hey it's Dr Amanda with straight smile Solutions straight smile solutions.com and today we're going
to talk about just the workflow that we do in our offices to try to capture Ortho records on every
single patient in your office and if you are a GPU or a pediatric dentist you've got a gold mine like
they're there you just might not know that they're there and the biggest mistake you guys make is you
guys ask like I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with consent but there's nothing invasive about
taking photos as a matter of fact taking photos are a good scan like a five scan right tarot
which basically is photos is standard of care just for dentistry in general there's so many
General dentists that are taking photos clinical photos on every patient and not doing work though
so I like to go back if the patients say why especially if they're a new patient or their
patient's been there for a while just say hey we might do things a little bit differently today you
know at our normal appointment you know every six months we every six to 12 months we take um we do
our perio probing we do an oral cancer check we do a you know carries exam and oral health exam
you know et cetera et cetera in addition now we also have gone kind of digital so we're taking
digital pictures or we're taking a digital scan of your teeth it's a great way for us to capture
um what your teeth and your bite look like in real time um great record keeping great way for us to
study your bite you know and keep an eye on things just to document you say I like that and then say
you know added bonus I really take the health of your mouth and your bite seriously you can say I'm
saying it terribly it's like six in the morning but you know it's really important to me that
you have a really healthy bite I'm going to take a little time Mrs so-and-so outside my office hours
today later tonight I'm gonna study your bite and I'm going to let you know if there's anything that
I see that I'm concerned about how would you like me to communicate that to you you know I can have
Julie at the front desk give you a call next week you can if you're concerned we can even
schedule a virtual appointment um for me or you know so-and-so to go over it with you or you can
just expect a call you know from us to discuss it if we have any concerns and usually they're
going to be like yeah that's so awesome that Dr so-and-so is doing that for me wow that's really
great yeah thank you so much you know and then you go ahead take a few minutes and if you're working
with orthodontic consultant this is where you can Bank these records and go over every week or two
um or a lot of orthodontic Consultants like myself there's a lot of us out there we'll have
a portal where you can drop records in and get feedback you know what do you think about this
case what would it need to make it right what are the concerns here and I like to not I don't
I like to do a smile questionnaire too whether you do it verbally within us um an assistant ahead of
time or you give them a written one or you say you know what do you like about your teeth what
do you not like about your teeth what are your concerns about your teeth that's great and find
out what makes this patient tick there are usually a couple different batches of patience you've got
the patients that are very aesthetically focused they're going to come in right off the bat and say
I don't like number nine the edge here I don't like how this tooth is longer than this tooth I
don't know how this tooth turns in well this tells you they're aesthetically focused so you could
definitely bring these things up they might be like I'm totally thrilled with my teeth there's no
problems that's great well then you know they're probably functionally focused and that's where if
you see things when you're studying the bite later like um well not only periodontal disease that's
of course a concern but attrition at fraction things like that you can go ahead and let them
know now I'm going to be creating a form this kind of started something I had one of these like a
long time ago Invisalign used to make us one that just had checkboxes but it didn't have pictures
I'm going to be making a form and a template where y'all can make your own put your own
pictures in you'll have an example of what ours looks like and you can see check boxes of what the
conditions the patient has patient has attrition patient has infractions patient has crowding
patient has spacing patient has overjet patient has overbite and you can check the concerns and
then explain to the patient what the implications are with these different conditions over time and
how this is going to affect the longevity of their bite I like to always say that I want you guys to
keep your bite your teeth for a lifetime and as teeth shift over time and things change things
become unbalanced and it starts to be breakdown in either the tooth structure or in the gums or
the health of the gums and we don't want that we want you to be 95 and have all your teeth
because it's going to be a lot more expensive for you to replace a tooth that breaks down and you
can even say the price for Implant bone grafting implant restoration then to just get the bite a
little more balanced right now that's all you say there's no Hard Sell it's just education they can
say thanks no thanks I'm not interested I'll think about it that's fantastic thanks I just
wanted to let you know that's all you say you document that you had that conversation that's
also huge risk management for you to document it give them something to go home with if you're able
to do this as you get your skill sets up you'll be able to do this chair side and you'll be able
to do this as you go you won't have to talk to an orthodontist later and understand it you'll you'll
get it you know check check and quite often a month to six months later they're gonna say
Hey you know doc you mentioned that maybe I could have some Invisalign or some braces or some clear
correct to go ahead and straighten this can we look into this or I have my FSA or it looks like
I have some coverage you know let's let's go ahead and maybe get this started you'll be surprised if
you do it this way how many people are going to say yes maybe not on the first time but six months
later or 12 months later and you're going to start to create a database and this is what I want you
to do of potential starts people who could benefit from Ortho now some of these people might be too
hard and you might choose to refer these out and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that you
should refer them out I know it's not production for you but it's the right thing to do and they
will appreciate it and matter of fact I really think as a GP or pediatric dentist you should
always say I'm not an orthodontist although I do have a lot of training in orthodontists just
like a family doctor that can deliver babies or do stitches I can also do Orthodontics I
take you know mild to moderate cases this are the harder ones I'll referral but we can definitely do
this in-house our price is going to be forty five hundred five thousand dollars less your insurance
um here's what it includes and make sure you have that paper as to what it includes or I can refer
you off to Dr so-and-so down the street and he can let you know what his treatment plan
will be and what his prices will be either way my important thing to me is that you get your oral
health improved you know so that you can have your teeth for a lifetime if you make it like
that and don't make it salesy you'd be surprised how many cases you will start in a year it's going
to be insane it is going to blow your mind and once you have a few done and then you know you
start putting those on social media start finish get your releases you're gonna it's gonna snowball
to the point where I see this happening with doctors I've worked with for three four five
six going on seven years now you know they don't really need me but they still keep me on retainer
but they have so much Ortho that they're having to hire other dentists to handle their Ortho it is
easily bringing in six figures seven figures into their practice if they have a big enough practice
okay in additional Revenue it and and it actually new patients are coming in just for this and then
that grows their general practice now they have enough money to buy a second practice this happens
all the time I see this happening and why does it happen it's worth though so it's very doable and
the cool thing is is that if you're sticking with removables be it phase one removable functional
appliances Invisalign clear correct white label clear aligners and not braces which is totally
doable you can do everything with clear and everything was removable if you wanted to um the
cool thing is you really don't need train staff like it takes a while to get trained up to do
braces but it's not hard to do anything removable so you just have your regular staff doing it you
don't have to invest in you know additional staff the overhead is no there's nothing all you're
using is a little composite you already have it in your office there's nothing special you need
to do besides having a scanner and of course I do recommend an itero because there's a lot more
um Variety in terms of what type of cases you can do and there's a lot of workloads to keep
that price low so you should definitely check it out I think the value is there I don't have any
office that has invested in an edit hero that hasn't done this workflow you have to do this
workflow of course that hasn't paid it off in less than a year like it's always become profitable now
if you just let it collect dust in the corner and you're not using it the way I'm telling you
to yeah you're going to lose money on it but no I don't know anyone that's regretted their itero
practice that is itero purchase who's done what I'm doing so anyways that's pretty much it I hope
that you'll consider this for 2023 it's really going to grow your practice all right take care