Chris Pistorius (00:04):

Hello everybody. This is Chris Pistorius, the CEO and Founder of KickStart Dental Marketing. Thanks for joining us today. We have the distinguished Debi Carr of DK Carr and Associates with us today. And Debi is a consultant really in technology and security. Debi has over 22 years of private practice management experience, and she’s got over 30 years of experience in technology and security.

Chris Pistorius (00:34):

Now, she helps dentists in obtaining and maintaining a HIPAA HITECH compliance, which I know is top of the page to a lot of you guys out there listening. That includes performing risk analysis and team security training. And a lot of my interview today with Debi will be around that. Debi holds several certifications which is too many for me to list. And we’ll ask her about that in just a minute. But Debi, I want to thank you for being on our show today.

Debi Carr (01:04):

Thank you for having me.

Chris Pistorius (01:06):

Did I mess up the intro at all? Is that just pretty much cover what-

Debi Carr (01:08):

No.

Chris Pistorius (01:10):

Okay, good.

Debi Carr (01:10):

That’s pretty much summed up.

Chris Pistorius (01:12):

Well, that’s good. So, Debi it’s obviously you’ve got tons of experience with this stuff and you’re consulting in an area that I know that a lot of my clients ask about with HIPAA and security and website security, and all kinds of stuff. And why don’t you just tell us a little bit more about how you got started in this business?

Debi Carr (01:33):

Well, I 30 years ago married a wonderful man who was very involved with technology. He would rebuild computers at our home and he also was a computer programmer, and he still is a computer programmer and he doesn’t build computers anymore, but he is a computer programmer for a defense contractor. I went into the dental industry as a practice manager, but we always had our doctor to be state-of-the-art with technology, because I was a techie. So, anything new that came out, I wanted my doctor to have it.

Debi Carr (02:11):

When you have technology, there comes security. And because my husband works for department of defense, I was always having to adhere to that standards. In 2013, I realized that the law had changed. I was consulting, helping dentists go paperless and implement a paperless office, and realized that the law changed in September of 2013, which gave the office of civil rights, more bite in levy penalties and fines against them. And with technology you need security, and the way the law is structured, it can assist dentist and in implementing a security office, a secure office, while meeting compliance.

Chris Pistorius (03:06):

That totally makes sense. And it’s an interesting way to get a start in this crazy HIPPA security world. So that’s very interesting. Why don’t you tell me a little bit more about your business as it exists today and really what you’re specializing in and what really your passion is?

Debi Carr (03:26):

Well, one of the first things that my passion is, is to help dentists to become compliant. And we want them to secure their practice against the data breach. Because if they implement good security protocols, they will be compliant. Compliance doesn’t always bring security, but security will bring compliance.

Debi Carr (03:49):

So, the first thing that we do, is we do a random objective review of their current status, their current situation, we call it a risk analysis. It is the first letter the law mandates. And it’s the first protocol that you should always do in any security management program.

Debi Carr (04:16):

So, we’re going to do a risk analysis and we’re going to see what they have in place, and what they need to have in place. And what we’re looking at is, what is the likelihood of an event happening? What can we do to maybe stop or mitigate that? And most importantly, what is the financial impact that will have on that practice if this risk comes to fruition?

Chris Pistorius (04:42):

I think it’s certainly not over simplifying it, but I think you put it in a way that everybody understands. And I think with anything, I know with marketing on my side of it, it’s the same kind of thing. We put things into kind of an action plan step by step, and that’s how you overcome a lot of stuff that’s going on with the practice. So, I think that’s a great way to put that.

Chris Pistorius (05:05):

Now, obviously you’re not the only consultant that talks about things like this, and there’s several choices that dentists have. And that’s the other problem that I see, is that dentists don’t really know who to trust. Especially with consulting and especially with HIPAA related stuff when it comes to dentistry. There’s a lot of information out there from a lot of different sources, and who knows sometimes if it’s accurate or not.

Chris Pistorius (05:29):

So, what would you say is the biggest difference between you and maybe other consultants, and people that are in this arena, and why should dentists, really trust what you have to say in your authority?

Debi Carr (05:44):

Well, first of all, one of my certifications that I have is a healthcare information security privacy practitioner through (ISC)2. (ISC)2 is the certification organization that is recognized on an international basis for security. So, I am (ISC)2 certified. I’m also HIMSS certified.

Debi Carr (06:12):

The other thing that I think sets me apart is that, because one, I’ve worked in the healthcare industry IN the dental industry for 23 years. I know how practices work. I’ve been in the trenches and I know what it’s like to be in an operatory versus someone just coming in that’s never seen a operatory or understands.

Debi Carr (06:37):

For instance, one of the protocols in security is that, you should go to a screensaver after 90 seconds. I don’t want the dentist going to a screensaver after 90 seconds because he needs to look at that X-ray when he’s doing a surgery. So, because I’ve been there, I know how to overcome and how to do some work around while still securing.

Debi Carr (07:00):

I also have been in technology for 30 years. And so, I understand how technology and how vital and crucial technology is to dental practice, because whether it’s true or it’s not true, but this is how patient perception is. Patients perceive their doctor’s ability based on the technology in their practice.

Debi Carr (07:24):

So, the more technology that they have in the practice, the better reputation they have in the community, but the more they have to secure that technology.

Debi Carr (07:36):

So, there’s three legs to securing a practice. You want to have administrative, you want to have physical, and you also want to have technical. And because of my background, I’m able to look at all three. I work with your existing IT company. I don’t try to replace your IT company. I work with your existing IT company to make sure that they’re providing the service that you think that they’re providing for you, as well as helping you to implement policies and just securing your practice, using administrative, technical, as well as physical guidelines.

Chris Pistorius (08:22):

Yeah. I think that would be a good reason for me to use you for sure. But one thing that stood out from there is that, you make sure that IT companies are doing what they say that they’re doing, right? Or they’re doing what you think they’re doing. And I think that’s really important because the dentists that we work with, they don’t have time to check out and make sure that everybody that they’ve hired and every company that they use are really doing the things that they say. And I think having somebody in place like yourself overseeing some of that, is a very valuable service. So, I think that’s a great approach to it.

Debi Carr (08:57):

And the thing to remember is that ultimately when there’s a data breach, it’s not the IT company that’s held to the highest responsibility, it’s the doctor. It’s the doctor that’s going to be [inaudible 00:09:09] to facing the fines and penalties, not the IT company. Although now there are some fines and penalties that’s going against the business associates, but ultimately it’s still the doctor.

Chris Pistorius (09:22):

Yeah. I mean, it’s the IT company isn’t going to be one shelling out the box. It’s going to be the doc. That’s a very good point. So, just because you’re paying somebody, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re passing on that liability as well, right?

Debi Carr (09:38):

Correct.

Chris Pistorius (09:39):

Okay. I think that’s great. Now, talk to me, do you service the entire country or do you just service a specific area, or are you even international?

Debi Carr (09:50):

We try to stay on the Eastern Seaboard. I’ve gone as far West of Texas. But when you specialize in the risk assessments and incident response. Incident response is when you’ve had a data attack or you turn on computers and you’ve got ransomware, or you walk in Monday morning and your computers are gone. Because that involves over 500 patients and any time over 500 patients are involved, you have to A, notify the office of civil rights. Chances are you have to notify your state department of justice, but you also have to notify the local media, and you have to notify your patients. And you have to have an incident response investigation.

Debi Carr (10:44):

So, we’re there to guide you through and help you to know what to do when you have to make that call. But our goal is to make it so that you’re proactive, and that when that happens, you’re ready to handle it. You just go right into what we call a coop mode or a disaster mode. And you’ve got a plan and you’re ready to deal with it. And everybody knows what to do. And they go to step one, step two, to step three.

Chris Pistorius (11:15):

Wow. I think that would be pretty important to have a resource like you, because there is no way that I would know, if I were a dentist I would have no idea where to go to first. And I can promise you that many out there don’t know that they need to do state filings, maybe national filings, contact the patients, and what’s the best way to contact the patients. And I just can’t even imagine how you would navigate through that without somebody like you.

Chris Pistorius (11:44):

Now, one thing you said in there Debi was ransomware, and that’s been on the news lately, right? I mean, that’s where somebody will hack into your computer, lock up the data that you own, encrypt it, and then try to sell you the password to your own data. Is that accurate? And then-

Debi Carr (12:02):

That is very accurate.

Chris Pistorius (12:05):

… to attach on to that, I can see some dentists out there listening to this right now, kind of shaking their heads like, “Yeah, right. That’s really going to happen to a dentist?” So, could you tell us number one, does it happen to dentists and am I accurate with my statement on-

Debi Carr (12:18):

Absolutely. It absolutely happens to dentists because they are a soft target. Because they don’t see security as a priority. Protecting their data. Their data is the most expensive piece of technology or equipment that they have in their practice, but they don’t put the emphasis on it.

Debi Carr (12:43):

And what happens is that they get a ransomware attack, and yes, it is exactly what you described. They’re holding your data ransom. And the FBI tells you not to pay the Bitcoin, because if you do there’s no guarantee that you’re going to receive your data back. These are bad actors that are holding your data. So, they may or may not give you your data back. But because you’re a small office, you are prime target because they are able to get into your network very easily if you’re not protecting and securing it correctly.

Debi Carr (13:23):

So yes, it absolutely is happening to dentists on a daily basis. And a lot of times what I’m seeing is that they will just restore their backup, which is a good thing to do. That’s part of their disaster plan. That’s what they should do. But they still have to do those other parts, and we still have to report it. It is a reportable offense. And you want to be proactive with the office of civil rights versus on the defensive, because you don’t want the FBI and the office of civil rights knocking at your door because they found your data on the dark web.

Chris Pistorius (14:02):

Well, that’s intriguing. And it’s also very scary, but you’re right. I think most, especially the smaller practices out there don’t have tons of security on their network. And it’s a scary thing that, I think potentially, and I hope I’m not overdramatizing things here, but I think that could potentially put a dentist out of business if somebody did this to them. Have you seen that in the past? I mean, is it-

Debi Carr (14:30):

It could be financially devastating. I mean, I’ve seen fines as low as 12,000. I’ve seen fines at 750,000. So, none of us want to pay the government anything. So, to have any penalties or fines coming at us, whether they’re 12,000 or 750,000, that’s a lot. And 750,000 could financially devastate a practice. Not to mention the reputation damage.

Chris Pistorius (15:05):

Yeah. And that’s a biggie with dental practices. I mean, one of the services we offer is online reputation marketing, and we talk to dentists how important their reputation is. And especially as competitive as dentistry is getting now. So that’s a biggie that you want to keep intact.

Debi Carr (15:24):

But imagine if you have to put on your website that you’ve been hacked.

Chris Pistorius (15:27):

Yeah. That wouldn’t help.

Debi Carr (15:29):

On the front page.

Chris Pistorius (15:31):

Yeah. A potential new patient would skip right over your website and go right to the next in line for sure. Debi, how would you describe your ideal client? Who would be your ideal practice that you would work with?

Debi Carr (15:44):

Private practice, usually one to five doctors in the practice. That’s pretty much who we concentrate on. There are a lot of consultants that will deal with the bigger practices, but it’s the singular practices that are the most vulnerable.

Chris Pistorius (16:03):

Okay. What’s the favorite thing about what you do?

Debi Carr (16:10):

Oh, I think the favorite thing is just teaching and training them how important it is to be very vigilant on protecting their data. And just getting through to them that this is something that they have to take on a daily basis take seriously daily.

Chris Pistorius (16:33):

Yep. I think that’s an awesome way to look at it. And there’s no doubt that you’re providing a service that can really help dental practices. Now, one of the services that we provide are website design. And we’ll build a website from scratch, or we’ll take over an existing website and just make it better.

Chris Pistorius (16:52):

And I get lots of questions from practices about HIPAA, all kinds of HIPAA related stuff. But you and I were actually talking about this offline, and I was hoping you could maybe talk to our listeners a little bit. And you were talking about making sure that you have a notice of privacy on the website. Can you just tell our listeners a little bit more about that?

Debi Carr (17:13):

Correct. Yes. Notice of privacy practices is the contract you have with your patients. A notice of privacy practices is required by the law, and it’s how you’re going to handle the data. And when I see a lot of times is that a dentist will download one from somewhere, and they never read it. But that contract has been held up in Supreme Court, inside state as a contract between the doctor and the patient. And that has allowed these patients to sue the doctor.

Debi Carr (17:50):

So, on top of the fines, and on top of the penalties, and on top of the other expenses, now you’ve got a patient suing you because you’ve breached it. The law says that your notice of privacy practice must be conspicuously displayed in your waiting room, and on your website, and must be available to hand out to your patients.

Debi Carr (18:14):

Most dentists are really good at handing it to their patients, but they’re not really good at posting it conspicuously in their waiting room and on their website. And there’s these paid people that work for our government, the office of civil rights has them, the FBI has them, the auditors have them, they troll websites to see if you have that information posted. And if you don’t, that’s a door to allow for a random audit because you’re already in violation.

Chris Pistorius (18:52):

Wow. And there are people paying attention dentists, don’t fool yourselves.

Debi Carr (18:58):

Absolutely.

Chris Pistorius (18:59):

There’s all kinds of trolls out there. This is one of them. We have one common in our business, where these people will actually troll dental websites and make sure that the images that they’re using on their website are not copyrighted from somebody else-

Debi Carr (19:12):

Exactly.

Chris Pistorius (19:12):

… and if they find one of those, they send you in the mail is a letter demanding a bill, and sometimes it’s a couple of hundred dollars and I’ve seen them, like you said earlier with the fines, several thousand dollars. So, it’s a lot to think about, but it’s very important to protect yourself.

Chris Pistorius (19:30):

So, that’s great information to have. And we’re out of time today Debi, is there anything else you would like? And actually I think it might be a good idea, could you tell people practices out there. What’s the best way to reach you if they have questions or if they want to potentially hire you, how can they get ahold of you?

Debi Carr (19:50):

They can email me at Debi and that’s D-E-B as in boy, i@dkcarr.com. And they can reach me at (844) 352-2771 or DK Carr1.

Chris Pistorius (20:08):

Awesome. Now, will you offer like if somebody called you say off of this program or something, would you be able to talk with them over the phone for a little bit, kind of as a free consult or do you offer anything like that?

Debi Carr (20:20):

Yes. Absolutely.

Chris Pistorius (20:22):

Well, that’s awesome.

Debi Carr (20:23):

My passion is helping them to avoid a data breach and avoid the negative connotations that come with a data breach.

Chris Pistorius (20:33):

Okay. Well, great. And is there anything else you’d like to add Debi before we wrap up?

Debi Carr (20:37):

I think that covers it.

Chris Pistorius (20:42):

Okay. All right. Well, awesome. Well, I really appreciate your time. I know how busy you are. But dentists out, if you are listening and you have more questions about this, Debi’s awesome. She’s part of our network, people that we trust and that we recommend out to our consultants. So, feel free to give her a call if you have questions regarding security, HIPAA, things like that. She’s just an awesome resource to have, and she’s very easy to work with. So, with that being said, thanks again Debi, and thanks for listening dentist.

 

Chris Pistorius (00:05):

Hey everybody. It’s Chris Pistorius, again, with the Dental and Orthodontic Marketing podcast. I’ve got a special guest for you today. We are with Mindy Altemose. She is the owner of Mansfield Orthodontics, in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Mindy, thanks so much for joining us today.

Mindy Altemose (00:25):

Thanks for having me.

Chris Pistorius (00:26):

Of course. So I’ve told you off air, I want to do more in the orthodontic space in terms of these podcasts. And I was looking, kind of getting ready for this, and I saw that you’re just barely a year into owning your own practice. Is that right?

Mindy Altemose (00:44):

Yes. Yep. We opened just before COVID, so it was just [crosstalk 00:00:49] worst timing really for us.

Chris Pistorius (00:50):

Wow, yeah. I didn’t even think about that aspect of it.

Mindy Altemose (00:53):

Yes.

Chris Pistorius (00:53):

So maybe you could tell us a little bit about just where was your mindset in college? Did you know, right out of college, you wanted to go start your own practice from scratch, or were you thinking about maybe buying an existing practice? What were you thinking then?

Mindy Altemose (01:08):

Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. And I mentioned to you, also off air, I didn’t know I wanted to be an orthodontist in college. About halfway through, I was a science major, and I decided to become a dentist by shadowing a bunch of different health professions. And so yeah, I went to dental school. I knew, pretty early on in dental school, I would like to own. I didn’t know how that would look for me, but then luckily, I had more time because I went to residency. And it was actually in residency where I had talked to a faculty member about partnering, and so I had kind of my eyes set on that and for helping to grow his business.

Mindy Altemose (01:42):

And then when it all came to be, it just didn’t work out, and so I was thinking of what way can I go next? And I looked to acquire practices, to be very honest, and there wasn’t anything in the areas I was looking for that I thought would be a good fit for me. And once I’d exhausted all those options, I thought, well, it’s time to do a startup, I guess. And so it wasn’t my first choice to do a startup, but it was what I landed into. And I’m really happy that it worked out this way. I think it was a good fit for me.

Chris Pistorius (02:14):

Awesome. Well, I can tell you, Mindy, that if you started a practice when you started it, going through COVID, I think you can probably just about do anything else in life that you encounter. So that’s an incredible story that just brand new, from scratch, you start this orthodontic practice in one of the worst viruses known to man-

Mindy Altemose (02:37):

Sure.

Chris Pistorius (02:37):

… right in that era.

Mindy Altemose (02:38):

Sure. It’s-

Chris Pistorius (02:39):

I mean, I’m sure you probably shut down for a month or two completely?

Mindy Altemose (02:43):

Oh gosh. So yeah. So I’m in Massachusetts, so it was almost three months that we were shut down. So we weren’t even open as long as we’ve been shut down. So yeah. And also, I was new to the area. So I had just moved to Massachusetts and opened, so I never practiced here. I was in New York, upstate New York, for awhile. So it was a lot against us to get started, but honestly, I tried to take it, as I could, as a positive. We’re so little and boutique, we could keep it very low amount of numbers in our office, so I used that to help make people feel comfortable about coming to see us. And we try to still keep as least amount of people in the office as possible, so that was helpful.

Chris Pistorius (03:24):

Awesome. Well, that’s an inspiring story. So all of you young orthodontic students, or thinking about being an orthodontist, it can definitely be done, and it can be done even in an environment like we are now with COVID. So that’s an incredible story on its own. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about the practice. What do you really like doing? I know that you offer braces and Invisalign for adults and kids. Where’s your passion? Who do you like to work with the most, I guess, or what do you enjoy the most about being an orthodontist?

Mindy Altemose (03:55):

Oh, it’s the best profession in the world. So I love helping … I have two kinds of ideal clients. One is I love working with kids. So the braces age, traditionally, that kids go through is a very tough time for some kids. 12, 13, isn’t easy for everybody. So I just had an interview today for front desk, and I was talking to her about this. We try to be a positive portion of their day because things are not easy, so I love being part of a very important time in the kid’s life. And we see them often, so that allows us to have a really special relationship with them. So I love working on children, but I also love the busy professionals, as well, and thinking about them in mind and how we can best be as available for them and honor their time.

Mindy Altemose (04:47):

So between both of my ideal customers, it being a family with two and a half kids or whatever they say, and then also the busy professionals, we can always get more money and more things, but we can never get back time. So one of the things that we really try to deconstruct in the orthodontic process, in general, is how do we save patients time? How do we need to be more efficient with their time and value their time more? Because as yourself, a business owner with children, time is precious thing, and so we think about each step of the orthodontic process and how we can give patients back a whole appointment or maybe just 10 minutes or making the process just more streamlined for them. So that way, we are more mindful of what’s most important to them. So those are my two favorite age populations. Yep.

Chris Pistorius (05:39):

Yeah, that’s awesome. So when you start a brand new practice from scratch, and this really goes for dentists or orthodontists or really anybody in business really, but when you start from scratch, and you open the patient book, and it’s absolutely empty, right? What do you think? I mean, how did you market your practice, I guess, from a blank of nothing, to where it is now? What did you do to get that started?

Mindy Altemose (06:04):

Yeah. And so I opened before COVID, so things were different then. And I wish I could do some of the things I was doing then, but basically the biggest thing for me was to be as present in the community as possible. So we went, before we were open, to different health fairs. We went to an agricultural fair. I did a lot of social media stuff because that just isn’t and still isn’t being done in my area, especially for orthodontist. I tried to connect with other local small businesses that I felt might meet my ideal client [inaudible 00:06:39] would benefit from learning about. So I did this Facebook, which I don’t do currently, because I [inaudible 00:06:47] a few people in the office, but a spotlight on small business. So we would bring in family photographers, so you can learn about their business, see them talking to me and interacting.

Mindy Altemose (06:59):

Interior designer, organizers, people that I thought would be helpful for my ideal clients to know about, and also people I want to know about because I am sort of my ideal client because I was new to the area. I have a lot younger kids, but things that I would’ve liked to know about, being new to the area. So I did that. And even though I might’ve only had a couple followers, as they grow, and I grow, we re-share each other’s stuff. So that’s been helpful. And then getting in the community and serving the community was a big thing for me. So I joined a rotary club for my own, something that I wanted to do, but then learning about different drives and campaigns and stuff.

Mindy Altemose (07:41):

That’s one of our four core values is being a community leader, and so helping to support local community events has been huge for us because people love that. And then they’ll be like, “I really love this dog shelter they’re doing, this adoption thing. Can you help promote it?” Or whatever the case may be. And we love to do that kind of stuff. I did a Q&A thing on YouTube or something, and so that was helpful. Any way I could do for free, anything I could do for free, that was the number one thing. There were obviously a lot of paid things I did, as well, but I tried to do as much as I could for free.

Chris Pistorius (08:16):

Yeah. I think that’s a great point. And I think, honestly, it’s something that a lot of professionals miss. I do marketing, and I only work with dentists and orthodontists. And I see this. A lot of people talk to me about, “Oh, we need to do paid ads on Google or Facebook, or we need this awesome website.” And that’s all very much true.

Mindy Altemose (08:37):

Oh, 1000%.

Chris Pistorius (08:37):

But there is something to be said about just being active in your local community and just building relationships that way. That definitely, I think, has to be a core value of any marketing campaign, so much as so, we’ve created a team here that when somebody signs up with us, yeah, we do all the paid stuff and video and a bunch of cool stuff, but we also have this team call in to a local market, and they’ll try to do partnered sponsorships and partnerships with Little League teams or events or just anything to kind of get your name and your brand into that local marketplace.

Chris Pistorius (09:15):

And I think just being able to do that and people seeing your brand, over and over, on the backs of their kids uniforms, whatever it may be, I think that type of grassroot marketing should definitely be a mix. And it sounds like you’re all over that, so that’s awesome.

Mindy Altemose (09:31):

Yeah. I have found that particularly powerful and also because orthodontics is a bit different than dental dentistry, where it relies on referrals from dentists. Or not relies, but we love that partnership. And I wasn’t able to get into a lot of offices, and then COVID happened. And in orthodontics, particularly, it takes two years sometimes to see the work that I do. So of course, it takes time to build that trust, and I totally understand that. So that’s been so key for us because I couldn’t do some of the things I would have liked to done, to go in and do lunch and learns, to help and learn about these dental offices. I’ve had to rely on this grassroots.

Mindy Altemose (10:10):

And other than our location, the majority of our traffic comes from other patients, and some of the things that they have talked about us in, as well as seeing us … I did a gift card giveaway, where I promoted local salon, a local floral shop, and gave away gift cards and things like that. And people learned through us from there, and then they ended up coming in that way too. So any way you can kind of hit people in a different way than usual, where you’re providing value to them, as well, is always a positive thing.

Chris Pistorius (10:48):

Absolutely. That’s awesome. And I started my business the same way. I mean, almost 12 years ago now is when I started, and I didn’t do anything overly fancy. Basically, all I did is I put together a packet of information, and I just started walking into dental practices, saying, “Hey, I’m Chris. Here’s some information. Would love to talk to you more about it.” Got their information and left. And it’s just good to be able to walk in someplace, talk to them, and kind of build that connection straight up. So yeah, I think the grassroots stuff is definitely effective. And hopefully, once we get out of this COVID stuff, it’ll become a little bit easier to do that kind of stuff too. So

Mindy Altemose (11:30):

Yeah, [crosstalk 00:11:30] hope.

Chris Pistorius (11:31):

Yeah. And so we all know that dentistry is competitive. Orthodontic is competitive. There’s a lot of other orthodontists. What would you say is your unique selling proposition? So why should somebody come to your practice versus maybe one of the others? What do you think that is?

Mindy Altemose (11:48):

So yeah, we have a couple things that are important to us. I think how we think about patients is a little bit different than busy orthodontic practices. We have a customized approach to care, and we think about, like I mentioned, each step of the process, to really make it as streamlined, as efficient as possible, to give patients their time back. And we really respect patients’ time, and that’s very evident from the first time that you come in here.

Mindy Altemose (12:19):

Another thing that I’m sure a lot of dentists say, which is true about us too, is we are at the forefront of technology. We use a 3D digital scanner for each new patient, which is wonderful. It helps patients really understand, in a 3D perspective, what is going on with their teeth. We have the most ultra low dose radiation for our pan and ceph. We do a lot of things that are technology forward, which also helps us to save in time and money as well. And I think patients like the ability for us that we do spend a little extra time with them. It’s not a factory or a revolving door. I’ve heard that a couple of times with other patients about other local practices that might have great clinicians, but because we’re so small, still in boutique, and we want to keep that feeling, we are able to provide that additional time, and patients really love that.

Chris Pistorius (13:09):

Yeah, that’s great. And if you keep doing that, you’re going to be even more successful than you already are. So that’s good to hear that we still have some of those doctors out there that really pay attention to patients. And if it means spending a little extra time with them to make them feel better about the process, then it’s definitely worth that extra time.

Mindy Altemose (13:29):

Totally.

Chris Pistorius (13:31):

So what would you say to somebody that maybe was in your shoes, a year or two ago or three ago maybe, where they’re thinking about opening up a practice, and they’re deciding, all right, should I try to buy something? Should I go on my own? Should I just go be an associate? What tips or advice could you give somebody just starting out?

Mindy Altemose (13:53):

Yeah. So somebody who didn’t know exactly what they like to do, I think getting very clear, first of all, on what your goals are, long-term. You could make a wonderful career, being an associate, and there’s a lot less responsibility on you, on a lot of other things, as far as your time bill and as far as expertise and other things. So that’s the first is being real clear on what it is and why you’re doing it. If it’s just to make money, like I mentioned, you can make great money being an associate and have wonderful vacation and all that kind of stuff. But if you want to build a legacy, for example, or if you want to be able to eventually have a community project that’s really important to you be done, and you use your business to do that. Or you want to change a bit how things are being done, sometimes you can’t do that as associates.

Mindy Altemose (14:41):

So first, figure out what it is you want to do. And as far as owning a startup versus buying, I think it’s all what the opportunity is that presents itself to you. I think that buying is a wonderful way to do it, with a little bit less financial burden and a little bit more security upfront, from a multitude of reasons. But it needs to be a good deal, and it needs to make sense for you and the location that you want to be and all that kind of stuff. And if the startup is what is possible only, then that’s also a good decision. Just know that it is a lot of hard work, similar to acquiring, in a different way. And I would say, as far as tips, there’s a lot of great podcasts out there. I listen to Shared Practices, which is just mostly general dental and dentistry, but I could adapt it to orthodontics.

Mindy Altemose (15:30):

And so I learned a ton from that podcast. And then in my specialty, there’s a bunch of podcasts as well, like OrthoPreneurs and Elevate Orthodontics, which was helpful. And then there’s another really great … I’m sure there’s more now. That was two or three years ago. Oh, and I’m going to forget it now. Mark Costes, he’s a dentist, and he talks about the business side of dentistry. So learning more about that and seeing if that clicks with you, learning what makes sense and what fuels your fire, and then you can kind of go from there. But doing that, and then also visiting a lot of offices. That was huge for me, visiting different offices and what an office could be like because your experience or your handful of people you know, there might be so many other experiences out there that you might want to create. And so getting edified in the podcast world, that was for me. I’m sure there’s other ways. And then just physically being in more offices, maybe not even in your specialty, but just in dentistry, in general, to see what’s out there, and what’s possible.

Chris Pistorius (16:30):

Yeah. Awesome. I want to get your perspective on something. In dental school, do you think they taught you enough about business to make you prepared for starting a practice? Or do you think maybe that could be enhanced a little bit?

Mindy Altemose (16:44):

I was trying to think of something clever on the spot and didn’t come to me. No, there was no training on how to do business. Now, in my residency, I did have a course about it, so I started the wheels to turn. And then some residencies, I know, actually do an MBA, and there’s more than what I got. But no, there was no … Mm-mm (negative). Marie Forleo, she’s a speaker and has a podcast and a book. She has a saying, “Everything is figure out-able.” And I actually bought it, and it’s on my desk over there because I’ve had to learn everything from scratch, from QuickBooks to I never really used social media. I love social media now for my business, but I didn’t use it [crosstalk 00:17:21] myself learning about how it works, to the crazy stuff that you can learn around the office, like sterilization. I didn’t know the ins and outs of that, so I had to learn it. So no, there is no business preparation in school. That was all done through just figuring it out.

Chris Pistorius (17:39):

Wow, that’s crazy. You would think, at some point, they will start to incorporate some of that because there’s more and more people coming out of school that are doing what you did and going right into their own private practice. So there’s this book out there, and I’ve mentioned it before, it’s called E-Myth Revisited.

Mindy Altemose (17:56):

Yes.

Chris Pistorius (17:56):

Have you seen-

Mindy Altemose (17:57):

I’ve read that.

Chris Pistorius (17:58):

And it talks a lot about how to scale and not just necessarily for in the dental industry, but for anything. And I always recommend to my clients that are struggling on that aspect of it, read that and just try to create this machine that can run without you, right?

Mindy Altemose (18:14):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Pistorius (18:14):

And obviously, you’re the doctor, and you have to be there, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t build a practice and have a lot of things not have to be relied upon you, you know what I mean? So-

Mindy Altemose (18:24):

Right. Absolutely.

Chris Pistorius (18:25):

Yeah. Yeah.

Mindy Altemose (18:27):

[crosstalk 00:18:27] and listen.

Chris Pistorius (18:27):

Yeah. Yeah. And so what’s in store for you over the next five years? Do you have some goals in mind, in term of business, and what would those be?

Mindy Altemose (18:37):

Yeah. I think one of them is related to that book, the E-Myth series, is that I would like to … Right now, we don’t have a lot of policies and procedures formally written down. So a big one for me is, from how to answer the phone, to how to walk a patient out, to, of course, all of our clinic procedures, be in a procedural manual. So that way, one, as we scale and grow, it’s more easy. It’s not as much hand-holding necessary, and there’s a lot more we can give to be independent to our potential new hires. So that’s a big one is to continue to grow our procedure manual and make everything automated, so that way, like you mentioned, of course, there are only things that only the doctor can do, but we need to slim that down as we grow.

Mindy Altemose (19:24):

When you’re a startup, I know how to do every single thing in this practice, which is crazy and way too much things for me to be doing all the time. But as we grow, we need to continue to disseminate some of those responsibilities and roles and then write them down formally in a way that [crosstalk 00:19:39] cohesive. So that’s a big one for me. Also growing my team. We’re a team of three right now. We need to continue to grow, in order to help as many people in the area as we can. And so that’s a big one, and then getting all of my ops in. So I have four chairs now, and I have the ability for a couple more. And so I’m continuing to obviously grow patient-wise, that way we can continue to grow and complete my clinic here. So that’d be exciting.

Chris Pistorius (20:07):

Awesome. That’s great. I want to also get your perspective, really quick, on you’re in this a little over a year now. How’s hiring and firing and all and training? I mean, I’ve talked to a lot of people in the industry, and they’re having trouble, right now, hiring people, getting good people. It seems like they’ll hire somebody, and then somebody quits. And it seems like they’re always doing this training thing, and they’re just not getting ahead. I’ve heard the perspective of, “Oh, only hire people at the front desk with experience,” and I’ve heard some people say, “I only hire people without experience.” So what’s your take on this, and being in the business for about a year now, what’s your tips and secrets to that?

Mindy Altemose (20:45):

Oh, so you guys don’t have a magical pool of wonderful employees? Oh-

Chris Pistorius (20:49):

No.

Mindy Altemose (20:50):

… that’s a [crosstalk 00:20:50]. No, so-

Chris Pistorius (20:50):

How do I get that?

Mindy Altemose (20:52):

… It is … No, I’m teasing. I say that, and honestly, I just had hired somebody who I was really excited about, and they just didn’t show up for their first day of work two weeks ago. So I say that in a funny way because it’s been quite a pain point for me. And I am a bit green in this, but something that I look for, that I know a lot of people talk about, is more about personality rather than skills. So I love to train too. Any job I worked at as an associate, I’ve always trained new assistants, and now front desk, here at this job. And so I love to train. I just don’t have all the hours of the day to do so as I’d like to.

Mindy Altemose (21:32):

So I tend to hire people with less experience, and that could be to my detriment. But what I hope to find is somebody who uses that and then grows it further. I like things to be done a certain way. Shocker, type A dentist, right? So of course, just like a startup, there’s nobody with any bad habits, which is wonderful. And so I like when people have some minor experience, a year or two, and then I can provide all the rest of the information. And so there’s no bad habits to break or things that we do kind of work ourselves around.

Chris Pistorius (22:12):

Yeah. In fact, I think it was our last interview we did with somebody, they don’t hire anybody with experience. And the reason for that is that they feel as though the people that do have experience are sometimes just so set in their ways that they’re not coachable, and it’s hard to get them to kind of do things another way. So it’s all about perspective, but I agree. I think if you can find the right personality, that’s probably the thing that you should be looking at first. And then this stuff, I mean, no offense to anybody out there listening, but this stuff isn’t rocket science. It’s teachable, and it’s learnable, and it’s-

Mindy Altemose (22:49):

100%.

Chris Pistorius (22:51):

… it’s just something you got to find somebody with a good personality that’s going to take care of your patients and are willing to learn and excel. So I think that’s all valid points. So-

Mindy Altemose (23:02):

Yeah. I think just finding what are your core things that you’re looking for in a person and then reverse engineering the questions to find scenarios where you want to see them have that core value has been helpful for me to see … Something that’s important to us is to be positive always, in all ways. And so I look for negative situations in which you can see how they’ve handled it and carried themselves. And you can only do so much in an interview, but that’s been helpful.

Chris Pistorius (23:29):

Yeah. Do you do any personality tests when you do a hiring?

Mindy Altemose (23:33):

Yeah, we do … Oh, now, it’s going to escape me. Yes. We send it. Yep. And now-

Chris Pistorius (23:38):

Is it the Kolbe?

Mindy Altemose (23:39):

I think … No, it’s not that one. Now, I’m going to-

Chris Pistorius (23:42):

But yeah, there’s a few of them out there. We use the Kolbe.

Mindy Altemose (23:44):

Yes, I’ve heard of that one though.

Chris Pistorius (23:46):

Yeah, yeah. And I got to tell you, I think it’s a good guide, but I’m not completely sold on it. I don’t know that I would ever … Say, okay, I’ll have a really cool, qualified candidate I’m excited about. Oh, the Kolbe’s test isn’t quite right, so we got throw them out. Right?

Mindy Altemose (24:02):

Yeah.

Chris Pistorius (24:03):

I think you got to use it as a guide. I just don’t know that it’s a end all, be all. You know what I mean?

Mindy Altemose (24:07):

Yeah, totally. Yeah. We want to make sure we have similar qualities that we can all work together, but right, it might be slightly off. I think some of them are important, based on where they are in the clinic, and other times it’s not nearly as important.

Chris Pistorius (24:18):

Yeah. For sure. Well, Mindy, I’ve got to thank you so much. I know how busy you are, but just the inspiration that I hear coming from you, of starting a practice during COVID, from scratch, in a new market that you’re not even from, and you’re having this crazy success. And I got to tell you, it’s just expiring for me, and I know it’s going to be very inspiring for a lot of the people that are going to watch or listen to this. So thank you so much for being on the show today.

Mindy Altemose (24:45):

Yeah, absolutely. Not a problem.

Chris Pistorius (24:48):

Awesome. Well, everybody, thanks for watching and be sure to tune in to our next episode, and we’ll talk to you all very soon. Thanks.

 

Here is a full transcript of our interview.

Chris Pistorius (00:05):

Hey everybody, this is Chris Pistorius again with the Dental and Orthodontic Marketing podcast. We’ve got an awesome guest today. We’ve got Dr. Lisa Kane. Now you would think, “Oh, another dentist, right?” But not the case. Lisa is actually a dental consultant with the Cental Office Compliance of New England. So Dr. Kane, thanks so much for taking the time to join today.

Lisa Kane (00:30):

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be part of this.

Chris Pistorius (00:35):

Of course. And why don’t you tell us a little bit about this story? So you go to school, you become a dentist, get all that out of the way. And now you’re a dental consultant. Tell us about that please.

Lisa Kane (00:47):

Yeah, so that’s what happened. I was a dentist. I practiced dentistry for about 20 years and then I was just getting really bad migraines. So I decided, “You know what? I like the business sort of aspect of it. I like organizing. I like making sure people are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.” So I decided to do consulting. So I opened up a consulting company a few years ago. And since then, that’s what I’ve been doing full time. And I got to tell you, I love it. I love having the dental knowledge and I’m glad that I went to dental school and I definitely wouldn’t be able to do this if I didn’t because there’s all that guilt that I wasted that, but I do, I really enjoy doing this.

Chris Pistorius (01:33):

Awesome, that’s an interesting story. So I guess once you got started getting the migraines and you knew you probably needed to change something, why consultant? Obviously you had the experience and you’ve got the degrees and all of that stuff, but you said you love it. Is that something you find that you’re passionate about?

Lisa Kane (01:55):

Yeah, it’s so interesting because practicing, I honestly didn’t even know that there were rules and regulations. I was just so focused. Obviously there were rules and regulations, but you’re so focused on what you’re doing with the patient and how you can treat that patient the best way possible and take care of them that I didn’t even know that there was all this other stuff going around regulation wise. So once I was in a situation where I found out that there were regulations, not because of me, but because of someone else.

Lisa Kane (02:27):

And then I was like, “Huh, I can help with that.” So I just researched it. It probably took me a year to completely research CDC, OSHA, and all the board regulations. Yeah, and now I just go in and I help people figure out how they can be compliant and how they can… I try to take off their plate the stuff that I wasn’t thinking about, but the stuff that you have to do. And I feel like definitely having the dental background and the knowledge, I know what the pain in the neck, and try to do it a little bit more efficiently maybe. Get everything done.

Chris Pistorius (03:10):

You know, and I want you to dive in to everything that you help with in terms of compliance, but in our situation, we do marketing for dentists and the biggest need there, you could figure out marketing as a dentist if you wanted to, but do you have the time, do you have the expertise, do you have a team of people that can help you with it? And it’s a time-saver and it’s have the expert do it because like marketing, compliance is a huge thing and it can cost them a lot of money potentially if they’re not in compliance. So why don’t you tell us about the specific kinds of compliancy that you help with and maybe what the people watching today should be thinking about?

Lisa Kane (03:54):

Yeah, first of all, OSHA, since COVID, has gotten over $4 million worth of violations. Yeah, and they’re not stopping. So basically, the whole respiratory protection program thing, the whole N95, there’s all these things that go with it that you have to have and people think it’s optional and it’s really not. So I think that kind of hit home because people were getting fined a lot. So what I do is I help people. I usually go into an office, I can do it virtually now, or I can physically go in so I can do it anywhere. And I look at what they have and see what they have and say, “Great, you’re doing a great job with this,” or, “We really need to work on this.” And I try to be super… I’m not getting you in trouble.

Lisa Kane (04:42):

I’m there as insurance to see if someone were to get you in trouble, because there’s all these patients and staff members that are really worried right now. And they really feel unsafe in certain situations. And they’re not hesitating to call some sort of governing body to let them know about that. So I try to help protect people with that. So I do that. And then I do infection control and OSHA classes. I’m doing medical emergency classes. And then I can do all your stuff for you. There’s all these plans and protocols that have to be done, they have to be personalized. You can’t just buy an OSHA book from the American Dental Association and put it in your office and be like, “I’m done,” because that’s blank. It has all the bones, but it’s blank.

Lisa Kane (05:25):

So I try to just, like you said, take it off their plate because it would take hours and hours and days and days to do it correctly. And I always tell people too, I am in love with water testing. So marketing wise, I always tell people to take these little water tests that they do and hold them up and put them on their social media and just show how… Because people, I feel like people are so concerned now with safety and infection control and the patients too, they’re much more knowledgeable than they were even a year ago. So I do feel like what you’re doing is a huge benefit for people because it’s you can’t do that on your own and you don’t and you’re going to do it wrong and you need someone who knows what they’re doing I feel like for everything else besides what you’re good at.

Chris Pistorius (06:17):

Yeah, and I’ll tell you the other thing probably with compliancy too, I’m sure is it changes, it’s not a static thing that once you learn it, you don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s a moving target and marketing, especially digital marketing, when Google changes their mind about something, they don’t exactly tell everybody and let them know ahead of time. And there’s a lot of doctors out there that rely on Google for a lot of their new patients. So you’re right, it’s something that saves time, but it’s also like with you, you’ve got an expert working on this for you and they know about the changes and taxes, another thing, you don’t want to bargain shop that at all either. So who are your ideal clients? Do you have an ideal client? Is it pretty much any practice or who are you looking for?

Lisa Kane (07:11):

Yeah, I’m looking for any practice. I tend to work more with smaller practices or smaller groups of practices. I have a few groups that are probably like five to 10 offices, that kind of thing. It’s the people that really want to try and really want to try to be in compliance for the sake of being in compliance. Like the people that are active and interested in it, those are my ideal people. We’re really trying to be more hands-on. And so like literal handholding, except you can’t in COVID, but really trying to, “We’ll, come in or we’ll do your safety meetings for you. We’ll do your water testing for you. We’ll teach you how to review the SDS or go over your OSHA book with you,” and all these things.

Lisa Kane (08:02):

We have… It reminded me when you were saying things are ever changing. We made this COVID binder six months ago about basically how to react if certain things happen and it went from like five tabs in it to now it has like 20 tabs in it. Every day I feel like I’m emailing people and be like, “Here’s the update.” So I think that’s really important. And the CDC and OSHA too, they’re like every day, I’m doing a class tonight and I have to put my little disclaimer on it, “This was as of yesterday when I looked.” Everything is constantly changing. So it’s hard to keep track of.

Chris Pistorius (08:43):

Yeah, I’m curious. And I don’t know if you have numbers with this or not, but if I’m just a regular dentist just watching this, I’m probably thinking, “What are really my chances of being audited or being caught out of compliance?” What are your chances? You said I’m kind of surprised. I thought maybe they would let us off the hook a little bit in the industry during COVID, but it sounds like they’re going full steam ahead. What is that process and what is a typical dental practice’s odds of being audited on this?

Lisa Kane (09:16):

It depends. So there’s certain things like in Massachusetts there’s certain things that you have, like if you have a new anesthesia permit or you need to re-app, but you’re going to be visited, that kind of stuff. So there’s that kind of routine stuff. But then there’s things that are just… It’s people, OSHA is getting so many complaints and they can get a complaint from me. I could go home and tell my husband that I’m working in an office and they don’t have any gloves for me. And I feel so unsafe. And he could go online and do an anonymous complaint because I feel unsafe or a patient could come in and I keep on telling this story. I was in an office where a patient paid with a credit card and the front desk person so rudely put the credit card on her clean counter, which is not patient care, to type in the number, and the patient got so upset because they thought that, “Oh my gosh, you’re contaminating my credit card. And now I have to…”

Lisa Kane (10:08):

I don’t know what they have to do, but you just need that. All you need is someone you do not know. So I think the chances of someone right now, I think they’re pretty high having someone come in. Who knows? Maybe no one’s going to come in or it’s staff and it’s patients that if they’re unhappy, then they could easily call.

Chris Pistorius (10:33):

Sure, and I know with some HIPAA stuff, I’ve done some interviews with some HIPAA compliance folks and it’s kind of the same process. Anybody can file a complaint. And I believe if I remember correctly that the government almost has to at least follow up on every complaint. So we even cut a story, sort of joked around about it, but kind of not, literally you could have a competitor just go in and leave an anonymous complaint and you would hope that that wouldn’t happen in this industry, but you know what, I’m not so sure. So I think it’s one of those cases to be certainly better safe than sorry. Would you agree with that?

Lisa Kane (11:15):

Oh, without a doubt. And OSHA, if they come in, you have to post what they found. So it’s like a restaurant with their ratings on it. You have to post. No one’s going to want to come in an office that has trash in the bathroom or whatever or no one has the right they don’t feel safe here. It’s really scary. I think that everyone has… At any time, not to scare everyone and make you all go underneath your covers, but I feel like that’s why if you have yourself organized and you have yourself set up for success, if OSHA comes into your office and there’s low-hanging fruit stuff. If you have that, they’re already in a good mood.

Lisa Kane (12:04):

If you have the written respiratory protection program, if you’ve had everyone fit tested, if you’ve had medical clearance for everyone, they’re already happy. They come in and they see like, “Wait, where’s this, where’s this, where’s this?” They’re going to be mad and they’re going to look further. So I think that having someone come in, having someone do some sort of a walkthrough virtually or in-person or something is a really important thing for every office to make sure that you’re where you think you are.

Chris Pistorius (12:34):

Yeah, I totally agree. And it’s one of those things that if you start showing them the low-hanging fruit of, “Okay, we’ve got this binder that tells this,” and you look organized, I think they’re probably, “All right, well these folks, they’re on their way.” They probably don’t look quite as hard, I guess, in some cases, maybe if you at least initially show how organized you are. But maybe you could talk about, I’m sitting here putting my dental hat on, and I’m thinking, “Okay, well if I do get caught with something out of compliance, what is my risk?” So could you talk about how that works? I’m assuming there’s fines and penalties, things like that. Maybe you could detail a little bit of that?

Lisa Kane (13:17):

Oh yeah, yeah, and there are thousands and thousands of dollars of fines. They’re not just little fines. It’s huge. As I said, $4 million, that’s how much they’ve gotten. But yeah, you get fined and you can talk to them and again, the nicer you are, the better off you are. If you’re super argumentative or if you have nothing, they’re going to be really scared. If you’re doing something that’s endangering patients or staff significantly, they’re going to shut you down. But most people aren’t doing that. Most people are doing things that… A danger is a danger, but it’s on a scale, but yeah. They could come in and people… There was an office in Massachusetts that was charged over $9,000 for some of the things I was talking about.

Lisa Kane (14:04):

So it’s a big deal and it’s not private. So once that happens, everybody knows, especially the people like me who just constantly look on the OSHA website, but it’s in the news. So that’s what’s scary too. And it’s marketing wise too. It’s going to be on… Someone’s going to write a Google review and be like, “Hey, just saw this.” So it kind of impacts everything. That’s why I keep on doing all these cliches, low-hanging fruit, ducks in a row, just do everything how you’re supposed to do it and get your office up to date and where it needs to be.

Chris Pistorius (14:45):

So maybe you could talk about that a little bit. Again, the dental hat is on and now I’m nervous because I’m thinking these guys are going to bust in my door at any second and essentially shut me down. But what can somebody do? What’s your advice, tips, tricks, whatever it might be to get your office organized and get some of this stuff ready?

Lisa Kane (15:12):

Yeah, a couple of options. I mean, obviously first you hire me to come in your office and do something. That’s the obvious solution. But there’s other people like me. So you can hire someone to come in and check your office. The other thing is too, all the boards, the state dental boards usually have some sort of checklist for an inspection. The CDC has this whole thing, oh, I actually have it. They have this, I’ll put it upright. That is a lot of what needs to be going on in your dental practice. OSHA has a whole website about it. If you really are going to get into it, if you’re going to go down all these rabbit holes and it’s going to take you days to actually find out everything. But if you really follow, those are the big ones, OSHA, the CDC, and whatever your state board tells you to do, you can follow it. And again, everything has to be personalized. So you cannot just buy a stock book and expect that you are in compliance. So you have to label, you have to put all your own personal stuff in these books.

Chris Pistorius (16:18):

Okay, and I think that’s probably good advice. So where do you see this going? Do you see more restrictions coming into place, harsher fines, them even being more, what’s the word I’m looking for? More on the lookout for these violations? Do you see this getting just them taking a little closer look at this, I guess?

Lisa Kane (16:49):

Yeah, honestly what’s interesting is there hasn’t been, except for the N95s and the respiratory protection and the not having people in your waiting room, nothing else has really changed. You were supposed to do all this stuff before, so it’s not like this is all like, “Oh my gosh, COVID now we have to do all this stuff.” This was all stuff that was supposed to be done. I do think that people now seem to be more aware that you can reach out and complain. And so I don’t think that’s going to stop. I think that if you get your office in healthy shape, I think you’re better off. I don’t know, I’m just guessing, but I don’t see this stopping because I don’t know whether people’s perspectives are, “I want to get this place in trouble,” or, “I want to try to help this place so it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” So I’m not sure. I’d like to think it was more the second one, but I don’t personally feel like that’s going to go away anytime soon.

Chris Pistorius (17:52):

So if a practice wanted to talk to you or hire you or anybody like yourself, what is that typical process once they reach out? How does that all work in the COVID world now?

Lisa Kane (18:05):

Yeah, well a lot of things are… This Zoom thing is amazing. You can really do a lot. So what I do when I do classes, they’re all like this now because I don’t want to have everyone in the same room, but walkthroughs. I’m assuming everybody does it this way, but you can just take… I’ve had people just walk around their office with their camera facing the other way. And I have a whole list of things that I ask and they just show it to me. And I feel like I can get a really good sense of how they are. If they’re in Massachusetts, most of the times I will go out there because I wear an N95. I feel pretty safe doing that. So I’ll do that. But you can definitely, there’s a lot of virtual things you can do. And I feel like having someone do a walkthrough is a really good first step. Whether or not you use them to do your plans and protocols to do anything for you, just to get a really good sense of the health of your practice.

Chris Pistorius (18:58):

Right, okay. And Dr. Kane, if somebody sees this and they do want your help, what’s the best way to reach out to you and start that process?

Lisa Kane (19:08):

Yeah, they can go to my website. It’s doc4ne.com, or it’s lisa@doc3ne. So it’s D-O-C, the number four, and then N-E for New England .com. And they can just reach out.

Chris Pistorius (19:23):

Awesome, well Dr. Kane, I got to tell you, thank you so much for joining today. I know how busy you are, and I guarantee there’s a lot of people that are going to watch this or listen to this and it will open their eyes a little bit and it’ll be partly, “Oh man, something else I’ve got to worry about,” but I think it’ll also be a lot of you’ll be able to sleep a lot better at night once you have this stuff in place. So thanks so much for your time. And maybe we could have you back in a few months and just maybe do an update and see where we’re headed then.

Lisa Kane (19:55):

That’s great, thank you so much. This was great.

Chris Pistorius (19:56):

Okay. Well thank you. Thank you, Dr. Kane, and thanks to everybody for listening to this segment. Make sure you check out our next cast, which will be on in a week from today. So thanks again. And we’ll talk to you all very soon.

Chris (00:05):

Hi everybody. This is Chris Pistorius, again, with the Dental Marketing Podcast. Today, we’ve got a great interview. A true dental professional. We have Marie Sessions and she is with Dental Specialty Associates. They’re in Arizona. They have a few locations, actually, and they’re actually a great client of ours, as well. Marie, thanks so much for being on the program today.

Marie (00:31):

No problem, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Chris (00:33):

Sure. And you’re the… What’s your title? And just tell us a little bit about… about your practices and what you guys do.

Marie (00:40):

So, my official title is Regional Manager of our company but, I pretty much do everything from changing light bulbs to answering the phone, whatever the office needs on a day-to-day basis. But we have two specialty offices, Dental Specialty Associates, and my owners also own two general dental locations called Imagine Dental throughout the Valley. And so, I oversee and manage all four locations.

Chris (01:10):

Awesome. And how long have you been with Dental Specialty?

Marie (01:13):

I’ve been with them for about eight years and we’ve been opened for about 13. So, I’ve been here for a while.

Chris (01:22):

That’s great. And you got to be enjoying the Arizona weather when you can, right?

Marie (01:26):

Yes, absolutely. It’s nice today because it’s a bit rainy, which it hasn’t been in quite some time, but yes, we love the sunshine here.

Chris (01:33):

Yeah, absolutely. So, tell me why, what intrigued you in this position with Dental Specialty? I mean, when you have multiple locations, as many of our listeners probably do, you’ve got to stay busy, right? So, what are some tips and tricks for you in managing multiple locations?

Marie (01:53):

So, I think one thing that makes our practice unique is we’re very inclusive of everybody, everyone’s needs. A lot of doctors and offices don’t take insurances because insurances are super difficult to deal with, but they’re also a great referral source. Everybody works for somebody that has dental insurance through their employer or whatever the case may be, and we accept every insurance. So, whether it’s a state plan, discount plan, HMO, PPO, which, I’m sure, some people would be like that, is absolutely crazy. But long-term, we get a ton of patients that are able to see and maintain it, a really high volume of new patients because of it.

Chris (02:42):

Yeah. That’s interesting. I think that’s a great look at it and it’s, definitely, a way different business model, if you will than other’s approach. We’ve done these interviews and we have clients that are strictly fee for service and that worked well for them, right? But there are also other, other avenues to look at when, especially, if you’re starting a practice, right? And you’re trying to plan out like, “All right, in five years, we want to be here. In 10 years, we want to be here.” There is a happy medium, and then there’s a kind of take a lot of insurances and you’re reaping the benefits of that now, it sounds like.

Marie (03:22):

Yeah, we are. And I think if you do it long enough and you’re doing it right, it doesn’t have to run the office, you can kind of run it and allow it to build your practice in a positive way and not let it overturn your schedules and be running around like a chicken with your head cut-off if you’re doing it effectively. So, it’s benefiting the practice, you’re able to maintain a high volume, but you’re not running around like crazy people for no money, which, I don’t think there’s anybody who wants to be doing that. So, we’ve been able to kind of make it effective and feasible, and profitable for all of us.

Chris (04:03):

Yeah. So it sounds like, even though you do accept a lot of insurances, you understand that that, you control it so that, you’re not just filling up a schedule to fill it up. You actually… You need to make some money too, right?

Marie (04:16):

Yeah, exactly. So, we work hard at training the front and, realizing that there’s still a number to be met. It’s not… I have to often tell the staff and the girls, “We’re still a business.” We love to help everybody. And I have a great staff with very big hearts, but we still got to pay everybody. So, there’s, definitely, a bottom line. And I think having specialty within the office, definitely helps with that because a lot of specialty procedures are covered. So, you’re coming here and you might be seen in hygiene, and but then as soon as you have a tooth problem or need an implant, we’re also here and are able to accommodate that. So, those services that aren’t covered by insurance, we have the opportunity to expand on with all of our patients, as well.

Chris (05:04):

Yeah. That’s awesome. And I know you’ve been there a majority of the time since they’ve been opened, but do you know, do you have a little history on the practice? And I’m assuming they started with one practice and kind of figured out how to go about it or did they kind of have this plan from day one?

Marie (05:22):

No, we started with one. So, my owners, Dr. Lillian and Dr. Berger met. They had both worked at Southwest Dental Group, which in Arizona is kind of a big multi-location, Aspen Dental-type place if you will. They had all services in one location and, both, my owners worked for that practice. So, they met each other, became friends, and decided that it was a good business model that worked well, but there were some things wrong with it. The personability, it’s very much not learning anybody’s name, not very personable, not that connection that you want to build when you’re building a private practice. So, they decided to start their own and here we are with Dental Specialty Associates. So, we’re trying to be premier specialty implant doctors in Arizona and kind of having all those services in one place to make it easy for a patient to complete the process.

Marie (06:21):

So, you don’t have to go to a bunch of specialists to see, you can just come to us and we can take care of you from start to finish. It’s the same people, the same doctors. It’s really personable, for as many patients as we see, we try really hard to know everyone’s name and, “Hi, how are you?” So, you don’t get that sterile, “I’m here for the first time. I’m never going to come back,” feeling that you sometimes get at a specialty office when you’re just going to go in there for one thing. So-

Chris (06:51):

Yeah, that’s great. I mean, I think that’s a great story and, obviously, it’s been successful for you guys. And I think a lot of people listening or watching today can really get a lot of feedback from that. Especially, the folks that are maybe thinking about going out on their own, or maybe they’re to start a school, thinking about starting a practice, this type of experience you just can’t buy, right?

Marie (07:13):

No, you really can’t. And there’s something to be said, both my owners have been doing it long enough. They have years and years of experience and they complement each other really well. I think that there’s… Part of this specialty experience is being lost a little bit in so many private practices because they want to keep everything in-house. So, they don’t want to lose anything to a specialist referral. They’re trying to place implants themselves or have someone come in to do Endo or all of those things. And I think, there’s something to be said for allowing each person to do what they’re good at. And so, being able to refer to an oral surgeon for oral surgery procedures, and it’s still being in the same place, they’re not losing anything. Productivity-wise, it’s really nice for the patient because they’re being taken care of really, really well. And the standards are being maintained across the board.

Chris (08:10):

Right. That’s awesome. And I think that’s a great way to a great strategy to go about it. Let me ask you… I’m sure every practice is a little different in your organization, but I always talk to people in the marketing side of things. And we, obviously, are doing that with you now in terms of… Let’s figure out who’s our ideal patient, right? Who is it that we want to come in? Because, typically if you can do that, and it doesn’t have to be just one type, like in your situation, there could be multiple. But the better we can drill into, who is it that you want to bring into the practice, it makes marketing, your practice, so much easier because you can target those specific things and qualities. So, whom would you say is the ideal patient for you guys?

Marie (08:57):

Yeah. Well, like you said, I think we definitely do have two very different sides of the practice in attracting multiple areas. So, we have the single families with young kids who need to come in and have basic hygiene maintained but are also going to have dental issues all throughout life. Whether, it be crowns and wisdom teeth, and just basic necessities that are the bread and butter of your practice, and those are patients that we want all the time, anytime. Welcoming new families and… Great.

Marie (09:33):

That’s one part of it. I think another part of it is an ideal patient is knowing that they’re coming to the right place, feeling confident in who they’ve been referred to, and knowing that they’re going to get the best treatment possible. And of course, wanting to say yes, as soon as you present them with whatever they need. Yes to the implants, making it easy and seamless and just being decisive and knowing that their dental health is a priority. Educated in terms of rehab research, that they need an implant or on for, or whatever the case may be. And coming in with that knowledge base of, “I know what it is. I know what I want. I don’t want to be in dentures. I want implant retained dentures.” And knowing that they’re going to get it at the best quality with the best doctors here.

Chris (10:25):

Yeah, that’s awesome. And I think, you’ve really already, kind of, said this in a summary, but if you had a sentence or two to, kind of, talk about your unique selling proposition. We all know that dental is extremely competitive for dentistry, private practice, wherever it may be. But why should somebody come to visit one of your locations versus maybe the 50 others around it?

Marie (10:51):

For sure. I think that the decades of experience from the providers, mixed with the personable feeling that you’re not going to get at any corporate facility. Knowing that you’re going to have the best doctors with the best services and the best equipment, all in one place while still feeling like we care is you can’t beat that. Especially, in, let’s say, like the healthcare field where it’s all insurance-based. You see a nurse practitioner, you don’t get to see a doctor, spend any time with them, or anything like that. You’re coming to a place where quality and care are the top priority. And I think, there’s a lot to be said for that in the kind of corporate-dentistry-hamster-wheel that gets put out there a lot, because they’re able to afford to wash out the little guy. So, we’re competing with them and doing it well and you’re still going to get high quality because the owners are doing it.

Chris (11:56):

Right. I think that’s awesome. Dentistry, I think can be very… I almost said trendy, but a very innovative, new technologies, the new services that a general dentist can offer. What do you see in the horizon in terms of dentistry? I mean, is there a new technology out there that you’ve heard of, or you guys are looking at or any type of services?

Marie (12:21):

Yeah. I mean… Yeah, just as something as easy as digital scans with crowns and taking out impression material, nobody likes to have goop shoved in their mouth for anything. Much less, whether it be a crown, or a night guard, or a denture, even if we have digital 3D scanners in our office that scan everything. So, I think there’s definitely in terms of fabrication and digital technology on the horizon for dentistry. I think that’s going to be a big game-changer for a lot of offices because your quality inadvertently is going to go up. On the implant side, I think it’s limitless there. There’s so much new technology out there. Every time you turn around, there’s something new going on with the implant side of things that’s really inspiring because nobody wants to be in dentures and spores. You and I do know that when we go to lose all of our teeth, that we’re going to have an option that isn’t sitting on the counter-top is going to be awesome.

Chris (13:37):

Yeah. I got to tell you, my dad had dentures at a pretty, fairly, early age and there’re some images there I just can’t get rid of. So-

Marie (13:45):

Yeah, I know and I never want to be that. It’s never going to be a good look for anybody, and to know that that it’s come such a long way already and where it’s going in terms of placement and all of that good stuff. I think that it’s super, super exciting.

Chris (14:02):

Yeah. Absolutely. So, let’s say that there’s somebody out there in your position, has been in dentistry and they’re thinking about getting into management whether it’s one office or it’s multiple locations. What would you say to them right now? And tips, advice like run for the hills or embrace it-

Marie (14:19):

No, I mean, run for the hills. I’m sure somebody might say that. I love what I do, and I’m super passionate about my patients and the practice and it excites me. It’s hard to sleep on Sunday nights because Monday I’m like, “Oh, we get to do this and we’re going to do that.” And it’s just I love it. So, I would say that if you don’t love it, don’t do it. Because it’s a really hard thing to, kind of, have been in it. It’ll wear you out, but if your heart’s in it and this is what you wanted to do then, definitely, I would say that it’s the best thing ever. And don’t get hung up on it in a title. I would say that part of managing is doing everything. And, honestly, the days that I have someone call out and have to answer the phone and get to talk to 20 people are still fun for me. I don’t see that as a sort of thing. I see it as, “Great. I got to interact with all my new patients.” So-

Chris (15:20):

It keeps your skills up to date too, right?

Marie (15:24):

It does. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, I would say, just be passionate about it and if you have that passion for it, go for it.

Chris (15:31):

I’ve got a question for you. I’ve been getting a lot of feedback, especially, in the last few months. And I assume there’s some COVID-related stuff with that, too. But even single practices are having this issue of staffing. We’re seeing a lot of turnover going on in the industry. Can’t keep people, can’t find qualified people. There are different strategies. Do you bring in somebody with dental experience or you bring somebody that you can, kind of, train and mold the way you want them? What’s your advice on hiring and firing and training? What’s been successful?

Marie (16:05):

This is, honestly, as a manager, anybody going into it, one of the hardest parts of my job because it’s so out of my control, right? Obviously, everything else I can either do myself this, I can’t control any of this. And it is really difficult because you don’t want to have a high turnover, but you don’t want to keep bad people. You’re not going to really know anyone, what they can do until they’re there. So, I’ve just gotten, kind of, it to the point where I lay our philosophy out in the interview. This is what we do. This is who we are. We’d love to have you be a part of that. And sometimes people come in and it’s just not a good fit. And I’ve learned that if it’s not a good fit to just let it go. Because you end up losing more in the long run on your phones, and your schedules, and all of those things that I’m not around to see all the time then it is worth the retention.

Marie (17:05):

And then in terms of finding people, I mean, I go back and forth. There are some times where it’s yes, we need the experience because we just don’t have as much time to train. And then there’re times like right now I’m having the hardest time finding a good front office, people that we’re in line at Chick-fil-A and I’m like, “Well, that girl can hustle.” And I bet you look at her and talking to all those people and she’s smiling while she’s doing it. Maybe she should come work for us-

Chris (17:34):

That can’t be taught. That’s a personality trait.

Marie (17:40):

Exactly. And so, I learned that the things you can’t teach… We can teach anybody about teeth. We all learned it. You can watch videos. I can teach you what a crown is. The doctors will… I’ll show you along the way. I can’t teach someone how to be nice. And to give you that thing through the phone that makes you want to schedule, that’s a total, like you said, personality thing. And if you find it, whether it be at a store or a restaurant, just at this point, I’m hiring him, like, “What do you want? Come work for us.” Because that’s stuff, that’s going to keep new patients coming in.

Chris (18:17):

Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s a great tip there at the end. So I’m going to wrap it up here in just a question or two but… I know you’re not the owner of the practices, but where do you see Dental Specialty Associates in the next five years? Are you guys… Do you think you’ll grow? Do you think you’ll just get better or both?

Marie (18:36):

Absolutely. I think the growth is, kind of, limitless right now. Especially, with the state of everything, and with you guys helping us achieve our goals and new patient-wise. I think the goal for the next five years would be to be the premier implant doctors in Arizona, placing dentures all on fours, all of that good stuff that whenever that conversation is had around the Valley, it’s our name is in the mix with it. We’re right up there with ClearChoice and all of those places. It’s, “No, you want to go to Dental Specialty Associates, these doctors know what they’re doing.” So, I think the next five years, that would be our goal, is to just kind of be taking over that part of the market here in the Valley.

Chris (19:24):

That’s awesome. Well, you just said, I think we might splice out of this and use it for like a TV commercial or something for you guys. That was like, spot on. That was great.

Marie (19:33):

Whatever you want to use [crosstalk 00:19:35].

Chris (19:36):

Awesome. Well, Marie, I really appreciate your time.

Marie (19:39):

No problem. Thank you so much for having me.

Chris (19:41):

Yeah. And maybe we’ll check back in with you guys in the next few months and just see how you’re doing and maybe do a little bit of a follow-up.

Marie (19:49):

Yeah, absolutely. Just let me know. I’m always around Chris. Have a great day.

Chris (19:53):

Awesome. Thanks again.

Marie (19:54):

Bye.

Chris (19:55):

All right. Everybody thanks this has been another episode of the Dental Marketing Podcast. I hope you got some great information from Marie about their situation and be sure to tune in to our next episode. Thanks again.