viewers of these ranking factors that they need, need to pay attention to, or they're going to be left behind when it comes to ranking on Google. Kiera Dent (11:27) Yeah. absolutely. And I'm excited for this too, because, I did notice that you've got to like, AI is just crawling the web. That's where it's getting, it's being taught. It's crawls it. It looks through all of it. And so agreed with you. have a lot of clients and like, we want the secret pill of marketing. And I might get your reviews up. Like it is constant and consistent that if you get those reviews up and you bring pieces to the table, that people literally like that's what's going to rank you higher. So I'm excited, Len to, to dig in deeper because it is like how getting more reviews, but to hear that there's more beyond just the reviews really can help these offices like get the best bang for their buck, help more practices. And I'm like, it used to be when I first started consulting when I used to tell offices get to like 100 Google reviews. It is now I'm pushing people like five, six, 700 reviews that you need to be getting ranked into. And I don't know if you're seeing like a cutoff line or if it matters on that. So I'm really excited to dive into like, what are the rankings? What are the pieces? Is there a difference? But I'm like now 100 reviews, when I look at somebody I'm like, hmm, like if there's another dental practice that has maybe 400, 500 new clients come on, the first thing I do is I go look them up to see how many reviews do you have? And I'm shocked at how many dental practices actually are not showing up when I Google their names and they're like, no, no, care, we're here. And I'm like, but if I'm a prospective new client that doesn't work in your practice and I don't see you all the time and I just tried to find you and I'm looking for you. How many patients who are not looking for you are not finding you as well. So yeah, take us away, and I'm super curious, very intrigued by this. It's fascinating. And I'll also say, because AI is new, feel like people got like a reset slate. Like, hey, you can actually get back into the game if you haven't been into the game, if you just start playing now. If you don't, I agree with you. I do think that you will unfortunately get obliterated without trying if you don't get into the game now. Dr. Len Tau (13:28) 100 % so and I couldn't agree with you more. So the best thing to do here is if you're listening to this, I want you to go to a Google search and I want you to type your practice name in. Okay, so that's the first thing to do. Right. Kiera Dent (13:39) and not in your office. Don't do it in your office. Go somewhere else. Like try it somewhere else. Dr. Len Tau (13:44) Right, well, and 100%, that's another thing is that if you're gonna look up your ranking specifically, you do not wanna do that from your office location, okay? Because you're not gonna get real results. You also wanna go into incognito mode or private browsing mode on your phone or your computer if you're doing that to check ranking. But this is not specifically about ranking. This is more about how you appear online. So go to Google and type in your practice name. Not your name unless it's the name of the practice, but your business name, okay? Kiera Dent (13:52) Yes. Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (14:13) and it doesn't have to be what's registered with the state board. It's how you, when you answer the phone, what you say, okay? Pennsylvania Center for Dental Excellence was my practice name, okay? So you wanna look yourself up. So these are some of the ranking factors that Google looks at. Obviously one of them is your total number of reviews you have. Definitely a ranking factor, but the total number has not been as important as some other factors as well. So. Kiera Dent (14:20) Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (14:40) Average number of reviews in the industry right now is about 350. It used to be like 100 was the golden number. Now 350 is the average in the industry. So are you average? Are you below average or are above average? Okay, that's something to look at. The second ranking factor, which is even more important is the velocity of reviews. So how many reviews, how often you're getting them. Okay, so if you're getting once every two weeks, not enough. If you're getting them once every week, Kiera Dent (14:46) Yes. Dr. Len Tau (15:10) Not enough. You don't need them every single day, but two or three every single week is ideal. Okay, because you think two or three every week gives you eight to 15 a month times 12 months is 100 reviews a year, which is a nice number. Okay, so you have to have that velocity. All right. Third ranking factor is the total score, your average number of stars. So I would like you to be anywhere from 4.6 to five stars. Okay. I don't think you have to be only five stars. think there's a negativity related to that. If you're only five star reviews, but I also don't want you to below 4.5. Okay. ⁓ And if you're at 4.3, 4.2, or even 4.1, another better review or two, and you're to be in the threes. And that's really where you don't want to go. Cause you lose a huge percentage of patients who may come in if you're less than four stars. Okay. Another ranking factor. is the primary category. So how do you know your primary category? If you look under your Google, your name, will say right where the stars is, will say, hopefully dentist in your town or dentist in your county or dentist in your city. Okay. So your primary category should be dentist because we're a dental practice. Okay. If you're an oral surgeon, you may want it to be oral and actual facial surgeon. If you're an endodontist, want it to say endodontist. You don't want it to say dentist if you're a specialist. Okay. ⁓ That's a big ranking factor and I'll give you an example. I, ⁓ my wife had some plastic surgery over the last couple of years and we were referred to that doctor. So we didn't need to search for him. We were referred to him. went in, we liked him, we used his services. ⁓ And of course, being a plastic surgeon, I talked to him about reviews. He now uses BirdEye, but he had me speak in an event that he holds down here in Boca Raton. And I talked about this exactly. And I asked everybody, cause it was a small group. What is your primary category? And he goes, he said to me, literally, he says, I'm listed as a nurse practitioner. He wasn't listed as a plastic surgeon. He was listed as a nurse practitioner. So his categories were all messed up. So when you actually typed in plastic surgeon near me, he never showed up because his category was wrong. So primary category is a very important ranking factor as well. Now you also have to make sure your secondary categories are also. ⁓ Kiera Dent (17:15) No. Dr. Len Tau (17:35) ⁓ under ⁓ are there as well as under the proper categories. So secondary categories, if you're a dentist, dental clinic, teeth whitening services, denture care center, orthodontist, if you're doing aligners, if you're endo, you're doing root canals, you can have endodontist. If you do periodontist, can do periodontist. You want to make sure you have nine secondary categories. Okay, if you don't have them, you want to add them. Now, how do you add them? It's very easy. You go to Google using ChatGPT or anything and say, how do I add secondary categories to my Google business listing? Okay. It will tell you exactly like a recipe how to do it. You need to add those secondary categories. All right. And if you want help doing it, you can always reach out to me. The last ranking factor, which is really important is making sure that the practices name, address, and phone number is consistent. Okay. So just to be clear, most website companies do not do local SEO. They do website SEO, which is making sure the website is SEOed so the website ranks higher on the organic rankings. We're talking about getting the Google business page ranking higher, which the website companies are not focused on. So when it comes to the name, address and phone number, is it consistent? You have to be consistent. And this is a Google requirement. It is not a patient thing. It's not a me thing or you thing. It's a Google requirement that this data is consistent. So the name is obviously important. So if you have the and or the ampersand, you may find things inconsistent. When it comes to the address, if you have, you know, South State Streets, Unit 510, you can have South or S, you can have Street or ST, and then you can have Suite, Unit, Number, or STE. All these variations need to be consistent. So one of them has to be done and one and stuck with. And then if you are using a tracking number for whatever reason on your Google business listing, you may find your inconsistent there as well. So when you make everything consistent and you get a higher velocity of reviews, guess what happens over time? You rank higher on the maps. And when you rank higher on the maps, you get more visible for patients to find you. So that's where the secret sauce is. And Not that this is a sales pitch about BirdEye, but that's exactly what BirdEye does. BirdEye does those. We check all those boxes for you. And then what ends up happening is a practices get more reviews. But more importantly, when they ask patients how they find them, they're going to see that they found them because of their ranking online and the reviews drove them to the practice. So that's how this whole thing plays a role in getting a practice more visible and credible. Kiera Dent (20:06) Thank Wow. So I was over here like taking a lot of notes, which I really loved. I love the number, the 350 at the average, the velocity, like three to five per week you were saying. It doesn't need to be an everyday, but I do agree like them consistently coming through the total score, the 4.6 to five primary category, secondary category, making sure we have nine. And then you were talking about like the practice name, phone number, all of that has to be consistent. So the addresses have to be the same. And that's going to help you rank higher. Did I miss anything? Those are my notes, Len. And I'm just curious, like, did I catch them all? Because there was a lot of pieces to consider. And then I have some follow ups as well. So like, did I miss anything in that list? Dr. Len Tau (21:02) No, I think you got it all there. Kiera Dent (21:06) Okay, so hopefully that was a good recap for everybody. If you were listening, I tried to like summarize everything he said, because I really feel that those are super valuable pieces to know. Now, Len, there's a couple of things that happen and I'm very curious of what you've seen. Maybe you know, maybe you don't know. It's just a riff for me genuinely curious over here. Does it impact for the business to respond to the reviews? Because I know there was like a big misnomer out there like for a while, like you have to respond to every single review that helps you rank higher. What's the What's kind of the lay of the land right now responding to the reviews that come in? Dr. Len Tau (21:39) So there's been a big push over the years to respond to reviews. And there's also been those naysayers who don't want you to respond to reviews. So I want to make this very clear. When you respond to a review and you acknowledge them as a patient, you are technically violating HIPAA. Okay. Now by the letter of the law, if you do that, you violated HIPAA and can be in trouble. Now in all the years I've been doing this, I've only seen one Kiera Dent (21:49) Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (22:08) example of a positive review being responded to and the dentist got in trouble. Okay. So if someone writes a review for you and it's five stars and you say, thank you so much for your feedback. We were glad you had a great experience in our practice. Okay. You technically violated HIPAA there because you acknowledged that they came into the practice. I don't think you'll ever run into any problems with that. I don't, I've never seen any instance when a, when a practice has got into trouble. But again, by the letter of the law, it's a violation. Here's where the person ran into a problem. Okay. So the review in question, the patient wrote, I'm so happy with my appearance after I went to so-and-so's dental office. I think they were in Texas. The dentist responded, we're so happy that you, thank you so much for your review. We're so happy that you loved our magic needles. Okay. So it, from what I understand is the patient had Botox or dermal fillers placed and that's what they call their magic needles. So the patient wrote, wrote a letter to the practice saying, I didn't appreciate you letting the world know that I had Botox done and asked for the review response to be taken down, which the dentist immediately did. Took it down and apologized, but it really pissed the patient off and the patient sued the dentist and won. Okay. Because the dentist went out of their way to Kiera Dent (23:08) Mm-hmm. Right. Dr. Len Tau (23:33) you know, release private information that wasn't supposed to be done. So in that case, you shouldn't be doing that. Okay. Now on the same note, I would be very careful responding. Kiera Dent (23:37) Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (23:45) to a review that's left by a negative, a negative review that's written by a patient. I would be very careful responding publicly to that because it's very hard to respond without violating HIPAA. So a simple response like, we're sorry to hear about your experience. Please contact the office to discuss the concerns as we're unfortunately unable to comment due to HIPAA release privacy stuff. That's fine. But. Again, I just not sure it's the best thing to do. So you have to be careful with negative reviews. What it doesn't do is we really haven't found any relationship between responding and ranking. Okay, so you have to, I always leave it up to the people to respond. I like using AI to respond as well, because I think it comes up with HIPAA compliant and really good responses. ⁓ But you have to decide what you want to do for your own practice. Kiera Dent (24:16) Mm-hmm. Interesting. That's actually really helpful to know. ⁓ Okay, good feedback for people to ponder and decide what they want to do on. The second piece is some people lose their Google My Business and they're not able to be found. ⁓ And I don't know if you have reasons why. I don't know if it's from like a name change or it's inconsistent. So like a lot of offices have a lot of reviews, but when you go to search them, they're hidden on Google My Business. Like it will show up on the person's side, but nobody externally can find it. Do you have any ideas of like what causes that or what offices can do if they're struggling with that? Dr. Len Tau (25:11) So I want to clarify that what question you asked there. I'm sorry to ask a question when you asked the question was when you say that you're saying that when they search for their Google business listing, they can't find it or when someone is searching for the office, they're not visible on the maps. Kiera Dent (25:15) Hey, that's okay. So when they're searching, so if I just go into Google and I type in like my perfect smile, the website might link, but the Google My Business with all, and they might have like 150 Google reviews, like it might be, like they've got them all and the office can see it when they like log in as like, this is, you own this, but they've lost it and it's no longer visible publicly. Do you know what causes that or how they can get that back? It's okay if you don't, I'm just genuinely curious. Cause I know some offices struggle with this, especially with like name changes of practices. going through different ownerships. ⁓ Some of them have told me it's like when I changed the name of my practice, it no longer showed up. Like we have all these reviews, but we're not showing up. Do you know what causes that or how practices can get back being visible? Dr. Len Tau (26:02) Yep. Now that you asked it that way, so that usually means that your Google business listing has been suspended. And if you can't find it on search, but you see it, means it's suspended in most cases. Name changes, address changes, other things you do can cause it to be suspended. There are, if you look up on use chat GPT, ⁓ and say, why is, why can your Google business page be suspended? There is a list of different reasons why it can get suspended. ⁓ if you're getting reviews the wrong way is a big one. So, like you should not be incentivizing for reviews. And I'm talking about incentivizing the patients. You shouldn't be getting reviews in your physical office space because there's IP address conflicts and location services on the patient's phone. So if you're doing that, not only will you can potentially lose reviews, but you can't get it suspended, but you can look on. Kiera Dent (26:37) Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (26:55) on chat GPT or Google and just say, what are the reasons that your business page can be suspended? And they're there. So usually you have to ⁓ re-approve it or re-verify that page. And there's certain things you do. You'll have to take a video of yourself in front of the practice, showing the address, showing the name of the business on the door. So there's things you will have to do to get it over to Google. So they'll re-verify you. And then once it happens, there's a good chance they'll unsuspend the listing. But that happens for that reason. Kiera Dent (27:24) Gotcha. Okay. That's super helpful because I know a few offices have struggled with that. So was just curious for that. All right. This has been so helpful to figure out rankings. It's been helpful to understand. ⁓ My last question as we wrap up today on reviews has been so helpful, Len, is how do offices go about like, what are your recommendations? Yes, bird eye, swell, podium. Like there's a lot of review in Weave. I do, I usually recommend using an external one outside of things. think that they like, if they're just, if that's what they do, they're going to be experts at it. But how can offices ethically and appropriately, like obviously great patient experience, but how do they increase these Google reviews? What are some of the best tactics you've seen to help these offices out? Dr. Len Tau (28:04) So being biased, I mean, I'm a true believer in BirdEye because we help with the reviews and the ranking part. ⁓ Swell, which is a great product. know the guys who swell really well. A lot of their doctors don't rank well because they don't focus on the listings part of it or the ranking part of it. ⁓ I'm not a fan of Wee from a review perspective because they swell BirdEye and Podium, make it very easy. Weave doesn't. It's just the way we do it with our three other products. ⁓ I always say this, you can get reviews any way you want. The most effective is gonna be use some software, simple as that. But it all starts with the practice and it all starts with, I like to create a reputation culture in the practice, which means you know that every time a patient comes in the practice, that they're going to be evaluating you and reviewing you potentially. And you've gotta be on your best behavior, you've gotta put a happy smile on your face, you gotta treat them like they're the... Kiera Dent (28:40) Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (29:00) king of the world, okay? You gotta roll out the red carpet. And if you don't do that, they may write a bad review, okay? But if you don't create that reputation culture, I think it's gonna be hard to get the practice to really accelerate the reviews. So creating that reputation culture using great verbiage skills. I love calling it feedback, not a review. If you call it a review, it sounds like you're begging for it. ⁓ The feedback conversation is much more comfortable to have. So, you know, it's an interesting situation, but if you don't ask, you don't get. So you've got to ask. I think if you ask and you combine it with a really good software, you'll get a really good number of reviews. If you don't ask, you don't get. It's that simple. Kiera Dent (29:30) Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ well, that was so great. I appreciate this so much. And it's fun to hear about how AI is helping. It's fun to hear about how you still have to be great on Google. So ⁓ I just appreciate you. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate the knowledge you shared. appreciate for offices. I hope they take action and Len any last thoughts, how people can connect with you if they want more help on this. know ⁓ like truly in my opinion, this is the simplest marketing. Everybody wants to like sexy magic pill of marketing. And I'm like, no, it's like really great experience. Ask for the reviews, ask for the feedback. like rank so that way people can find you I've had offices that had like three four or five new patients and they're like I need this marketing I need all these things which I'm not here to say not to do it but I will say great reviews will boost you very quickly so Len any last thoughts you've got how people can connect with you because it's been truly just an incredible episode today Dr. Len Tau (30:26) So ⁓ I'm around the country a lot. So you can always connect with me in person if I'm at some of these events. If you wanna come to Supercharge, you can connect me there. SuperchargeYourDentalPractice.com You can use the code RAVING to save $100 on registration. ⁓ We also have some scholarships available. So if you do wanna come, you can reach out to me personally. So ⁓ my cell phone's all over the internet. The easiest way, if you have any questions, you want advice, you want help, I'm the guy to reach out to. My phone number is 215. Kiera Dent (30:40) Awesome. Dr. Len Tau (30:55) 292-2100. And my best email is Len, L-E-N, at drlentau.com, which is D-R-L-E-N-T-A-U.com. And you can email me, you can text me, you can call me, tell me you heard about me here and you need some advice. I'm more than happy to offer it to you. I do it all the time. ⁓ I love when people reach out to me because they know I'm an expert. So I do it kind of as a favor to people. ⁓ But no, you reach out to me, I'm happy to give advice. Kiera Dent (31:23) amazing. Len, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'm super excited for Supercharge 2025 and especially 2026. So everybody snag that. And truly, I hope you take action from today's podcast. This is easy ways for you to boost your marketing, be found and seen online. And Len, thank you for joining me today. I truly, truly appreciate you. Dr. Len Tau (31:41) Thank you for having me, Kiera, I appreciate it. Kiera Dent (31:43) Of course. And for all of you listening, thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
Another year, another victory lap! It's our 6th birthday, and we're celebrating our incredible journey with you, our amazing listeners. Join us on our annual anniversary episode as we celebrate six years of galactic adventures. We'll revisit some of our most popular episodes, break down the big Star Wars: Starfighter cast announcement, and then put our knowledge to the test with a custom, at-home game of Guess Who? using only Star Wars characters. Thank you for joining us on this wild ride! We couldn't have done it without your support. As we blast off into another year, you can help us reach even more fans by sharing the show and tagging us in your posts. Leaving a 5-star review also helps us out a ton and helps other fans find us. EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Diese Woche sprechen Paul und Max über den Swell der Hurrikan Erin in den letzten Tagen überall auf der Welt verteilt hat. Von Nazaré über Mundaka, Hossegore, Irland bis hoch nach Unstad hat es gefeuert. Wo liefen die besten Wellen und war der Swell so richtig surfbar hier in Frankreich? Was bedeutet eigentlich 6 ft und 17s auf unterschiedlichem Untergrund und wieso gibt es auf geraden Beachbreaks Closeouts und auf Reefbreaks bei der Größe in der Regel nicht? Außerdem sprechen wir über die Final 5 in Fidschi! Viel Spaß - eeeeew !Mehr Infos zur BehindTheSeams25 Kampagne von GOTS, bei der ihr jeden Tag etwas tolles gewinnen könnt findet ihr hier unten! Kampagnen-Zeitraum ist 01.09-30.09.2025!
This week on the Escape Pod, we're joined by special guest Dr. Steve Ellerhoff to explore the deep psychological and mythological roots of Star Wars, as detailed in his new book, "Jung and Star Wars". We explore how Carl Jung's concepts of archetypes, the unconscious, and synchronicity are woven into the very fabric of the saga—from the nature of the Force and Anakin's tragic nightmares to the hidden symbolism in Luke's Jedi robes and the powerful Dyad between Rey and Kylo. Prepare for another happy landing into the deepest lore of the galaxy! Find Steve! https://www.sgellerhoff.com/ https://x.com/sgellerhoff?lang=en https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:o36jrehl64zu5ykusitxrniy https://www.instagram.com/sgellerhoff/ EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
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This week on the podcast, hosts Josh and Blake, joined by their friend Darian, are discussing the latest Star Wars news from San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC). George Lucas's first Comic-Con appearance since 1976 to promote his upcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which will feature a vast collection of pop culture artifacts. Our conversation shifts to Star Wars collectibles, including new Hasbro Black Series action figures and the new crowdfunding campaign for a highly-detailed, three-and-three-quarter-inch scale Republic Gunship. The Lucasfilm publishing announcements for upcoming books and comics, such as a Darth Grievous hyperspace story, a prequel novel for the Star Wars Outlaws video game, and a comic series introducing a new "boogeyman" character called the Nightlander. Lastly, we dive into the cancellation of the Acolyte series, debating whether it was due to low viewership or the inflated budget? We also briefly discuss Josh's experience playing the new Indiana Jones and the Great Circle video game and their thoughts on spinoff shows. EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Surf stories don't get crazier than this! In this episode of Pinch My Salt
Jedi, Sith, and all the shades of the Force in between. Join us as we dive into the unknowns of the New Jedi Order era, picking apart clues from the novel Force Collector and the subtle hints woven throughout The Rise of Skywalker. What does the future hold for the galaxy's peacekeepers? On this week's episode of "Star Wars Escape Pod," the hosts and special guest Francis dive deep into the new New Jedi Order era. They speculated on the upcoming movies, including the confirmed Starfighter film with Ryan Gosling and the long-rumored Rey movie. The conversation also drew comparisons to the old Expanded Universe's New Jedi Order, touching on the controversial Yuuzhan Vong and the infamous death of Chewbacca. The group explored what the new era might look like, drawing on recent books like Force Collector and television series like Ahsoka, while also discussing potential new villains and the future of characters like Rey and Finn. EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Diese Woche sprechen Paul und Max über die bevorstehenden Trainingseinheiten in Surftown Muc als Vorbereitung für die deutsche Meisterschaft 2025 in Seignosse. Außerdem disktutieren wir, welche Boards Paul mit zum Training und zur DM nimmt und was er von dem Coaching mit Rosina Neurer erwartet.Des weiteren sprechen die beiden über die letzten Swelltage, nicht nur in Europa sondern auch in Tahiti und den mega Swell in Sydney. Viel Spaß bei der Folge! Yeeew! Wenn ihr auch lust auf das Surf Camp in Canggu oder woanders habt, checkt gerne unseren Code SURFTALK10 für 10% Rabatt auf ALLE Lapoint Camps. Mehr Infos zu dem Camp findet ihr hier und auf InstagramDanke an Oxbow für den Support!Mehr geilen Stuff von Oxbow gibts hier ! Mehr Supporten könnt ihr hier: https://buymeacoffee.com/surftalkpodcast Spare 10% auf alles außer Surfboards bei delight-alliance.com Code Surftalk10 IMPROVE YOUR SURFING HERE: Surf Companions: https://surfcompanions.com/?ref=S4UYHSas
PJ talks to Sannen O'Reilly whose own experience with her sister led her to co-found TrustDish. See more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Send us a textDr. Paul Jaffe, Ph.D. ( https://www.darpa.mil/about/people/paul-jaffe ) is a Program Manager in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, where he oversees the Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay ( POWER - https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/power ) project, which aims to revolutionize energy distribution through airborne wireless power transfer, enabling high power beaming, radically reshape society's relationship with energy, and unlocking power opportunities everywhere, from energy-starved communities to space colonies and everything in between.Prior to joining DARPA, Dr. Jaffe spent 30 years as an engineer and researcher at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). At the NRL, he led or held major roles on dozens of space missions and breakthrough technology development programs for NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the military services, and other sponsors. These include the Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI), the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO), TacSat-1, TacSat-4, Operationally Responsive Space (ORS), the Photovoltaic Radiofrequency Antenna Module (PRAM), the Microwave Imager/Sounder (MIS), CARINA, Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS), Power TRansmitted Over Laser (PTROL), Space Solar for Forward Operating Bases and Remote Installations (S2FOBs), the Light-Emitting Rectenna STEM demonstration on the International Space Station (LEctenna), and the Space Wireless Energy Laser Link (SWELL) which was the first demonstration of optical power beaming in space.Dr. Jaffe served as a coordinator of the NRL's seminal studies of the military applications of space solar, and as an editor of the study groups' acclaimed final reports. He was the principal investigator for a ground-breaking research effort involving the development and testing of modules for conversion of sunlight into microwaves. The modules have a number of potential applications, including satellites for space solar, and have been launched and tested in space via the Department of Defense's (DoD) Space Test Program (STP) and have returned valuable data to inform future efforts. He was also the champion for the first power beaming STEM demonstration in space, conducted on the International Space Station by Astronaut Jessica Meir. Dr. Jaffe is the lead author of a 2024 book, "Power Beaming: History, Theory, and Practice", a textbook covering various methods of power beaming, including both RF (microwave) and optical (laser) technologies.Dr. Jaffe received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland College Park and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, graduating with honors. He earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.Important Episode Links - - DARPA Connect - https://www.darpa.mil/about/darpaconnect- DARPA breaks power beaming record - https://www.darpa.mil/news/2025/darpa-program-distance-record-power-beaming- Short video explaining the record-breaking effort - https://youtube.com/shorts/l94FsFATQZI?si=Vr29mNBYglP2GnIo- Dissertation on conversion modules for space solar - https://drum.lib.umd.edu/items/dcb3d60d-55bb-4044-9b41-edca792caa4c- How to build a LEctenna - https://www.nrl.navy.mil/STEM/LEctenna-Challenge/- Power beaming book - https://www.amazon.com/Power-Beaming-Scientific-Technologies-Bar-Cohen/dp/9811243107- 2016 space solar pitch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9dQsRv1XDg- More about SWELL - https://www.navy.mil/DesktopModules/ArticleCS/Print.aspx?PortalIdSupport the show
In this episode, Danielle travels to the sweeping grounds of Wolterton, an 18th-century Palladian Hall in Norfolk, where centuries of history and years of careful restoration have set the stage for a bold new chapter in contemporary art. The Arts & Culture Programme at Wolterton launched this summer with Sea State, an exhibition co-curated by Simon Oldfield and Gemma Rolls-Bentley, featuring two extraordinary artists whose practices are deeply tied to the natural world: Maggi Hambling and Ro Robertson.For Hambling, the sea has always been both muse and adversary – unpredictable, overpowering, and endlessly alive. Here, she unveils new works, including Time, an intimate installation honouring her late partner Tory Lawrence, and her ongoing Wall of Water series, paintings that crash with the force and emotion of the waves themselves. As well as her relationship to the sea, she talks about how her painting process relates to her grief and the passing of time. Alongside Hambling, Robertson's site-specific sculpture The Swell rises in Wolterton's Marble Hall – a fluid, steel form rooted in nature's cycles and the artist's own connection to the queer body in the landscape.Together, their works transform this historic house into a space of reflection, grief, power, and renewal – inviting us to confront our place within the vastness of the natural world. Both discuss the sea as both subject and metaphor, about love and loss, queerness and sexual desire, identity and memory, and how Wolterton's history has become a showcase for these ideas.
Check out this week's QuadCast as we highlight the impact of perilesional edema on local failure risk for brain SRS, the benefits of RT in high risk prostate cancer, and much more. Check out the website and subscribe to the newsletter! www.quadshotnews.com Founders & Lead Authors: Laura Dover & Caleb Dulaney Podcast Host: Sam Marcrom
Waters rose above warning levels at 16 rivers across China over the weekend as heavy rainfall swept through several provinces, authorities said on Sunday.当局上周日表示,由于暴雨席卷了几个省份,周末中国16条河流的水位超过了警告水平。The highest waters were recorded at 3.48 meters above warning level, according to the Ministry of Water Resources. Six rivers in Chengde, Hebei province; Xiliin Gol League, Inner Mongolia autonomous region; and Datong, Shanxi province saw record-high water levels.据水利部称,最高水位比警戒水位高3.48米。河北省承德市的六条河流、内蒙古锡林郭勒盟、山西省大同市的水位创下历史新高。In Beijing, the Miyun Reservoir received its largest volume of inflow since it began operating in 1959, the ministry said.水利部表示,北京密云水库自1959年开始运行以来,入库水量最大。The Ministry of Water Resources maintained its Level IV emergency response for flood prevention and control on Sunday in Hebei, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, as well as the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Shaanxi.周日,水利部在河北、内蒙古、山西以及浙江、福建和陕西省维持了四级防洪应急响应。Two people were confirmed dead and two others were reported missing as of Saturday evening after torrential rainfall hit Fuping county in Baoding, Hebei, the county's flood control and drought relief headquarters said.河北省保定市富平县防汛抗旱指挥部表示,截至周六晚,该县暴雨袭击后,已确认两人死亡,另有两人失踪。A total of 46,235 people in the county have been affected, and 4,655 have been evacuated. Downpours on Friday and Saturday shattered daily precipitation records, according to the Baoding meteorological bureau.该县共有46235人受到影响,4655人已被疏散。据保定市气象局称,上周五和周六的暴雨打破了每日降水记录。Between 5 pm on Friday and 1 am on Saturday, Fuping recorded an average rainfall of 140.5 millimeters, with a maximum of 532 millimeters logged at the Xizhuang hydrologic station.上周五下午5点至周六凌晨1点,富平记录的平均降雨量为140.5毫米,西庄水文站记录的最大降雨量为532毫米。Search and rescue efforts were underway on Sunday in Datong after contact was lost with a van near Guqianbao township, according to the city's emergency rescue headquarters.据大同市应急救援指挥部称,周日,在古钱堡镇附近与一辆面包车失去联系后,大同市正在进行搜救工作。In Beijing's Miyun district, more than 3,000 residents were evacuated as heavy rains triggered widespread disruption. The district's meteorological observatory issued a red alert — the highest in the four-tier warning system — at 9:06 pm on Saturday.在北京密云区,由于暴雨引发了广泛的混乱,3000多名居民被疏散。该地区气象台于上周六晚上9:06发布了红色预警,这是四级预警系统中最高的一级。Between noon on Saturday and 2 am on Sunday, Miyun recorded an average of 73.5 mm of rainfall, with a peak of 315.3 mm at Huangtuliang monitoring station. The district activated a Level I flood emergency response, its most severe alert, to coordinate rescue and relief efforts.周六中午至周日凌晨2点,密云的平均降雨量为73.5毫米,黄土梁监测站的峰值降雨量为315.3毫米。该地区启动了一级洪水应急响应,这是其最严重的警报,以协调救援和救济工作。The storm forced the temporary closure of 12 major roads in Miyun, seven of which had reopened by early Sunday morning. All affected villages had re-established contact with authorities, with 3,065 residents from 149 villages safely relocated as of 5 am on Sunday.风暴迫使密云12条主要道路临时关闭,其中7条在周日凌晨重新开放。截至周日凌晨5点,所有受影响的村庄都已与当局重新建立联系,149个村庄的3065名居民已安全搬迁。Across Beijing, emergency adjustments were made to 88 suburban bus routes, including suspensions, shortened trips and detours, the municipal commission of transport said. Train operations on three railway lines were halted, and water transport services were suspended in the districts of Miyun, Huairou and Yanqing. All tourist boats and ferries were ordered to remain docked.北京市交通委员会表示,北京市对88条郊区公交线路进行了紧急调整,包括停驶、缩短行程和绕行。三条铁路线的列车停运,密云、怀柔和延庆地区的水运服务暂停。所有旅游船只和渡轮都被命令保持停靠。daily precipitationn.日降水量/ˈdeɪli prɪˌsɪpɪˈteɪʃən/evacuaten.疏散/ɪˈvækjʊeɪt/
Mike 1 has returned for this Oscar Race Checkpoint, covering his Hollywood vacation stories, the TIFF Galas & Special Presentations announcements and a fun catch-up on a bunch of incredible trailers from After The Hunt & Bugonia to Project Hail Mary & Downton Abbey to Predator Badlands & Keeper. Top of the Show - Mike 1 Returns! He recaps his vacation, pneumonia & comeback. THE TIFF LINEUP (+++ More Los Angeles Anecdotes from Mike1) Hamnet (& Mike talks about Room Service in LA Hotels) - 9:07 Our Lost Bus & Wake-Up Dead Man Oscar Bets - 11:00 The Roofman will debut in Toronto & we review the trailer - 13:39 Why Rental Family with Brendan Fraser could be a sleeper contender - 16:03 Ralph Fiennes in The Choral & Agnieska Holland's Franz - 19:26 Sundance & Cannes Carryovers (+ M1 & Swell do The Grove) - 22:32 Good Fortune, Ballad of a Small Player, Frankenstein, Hedda & Smashing Machine - 29:20 Sydney Sweeny is Christie + the next from Angelina Jolie & Al Pacino - 33:28 Unlikely genre choices for Miles Teller's Eternity & Amanda Seyfried's Anne Lee - 37:09 Actors turn Directors w/ Alex Winter, James McAvoy, Brian Cox & Maude Apatow - 38:42 Saoirse Ronan's next, a Fuze lit in Hot Fuzz & Nuremberg will not be funny - 41:04 Chris Evans in Sacrifice, Scarlet for Animated Feature & Swiped on Bumble - 44:21 TRAILER BREAKDOWNS: Julia Roberts in Luca Guadagnino's After The Hunt - 47:25 Bugonia stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons & Fish Eye Lens for Yorgos - 51:49 Dakota Johnson appears perfect & awesome again in Splitsville - 54:42 Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale launches its Best Picture campaign on MMO - 56:00 Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary sets trailer viewing records - 58:34 Weapons is the one script that got away from Jordan Peele - 1:01:32 Glen Powell's The Running Man feels very Purge-esque - 1:02:52 Mortal Kombat 2 is the ultimate middle aged white guy fantasy - 1:06:07 Predator: Badlands is a must see for Mike, Mike and Alien listeners - 1:07:50 Keeper puts Osgood Perkins in M. Night Shyamalan territory as a horror filmmaker - 1:10:20 OUTRO: M2 refuses to jinx future episodes. But of course, we do hope to be back soon with both Mikes on more episodes very very soon. There are a bunch of film studies, Oscar Race Checkpoints, and Boogie Mikes episodes that we want to record ASAFP, and God willing, we will do so. https://linktr.ee/mikemikeandoscar
Get ready to pull up a seat at the dejarik table! This month, Star Wars Escape Pod is injecting some pure fun into your feed with our brand new sub-series, Cantina Banter! Mixed right into our regular programming, these special episodes are all about casual chats, lively debates, and good old-fashioned banter about everything and anything in the galaxy far, far away. No mission briefings, just good vibes and great company. You won't want to miss it! EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Get ready to pull up a seat at the sabacc table! This month, Star Wars Escape Pod is injecting some pure fun into your feed with our brand new sub-series, Cantina Banter! Mixed right into our regular programming, these special episodes are all about casual chats, lively debates, and good old-fashioned banter about everything and anything in the galaxy far, far away. No mission briefings, just good vibes and great company. You won't want to miss it! EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Kiera is joined by Ted Osterer of Synergy Dental Partners to talk about the money field of dentistry in this moment of 2025, including tariffs, negotiating and raising fees, finding supplies, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am jazzed. I have a super fun guest on the podcast today. We're going to talk about the tariff sheriff, how that's impacting dentistry, the rise of dental supply costs, and honestly what to do because I'm so annoyed by all these pieces. What's the economic outlook? How do dentists freaking survive? Like, gosh, it just seems like a funny world out there. But we have Ted Osterer. He is with Synergy. I love this buying group. I think they're Absolutely incredible. We're gonna shed some light for you guys. So Ted, welcome to the show today. How are you? Ted Osterer (00:32) I am doing very, very well. Thank you so, so much for having me. Congratulations on your thousandth episode recently. I'm happy to be a part of this and any value I could bring to your listeners, hey, we're all better for it. Kiera Dent (00:39) Thank you. Well, thanks, Ted. And yes, ⁓ I'm still in utter awe that we hit a thousand episodes. Like when I started this, it was just a whim, a pipe dream. Jason and I were hiking. It's not a joke. I literally was hiking half-dome. Mind you, Jason had said, hey, let's go down to Yosemite. I'd love a nice relaxing weekend down there. And I had learned that you could go get, like, this is prior. You can't do this anymore. That you could get these like day passes, like these day camping passes. And if you just went and sat at this little lodge for a few hours. So I was like, Jay, yeah, of course we'll go down there for this very calm, welcoming, welcome, like very easy, relaxing weekend. Little did he know I had full plans to try and get half dome tickets and like hike half dome. I even brought the gloves, like I was ready to go. And sure enough, I got the lottery, got the tickets. Jason was like, what the heck? We're going to freaking hike half dome. Like, Kiera, we haven't even prepped for this. We haven't done any of this. We don't even have a hotel. We got a hotel an hour away. We had to drive an hour outside of town. It was the nastiest hotel. They were like, I'm not even joking. There was like hair and like this little pill on the pillow that were not ours. Jason's like had the worst sleep of his night and I'm like listen there's no hotels around me of 70. Like we're filing so we had a place. We went back super early the next morning to hike Half Dome and lo and behold on our hike I said Jay I think we need to build a podcast. This is where it all started. It was like one of those things that I never imagined a thousand episodes would hit and here we are. Ted, you're hanging out with me a thousand in. And I think it's just fun because of all the value, all the stories, all the people. And like you and I were talking about pre-show, the podcast is really just a place where I get to selfishly hang out and just have a good conversation with people that I like. I get to meet new people in the industry. And as a byproduct of my nerdiness and excitement of meeting people, all of our listeners get benefited by this. So Ted, I'm so happy you're a part of this. Thank you for that. ⁓ Outside of Yosemite, let's talk about the rising cost of dental supplies, the tariffs, how this is going to impact. Because I know people are really nervous about it. I see in lots of dental groups out there, and you guys are really great. That's why I had you come on, because I think you're a huge solution to these problems. So take it away, Ted also, so the listener know how on earth did you even get into dentistry? Let's talk about that first, and then let's talk about what this even looks like for dental practices long-term. Ted Osterer (03:00) How did I get into dentistry? ⁓ It was fate, it was just destiny. Growing up, I had 13 teeth pulled. I had braces for five years and it was like, well, I'm here for life, I guess. And this is just how we can all grow as a unit. ⁓ I've been in dentistry for about 15 years now. I started out as a dental supply rep. I was going door to door for over five years and... funny enough that, you know, this isn't the, I grew up in the New York area. This is the major metropolitan New York area. And I had a really good buddy and he was like, I think you'd be a really good fit actually managing anal practices. And I can actually introduce you to someone. And it was like a small like eight practice group. I can introduce you to somebody, the practice on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Go see if you'd be a good fit. And I'm just kind of like, sure, guess. know, it's like always like have a conversation. And I had a conversation and sure enough, I got along really well with a particular office manager ⁓ from this group and I went to go work for this office manager. ⁓ Within three months, I had my own practice. I was a practice manager. You know, it's so funny going from a supply rep to an office manager, right? I learned the first and I'm not saying this is everybody, but I learned the first day of being in a dental office that I knew nothing. Kiera Dent (03:59) Yeah. Ted Osterer (04:29) about what happens in a dental office, right? Like I'm like, could, God, it's gonna be a piece of cake. I've been in dentistry for five years. And so I could tell you how strong and impressive material was. That does not help with insurance codes or posture downgrade or presenting treatment or creating a schedule or reading a schedule, anything like that. So, much respect to everyone that manages offices that's listening right now that my goodness, you're fighting the good fight. Keep up the good work. ⁓ Kiera Dent (04:40) does not. Agreed. Ted Osterer (04:57) I did that for some time. I was recruited to work for care credit. I oversaw New England for a few years where then they moved me to South Florida. And then a few months after that, I was recruited by Synergy. I've been here since 2021. And this is really, really cool. You know, I came to Synergy because the message was, do you want to make an impact in the dental world? You know, like you love what you do, but do you really want to make an impact? Do you want to help independent dentistry? And I was like, man, what a line, right? Like I was suckered in and I really wanted to make a difference. And sure enough, almost four years later, we're still here at, you know, we're the largest dental buying club in the country. We are the fastest growing dental buying club in the country. And we're just trying to preserve independent dentistry by giving them the same supply and overhead cost at a 20 plus practice DSO would get. that, know, we were founded by dentists. It was as black and white as, Hey, If enough of us order from the same places, they'll give us a discount. And now we have people in charge of negotiating pricing. You know, we have a dedicated team to each member to make sure that they're getting the values worth here at Synergy and they're not ordering more than they have to. And you you asked about tariffs, the rising overhead costs, all of that really, really fun stuff, right? Let's dive into that, right? You know, the perceived economic uncertainty of everything. Are prices going to go up? Yes, of course. Does that mean you need to buy everything right now at the same time to save money in like six months? No, you probably shouldn't do that either. You know, the waiting game generally always pays off, be it in dentistry or outside of dentistry when it comes to money, you know, you're better off just kind of, you know, hold the chips, hold down the fort, you know, you're, it's not, you do not sound the alarms, of course, right? You know, the price of your crowns is not going to go up 10,000 % like. Kiera Dent (06:21) Yeah. Ted Osterer (06:50) Calm down, chill out, right? It's what we've monitored. Have tariffs affected some prices? Yes. ⁓ Many have already gone down. Many have plateaued with that price increase and we kind of have a safe, what, just gauge on what those actually are, right? The percentages have been minimal. It's a few dollars here and there. Kiera Dent (06:52) Yes, I agree. Ted Osterer (07:17) Again, the industry is not belly up. really should not be your ⁓ primary concern. Providing optimal quality ⁓ of treatment should be your number one concern still to this day. I don't think it's going to make a difference whether you're getting a new sensor or not. If your sensor goes, you're OK. Kiera Dent (07:36) It's It's really true. Well, Ted, I love that. And I love your story. And I love that you have the real life experience in dental practices, because that's something that we pride ourselves on at Dental A Team. It's like, we've been there, done that, and done it successfully. And you're right. Being in a practice is no small task. It's no small feat. And ⁓ I think the supply costs, I do agree with you. think certain people were getting a little bit, maybe extra on this, of how concerned we are of cost. And I don't think it's a wrong thing. to look at, to project down and to forecast forward to make sure that you keep in line with your overhead. Like people who are looking at this, I'm high-fiving you because you actually are looking at your numbers and you understand the cost of your supplies. But at the same time, I remember I was at a, I have a friend who's very wealthy. We're talking like this person brings in 28, 30 million annually a year. And like, I just giggle because it is a great friend. Ted Osterer (08:25) Sounds like a great friend. There you go. All right. Kiera Dent (08:29) I thought he said he was a cosmetic dentist when I met him and he's surely not a cosmetic dentist. He's a cosmetic chemist. So skincare, things like that. And I remember we were talking and he was like, yeah, I just got so freaked out about the stocks. I pulled everything out of the stock market. This was two years ago. And I'm like, bro, like the amount of gains because you got so scared is incredible. And I had another friend, we were sitting at a wealth conference and we had like Ray Dalio there and Paul Tudor Jones and gosh. Marks, Howard Marks, like so many of the big players in wealth and they weren't talking. And this guy named Harry Dent came in and Harry Dent has been known for being right and wrong on predictions of the market. And I remember like, I'm not kidding you. We talked in this conference of do not make rash decisions. Like we're here to gather all the information, synthesize it out and then make best decisions. And I kid you not, we are two days into this five day conference and I met this guy and he's like, Harry Dent just freaked me out. I went and sold all my... like sold everything like that night pulled everything out of the stock market. I was like, dude, you're the reason people talk about what not to do because you should never be this radical. And so I feel like while those are extremes, I feel like dentistry can kind of be that way with the supply. Like we feel it's the stock market plummeting on us within our supply chain because we've got tariffs on there. When the reality is let's remember dentistry by default, a lot of our products already have very high margins on them. Like I'm not going to say it to the world in case there are people who are not dentists listening. but you can just think about fluoride for one second. So fluoride has insane margins on it, which are very profitable for you. The bulk of dentistry is very profitable. So these small rises, agreed, let's take a look at that. But like you said, Ted, it's not the end of the world. So I am curious though, from my like nerdy side, what things have gone up the most? What are you guys seeing across the board that the tariffs or the uncertainties, like the economy's gone up you guys. Bread, I'm shocked. or gasoline, you want to talk about gas prices? Like I don't know, in Florida it's way cheap. Here I'm in Reno in California. I kid you not in Truckee it was $7 a gallon and I like wanted to throw up the gases that much money, but I'm like if gas for a gallon is $7, bread prices, I mean you're paying five bucks, six bucks a loaf for bread, like supplies are going to be higher. It's not something that I'm like, oh my gosh, my cotton rolls went up. Well yeah, of course they went up. does like everything in the world has gone up. Home prices have gone up, but I am curious, what have you guys seen that the tariffs hit the most? Like what are some of those supplies? But we're ashricking this. Everyone listening, you have to promise you will not be either of my two friends who go radical. So when Ted tells you which one's worth a little bit higher, do not go out and give me like your prepping situation where you go buy all this because you're freaking out about it. Like steady the course, stay consistent, and just like watch the scene because most things will level out just like in stocks, just like in investments. But if we're radical and being wild on it, that's where you get. Like it just does not benefit. So I think Ted, everyone has promised. I made them just promise like everybody. Yes, you promise. Don't be radical. Ted, what are some of the ones that are seeing the highest hits? Like what, what products, what things are you guys seeing? Ted Osterer (11:33) Since you all promised ⁓ not to be radical, I will go ahead and share. Yeah, unbreakable. We know that's unbreakable. Kiera Dent (11:36) You promised. It's unbreakable. You did that, you like kissed the thumb, something like that. And then you like do a dance. All of them have done that, right? Nobody better lie. Don't be radical. Okay. They're good. Ted Osterer (11:52) Excellent. So for those listening at home, I did a very, very impressive interpretive dance, but for those watching, you saw it, it's all good. ⁓ So with a lot of the terrorists I've seen, and look, it's so volatile, you know, and for those, again, listening, I'm doing that thing with your finger, you go up and down a lot about how much it goes up and down. You know, look, I mean, you saw a lot of the anesthetics made in Canada go up a significant percent. You saw a lot of lab cases sent from overseas or, you know, it's funny enough, for those that don't know what the gray market is in terms of the supplies in the industry, Products are made overseas, totally fine, right? There's nothing wrong with products that are made overseas. However, sometimes they're made in factories that are only authorized in certain countries, even though it could be big name, know, supply partners, major manufacturers. I won't name drop, you know what I mean? I'm not trying to, you can Google it, you have access to the internet, congrats. When it comes to, these products that are made overseas are only regulated to be in select countries, they still have to be refrigerated certain ways, they still could have, they could have been made a long time ago, they're set to expire. They are mailed here and then they are sold to the United States, they're unregulated. You'll see their costs are... Insanely low to the point where it's too good to be true spoiler a lot a spoiler it is too good to be true right in the event that someone You know your malpractice insurance Is kicked in you use great, you know gray market products. You might be losing a case and that's not the smoke you want However, in the event of these tariffs funny enough what went up these gray market products, right? ⁓ They went up to the point where Kiera Dent (13:25) Yeah. Interesting. Ted Osterer (13:46) They're the same pricing, if not more than what your rep is offering you now. know, and look, you don't want to be caught with something like that. And it goes to show you that you, again, you're worried about optimal care. You should be worried about what you're putting in your patient's mouth as well. And depending on where you order it from, right? Like picture yourself, you're a patient in a chair, okay? And an assistant walks in to set, you know, to set the room, to put the supplies that you're going to use on that tray and she opens an eBay box. Imagine what the patient must be feeling knowing that or an Amazon box. It's like, wait a minute, if your patient's aware at all, you probably don't want that. And now that price is the same price that a major dealer is going to offer you or a rep can offer you. That's the worst case scenario. I believe that that's what I've seen went up the most. And there were some labs from overseas. Kiera Dent (14:23) Yeah, no. No. No. I'm just. Ted Osterer (14:44) ⁓ where the tariff was taking effect, a lot of the tariffs they were getting, were passing directly onto the consumer. I've seen that stop also. I'm not gonna say it's not gonna happen again, but it's not like you can order in bulk all these cases, you know? So, you know, again, when it comes to your labs, if you're satisfied with your lab, play the waiting game. You should be fine. Kiera Dent (14:53) Mm-hmm. It's true. Yeah, that's actually really helpful to know Ted, because I was really curious and I think it's one of those things of, I don't know, I'm the clinician inside of me. I originally dental assistant, office manager, treatment coordinator. We have a lot of hygienists on our team. ⁓ I think all of us in consulting, well, yes, we watch the numbers exponentially, which is why I brought Ted on. I wanted synergy to be here. I think it's a great solution for your numbers. The biggest thing I will also say is like, Please don't be so obsessive with the numbers that you cut your amazing dentistry and you are actually not doing the best dentistry for patients. I believe that when we do good by our patients, when we take care of them, when we use great products, I'm not saying you have to be I have a car. I'm not saying you have to be like high, high end. You can if you choose, but just making sure that we're doing right by our patients. Like I said, dentistry is a very profitable industry. as is, like we have done a really good job of keeping the practices profitable in spite of insurances and all of that. But I really just want to make sure people, when we're looking at this, let's not penny pinch and nickel, like watching all of our nickels when we're actually doing a disservice to our patients. So agreed, like that gray market, things like that. Yes, I like to be a good shopper. I love to get a good deal, but making sure that it's a good deal that's also taking care of your patients would be my like word to the wise. Again, I believe that when we are good and we're honest to our patients, people feel that there's good karma, there's good energy, it's all the way around. So Ted, how does synergy work? Like how do you get around this? Because things are going up. Being a business owner, mean, our margins are, they've been high, so maybe they're a little less high. I will also say, like doctors, I hope you've increased your fees too. You should do that. like, it's not just supplies that get to go up. Dentistry also gets to go up and it should be going up. And if you haven't raised your fees, I'll just asterisk that right now. Like that is very common. It's very normal. It should be done every single year. I think that's a way to offset some of these costs for you too. It's ethical and honest, but Ted kind of walk us through like independent dentists, which are most of the practices listening. We do have some DSOs on there. I think sometimes you can feel like, I don't know. It's like the little brother who's watching the big brother drive the car and it's like, why can't I get these deals? Like I know I'm just one practice, but. Sometimes you feel neglected. sometimes feel like distributors and manufacturers don't give you as good of a deal. Like, let's be real. The DSOs do get better deals than you do. I I've heard, I go talk to a lot of people and they're like, well, yeah, if you've got 20, 30, 50 practices, we're going to give you like pennies on the dollar compared to my solo practice that's going to be paying more for it due to the bulk distribution. So how can we have that of like, how can Independence Dennis win? Not have these costs hit them and to still play in the big leagues, even though they don't want to necessarily practice that way today. Ted Osterer (17:53) Yeah, awesome question, right? You hit on the head. What did DSO's do? They strong arm these dealers, manufacturers, distributors, and they say, look, I have 30 offices. We all want to order from you. We'll commit to this amount of spend. We'll commit to this amount of product. Give me the absolute best deal that you will, or I'm going to the other distributor that's on the next page of this advertisement that I am looking at, right? So they're just negotiating fees all day. That's what the ESOs are doing. They have people in place to negotiate these rates all day. That's what Synergy Dental Partners has, Independent Dentistry, ⁓ I mean, look, it's alive and well. We see it every day, you know, just because there's not major conferences that you're demanded to go to like the ESOs and things like that doesn't mean they're not alive and well and band together and know what's actually going on in dentistry, right? So Independent Dentists will subscribe to Synergy. to have access to the same pricing that those 20 plus, 30 plus practice DSOs would get, right? We negotiate with these supply partners all day long on the supplies that you're already using, right? I mean, that's what we do. We bully our vendors. We come to an agreement with specific supply partners to be in our network and have very attractive offerings that they will only offer to Synergy members, right? We're partnered with major distributors. We negotiate with... them all day, we're partnered with different implant organizations, with different rotary organizations, with different services. Depending on what you're looking for, we're going to offer you something that you would not be able to get on your own, right? Do you have to order in bulk with a synergy member? No, that's the point of us because we have enough dentists all ordering from the same place that the bulk is taken care of. Order as you go, right? So Darby is our anchor supplier, shines the largest distributor in the country. Patterson's the second largest distributor in the country. Darby's the third largest distributor in the country. When you place an order with them, everything comes in one to two days. As a synergy member, any order over $249, there's no shipping charges. And let's think about that in itself. Do you have to order in bulk now? No, do you have to hit a crazy minimum? No, you can order four times a month and not pay shipping. Everything's gonna come in one to two days. Now regarding all these manufacturer deals, Kiera Dent (20:01) awesome. Ted Osterer (20:15) Oh, I like to buy four to get one free. like to buy three to get one free. You hear the word free. Awesome. Great. Now we do have a lot of offerings just like that care, right? However, we've negotiated the net costs of those buy four, get one threes, get one free, buy three, get one free for just one. So you can order one. You don't need to spend $700 on your favorite composite to get one free. And now shade C3 is going to sit on your shelf for the next three years and it expires. You're going to throw it away anyway. So you wasted all that money. Kiera Dent (20:23) Right. Mm-hmm. Ha! Ted Osterer (20:43) The point of us is inventory control. It's cash flow management. I mean, if cash is what you're worried about, well guess what? mean, order as you go, you're probably not gonna pay shipping anyway. You have the supply you need. My goodness, Kara, have you ever had to clean out a supply closet? Is it not the worst day of the month? You know, when people order the wrong things, yeah, maybe you'll return it, or what are you gonna do? You're gonna check it off that checklist and then put it where you think it goes. Now it's gonna sit there forever. Yikes, right? Kiera Dent (21:02) Yep. Yep. Ted Osterer (21:13) You know, with Darby, things are easy to return. You order as you go, it's not gonna get lost in some shuffle if you order as you go, right? We are partnered getting discounts with Strom and NeoDent for implants and BioHorizons and Zest for the locator attachment through overdenture materials, Comet and Brassler for rotary. ⁓ We just rolled out our partnership with Bisco. We're partnered with UltraDent, Crestor, LB, Phillips. I'm going to put your listeners to sleep as I shamelessly plug these. Incredible companies offering the incredible deals are giving our members but the whole point of us is Carrie said you love to shop Bad news pal. I'm taking that phone away from you. We've done that shopping for you We know where your pricing should be is every price the lowest price on the market. I can't confidently say yes It's not true. I can confidently say that a lot of them are the best price in the market But every price is going to be competitive and if you're taking four or five hours to place an order with six tabs open texting four different reps. That's four patients that you could have seen in that time. not only, let's say you order from all those places. Now you got five different shipping charges. And now you don't know when any of these orders are gonna come. It could take weeks. Something could be on back orders. Something could be expired. But hey, you saved a dollar on gloves. Congratulations, you know? Kiera Dent (22:16) you I love it. And I think that this, is why I like Synergy. I feel like it's, you get the Costco discounts without the bulk requirements. And that's something that I really enjoyed about it because something we teach with our clients is do not be stocking up. I remember I worked at Midwestern University's dental college for a few years. And I remember I went through their supplies and because there was so much Ted Osterer (22:44) Yep. Kiera Dent (22:58) We, like, I remember throwing away boxes and boxes and boxes of expired supplies, things that we couldn't use anymore. And it was disgusting. And I was shocked and I was like, that's it. We have to get this to where we can see everything. And so we're really big in consulting of like tip out bids, having clear things, having it where your order is not like tucked in boxes and nooks and crannies. ⁓ And the way you're able to do that is by buying as you need it, rather than buying. Like I remember buying when I was an assistant ordering. Ted Osterer (23:07) What a waste. Kiera Dent (23:25) I think like 10 boxes of gloves. Like we had them stacked everywhere. It was just like an absurd amount because we were like, well, we got the deal. We need to have this versus like, no, like what are we using? That also keeps our costs down. We're not having these high end fluxes and low drops in our supplies. We're able to have that more consistent, have more consistent overhead. And like you said, sometimes Costco is not the cheapest. Sometimes I can get it cheaper at other places, but the reality is the time we're saving and also the more dentists buying within Synergy. more we're able to get the bulk discount. So it's like, it's the biggest DSO you can be a part of without being a part of a DSO, like air quotes around it, because you're not a part of a DSO, but it's the collective community group that's driving down the pieces for it. And Ted, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like when I've talked to Synergy in the past, you don't have to give up your reps, because I know people get really weird about like, but like we've been best friends with so and so, and it's like, you can still order from the companies you want. Is that correct? Or do you need to like order through Benco? I thought it was like something with that, but help us understand like, Do I have to give up my rep? Do I have to only order through your guys' people? How does this work for me to transition over? Because I do know dentists are very loyal and I think that's an amazing attribute. I would say like stay loyal. Also make sure that your overhead's making sense as you're going and buying supplies. Ted Osterer (24:36) If you're a member of Center Gentle Partners, feel free to order from whoever you'd like. There's no minimums or anything like that. Now, are you better off buying from the suppliers in our network if you're trying to save money and time? Yes, like you just said. So Darby's our anchor supplier. They're the only distributor that we work with. If you're best friends with the Banco rep and you're looking to save money, and you give us a shot and like I said the sole point is to save money we can very much help you and there's plenty to go around that if you need to order from Banco who you mentioned earlier or any other distributor have at it but I mean if we can cut your supply cost by 25-30 % you keep your reps for service you keep your reps for whatever you choose to keep them for yes by all means we are not offended there's no exclusive like that. Now relationships are important. know, like you said that regarding manufacturers, if you have a rep already with Darby, you don't have to change who you're already ordering from as long as they're network. We don't force you to do anything differently. But hear me out. You brought up Costco. Now, you know, you went to Costco, you you only have how many free hours in a week? You know, either you can get that at Costco or you could spend the gas money and the time. Kiera Dent (25:44) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ted Osterer (26:01) to hit up Walmart and Publix and somewhere else on the way home and now you're too tired to go do whatever it is that you wanted to do that night. But hey, you saved like 26 bucks, have at it, well done. How valuable is your time to you? Yeah. Kiera Dent (26:05) Yeah. Well done. Yeah. And if your gas is $7 a gallon, you did not actually make any money. thinking about that, but like for dentists, I think there's a good book, Dan Martell, I raved about him quite a few times to buy back your time. And I think this is a zone where we can have, where you can actually save time. You can save money and you can actually, even your assistant. So doctors, you might not be ordering, but your assistant's ordering. Think of like, if I didn't have to give up five hours or four hours of my assistant's time, which is what I used to have to block off. Ted Osterer (26:22) You Kiera Dent (26:43) and you can see more patients with that assistant rather than them ordering that right there is a cost saving. So I did some quick math because I heard what you said. If we are able to save you usually 25 % on your supply costs. So I just thought, okay, let's say there's a million dollar practice. This million dollar, that's about 83,000. We'll just do 84,000 rough math. A month is what this practice would be producing. We like as a consulting company for your supply costs to be about 5 % of that. So I was like, okay. That'd be like 4,200 bucks that month that could go towards supplies. If you guys save 25%, that's a thousand dollar savings, over a thousand dollar savings on that 4,200 a month. I was thinking about that, like a thousand dollars a month. This is on a million dollar practice. I didn't go for a sky high one. If you're bigger than that, obviously it's way more than that. But I just thought Ted, like, if you could save a thousand dollars a month, cause I know you guys have this, like you guys have sexy stats on how much you're able to save practices. I understand you might have to have two, three conversations with your reps. of like, guys, for us, we care about you, we love you. The reality is, I'm willing to have that conversation if I'm gonna get thousand bucks a month. Because that's now $12,000 for the year. And I think about, well right there, if you're looking at other things, virtual assistants can cost you $12,000 for a year. They can do all your billing, they can do outsource pieces for you, you could hire a personal assistant for you for $12,000. Even that extra $1,000 a month, I'm thinking, could you bring on different team members for that? What does that look like? I understand like a full assistance not going to cost you 12 grand, but I'm like virtual assistance are outsourced billing, different things that you could use those funds for that right there to me. I'd be willing to have some conversations and just look at. So that's where I want to, I'm really big on numbers because I'm like, cool, 25%. But I'm like, when it breaks down to like thousands a month that I could then reinvest and use in better areas, just like I'm like, you guys, you can keep spending money on Indeed. Go for it. And I'm not here to say indeed is not great. but you could also switch to AvaHR, which used to be VivaHR. It's literally 149 bucks a month for unlimited posting of ads. I took my cost of posting ads. I'm doing the same thing. I'm literally posting ads on the exact same platforms. I used to spend $15,000 a year on that, and now I pay about $1,200 a year. Right there, I'm like, that's a switch I'm willing to make. Yes, bummer, I don't get to like post directly to Indeed anymore. Same thing, I don't maybe get to like buy directly from my rep. you still can keep the relationship. Like if you need to buy equipment or different things like that, like you can still keep the relationship. But I think, and they will try to sweet talk you, but I've seen it with the buying groups, the savings that you get, I just say have the conversation. A thousand bucks a month, go on, get a massage, do something fun. Like, I don't know, take your kids on vacation for 12 grand, whatever it is, but that's just literally buying the same materials through a different platform and getting... money kickback. don't know. To me, Ted, it's always been a no-brainer, which is why I bring you guys on the podcast. So that's my spiel. But Ted, anything you have to take, wrap this up because I think with the tariffs, with the rising costs, realizing it's not that big of a deal, buy as you go. You can use these buying groups. You can be like a DSO, but you can buy what you need, not having to get all these deals. You're able to cut your costs. You said about 25 % on supplies and just go look at what you spent on supplies last three months. Think if you got 25 % of that back. I think I'd be willing to have a conversation. But Ted, you tell me what you think. Those are my thoughts on this. Ted Osterer (30:06) I said, I was going to say like the exact same thing, unfortunately, but I, you know, I'll take that one. I'll take that one second further to really, really simplify it. Right. And just summarize everything you just said. You know, we're partnered with over 50 supply partners, including eight different labs. Right. So as a consulting agency, right. Like we see labs as high as 10, 15%, you know, it should be what six to 8%. Yeah, so I mean, let's say you're a million dollar practice. That's the practice Kiera just said. If I save you just 1 % of your overhead, that is a $10,000 that Kiera's talking about. And it is so easy to save that as a member of Synergy. And my goodness, thank you so much for having me on. It really means a lot. And thank you for acknowledging. Kiera Dent (30:59) Yeah, of course. I think it's a matter where Ted, I, when I get really passionate about things, like I love Swell. They do their Google reviews so well, you're able to save costs on your marketing, but get like really incredible patients. When I see a zone where I'm like, supplies are supplies are supplies. I understand you love your rep, but I'm like, supplies are. If I can get the exact same anesthetic, like I need my Lido, it's certified and I can buy it from Benco or I can buy it from Shine, but I can get it for... X versus Y and I'm going to save substantially to me that's a way doctors it. I think that this is just being a higher level CEO that realizes just like DSO CEOs do as much as I love the product from X. I'm going to buy it from here because I'm literally able like it's the exact same thing. just get it on sale. So why would I not do that? And as a female like that's girl math for you Ted. Like if I can get it on sale, I'm going to buy it because I can use it to go get what I want over here. I just think like These are the zones, dentists, that the elites do. These are the zones that the multi-million dollar practices are doing. So learn from their strategies. Again, it's gonna be one, two, three, maybe a little bit uncomfortable conversations. You don't need to burn the relationship. But I would say if I was you sitting there looking at my overhead, looking for ways to do cash flow, I would radically consider something that's not going to impact your patient care, that's going to make your practice much easier and also give you more time back in your life. So that's why I you guys on. Again, I don't work for Synergy. We don't have an affiliate relationship with them. I love them, I adore them. I truly think you guys are just doing a great thing in the business. We are working on a partnership with them in the future for all of our clients. It's something that's really been big on my mind because I feel like, hey, why not? All of our clients that are with us, let's get them the best deals. But this is why I wanted you guys on the podcast. So Ted, how can people connect with you? How can they try you guys out? Again, you don't have to burn your rep. can just go even test it out. ⁓ But how can they try you guys out just to see what this looks like for their practice? Ted Osterer (32:53) Go to the TheSynergyDentalPartners.com know, leave your information with us. Please, please, please tell us that the A team sent you, you know, of course extra promotional offers if the A team, I mean, A plus team in my book, of course. ⁓ Yes, yes, A plus plus. And please let them know that you were sent by them so we can make the offering even more attractive for you. And you know, when you join Synergy, you don't even have to have that typical conversation. You can just hide in the bathroom. Kiera Dent (33:05) Thank you. Thank you. I agree. Ted Osterer (33:23) and we're all good. It's okay. Kiera Dent (33:25) Yeah, it truly is. Don't make this wild, you guys. ⁓ Ted, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming and talking about what the reality is and what things have gone up in pricing and how you guys have been able to watch it go up and down. You're seeing so many more supplies than just the solo practitioners seeing. so you're able to see, kind of like stock markets, we're able to see at a bird's eye view of what's really going in the landscape of it. And I want to just remind people, you guys, the future is bright. No matter what's going on, the future is bright. There's always solutions. Ted Osterer (33:29) Thank you. Kiera Dent (33:53) And I think right now is where we get a bit more scrappy, a bit more innovative, and truly you shouldn't be seeing much of a hit. Like shoot, if you're seeing a hit, just switch over to Synergy and you won't even see that hit. So try it out. ⁓ Ted, thank you for being on the podcast with me and thank you for everybody. I really think this is an awesome way for you guys to truly take care of your practice, take care of your patients, and make life easier, which is what we're all about. So Ted, thanks for joining me today. I super appreciate you. Ted Osterer (34:03) Yeah. ⁓ I'm happy to be here. Thanks again. Kiera Dent (34:19) And for all of you listening, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
Get Ready for Cantina Banter! Ever wondered what it's like to just hang out at a Cantina in a galaxy far, far away? Well, buckle up, because we're launching a brand-new sub-series on Star Wars Escape Pod: Cantina Banter! Forget scripts and planned topics – we're heading to the Cantina for some chill, unscripted conversations. We'll be kicking back, letting the conversation flow wherever the Force takes us, and maybe even throwing in some Star Wars trivia challenges along the way. Think of it as our second hyperspace lane for entertainment, even if our chats in these aren't officially labeled a dedicated Star Wars podcast topic. It's all about pure, unadulterated fun, just like a good old-fashioned Cantina brawl... but with more talking and less dismembered limbs! So, grab your favourite space beverage and get ready for some unplanned, unpredictable, and undeniably fun Cantina Banter! EMAIL US YOUR REQUESTS AND QUESTIONS! ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Check It Out As Rapper Swell Rell Calls Into Hoppe Hour With Ryan Hoppe
Devotion Ecclesiastes 4:13-16 Review Monday, June 30 - Special Voters' Meeting ERC / CC meeting Outreach meeting Upcoming Board of Elders meeting tonight Evening Ambassadors @ Lien House tonight 7-9pm No Mid week Bible Study on Colossians this week No Men's Breakfast this week No Women's Bible Study on Friday night Fourth of July Parade in St. Peter (talk to Hilary to help!) Communion this weekend (please register for communion) Outdoor service on July 20th @ Erlandson Park Games and lunch Sunday after church Saturday night will be at church Third Sunday communion will be moved to the Second Sunday in July Parenting/Mentoring Seminar - July 20 4-7pm (RSVP) VBS Registration Open (July 28- August 1) Prayer List Cancer Patients Pastor John Hein Pastor Tim Wheaton Jim Lien Other health issues Ethan Kranz Mark Stelter Joan Strand (hip) Marty Flowers (elbow /arm) Alex, Miranda, and Baby Hanel Caroline Matzke (infection) Dale Redlin (hospice) Prayer Highlight Church - Outreach Efforts: Outreach Committee organize events: two parades, worship in the park, invite a friend to church, adopt a highway, Flyers on billboards, signs on the roads, Facebook ads; etc. Personal invitation! CLC Missions - Nepal – Prayers continue for the eight CLC Mission Helpers who are doing VBS outreach in Nepal with Pastor Raju and his family. The Mission Helpers will divide into two teams as they spend the next few weeks proclaiming the simple Gospel message to approx. 2,000 children in towns and mountain villages where HCLCN congregations are located. They will be helping pastors, leaders, and members of the Himalayan Church of the Lutheran Confession of Nepal (HCLCN) to spread the Gospel in Nepal. You can follow along with the Mission Helpers through the trip blog at: www.2025clcmhtnepal.blogspot.com. Your prayers are requested and much appreciated. GPC Paper Review Motivation for Ministry - Ben Libby Hymn of the Day: TLH 584 “Swell the Anthem, Raise the Song”
Join Josh, Blake, and Darian for an in-depth discussion on the evolution of Star Wars books! We're diving deep into the last five years, dissecting the current market, and comparing the modern era to the initial Disney releases. Discover what sets these periods apart, how they stack up against the old Legends (EU) material, and the strategies needed to navigate ever-shifting consumer demands. Another news article about and oldie. Vader comics and the Palpatine / Shmi moment. Yeah. Let's dive in. Jason Eaton Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8LlW4hG2NM Jason Eaton Podcast Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgvwcRtjPmQ ———————————————————————— Star Wars™ | Orbitkey https://www.orbitkey.com/collections/star-wars?srsltid=AfmBOooRBYZx8B9FPSAfbwRHIEhm5M7Y9NRYKcUp2ARrXOFAGy95tHAQ Stay tuned to our socials for a big Star Wars giveaway launching very soon! Follow @Orbitkey on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, Linkdln, Tik Tok ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
In the U.S., there will soon be more people over 65 than there are under 18 — and it's not just lifespan that's improving, it's “healthspan” too. Unfortunately, the American approach to aging is stuck in the 20th century. In less than an hour, we try to unstick it. (Part three of a three-part series, “Cradle to Grave.”) SOURCES:James Chappel, professor of history at Duke University.Katy Fike, co-founder of Aging 2.0 and managing partner of Generator Ventures.Kristen Fortney, co-founder and C.E.O. of BioAge.Celine Halioua, founder and C.E.O. of Loyal.Kyla Scanlon, economic commentator.Andrew Scott, professor of economics at London Business School. RESOURCES:In This Economy?: How Money & Markets Really Work, by Kyla Scanlon (2024).Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age, by James Chappel (2024).The Longevity Imperative: How to Build a Healthier and More Productive Society to Support Our Longer Lives, by Andrew Scott (2024). EXTRAS:"Off Leash," by The Freakonomics Radio Network (2022)."Are You Ready for a Glorious Sunset?" by Freakonomics Radio (2015).
Journey with us this week as we squeeze into the escape pod for a rapid-fire catch-up with co-host Bryce! We'll be dissecting the monumental conclusion of The High Republic, celebrating the resurgence of Battlefront 2, announcing the fortunate winners of our Orbitkey giveaway, and navigating through a galaxy of other topics. It's a quick, casual banter session you won't want to miss! Giveaway Link: https://gleam.io/iQUiy/star-wars-orbitkey-giveaway-2 ———————————————————————— Star Wars™ | Orbitkey https://www.orbitkey.com/collections/star-wars?srsltid=AfmBOooRBYZx8B9FPSAfbwRHIEhm5M7Y9NRYKcUp2ARrXOFAGy95tHAQ Stay tuned to our socials for a big Star Wars giveaway launching very soon! Follow @Orbitkey on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, Linkdln, Tik Tok ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Our guest this week has been shaping the tech side of the Surf Industry for over 25 years. His journey began in 2000 with tech support and customer service at Swell.com, and soon after, he made his mark at Surfline, starting in ad sales and eventually leading the charge in media innovation.By 2005, he was driving the evolution of Surfline's online video content, long before they were known for anything beyond surf forecasts and cams. He helped build out their media channels from the ground up : YouTube, social media, and working on iconic projects like Wave of the Winter.But his most groundbreaking contribution? The creation of Surfline's Auto-Editing and Tracker technology. The innovation that became Surfline Sessions. This tool revolutionized how surfers capture and relive their rides, earned a SIMA Award, and remains one of Surfline's most successful and beloved products to date.Please welcome to the show our longtime friend and visionary in surf tech, Mr. Marc Beaty!
Trace WOOD really like you to know that Dr Sam Zelinka from the Forest Products Lab is really SWELL, and he is KNOT KIDDING (I'm out of puns). Also, Julian talks about airplanes (again).QUESTIONSJulian: "What is the fastest color?" from ReyTrace: "How much does my house shrink in the winter and expand in the summer?" from ChrisDo you have an absurd question? Maybe it's a silly idea that popped into your head, a shower thought about the nature of reality, or a ridiculous musing about your favorite food? Whatever your question, we want to answer it—tell us!HOW TO ASK A QUESTION
This week, we went over to Michigan City and Hit Swells, A Dive Bar. Tune in to see what we thought. Enjoy!
PUNCH IT! STAR WARS GIVEAWAY FROM ORBITKEY We only have 3 days left on the final star wars Orbitkey giveaway - make sure you throw your name in that hat! We chat new comics, books, and other great news right here in this mini episode! The link to do so is right here: https://gleam.io/iQUiy/star-wars-orbitkey-giveaway-2 ———————————————————————— Star Wars™ | Orbitkey https://www.orbitkey.com/collections/star-wars?srsltid=AfmBOooRBYZx8B9FPSAfbwRHIEhm5M7Y9NRYKcUp2ARrXOFAGy95tHAQ Stay tuned to our socials for a big Star Wars giveaway launching very soon! Follow @Orbitkey on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, Linkdln, Tik Tok ———————————————————————— Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
This week we dive deep for a review on the first book in a developing trilogy called Reign of the Empire. The first installment, by Alexander Freed, "Mask of Fear", is our subject this week. We get our special guest Iain Kay on with Josh for the review, the deep dive making connections and more. We only have 8 days left on the final star wars Orbitkey giveaway #2 so make sure you throw your name in the hat!! Link is right here: https://gleam.io/iQUiy/star-wars-orbitkey-giveaway-2 Find Iain! https://x.com/starwarsiain https://bsky.app/profile/starwarsiain.bsky.social https://www.instagram.com/starwarsiain/ Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast - Conversations Among Woodworkers
In this episode, we're thrilled to welcome back Andy Minier of Swell Furniture! Andy is a full-time cabinet maker and the owner of Swell Furniture, based in Anoka, Minnesota. We dive into his work at a high-end custom cabinet and furniture shop, explore some of his personal commissions, and cover a few questions we didn't get to during his last visit. It's a fun and fascinating conversation with a great friend of the show. Check it Out!Andy Minier@swell_furniture on IGswellfurniture.comTexas Woodworking Festival - Use code "MWA25" to 10% off your tickets WWing News New sponsor “Sutherland Welles” - Use code MWA25 for 10% off your first orderLAP - Build a Chair from Bull%$t - Free Video Series and BookWoodpeckers OneTIME Tool - 4 Piece Bench Chisel SetMWA Podcast - Patreon Page@mwa_podcast on InstagramHosts' Contact Info:Kyle Barton@barton.kyle & @bbcustomtools on Instagrambbcustomtools.comOn Youtube under BB Custom Tools & Kyle BartonKyle Barton on FacebookSean Wisniewski@Seanw78 on most social mediaMark Hicksjointeffort.netJointeffort.net/mwa@markbuildsit on InstagramOn Youtube under Plate 11 / Joint EffortBrian Obst@obstwoodworks on Instagram
In this episode of Working Class Audio, Matt welcomes Elad Marish, co-founder and producer at Swell Music + Sound, a leading creative audio agency based in San Francisco. Elad and his team at Swell have brought music, sound design, and audio branding to high-profile clients including Apple, Nike, Google, and Uber, working on everything from global ad campaigns to immersive brand experiences. In This Episode, We Discuss: The Magic of KISS Wearing Out Record Needles Hating Piano Surf Culture Guitar Obsession Early Parenthood Painful Band Experiences Post Production Powerhouse Growing Swell Sound Navigating COVID Staying Lean Links and Show Notes: Swell Elad on Linkedin Matt's Rant: Getting Some Space Credits: Guest: Elad Marish Host/Engineer/Producer: Matt Boudreau WCA Theme Music: Cliff Truesdell The Voice: Chuck Smith
This week on Star Wars Escape Pod, we dive deep into the treacherous depths of the "Tales of the Underworld" story arc, focusing on everyone's favorite Duros bounty hunter: Cad Bane! Join Josh, Blake and Darian as we unpack the thrilling narratives that further cement Bane's reputation as one of the galaxy's most formidable and ruthless figures. We'll break down his cunning tactics, his complex moral code (or lack thereof!), and his memorable encounters with both familiar faces and new adversaries. Whether you're a long-time admirer of Cad Bane or new to his chilling exploits, this episode is packed with insights and lively debate. So, grab your blasters, watch your backs, and tune in to the latest Star Wars Escape Pod for a deep dive into the tales of the underworld! ———————————————————————— Star Wars™ | Orbitkey https://www.orbitkey.com/collections/star-wars?srsltid=AfmBOooRBYZx8B9FPSAfbwRHIEhm5M7Y9NRYKcUp2ARrXOFAGy95tHAQ Stay tuned to our socials for a big Star Wars giveaway launching very soon! Follow @Orbitkey on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, Linkdln, Tik Tok ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
CLINTON JOE WAS SWELL + Hear comedian Jim Gossett on Rob Carson's National Talk Show 12-3 on WMLB 1690 AM in ATL +
Kiera is joined by Mark Rasmussen, CEO of Moolah, to talk about the landscape of credit card fees and how to reduce them, membership discount plans, and other bonus features offered by the dental payment tech company. (Pssst, Mark was last on episode 866, It's Time to Modernize Payment Processing!) Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am super jazzed because I have a guest here who's going to help us with cashflow leaks, modernizing your practice, figuring out those membership plans, all the things that you need and want. We're going to talk about some case studies. This is one of my absolute favorite guests, Mark Rasmussen, CEO, owner, founder, Moolah. How are you today, Mark? Welcome to the show. Mark Rasmussen (00:22) Hey, Kara, I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing awesome. So, so, so it's connected with you and your listeners and excited to get into all this juicy good stuff about revenue and payments and modernizing things. Let's do it. I love it. Kiera Dent (00:31) Yeah. Let's do it. So I have a slight crush on Moolah. Like truly you guys like just make credit card processing easy. And so what I want to start off, if you guys don't listen, Mark and I have done other podcasts in the past together. ⁓ But I don't know, Mark, what you guys say on your email subject lines, like on your little, what is it your signature, but I feel like it should be like your new favorite credit card processing company. Like that's what I feel like Moolah's tagline should be because I wanted to do a couple case studies with you since we last chatted. Mark Rasmussen (00:40) Hahaha Kiera Dent (01:05) ⁓ Mark knows, like, I do have a crush on Moolah. I try to get them to come and be our processor too. Mark Rasmussen (01:10) I need to like soundbite clip that, like I have a crush on Moolah just like everywhere in social. I love that. Kiera Dent (01:15) I do. do because I like companies that make things easy, but also are like the cheapest on the market and credit card fees are one of my biggest beefs. Like really truly I get annoyed when I look to see how much credit card fees are charging. And when you guys, ⁓ deadly team listeners, just so you know, I'm going to throw it out there. Like anybody who goes through our link literally saves 10 basis points. ⁓ on it, which is huge to get anywhere in the credit card industry. So you're getting below that 2.99. So you're getting 2.89 on cards not present and 2.39. And I hope that Mark, I'm allowed to say that because I'm just going to be bold and brazen. And if not, we'll cut that out. So don't stress about that. Mark Rasmussen (01:52) No, no, no, for sure. And not only that, it's like, that's not just a like teaser rate, like they look, your practices will get that preferred rate forever, right, which is awesome. And, and it's like you and I were talking a little bit earlier, too, of like, a bit of shock and awe of like, I and myself as well, I've been seeing like some statements from potential practices. And I'm like, ⁓ my God, I'm like, I'm seeing like, Kiera Dent (02:03) which is so big and you don't add extra heat. Mark Rasmussen (02:19) six, seven, eight percent, like net effective rates. I know you were saying you have been seeing even higher. It's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. It's almost criminal. Kiera Dent (02:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it does feel criminal because like here's the thing like you might get a cheaper rate somewhere else but when you look and dig into the details and this is where it feels annoying and obnoxious to me and doesn't happen right away it happens like when you've stopped looking at it you're like I've checked my credit card company for years they don't do anything and then all of a sudden it starts creeping up and being eerie and that's where I just get annoyed and that's why like I have a crush on Moolah because you guys don't do it and you guys stay consistent for it so I felt Mark and I, you didn't listen to our last podcast, we'll definitely link it in the show notes for you. But Mark, I felt we should kick today off with some case studies because I have some clients that I've recommended over to Moolah. And I think my favorite one is we were looking and I had a practice and our overhead was high. So like this practice, they don't love to like look at numbers. They have an amazing CPA. Like I will say we do look at numbers, but they're kind of like, yeah, carry it. We'll just like out produce our problems a little bit. And that's fine. Like anybody can have that. But I said, Hey, Mark Rasmussen (03:17) Alright. Kiera Dent (03:21) Your credit card fees are really high. think that they were honestly like 10%. And I'm like, is that really true? Like that just seems outlandish. And they said, well, Kiera, we're in a contract. Mark, do you want to throw up with contracts? Tell me about credit card contracts. Mark Rasmussen (03:33) Oh, I hate contracts. I hate contracts like really in anything in my life. I don't know. So yeah, but that's, it's just crazy. The industry for the longest time has like felt the need to like lock these business owners and not just Dennis, but business owners in like these typically it's like three year contracts. And then, you know, they'll have like termination fees. And so they take advantage of that. And like you were saying, I talked to so many practices are like, Oh, I'm paying X and you know, they were paying X the first month that they signed up. And then they didn't look at it, like you said, and then six months later, eight months later, the processor started like nudging it up, nudging it up, nudging it up. And to the point where when you look at what their rates are, you know, two years from when they signed up, it's like almost 180 degrees difference. So yeah, please you guys out there, please make sure you stay on your credit card processing. Look at those month end statements. Look at, you know, what is being nudged up because Kiera Dent (04:19) Yeah. Mark Rasmussen (04:28) You know, they'll just slip it in a little statement message. They're not forthcoming about it. I promise you they're not like, shooting you multiple emails or calling you and be like, hey, we're going to increase your rate. No, no, no, no, no. They're going to slip it under the table and hope that you never pay attention to it, which is really what happens because you guys are all busy. You guys are all doing amazing care on patients and you're not paying attention to that. That's the reality. Kiera Dent (04:49) And it's creepy to me because it's also done on things that don't make sense. Like I feel like reading a credit card statement with what they're charging is like reading very highly processed foods. And I'm like, I have no clue what 90 % of these words are. And I feel like it's the same thing when you come to a credit card statement. And so back to this practice, what we did, there's two case studies I wanted to bring to the table today that are my own personal clients that I've referred over to Moolah that I signed up with Moolah. So this practice, again, overhead, let's out produce our problems. Mark Rasmussen (05:00) That's a good comparison, I like that. Kiera Dent (05:18) And it was wild because the first month they switched to Moolah, their CPA sent a letter to all of us and said like, hey, what'd you do? Did you switch credit card companies? Your fees are so much lower. Like that fast first month drop down. So we went from about a 10 % fee on what they're producing and collecting to then dropping it down to this 2.89 to 2.39, depending upon if card was present or not, which is super awesome also because then you can get cards. Mark Rasmussen (05:28) guys. Kiera Dent (05:44) on auto renew, like on just processing internally and you don't have to, like you can have cards present or not present within the practice, which is so awesome. ⁓ But I was shocked like that fast. And then another practice that we brought to Moolah, they were locked in with another credit card company. And so I didn't know you couldn't do this, Mark. So this was like rookie mistake on me. Like I was, I'm scrappy and I thought, well, okay, fine. You guys are in a contract. So. just stop processing through that processor, switch everything over to Moolah. Well, you know this Mark and I was rookie so you know what happens. Do you know what happens with those companies? Mark Rasmussen (06:21) No, listen, I said that a lot too because technically, really, if the practice is in a contract, and I've said that before, you probably have these miscellaneous junk fees, these monthly minimums that are gonna hit maybe 20, $30 a month. But even if you're paying that minimum and you saved thousands over here, who cares? Pay that minimum, just write that contract out. What happened here in this scenario? Okay. Kiera Dent (06:44) That was exactly what I said too. So that's what, cause I was like, why not? I thought the exact same thing. I'm like, okay, if we're looking at, you're able to save 3%, 4 % like higher amounts and we're processing, even if you're processing a hundred thousand or 200,000, like that extra two, 3 % do the math. Like that's surely going to offset the cost. Well, what happened is we actually did that. So a client signed up with you guys. They did that. And we got a letter from the other processor saying, Mark Rasmussen (06:54) Yeah. Kiera Dent (07:11) that, we have a minimum and if we don't hit it, it was going to be substantial and to get out of contract, it was going to cost us a thousand dollars. So we literally said, fine, take the thousand dollars because we'd already saved that much through Moolah's savings to be able to like, we're just like, like it's a done deal. Like they were trying to threaten them with this thousand dollar fee, but we were like, that's so minimal to get us out of this contract based on how much we were saving. Now this practice was processing a decent chunk. Mark Rasmussen (07:32) Right. Right. Kiera Dent (07:38) But I think even if you're processing like 70,000, 80,000, that one, 2 % stacks up. Like it's insane how much we pay in credit card fees. So those are like the two that I wanted to bring to the, like I said, this is why I have a crush because I hate credit card fees so much. And that's going to lead into our next topic. But Mark, anything you want to add? Cause these were two cases that I've watched since we last met. Mark Rasmussen (07:45) yeah. I love that. Kiera Dent (08:00) ⁓ I'm constantly on the prowl for cheaper people. I love that you guys don't charge for the terminals. You have it set up the next day. There's no contracts. Like that's where I said, like it's your new favorite, like credit card processing. You don't increase the fees. You give our clients reduced rates. If you have multi locations, you guys also take care of those practices. Like it's amazing what you guys do. So that's my like pitch for Moolah, but if you want to add anything else. Mark Rasmussen (08:22) I love that. wanted to, because you just like rang a memory. So what you were referring to in that practice, right, where like, okay, you can't just skate by and just pay the minimum, right? Or they were gonna hit him with his fee. Well, another thing I'm gonna tell your listeners out there is, listen, if you don't go with Moolah, great, do your homework. But one thing to look out that I've seen in contracts, which is crazy, is that sometimes you'll see a contract, all right, if you cancel early, it's like a 350 termination fee. Okay, fine. but I've seen others out there where the processor says they try to enforce liquidated damages. So the processor will say, oh, we've been making, you're in a three year contract, on average we're making like, whatever, $500 a month on your processing. If you leave us now, it's not early termination fee, we're gonna calculate that $500 for the remaining 16, 17 months and they hit you with this liquidated damages thing, crazy. So just be on the lookout for that. If you're doing anywhere that's a contract, Kiera Dent (08:57) No. Mark Rasmussen (09:20) Look out for liquidated damages, that's no bueno, but better yet, find somebody that's just not gonna put you in a contract. Much easier. Kiera Dent (09:26) Yeah. And also like, okay, Mark, help me understand. And maybe you don't know because you guys don't do this and that's okay. But to me, it feels really funny that I signed a contract with them and there's got to be something in the fine print because I'm like, how did they go from what they told me to being able to add all these extra surcharges later on and increase it when we're in a contract? Mark Rasmussen (09:43) for sure it's in the fine print. yeah. It says that any, it basically says that any time at our discretion with 30 days notice, we can make an adjustment to any of your pre-schedule. And so they'll just do that. And then they'll just put a little message, you know, really small font in whatever kind of notification. And you know, in their minds, right? All right, well, we checked off the box. It's super shady. It sucks, but it's, you know, it's out there. Yeah. Kiera Dent (10:05) Yeah, it is what it is. And I would say they'll like look at it because two clients that were in contract, we were able to send over every person that I've sent to you guys have just loved who you are, that it's easy, that it's fast, that it's the cheapest processing. And there's a few other features that I think we should talk about. I feel like I'm on like a Moolah sales pitch right now. Like I'm truly not. I just get giddy. Like if you guys hear me talk about Swell, Mark Rasmussen (10:27) Ha Kiera Dent (10:30) was Zeke and Google reviews. I have a crush on Swell. They just do Google reviews better than anyone else. And right now, Moolah for sure, you guys are taking the cake on being able to do credit card processing better than any other company that I've come across, which I think is amazing. And so something else that I think is ratcheting fees on practices when we're looking for some of these cashflow leaks is on membership plans. Now, I'm a huge proponent of membership plans. I also think with the economy, with where insurance is reimbursing, ⁓ people are starting to look at like should we be going out of network? And my big proposal is, hey, yeah, of course, if you want to do that rock on, membership plans really can help with that. But ⁓ there are some membership companies that actually charge pretty outlandish fees. I never wanted to pay for that. I was scrappy in a practice. So what I did is I just charged the patient an annual fee. Well, that was like eight years ago that I was charging an annual fee. And I think you look at today's world, no one wants an annual fee anymore. They just want like a monthly fee and they want it to be low. Mark Rasmussen (11:02) for Right. Right. Kiera Dent (11:28) But managing that is nonsense on my own paying for it. And Moolah, like I've heard through the grapevine, you guys are doing something with membership fees. Can we talk about the membership plans? Talk about how you guys do this. Is it easier? Is it something we can do? Because I think membership plans have to come into play with the insurance situation that offices are in. And also possibly a cash leak if you're paying for heavy management fees on your membership plans. Mark Rasmussen (11:37) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So listen, membership discount plans. I've since I've been, I've only been in the industry, you know, dental industry for about four years now. And every year I feel like it's getting traction. More practices are asking about us. I have practices that are doing demos with us and they're like, Hey, I'm doing this demo is driving it because I heard you guys do, you know, membership, discount plan management. And so yes, the answer is we do. ⁓ And as you were looking to, there's a lot of great vendors in this space that just do that, right? And I'm not going to name any names, but there's a lot of great vendors, but they're not inexpensive. Like, you know, there's some decent SAS fees and then you pay per patient enrollment. ⁓ And so when it's, you know, when you look at the net net and you're like, okay, is this really making sense? So what's nice is that we have complete membership discount plan management built into the platform. You can create all your plans. ⁓ You can easily onboard the patient into the system. Kiera Dent (12:21) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mark Rasmussen (12:48) whether the patient wants to go monthly or annual, like you said, you were doing annual and a lot of the practices that I run into have historically been doing it annually, right? Because to think about billing it on a monthly basis has you like pulling your hair out. But the reality is that the patients and the consumers in the world that we live in, ⁓ everybody looks at whatever they're gonna bring into their life, whether it's a Netflix subscription or it's a car payment or it's anything else, everybody kind of looks at at a monthly basis. Kiera Dent (13:02) Too hard. Mark Rasmussen (13:17) And so that is what you want to be delivering. And so with the Moolah platform, you can absolutely manage an in-house membership discount plan and offer both annual and monthly options and truly set it and forget it. Not have to think about it. The system's going to run. The system's going to automatically post that payment into the ledger. In open dental, we even go a step further where when you enroll the patient into the membership, not only are we handling the billing element of it, But we're also going into the PMS and we're associating that patient to that membership discount plan and keeping track. You know, that's what's really doing all the heavy lifting of keeping track of whatever the one free cleaning of the 10 % off services. And we keep that in lockstep. So if there was like a billing issue, we automatically disassociate the patient from the plan to really just kind of make it pain free. you know, membership discount plans are phenomenal. It's a win win for patients and practice. First of all, it brings some really great reoccurring Kiera Dent (13:51) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (14:14) like trackable revenue into the practice, right? Number two, it's bringing patients like butts in seats ⁓ as well. ⁓ Because the patient looks like, I'm paying $40 a month. I should use it. I should be in there. ⁓ And it's bringing value to the patient. So it's literally just a win-win all around. I really love that for, you know, when you're looking at out of network patients ⁓ and the absolutely, you know, the platform has it built in. So you guys, please, if you're looking at discount plans, memberships, I encourage you to look at some of the other great vendors out there and then come take a look at us last and see like the value that you get that's included. Kiera Dent (14:49) That's awesome. Yeah. And again, like there are so many great people out there that are doing it. I just feel, ⁓ when I heard that you guys were doing membership plans, I was like, well, it kind of makes sense because you're already processing credit cards. Like you're already doing the processing. So now something else that is doing a processing is in my processor, into my software, which I just, that was so incredibly clever. And, ⁓ like again, I had another client who, who scoped you against other companies and they were like, gosh, like there's no fees. Mark Rasmussen (15:03) Great. Kiera Dent (15:17) compared to other companies with moolah. So that was something I was really excited about. I'm big on just, it's like my insurance. I've been with State Farm forever. And Jason and I giggled, we're like, we need to go and actually like assess and make sure that we're truly getting the best plans. And so I just think like it's good to periodically go and assess and make sure our credit card fees, what they were when we set up. our membership plans making sense? Is it time to look to possibly renegotiate some certain things? And again, I'm not here to propose one company over another. Like Mark said, do your homework, figure out what's best because there's so many great companies out there. I just really love when it's simple and easy. And that's something I love about you guys, Mark, you guys have the fact that we can send patient statements and like have payments online and they can pay it all times of the day. Like just that alone boosts offices, collections with Moulin. So Mark, I want to go into a dicey topic with you though. because this one's hot. We had it in our in-person ⁓ doctor and leadership mastermind when we were in Arizona and I loved it. It was like a hot, hot topic and heads up like this might be awkward for you. I don't think it will because of who you are, but there's the question of, and it was hot, like the room was split of people who were pro and con. So the question is with credit card fees being as much as they were, we talked about at the beginning, like ways that we can reduce it. Mark Rasmussen (16:10) Let's do it. I know, I wanna hear what the feedback was, because I know where you're going. Kiera Dent (16:40) Then we talked about reducing membership plans. Now there's a question of, should we actually charge patients the credit card fees? Like this is becoming really popular and I don't blame businesses because inflation's high, labor is higher. So now we're trying to figure out like where could we cut? And so people are like, well, sweet, we're just gonna pass on the credit card fees to our patients. And the room was spicy. There was like people that were so pro and people that like literally people were bristly and it was a... Mark Rasmussen (17:05) Yeah. Kiera Dent (17:06) It was quite interesting. So your credit card company, which is where I feel like it's a little awkward to ask you this question, but I want to know, we pro, are we con? Should we charge the patients from your perspective? We're in 2025. So many companies do this. Should people be charging patients the credit card fee? Should they just raise their fees and bake it in? Like, what are your thoughts on this? Because my room was 50 50 split. And I will tell you some of the feedback if you want to hear it, cause it was quite interesting. Mark Rasmussen (17:13) Yeah. Okay, okay. I do. Okay, so the first thing I want to point out is I expect you to say that the room is split, right? Like half of them are like, yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm not paying for my patients' reward points. And I think the other half of the room was like, yeah, but I'm worried about the optics. Does it look like we're trying to be cheesy or nickel and diming our patients, right? Those are the two ends that are battling each other. The interesting thing is that this hot topic, ⁓ if you would have asked that just three years ago, Kiera Dent (17:38) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No. Mark Rasmussen (18:01) it wouldn't have been 50 50. It would have been like 80 90 % saying no way and 10 % made me do it. So the trend is is like it is going right and two or three years from now I have a feeling it's going to be like 80 % are doing it and 20 % are not doing it. So the cat is out of the bag. Let's just get that you know right out there in the open. What do I think about it? I'm to be super Switzerland about this and I'm going to say that I think Kiera Dent (18:06) Agreed. 100 % agree. I would agree with you. Remember he's a credit card processing company. Mark Rasmussen (18:31) Well, no, I'm going to say that I think that as a vendor who delivers credit card processing service, I think that I should enable our practices to make that choice for themselves. I think whatever you think you should do for your practice, I want to support it. So if you don't want to do surcharging, great, we love that. If you do want to do surcharging, great, I love that. I just want to give the tools to the practice so they can make that decision. Now, aside what I think about it, It's a very interesting topic to talk about. Well, what is the net result? I like, all right, how does it work? What does it save? Let's get into it if I may. Okay, so there's a couple ways. There is absolutely there. There is, and there's a couple flavors to this. There's a couple flavors to this. ⁓ there, the, the, what that we do, let me talk about that first. So what we do is what's referred to as compliance surcharging and with compliance surcharging, what is, what you're doing is that Kiera Dent (19:06) I agree. Cause like, are there rules around it? Like, you actually have to do anything? Okay. I have no idea. Okay. Mark Rasmussen (19:28) When a customer's paying you with a credit card, the system, system, I'll just speak to our system, most others are similar, but when a patient is paying you, whether it's in practice on the device or whether you sent a text to pay or it's an online payment, our system automatically, real time, looks at the number that the patient put in or used on the terminal. And within a half a second, we're looking back at the credit card network before we even charge it, and we say, is this a credit or is this a debit? If the patient is paying with a credit card, We then pop on the screen, either on their mobile device or on the terminal, we say, hey, we see you're using a credit card. We're going to add 2.99 % as a fee to you for using a credit card. If you want to use a debit card, you will avoid that fee. So in Compliance Surcharging, what I really like about that is that you're not charging us fee across debit and credit, right? You're still giving your patient the convenience of being able to pay with plastic. Kiera Dent (20:19) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (20:25) and still use a debit card because the reality is if you have a credit card in your wallet, there's probably 99 % chance you've got a Visa debit card in your wallet as well. And so you're not pulling away that convenience of them being able to pay plastic and just saying, hey, if you want to avoid that fee, pay cash or check. That's kind of archaic. So with compliance surcharging, you are going to offload your credit card fees to the patient, only the credit card fees. When they pay with a debit card, you will still pay for that, okay? Kiera Dent (20:43) I agree. Mark Rasmussen (20:55) With doing that with Moolah, if you're going to pay the debit fee and not pay the credit card fee, we see that the overall net effective rate for the practice ends up being below 1%. It ends up being like, I'm going to throw out a weird term that people are going, what the heck is that? It's usually going to be around 75 or 80 basis points. About three quarters of 1 % is going to be your net overall cost, which is huge savings, right? Huge savings. Kiera Dent (21:07) No. Crazy, like insane. Just do some math. If you did a million dollars and you were able to basically save, gosh, so much. Mark Rasmussen (21:28) No, let's just say, the reality is you're probably saving one and a half percent. So on a million dollar practice, that practice is gonna put about $15,000 back to their bottom line. Like, and that's it, and it was painless. And you're still not really, yeah, exactly. Kiera Dent (21:37) Exactly. And that's also for payments you're already collecting. Like this is already money we're collecting, we just get to keep more of it rather than having the credit card processing fee. Mark Rasmussen (21:47) Yes. And it doesn't need to like, you know, break brain cells for you to try and figure it out. Like the system is going to automatically calculate it. We're going to organize it. ⁓ It's just, it's painless. We're handling it in the PMS correctly. listen, the savings cannot be ignored. Like we talked about the cats out of the bag. You're going to see more businesses across more different verticals. ⁓ And the reality is We've all been around it for a long, long time, right? Who's been doing it forever? Gas stations, right? We've seen it on there. Cash credit, right? That's been there forever. And we're all used to it. And you also typically see a lot when you're dealing with like state or federal agencies, you ever gone on and make an online tax payment, they usually charge a fee there. So it's just now getting more, you know, ⁓ rolling out. Yeah. Kiera Dent (22:40) Nail salons for the girls out there. We all know the nail salons. They'll say like, it's a 3 % charge if you use credit card. I'm like, here's your cash. Like it's clever. They push us to what they want. Mark Rasmussen (22:49) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it is listen. So I, I believe in delivering the technology to our clients, I don't have an opinion one way or the other, whatever you feel is good. I will tell you though that I think a lot of practices, especially on the on the one half of the room that are like against it. I think what we're finding is that people are not pushing back as much as you think they are because consumers are just getting used to it. And again, the fact that at least with our practices, you're still giving your patient the ability to have that convenience and pay with a debit card and not have the fee. If they were doing like the model where they call it, know, cash discount, where you're going to hit the debit card and you're going to hit the credit card, I think you get more pushback on that, but you're still giving that convenience. So yeah, I'm a fan of it. We get, like I said, more and more requests of it. ⁓ It's not going anywhere. yeah, we're here to support your practice. If you guys want to try it out, try it out and listen, here's the thing. Kiera Dent (23:50) Yeah. How does it work in practice though? Like, so someone's standing in front of me at a terminal, I'm collecting money in person. How does this work? Because it's not gonna pop up on my like treatment plan that I just gave them or on my ledger. So how do I do that? Mark Rasmussen (24:00) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll pop up on the terminal. so first thing we do, we give the practices, ⁓ you know, some template messaging and they'll just want to put up something by the front desk. And it says something to the effect of that, you know, this office adds a surcharge when using a credit card, ⁓ not beyond, you know, what our costs are, right? This is not a money, additional money revenue is trying to like, you know, make arbitrage between costs and no, I'm only going to pass off. And so. Kiera Dent (24:32) Great. Mark Rasmussen (24:35) the patient is aware of it, they've seen it, and then when they go to use it on the terminal, if they're in practice, when they go to run the credit card, it will pop up on the screen and your team can just show it to the patient, they'll see it, that it's adding it because they're using the credit card. And it'll give them an option if they want to accept it or if they want to back out of it and try again with a debit card and avoid the fee, really easy. Kiera Dent (24:58) Okay, that's actually really helpful. And now I have a question because I don't know this. How does this work? Because technically the practice is collecting more money, right? Like we are taking the fee plus the credit card fee. ⁓ Mark Rasmussen (25:10) Let's say it's $100 and let's just say we're adding that surcharge so now it's $103. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Kiera Dent (25:14) Right, so that's $3 more per $100 transaction. But does that impact them in tax? I would think no, because credit card companies still charging us the 3%. Like, how does this work? Are you following what I'm saying? how does this impact you? Mark Rasmussen (25:26) Yeah, I do. So you don't have anything else to like, you know, break your brain on that. Our system, first of all, will break out the surcharge in the reporting. Okay. So it's really clean. Furthermore, the addition, the $103, right, like the customer got charged, the patient got charged $103. But our system automatically calculates it, that you have a fee of 3 % and that you surcharge the patient 3%. So the practice is still just going to get the full $100. Kiera Dent (25:36) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (25:56) It's as if they took a cash payment. So it's easy for them. They're not getting 10.99 at the $103, so to speak. It's just still truly only taking $100, which is great. Kiera Dent (25:57) Gotcha. Okay. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah, because that's what I was curious like, and like some things have sales tax. So didn't know like surcharges, do they get taxed differently or is it just like accepting cash, same thing for a practice? Okay. Now, so that's really helpful. And that helps me see on the ledger. So are you guys synced into the PMS for it to say, because like if my ledger says a hundred dollars, but I'm now doing 3 % surcharge on it. Mark Rasmussen (26:18) Exactly, total amount, total amount, yeah. Yes. Kiera Dent (26:35) I'm going to be posting $103. How do I make sure that all of my ledgers match up? Mark Rasmussen (26:40) So we'll post $100 in the ledger, okay? And then we'll have a procedure code for the surcharge. And then we'll also have an offsetting so that it doesn't mess up your balance. So you can easily run reports based on the procedure code. I can see what my surcharge is, but it's not messing up and showing that, I took in $103 on this $100 transaction. So your ledger is gonna stay nice and clean. and not be a nightmare, 100%. Kiera Dent (27:10) Okay, because that's I was like, Oh, great. Because there was another office that I heard about. And Mark, I'm just curious about your opinion on this. And then we're gonna get back to this like spicy and thanks for walking through this. There was another practice, I've literally never heard of this before. So I'm curious if you have or if you recommend or don't this practice. So let's say a patient, the total is $100, they pay the $100, the practice literally posted on the ledger. Mark Rasmussen (27:28) Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (27:38) instead of being $100 because now they lost $3, they posted $97 on the ledger and they were taking out the surcharge. Have you ever heard of that? Because I had never heard it. I was, do you recommend that? Because I've never recommended that, right? And I think as a patient, I'd feel really angry though. no, I gave you 100 bucks, but you gave me 97. Like I would just. Mark Rasmussen (27:48) I haven't. That seems wonky. Yeah. Right. Or continue that on. How about now all of a sudden a week later you go to refund it and we're we're refunding you 97. You're like, no, no, no, I paid you 100. It's gonna be messed up in so many levels. Kiera Dent (28:09) Right. I was just curious. I was like, I mean, maybe I'm archaic on how I do this. I used to just do it that way and then accept that that would just be a cost on my PNL. But now there's a way for you to actually offset it with the process. So my question is going back to that, that's actually helpful. Thank you. So if you're doing that, definitely recommend not doing that anymore. ⁓ But I was like, Hey, I've never heard of this. Maybe that is the right way to do the accounting on it. But it felt very messy to me. Now, Do we as the practice need to put in the surcharge as that procedure code when we're charging that out or does Moolah automatically sync it in and put the surcharge of the procedure code? Mark Rasmussen (28:48) We have, yeah, automatically done. There's nothing for you to do. Yeah. So during onboarding, we will set up, we will work with the practice, obviously. We'll make sure that we have a procedure code set up for them. And so during the onboarding, we'll have that so that when you do run a surcharge transaction like that, there's nothing you need to do. It'll all be handled in the ledger correctly. Kiera Dent (28:51) Amazing. I love it. This is why I said I have a preference on you. and you're in all softwares. What softwares does Moolah sink into? Mark Rasmussen (29:10) Yes, so ⁓ Open Dental, ⁓ Dentrix, G7, and ⁓ newer server-based, not Ascend. And we're actually going to be ⁓ releasing, finally, this has been a long time coming, we're finally going live with Eagle Soft ⁓ Beta at end of next week. So Open Dental, Dentrix, and Eagle Soft. Yeah. Kiera Dent (29:28) Awesome. That's awesome. Okay, very cool. And then if you're not in one of those and you can just obviously add this in, it wouldn't be automatically synced. And I think like of those ones though, huge win this way. Okay, now we'll go back to the spicy. I will tell you guys how the room was divided. The room was divided, I'll be right. The do it, don't do it. And then the like, there's a middle ground, which I thought the middle ground was kind of convenient. ⁓ There wasn't, but I did see people like it. I did feel like it was like, Mark Rasmussen (29:45) Yes. Was there any physical fighting going on? Okay. Kiera Dent (30:00) like politics and religion status. Like it was like very cut through the room. I do agree with you. And that's what I said. I was like, you guys, this 2025, this is going to take place in the future and it will be very common. just, think our early adopters going to stay or not. It's your choice. Um, I've always been of the opinion like, no, just bake it into your fee. And now I'm like, well, everybody's starting to charge for it. Like, why not? Um, so it was don't charge for it now. Another was like, no, put it in. People are doing it anyway. And the middle ground, which I thought was Mark Rasmussen (30:02) Right. Right, right, right. Kiera Dent (30:30) of a good way to do it is in person. They didn't charge a fee, but any of their online statements, they did charge a fee because they said most people who pay online know there's usually a service fee associated with it. So I thought that was kind of a, an easy way. If you guys are looking for a navigation through it. ⁓ but I think like, honestly, it's just like anything else, train your patients if you want to, but don't feel like you have to, I think it'd just be something to consider. So, but again, Like get the reduction, like if nothing else, like switch to a processor that's going to be reduced fees anyway. So even if you want to continue offering it, you're still saving on that. Mark, I have one last thing that I wanted to dive into. I'm hearing from a lot of like integrated softwares. So like dental Intel and Flex and some of these other ones that literally make practice lives easier. They're having processors in there that are just integrated right into that. They're using it all the time. Mark Rasmussen (31:20) Yeah. Kiera Dent (31:25) How does Moolah play in those worlds? Like, do you get the same pricing? Do we not get the same pricing? Are some of those better because they're already bundled in? Again, I'm putting you on like really awkward topics, but I just want to know. I want to know how does this work. Mark Rasmussen (31:35) No, no, not at all. So listen, you mentioned Flex. We love Flex, okay? I love Flex, not just because, yes, they're a partner of ours, right? And yes, your Mool account works beautifully and integrated with Flex. But I love Flex just because I think they're like cut from the same cloth that we are. Like we just, at the end of the day, we want to over-deliver, right? We want to over-deliver, whether it's technology, whether it's value, and they have that mindset. And so I love the Flex team. Full disclosure. ⁓ And so we've been an integrated partner with Flex for, gosh now, I think three years. So yeah, I think they deliver a ton of value to any open dental practice. So anybody out there for sure should check out Flex. They are amazing. Dental Intel. So we used to be, ⁓ not to bore the audience, but like we used to have an integration with Modento and then Dental Intel acquired Modento. Kiera Dent (32:33) Yep. Mark Rasmussen (32:33) and then Dental Intel wanted to roll up their own integrated credit card processing. And so they have now. so, listen, ⁓ we wish Dental Intel the best, wish them well, but yeah, we're no longer integrated with Dental Intel, but yeah, Flex, we love Flex. Kiera Dent (32:49) Okay, because I was just curious. Now, I feel if it's bundled, is this a time where offices should just be strategic? I'm not saying anyone's doing it. I haven't looked at it. So I'm not here to like cast judge or I just want to make sure offices are being smart. I would think when they're bundled or they're integrated, offices should still check even using MULA. They should still be watching their credit card statements every single month, right? Like no matter what, just to always make sure things are staying clean and also before we sign up with anybody. Mark Rasmussen (33:08) Mm-hmm. 100%. Kiera Dent (33:19) Like literally read the fine print and look for it. Yes. No. I from like, let's just go all the way back. Mark Rasmussen (33:23) Yeah. And I would always say that, you know, let's just take the Flex example. Flex has, you and I won't name anything, I'll let you guys out there, you go check it out to yourself, but there are three options. I encourage you, especially when we're talking about a vendor that you're looking at, and especially when this vendor that you're looking at revolves around your cashflow, right? Like it's a pretty integral part of a vendor that you're bringing into your ecosystem. call them, talk to them. Kiera Dent (33:46) Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (33:54) Call in the middle of the day. Do they pick up the phone? Do they answer? Can you talk to somebody very easily? Like really pop the hood and take a look at who you're going to get in and do business with, especially when it's, you know, that vendor is like controlling your cash flow on a daily basis. So yes, please you guys out there, do your homework, look at the agreements, ask questions, and see what's right for you. Yeah. Kiera Dent (34:10) Yeah. That's awesome. just, again, I wanted to like go into it because these are things I'm hearing. I'm hearing people say like, this seamlessly integrates. I know you seamlessly integrate. I know you guys are constantly working to refine, to get into more and more practice management softwares to make it easier. Just Mark, as we wrap up, like this has been fun. I love the like, thanks for going into some of the spices with me. ⁓ But just as a quick rundown, like what are some of the features that Moola does? We talked about the membership plans. We did talk about that Dental A Team clients get 10 % basis points less for card present or card not present. Mark Rasmussen (34:33) Always is. Yep. Kiera Dent (34:47) Which to me that alone, I would just look into it and see, like I said, two clients literally saved money by like dumping their contracts and moving over, which I think to me, like before I can have a crush on a company, I test them pretty heavily. So to see the proof in the pudding, I was so just elated and it made me even like you guys more. But what else does Moola do? Because I know you guys do a lot of other things that just make life easy. Mark Rasmussen (35:05) I love that. yeah, yeah. So at the end of the day, we do a lot, but it's all payment related and will always be payment related, right? So we're focused on being like, we try to be like the end all be all payment solution for dentists. And so when you look at like, what does a dental office need from a payment perspective, ⁓ it's in practice payments, right? So we provide you guys the physical devices. So No more having to buy rent or lease those terminals. We're going to include them. you know, not only, yeah, they're wireless. Yeah, they're really cool. Aesthetically, they look really good. Yeah. And, and here's the other great part too, that I think it's kind of underrated ⁓ is of course, not only did we include them. the practice didn't need to buy them, but like normally, you know, with our peers, you have to buy these devices and then you buy them and then it's like one year warranty, right? And then like Murphy's law always kicks in. Kiera Dent (35:37) They're awesome too. They're portable. They can go back to the hygiene operatories. It's amazing. So your hygienist can take it. Like they're awesome. It's so great. Mark Rasmussen (36:01) like it loves to do. like, okay, month 14, the device just, you know, went out on you. And then you're gonna sorry, you got to buy another five $600 device with mula you guys will literally never have hardware expense ever because we give them to you on the front end. And we will warranty them forever. As long as you're with us. I don't care four or five, six years. If there's new devices that come out and your guys age out, we're going to replace them. Even if you drop it off the counter and crack the screen. We don't care, we're gonna replace it for you. There's no fear or premium. So, in practice payments, we have you covered there from a technology standpoint as well as a hardware standpoint. Moving on, there's also, have the ability to, like you were talking about earlier, store patient cards securely tokenized. Nothing's ever touching the practices servers. It's all on our servers, but it's giving you the convenience of having those stored cards for the patient. You can have as many stored cards as you want. You can even send a request to the patient. before their appointment and the patient from easily from home from their mobile device could add their credit card. And so when they come in, it's already stored and it's available to use. So stored cards, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kiera Dent (37:07) With that, can I ask, do you guys have the compliance paperwork? Is there anything you have to do to get a patient to have a stored credit card that we can run for future payments? once insurance pays, because I know that's a big thing of storing cards on file, do you have anything with that? Because I know that this is a zone. Mark Rasmussen (37:23) Yep. What I... Yeah, no. So it's very obvious as far as the process of the patient adding the card. Like when you send the message, it says, hey, would you like to securely store your card on file? Right? Beyond that, what I've seen some practices do is just they'll just include it in their overall like new patient intake forms and kind of include it in their terms of service of that. Hey, listen, if you want to store a card on file with us, you can. And you allow, once you store a card, you're giving us the authorization to utilize that card. Kiera Dent (37:35) Mm-hmm. Mark Rasmussen (37:51) for other future balances. As simple as that, that's all you need to do. Kiera Dent (37:54) which is so smart you guys think about it. This is where so many other industries do this. They have a card on file. I mean, I go to the spa, my cards on file, they run that card when I'm gone, like I authorize it to happen. So they never out of money. They're never chasing money down. Like it just to me makes so much more sense of a way to process. Mark Rasmussen (38:12) Can you imagine if Netflix or all the other subscriptions, if they had to wait for a payment every month and wait, come on, no. Subscription is the way, 100%. So, okay, so store card on file they get. The other thing they get is the ability to create and manage in-house payment plans. And of course, automatically post those payments to the ledger. We have some great things where if the payment fails, right? They're into the plan for three months and all of sudden the July payment fails. Kiera Dent (38:18) No. No. Yeah. Mark Rasmussen (38:41) our system will automatically notify the practice, notify the patient, and what's cool is that the software will allow the patient to self-administer and fix it. So the software is not telling the patient, your card failed, call the front desk. No, we're gonna save a phone call there. The software will allow the patient to tell the software, okay, either A, try to charge that card again, or B, they can actually upload a new card on file. So the cool stat on that is that in failed transactions in our payment plans, we see patients solving it between themselves and software within the first 24 hours at a rate of over 80%, which is huge. So payment plans, and then we talked about earlier, you also get the ability to manage any of your in-house membership or discount plans. ⁓ We have the collecting on a balance when the patient is out of practice, ⁓ sending a payment request either Kiera Dent (39:20) Holy cow, it's amazing. Mark Rasmussen (39:37) allocated or unallocated payment request can attach a statement. ⁓ We also have the ability to host a payment page on their website. So if you want to put a little navigation, click here to make an online after hours payment, we'll host that page for the practice. ⁓ So yeah, we really kind of just looked at it a full circle of like, where are all the payment touch points that our practice is dealing with, and just trying to deliver these really amazing tools. And again, as you know, our model. ⁓ There's never any monthly fees. There's never any set up fees. There's never any annual fees ⁓ All there are these two simple flat rates and again, you can cancel it anytime you want never locked in anything Kiera Dent (40:18) That's awesome. Mark, I appreciate this so much. How do people, like know they just connect with you, schedule a demo. You guys will look at their credit card processing, see how you guys can fix it. How do they connect with you specifically if they're interested? And specifically The Dental A Team, The Dental A Team, perks. Mark Rasmussen (40:33) I would recommend and maybe we can list this in the podcast, but there will be a specific Moolah URL. It's like forward slash The Dental A Team They should go there and then they can schedule a demo. And then if they go there, then we're going to know it came from you guys. That way we can get them that 10 basis point savings forever. So just schedule a demo with us and no pressure. We're like the most like the least salesy organization I think that you guys will ever run into. All we wanna do is inform you. We wanna show you what we have. We're not for everybody. ⁓ But assuming that you guys love what you see, we encourage you to try us out and check us out and see if we're gonna be a great fit for your practice. Kiera Dent (41:13) Yeah, for sure. You guys, honestly, I love Moolah They're incredible. So on our website, we will link it. So the way you get to Moolah, it's on our website, TheDentalATeam.com. And then you can click on the About Partnerships Mulas right there. ⁓ And the actual, like if you guys want our direct link here, it would be TheDentalATeam.com slash partnerships slash Moolah. And that should take you right to Moolah's page. It's also mula.cc slash partners. So that helps you guys will also link that in the show notes mark. I appreciate you guys so much Things are being on the podcast things are going through the spicy with me. I appreciate you so much Mark Rasmussen (41:52) Any time, love you guys, you guys are the best and ⁓ have a great rest of day. Kiera Dent (41:58) Hey, you too, for all of you listening. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.
She's back! Asajj Ventress, the formidable fan-favorite from The Clone Wars, makes her unexpected return, continuing her saga beyond the acclaimed novel Dark Disciple – a true gem for any Clone Wars connoisseur. We're diving deep into the implications of resurrection in the Star Wars universe, reviewing the first three episodes of Ventress's journey in Tales of the Underworld, and connecting all the thrilling narrative threads. Join our lively discussion as we unpack it all! We create this podcast out of pure love for Star Wars, and we'd love for you to help us share it! Spread the word: Please Retweet or share this episode in your circles. Support us on YouTube: Every Like & Subscribe truly helps the channel grow! Join the conversation: Tag us on Bluesky or X (using our handle @SWEscapePodcast) and send in your comments and theories – we read them all and love hearing from you! We hope you enjoy the discussion! Have you checked out our flashcast called Star Wars Launch Pad? https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod
In this episode:The boat is rocking,the boat's rocking... and the boat is rocking!!!! Support the showClick the link above to head over to Patreon where you can join our community & access ad-free, early release episodes from $2 per month (USD) or for $5 USD per month enjoy all the above perks AND our weekly bonus episode 'The Wrap Up' for Patreon subscribers only! You can also support us by clicking the link below to purchase a 'virtual coffee'! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theaftdeckpodAs an entirely independent podcast, we appreciate ALL of your support!!! Ask us questions, give us your thoughts on the show or tell us what you'd like us to cover in future episodes at theaftdeckpod@gmail.com or DM us @theaftdeck.podMusic by: AudioCoffee (Denys Kyshchuk)
Le premier épisode de Vincent Milou dans Big Spin date du 25 juillet 2019. Il se préparait pour les J.O, et avait plusieurs opportunités de sponsors de planche. Pour ce deuxième épisode, il revient sur ce qui s'est passé, soit l'aventure Pizza, deux sélections aux J.O, Adidas, le skatepark à la maison, les trips avec Lost in the Swell, et pas mal d'autres événements. Disponible et direct, Vincent se confie sur ses aspirations et inspirations, juste avant d'endosser Element comme sponsor de planche, et faire un retour en Europe. LE PREMIER BIG SPIN DE VINCENT • https://soundcloud.com/bigspinpodcast/vincent-milou-interview-skate-2019 PARTE ELEMENT 2025 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FWmtEPGOxY -------------------------------- INSTAGRAM • https://instagram.com/bigspinpodcast YOUTUBE • https://www.youtube.com/c/bigspinpodcast SPOTIFY • https://open.spotify.com/show/6OetMNTU2xo2JY1j9PvuUM APPLE PODCAST • https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-spin-podcast/id1398345946 DEEZER • https://www.deezer.com/fr/show/1442342 LINKTREE • https://linktr.ee/bigspinpodcast Merci à DVNO pour le jingle - https://soundcloud.com/dvnolandia
A writer first, Dan developed a love for surfing in the cold San Francisco water and turned heavily towards his move to Florida in his latest work On a Rising Swell, a memoir slash collection of his best work with surfing as a central character. Take the time to read this fantastic rendering from the mind of one of surfing's best new contributors. Our chat covers his stories and inspiration as well as his humble, positive, and soulful voice. Enjoy and check out his new book here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dropping In Surf Show Episode 56 features Swell – what is swell, how swell it created, how swell travels and what happens when swell arrives and concludes on our shorelines. This episode is a continuation of the Wind episode. Watch the video of this episode at https://www.surfingpaddling.com/dropping-in-surf-show
Captain Liz Clark (@CaptainLizClark) spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. At the age of 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most only fantasize about, she set sail from Santa Barbara, California, as captain of her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, headed south in search of surf and self. Liz captured her voyage in her memoir, Swell, sharing tales of sailing in high seas, of solitude and surprises. During this podcast, we explored Liz's relationship to God, her experience setting down roots in Tahiti, and her daily habits that led to her completed memoir. If you dig this podcast, will you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts? It takes less than 60 seconds and makes a difference when I drop to my knees and beg hard-to-get guests on the show. I read them all. You can watch this podcast on my YouTube channel and join my newsletter on Substack. It's glorious.This is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Kyle Thiermann at thiermann.substack.com/subscribe
Steven Tripp joined me on the podcast 18/04/25 to catch up on all the latest...
The 2025 season has started for the Colorado Rockies, I bet it goes SWELL!
Jase declares that he felt a swell of American pride when he heard about Elon Musk's rescue of the stranded space crew, even though he thinks Heaven will be way more fun than space travel. Al reveals his caveman roots with a single word, and the guys explore the myth of “big” and “small” works for Christ, though such things can never be measured in this life. Zach proposes that shame and pride are merely two sides of the same coin, not opposites. Plus, how did Jesus baptize people into His death, burial, and resurrection before it even happened? In this episode: John 3, verses 22-30; John 4, verse 2; 1 Corinthians 1, verse 12; 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12; 1 Corinthians 15, verse 19 “Unashamed” Episode 1061 is sponsored by: https://smartcredit.com/phil — Get a 7-day trial for just $1, see how many points you can add to your credit score! https://tomorrowclubs.org/unashamed — Bring hope to kids in some of the darkest corners of the world. Help us hit our goal of 1,200 new Tomorrow Clubs members this month! https://homechef.com/unashamed — Get 18 Free Meals, Free Dessert for Life, and Free Shipping on your first box! https://fastgrowingtrees.com/unashamed — Save up to half-off on select plants and when you use code DUCK at checkout you'll get an additional 15% off! Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices