Powerhouse Hygienists with Wendy Briggs of The Team Training Institute

Our vision really is, should be to give patients the very best care they can receive. You know, they deserve the very best we can give them. And in my mind, in today's world, that's so much more than, you know, just keeping the teeth clean.

This is Growth in Dentistry, a Dental Intelligence podcast, where we ask the question, what does growth in dentistry mean to you? I'm Steve Jensen, a data dental nerd and your host. Welcome, everyone back to another episode of the Growth and Dentistry podcast. Very excited for today's episode. This is. We're going to talk hygiene today, and I'll introduce the guests in a second. But it is, in my opinion, the absolute expert on all things hygiene in dentistry. Met her years ago, and I just don't think there's anyone better. Now, before I tell you who it is, a quick shout out to the marketing team at Dental Intelligence. They sponsor this podcast and produce it week after week after week. And there's a lot of work that goes in, but behind the scenes that folks don't see, with a podcast so huge out to them, they are offering for all listeners a $50 gift card just for taking a demo of Dental Intelligence. So you can come check out the analytics side if you're like, hey, I want to see how my brightness is performing, or if you're like, hey, my team is strapped. I need some automation. I want to start automating forms, going out and populating back into Dentrix Eaglesoft Open Dental. They can definitely show you how that works. So once again, it's a $50 gift card just for taking a demo of Dental Intelligence. Okay. With that out of the way, I want to introduce Wendy Briggs. Wendy, as you would expect, is an rdh. She's a hygienist by trade and has turned into the industry's best hygiene coach. And I think I would say that Wende's even beyond a coach. She's like the industry's best expert on hygiene. She's so aware of what's going on in each state. What are the trends in hygiene? What kind of hygienists do what's happening with assistance? Kind of, it seems like, Wendy, each role is kind of like pushing their way up this clinical ladder. Like, assistants are starting to do more in some states, hygienists are starting to do more, moving into kind of some of the things that doctors traditionally would use to do. And I'm just excited to talk with Wende and get a pulse on hygiene today. So, Wendy, welcome to the podcast. It's great to see You. Oh, also, I'll just mention Wendy also helps run a podcast, don't you, with Dr. Meese?

We do. We have our own W production podcast as well. So it's a great listen about all things practice, profitability and growth.

So I'll throw a link to that in the show notes as well. If you guys want to go and get more content from Wendy and Dr. Mees. They are brilliant. I have learned so much from them over the years, so definitely go and check that out as well. Okay, Wendy, tell me what you're seeing in hygiene right now. It's kind of, it's an interesting time in dentistry where everything is costing more. Obviously, you know, at the time we're recording tariffs is a big conversation, you know, so people, I've been in dental threads on, you know, Facebook groups that are like, hey, like this thing might get more expensive, so go buy it cheaper while you can. And I think, I think that costs are like a, a really common consideration right now because our reinsurance reimbursements aren't getting better. But that's not the only thing that's getting more expensive. So let's talk hygiene. I'm going to shut my mouth and let you give us some updates. What are you guys seeing in the hygiene side of dental practices these days?

Well, yeah, thanks so much, Steve, and thanks for your kind introduction. Really, really kind of you to say those things. It's certainly not ever been my intention to be like the hygiene guru, but certainly we absolutely love being able to help add value in practices and help them overcome some of these really tough challenges that we're seeing. And I've been doing this a long time, as you mentioned, and our friends at Dental intel have really helped us have more transparency and be able to more visibility into what's actually happening in a practice. On the hygiene side, the provider pulse and some of the resources and tools that you all have created for dentistry has changed the game. And I think in some ways practices that are aware of and utilizing those tools have, have a distinct advantage given our current climate. So you mentioned costs are up, worries are up, you know, wages are up significantly. And that's really driven high level, higher level conversations for many dental practices and practice owners and dentists and hygienists, frankly, about how to overcome those challenges. You know, we have the ADA Health Policy Institute says that dental hygiene salaries alone are up 28% over the last two years. And that's creating quite a squeeze, right? Because as you mentioned before, insurance companies aren't raising their reimbursement rates to allow for these increased costs. You know, I go for example, to a nail salon and they just put a sign up saying, hey, our, our equipment, our supplies are more expensive. So prices, fees are going to increase, you know, but we don't have those same, I guess, opportunities on the dental side. And some might say that's a good thing because it's already expensive for patients already. And we're already seeing, you know, the number of visits patients are, are having every year decline. The amount of money patients are spending is declining because they're worried too. Right. So all of these challenges, all these obstacles can create almost like a tinder box that's ready to explode. And we're seeing some, you know, micro bursts here and there. You know, we're seeing some explosions in certain areas of the country. And certainly the relationship between doctors and hygienists is in my mind at a, almost like a toxic place. So a lot of what we're hearing online is, you know, an us versus them mentality. And our approach has long been, hey, how can we elevate everyone on the team? We want everyone to have an opportunity to earn a bigger future. And we often say things like, you know, all ships rise when, you know, we elevate the water. Right. So our goal really should be how do we maximize our, our providers, how do we elevate the team, how do we work as a stronger partnership, doctors and hygienists, our professions, you know, how can we align our vision and our goal in a better way, in a better, with a better process than what currently is happening Now I seems to me that the ADA and the ADHA are at odds. And, and I know that's probably not the reality, but that's the perception of what's happening in the marketplace. And so what we see often is a lot of stress bubbling up and impacting day to day operations in the practice.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, my wife's, my wife's a hygienist and she has been practicing for a couple years, but she's starting to hear her friends talk about just how much hygienists are getting paid and she's like, hey, maybe I'll go, you know, once the kids are both, I guess now we're three. But once they're all in school full time, maybe I'll start, you know, dabbling again. And you know, I think it's pretty normal. If there's ever a situation where you're looking at, you know, what is a team member Producing, what are they creating in terms of revenue? And if I don't have like a clear path where they're like, profitable, you know, like, you know, you hate to look at labor this way, but it's kind of how businesses work. Businesses are looking for like a 30% profit margin on their cost of goods sold, so to speak. So, you know, they're looking at departments and seeing me like, ah, like my hygienist is kind of breaking even here on the codes that she can produce, then that's a tough situation to be in. And of course it's going to be difficult conversations. So I think one of the things that I love that you do, Wendy, is you also help hygienists understand some elements of the business side of dentistry. How can you view your role and how can you view your compensation in less? Because I think a lot of hygienists kind of just view it as a job. You know, hey, I get paid an hourly wage to come and do, you know, just traditional hygiene. I'm going to come and I'm going to scale, you know, these patients and that's it, you know. And I like the way that you think about the hygiene part of the business. So can you share a little bit with the audience for those that don't know you kind of your approach to working with hygiene teams, working with hygienists and kind of your strategy for helping them elevate, I mean, not just themselves but also their career. I think, like, you help bring a new level of confidence and excitement to hygienist careers that you just don't see every day.

Yeah, we're really proud of our efforts in that area too, Steve, because one of the things that we've always tried to do is be a mentor and a help to hygienists and their doctors. And I think you. You nailed it. There's so many providers out there, good providers, that really want the best thing for the patient, that don't have clarity on the bigger picture, whether that's their individual practice or whether that's their practice that's participating as part of a larger group. I see often the breakdown occurs when we don't really understand the purpose, our own purpose. It goes beyond cleaning teeth. You know, we should be so much more than the cleaning crew, but too often that's what we relegate ourselves to be, maybe because of the culture of where we are or maybe because that's all we've known. And in reality it's, it's such a disservice to patients and the practice really alike. When we don't have clarity on the overall vision and mission of the practice, our vision really should be to give patients the very best care they can receive. They deserve the very best we can give them. And in my mind, in today's world, that's so much more than just keeping the teeth clean. But so many practices don't elevate or have systematic processes or don't really allow hygienists to really step into their own as providers. And that's what we try to help them do. So we, we try to help the practice and the providers and the patients all understand what a world class dental experience should look like in today's world. And it's radically different than it was even five to 10 years ago. And that's where I think you hear some of the chatter of people feeling like they've stepped into a larger purpose and they really enjoy their profession. They're re engaged, they're re energized, and that's what we need right now in dentistry. So for me, you know, we, we strive to paint a bigger picture, a bigger vision of what dental hygiene and dentistry as a whole can be in the lives of their patients and the lives of their community. And we do that by leading with the science. Right. We'll look first at what's the status of caries in our world and it's not good. Right? Even though we've had a focus on preventive therapy for a long time, we haven't made a significant amount of progress here. In fact, I would say in recent months we've taken a huge step back because you've got all these headlines of RFK and our, you know, my own state of Utah took fluoride out of the, the community drinking water. And we could have a whole nother debate on that alone. But the impact of that is more negative connotation. With dentistry and fluoride, do we really need it? Do we really not? Is it really a neurotoxin? How do we overcome that? You know, all of those things boil down to are we stepping into our own and maximizing our role as hygiene providers? So one of the things that we do as we help dentists and hygienists understand that in order to really provide world class care to patients, we need to maximize three critical roles of hygiene. One is a preventive therapist, another role is a periodontal therapist. And the third critical role, I think in many ways the most critical that gets the least amount of attention is the role of a patient treatment advocate. And that really is all about how the doctor, the hygienist, can partner together to elevate acceptance for care that patients desperately need. So in, in your world, we look at those numbers like diagnostic percentages, acceptance percentages, case averages, you know, those are things that actually tell us how we're doing in that department and in many practices. It's just not something we focus on or work on very, very much so Those three roles really help hygienists understand not only what they can do, but why they should do it. And then what we do is we bridge the gap and step in and help them see how to do it consistently at a high. And certainly, you know, that approach has, has helped us communicate differently. With hygienists. We get a very high level of buy in because it is really about doing the best thing for the patient. And too often, as you mentioned, there can be a disconnect. You know, hygienists really don't understand much about the business side. And frankly, sometimes the doctors, the practice owners don't want to bring us into that loop simply because of fear or outdated thinking. I don't know really what drives that, but in reality we need to know, we need to know those things. Otherwise I think it widens the divide between us. Let me share with you a post that I just saw the other day, Steve is an example of this on a hygiene social media group. I'm a moderator on a lot of these, these groups just to kind of keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening. And I can tell you that one of the comments was, you know, my doctor wants to charge to clean a patient's partial denture or another one same day was my doctor wants to charge, you know, $39 for fluoride. I think that's highway robbery. The fluoride cost us a dollar. So these are the comments going on on the hygiene side. But similar posts, you know, also talk about how we deserve to be paid at the top tier. We deserve all of these things. We deserve, you know, these increases and all those things. And I don't disagree. I think everyone should have the opportunity to earn a bigger future. But the distinction is there's such a separation, you know, we can't say, well that's highway robbery. We should never charge patients to clean their, their partial or denture include costs, nothing but time. But we all want to be compensated for our time, right? Or the fluoride varnish only cost a dollar. Well, actually no because it costs, you know, a lot more to keep the practice open and to keep our, our well qualified, our highly qualified team paid fairly. And the benefits that some people complain that we don't have, well, if we have them, we actually have to generate revenue for the practice in order to continue to have those things. Right. So there is this disconnect. That's unfortunate because I think too often then we hear comments like, oh, these dentists are greedy, or, you know, it's all about the money. That's a money grab. And I completely disagree. What I see is practices are trying to do their best for their patients, they're trying to do their best for their teams, they're trying to stay alive, stay open, stay profitable. And in today's world, because of all these challenges that we've seen, it's really difficult. So, you know, I've gone on and on here, but I guess if I had to summarize, I would say, you know, when we're really focusing on doing what's best for the patients, the nice thing is you can have it both ways. You can provide world class patient care and be profitable and productive. And I think we need to just leave the outdated paradigm of if I'm worried about my own personal productivity, I'm the wrong kind of a provider or I don't care about patients. It's not true. You can do both, and you can do both very, very well. And in fact, I would argue that if you are focused on patient care, you should want to know what you're contributing to the practice, because that is, in dentistry, how we measure how well we're caring for our patients. The production will tell the story at the end of the day, and we don't do it for the money, but the production tells the story of how well we're taking care of the patients that we serve.

Yeah, I agree with that. And another thing, as I was listening to you talk, I think that's, you mentioned some comments that hygienists are making concerns over fees. I think that's a pretty common concern. It's one that my wife and I talked about pretty early on as she was like, getting into hygiene. And then myself as, as I transitioned, you know, more into sales, revenue roles where sometimes you might have this fear, like, oh, the person on the other side, I don't know if they're going to see the value in this. And one of the things that I think is really important, especially in health care, is I think it's really important for a clinician to make Sure. A patient always knows the best possible options for, for their own health. So even if those are expensive or you think they're expensive, I think it's so important that everyone always knows, hey, here is the optimum path we could take. And I like the three buckets that you talked about for hygiene teams. Cause it gives us kind of three areas to be curious about as whether it's a dentist that's listening or a hygienist that's listening. You know, you said, okay, we have this preventative therapist element, we have this periodontal therapist element. And then we have this kind of co clinician co presentation responsibility as a hygienist with our dentists. So maybe let's kind of dive into those each and maybe give some examples on that last one. I'll start with the last one first. So this co presenting habit, just for listeners, if you've never thought about this concept before, one of the things that we track in dental intelligence is we can look and see, you know, for each dentist what is their diagnostic habit depending on which hygienist they present with. So I can see doctor by themselves, doctors doing limited exams. Great. I can see what they diagnose on limited exam and that's typically higher. Right. Because they're coming in with pain. So it's normal to see doctor by themselves diagnosed higher. But what's interesting is it's very common when we jump in and say, okay, when a doctor goes into this hygiene op with this hygienist versus this hygiene op with this other hygienist, what's very interesting to see is there's quite a bit a surprising, I hate to say alarming, but maybe it's alarming amount of variability in their diagnostic rates as well as their case acceptance rate. A hygienist clearly has an impact, kind of that upward impact can have an upward impact on the doctor, what they actually are diagnosing and how often they are. And then also on that kind of the, that that other end of the spectrum impact towards the patient and the patient's desire to say yes. And one of the things that Wendy and team are so good at doing is helping improve the impact of hygienists. So in fact this last week I just was with the dentist, Dr. Joseph, who I was doing a presentation with. There were about 60 doctors in the room and we pulled up his, him and his hygienist relationship. His diagnostic rate was actually perfect. Perfect in the sense that it was like the same with the two full time hygienists that he works with. It's kind of what you would hope for, I think, as a dentist. Like, okay, cool. Like my relationship with these two individual employees is not changing my diagnostic habits. So that was really cool to see because it's rare, but it's very cool to see. But then here's what's crazy is when we got to the actual dollars of dentistry that we're getting done is treatment dollar case acceptance. There was a 6% difference in Q1 of this year, which for him was $24,000 of dentistry. That didn't happen. If his lower performing hygienist was performing at the same level as Natalia, the other one, then that would have been $24,000 more in work that actually got completed just from case acceptance. So it has a huge impact on the business as a whole if a hygienist can really level up. So can you, Wendy, talk through kind of a little bit about how you think about that relationship between hygiene and the doctors?

Yeah, and you're exactly right, Steve. That's exactly what we see. Right. We often hear from doctors, you know, they'll reach out in a panic, like, oh my gosh, my. My longtime hygienist of eight years is leaving. I don't know how I'm ever going to survive without. Without this provider. We're in sync, we're aligned. She knows what I'm going to say for treatment before I even have to say it. You know, all of those things tell us how important we feel these providers get. Well, it doesn't take. It shouldn't take us eight years to build up that level of effectiveness with our teams. Right. So what we do is we help teams know what systems they need to be working or firing on all cylinders amongst all their provide. And interestingly enough, most practices today have more than one dentist. And so we want to get the variability, that range, if you will, we want to close that gap between the doctors too. And so what we do is we look at what systems are missing that can help us perform better. And we often say, you know, 90 days. It should take you 90 days with a new hire to really basically be right up to par with where you were with that eight year longtime hygienist. If you have the right systems in place. These are systems that we define as something called tribal language. You know, we want to be using simplified language that everyone on the team is using because then it makes it more efficient and more effective for the patient to actually follow along. Right. We use tools like treatment planning for predictability and these are processes and systems that we work on with the team. And we actually define when the doctor sees a tooth that looks like this, what do we do about it? And that helps us commit to a diagnostic standard that we then can hold one one another accountable to actually uphold. You know, those are actual systems that you can and should have in place in your practice that can help you perform better in that area. And too often, you know, we just don't take the time to do that. I can't tell you how many times over the years, early on in my career, I'd show up to temp and they'd be like, here's your room, here's your instruments, here's your schedule, and go. And I'd be like, hold up, just wait a second. What kind of dentistry does the doctor want to do? What's the doctor's diagnostic philosophy? You know, I, I need a little bit more information, but from you if I'm going to really be effective in this role here for you today. And that would blow people's minds because they didn't even know how to answer those questions, right? They might say, well, you know, I really don't want to do five service fillings. Well, okay, that's good to know. But what else, right? What do you really enjoy doing? What, what do you want your patients to, to hear about? What do you want them to learn about here today? You know, those types of things, those gaps can be filled. You know, it does take some effort. But that's one of the things that we do, is we can step in and help practices know not only what those systems should look like, but how to implement them and how to abide by them and utilize them at the highest level, even throughout a period of churn where maybe we're bringing on new doctors and new hygienists or adding additional locations or whatever that might look like in the practice. So, you know, that Dr. Hygiene partnership, and I say Dr. Hygiene simply because more than 70% of all restorative dentistry is referred from the hygiene department. But those systems are actually vitally important as well on the, on the restorative side. You know, anytime we have somebody come in for that emergency appointment, the assistance should be utilizing the same processes, the same systems, so that we are upholding the diagnostic standards of our doctors at a high level. So those are, you know, just some of the ways that we look at, at that and, and you know as well as I do how quickly those numbers can change. You know, we have doctors come through and really focus on that, whether it's at our case breakthrough case acceptance breakthrough workshops or, or we actually have coaches going to practices and specifically focus on that. It's not uncommon to see a 40% increase like the next month. Like it. It's huge the impact that that working on these things can have. And if you have more than one hygienist, those results become exponential right throughout the organization, throughout the practice. So it's really an exciting thing to focus on and something that is exciting because we know how to turn things around if they're not going well. Based on the data that we see, we know often what's missing.

And another reason I'll add on why I like this, of the three, I like all three of the buckets we're going to hit. But I really like this one because like you mentioned, there does seem to be oftentimes this tension between hygiene and doctors. And I think the more a doctor and a hygienist realize how symbiotic their relationship is towards getting real patient care delivered, I think that dramatically helps, especially when doctors. I think it's especially helpful when doctors understand the financial incentive to have a hygienist that works really well co diagnosing in sync with them. Like all of a sudden that they realize, oh, when I have a hygienist that really preps the patient well, does some semantic priming so that by the time I walk in the room, that patient's ready for a really great clinical conversation. And that helps with my case acceptance. And then what the hygienist says after I walk out, like, I think when they start to realize how that helps their own production, that's huge. I think that's oftentimes overlooked. I think it's just a human habit to just take all kind of all kudos and just claim them for ourselves. You know, we have a hard time seeing that other people played a role in that success. But now that's one thing. And some doctors might look at that and be like, okay, well, that's great, Steven, Wendy, but I need my hygiene team to be profitable on its own outside of its lift with me. And that's where these other two things come into play. So can you share a little bit about the way you approach both the perio side? Because that is a common thing we see in DI where the average hygienist really isn't diagnosing perio as often as you would expect, based off of Ada's publications on periodontal disease. And some of that might be they're referring, they're maybe not adding to the treatment plan and they're just referring that out. But regardless, what we see in DI is that the average hygienist and a general practice is certainly not adding it to the treatment plan and creating a clinical record of that as often as we would hope. And then the second one was as a preventative therapist. So do you mind kind of hitting both of those in the way you approach that?

Yeah, you bet.

Those have to do with, like, making hygiene more profitable on its own, you know, outside of their restorative lift.

Right. And I think important to note as well, to kind of summarize and sum up the other one that we talked about. You know, one of the things that I think people get worried about is, you know, it's not my job to diagnose. As the hygienist, I cannot preheat patients for the doctor unless I have clarity on what the doctor's diagnostic standard is. And often that's just what is missing. Same thing happens on the periodontal side. You know, we have a disconnect between our diagnostic standards and we often think we're performing at a level that really is much higher than we actually are performing. I've had hygienists look at me and say that those numbers are not right. And I'm like, okay, well, show me, you know, show us where we're wrong and when we dig in, they actually are right. Right. And so I think too often when it comes to perio, there's too many gray areas. And I think we perform better as human beings if we have clarity on when we see this, we do this. And I can tell you the standards for classification, grading and staging, those changes were necessary, but they're also, I think, frustrating for many of us that are working on this side because it's taken a lot of people and providers and practices backwards based on what they're actually doing on the perio side. So I think one of the, the biggest issues or the biggest things that we bring are tools and systems that provide clarity for our providers. And I teach a, a virtual perio course four times a year. Just taught one last Friday. And we have our first ever advanced perio course where we're going to be getting into, like, new things, new therapies like desiccation therapy, gbt. You know, there's, there's so many new things coming at us fast and furious, alternatives to arrest and, you know, these things that, that we need to learn about. But frankly, when are providers supposed to do that. You know, we're so busy all the time in the trenches taking care of patients that when we have new products or new opportunities to serve and elevate patients at a higher level, it can be difficult to catch up. So that's part of our job in the per. Of course, we talk about all. All things research, all the latest information about oral systemic link, and then we get into details on simplifying, staging and grading and actually what happens on a gingivitis patient. Appointment one, appointment two, how to actually structure it. It's very, very simplified, very direct, very straightforward. And what we see is an immediate impact after hygienists take the course and implement some of these tools because they understand, they have clarity. There's not as many gray areas that we have to, well, they're not quite perio, but they're not quite healthy. What do we do with that patient? Now they understand, here's what we do with that patient, and it makes it easier for everybody. So we are able to step into our own as. As hygienists, we understand what to do with the patient who declines therapy. You know, those are the questions that we get time and time again. We understand at a higher level how to code and get paid for what we do. Too often we recognize hygienists are doing perio. They're just not getting paid for it. They're doing too.

That's been one of the maybe more common things I hear is maybe with the hygiene team, some tension between what they're trying to code and get billed for from a ADAQ perspective and what the front office actually ends up, like, pushing through. I think there's sometimes some fear that, hey, like, I'm going to submit this and insurance isn't going to pay it. And so do you guys help kind of talk through some of those systems, like, how do we make sure that the front office and the hygiene teams are aligned to make sure that we're successful, you know, for the patient as well, so that the patient has like a. An accurate idea of what they're going to kind of expect to pay?

Yeah, all of that's included in patient management. You know, patients should never be surprised. You know, I actually have a really funny video of a lady, an auto mechanic, you know, and they say, well, here's what we thought it was going to be, but it's actually, you know, 10 times that amount. And she, like, screams out loud and. And I'm like, like, I wish I could have that created in a dental practice because that's how people feel when we, when we tell them it's going to be one thing and they're expecting their free cleaning or their insurance, you know, regular cleaning. And it's more than that. They can't be surprised by that. You know. So a lot of what we talk talk about as well as patient management, we talked through five steps to increase case acceptance or perio. A lot of the principles that we talked about, you know, with that Dr. Hygiene partnership on the case acceptance side, we extrapolate into the periodontal conversation because that often is what gets lost. You know, we might be diagnosing perio, but actually completing a just a fraction of that because the patients don't understand. This isn't like a car wash. It's not. Do you want the basic of the supreme. This is actually a diagnosis of a disease. And here's how we treat the disease, here's how we handle the infection. So a lot of that language does need to, to be resolved. And so, you know, systems drive that same thing on the par the preventive side, you know, when we visit with a practice and we go in there, there's so many things on the preventive menu that we could be doing to elevate the care that our patients need. And we begin with a system of providing a risk assessment for our patients. And so we help with simplified tools so that hygienists have time to do it and are willing to. Because what we find on that risk assessment, the patient's high risk for decay. That's the driver for all the preventive services that could possibly help that fluoride, varnish, sealants, bonded protective agents cured on in today's world, even radiographs, you know, patients need a compelling why, why do we need to have these, these services provided and what's the benefit for them long term, you know, especially if it's not covered by insurance. We don't want them screaming when they find out, you know, what the cost is going to be today. We want them aware of that and we want a high level of buy in. So we use things like raises that help the hygienist feel more confident. Things like my job, your job. My job is to let you know of any opportunities I see today that can benefit you. And your job is to let us know what you want us to do about it. You know, always leaving it in the patient's court, but letting them know. My job is to let you know of these opportunities. And we're going to talk about these opportunities based on your Individual personalized risk status patients. In today's world, as we age, we often take additional medications that drives the saliva that puts us at high risk for a lot of, a lot of conditions that are not favorable for patients. And so this is part of our conversation that we have. And I want to tell you, Steve, you know, it's, it's not uncommon that we see results happen very, very quickly. I was just looking at an example and I believe I shared this at our Intellicon course last, last fall, but we had a practice in Laughlin, Texas that when they started with us, their production per visit for their hygiene provider was $169 production per visit. And we hadn't even visited about the periodontal therapist yet or the case acceptance roles yet, but just preventive therapy alone. Month one in the program, with some of these systems that we talked about, she produced 314 per visit. Month two of the program, 357 per visit. Month three in the program, 320 few hours there, then 355, then 376. And it just keeps going on and on. And that's the value of understanding not only what to do, but why we should do it. And then getting some coaching and some guidance and some systematic help, if you will, on how to execute that at a high level. Hygienists, we get exhausted. It's, it's a huge mental energy drain to practice in this way, especially in today's world. You know, some of the trends that we're seeing is, you know, hygiene's got to be profitable. So we're going to shorten all the hygiene appointments down. Well, that's tragic when that happens because not only are you losing patients, you're losing providers. This is maybe one of the reasons why hygienists are leaving the profession because we just can't feel good about providing quality care to our patients. And a 30 minute appointment, it's impossible to do it well in that timeframe. So these are the things that we help practices see and understand because hygienists can and should be profitable in their own right. But certainly as hygiene goes, so does the rest of the practice. You know, we said all ships rise when we elevate the care we provide. And so it begins with those key systems on the hygiene side and then it transfers into everything else in the practice. And, and we absolutely love that. We, we just did a like a 10 year review on some of our clients that we've been working with for more than 10 years. And it's really quite fascinating what happens. But many of them, you know, when they started working with us, they may have been at, you know, two and a half million, and now 10 years down the road, they're at 12 million. You know, every, every single example is like that. Now, certainly that's adding additional locations and things like that as they've chosen to grow their enterprise. But we should be seeing year over year growth in a dental practice. And too many practices today are actually seeing a decline. Or maybe they feel like they've maxed out and they've reached this ceiling and they just don't know how to break through the next level. And a lot of times when we dig in to the analytics and look at those opportunities, a lot of it begins with hygiene. So that's an exciting thing for me because I believe we've built one of the best teams in the business to really help advise and mentor doctors and hygienists on how to really work, work together at a higher level and have a symbiotic benefit for the patient, for the practice of the provider. You know, we call it the triple win. We want that triple win. We want the patient to win, we want the provider to win, and we want the practice to win too.

Yeah. I'll just say this for those that are listening, like, I think. I think it'd be helpful if you did some like, mental math. So I think it's pretty normal to see average hygiene production per visit in that kind of like 150 bucks a visit. Ish range. And so it's really not the. It's harder to get to 300 than it is to get to 200, for sure. I'll say that out loud. Like the lift to get there and the training for the hygiene team. And so it's super normal. One of the things I love about Wendy is over the years I just have seen all these clients she's worked with and just like she said, these big old jumps in production per visit. But if you do a little mental math, if you're listening and you're like, okay, what could that mean? If my hygiene team's pretty average and they're doing 150, 160 bucks a visit, and we're able to increase by $50 a visit. So, you know, think through how many days you're open. I don't know, call it like you have a really chill schedule. So it's like 180 days times. I'm actually going to do it 180 days times by eight visits per day per hygienist, that's 1440 visits in a year, times 50 bucks. That's $72,000 in increased production per hygienist. So if we have two, then all of a sudden we're talking about an extra 140,000 in production to the business with the same team members. And all of a sudden that starts to take a huge burden off of your shoulders as a business owner. And you can start having, from a compensation standpoint, a lot more fun with your hygiene team as well, where they're like, man, I just want to work here forever. Like, we're having a good time, we're successful. So that's one of the things we didn't really talk about is just how a business that has really good systems that help people be successful that also will dramatically improve hygiene retention. That's, I know a big problem in the industry right now is there's, you know, a shortage of hygienists. Difficult to attract them and retain them kind of, they're looking for like, kind of the next biggest best dollar. And so this is another, like, really great way to keep hygienists around in the business for a long time.

Yeah, and like we said, it does, it does contribute to the long term success of the practice in a powerful, powerful way, as we've evidenced through a lot of these case studies. And one of the things, Steve, we didn't have time to get into compensation of hygiene providers, but that's something we actually do cover when we work with practices. And I think one of the things that I wanted to give your listeners today a little information. A lot of times people think that to work with us, you know, you have to go all in. It's a solid year. It's tens of thousands of dollars and certainly we have programs like that, but we also have almost every penny.

I will just say that.

Yeah, well, one thing that we're really proud about is our ROI is, is absolutely one of the best in the business. Our return on investment. For every dollar a doctor invested us, they get nine back. We're really, really proud of that. So nine to one ROI is pretty much unheard of with consulting. But we, we do that on average and, and we're proud of that. But I will tell you, there are tools and things that we have that enable a practice to kind of dip their toe in the water and make sure we're a good fit. We have a 90 day hygiene coaching program that we've rolled out in recent months and, and it's virtual. So the Costs are negligible. So if you have listeners that want to learn about that, I can send you the link to get them that information. And certainly we'd love to have a conversation because, you know, just get started, just do something to help elevate your team because again, many of us are in crisis and one thing we know is if we keep doing the things, same thing we've always done, we're not going to get where we want to go. Um, we're not going to get the results. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So certainly we've tried to, to provide a whole menu of tools and resources that can help practices take that step and, and find out that there is a better way. There's another way to approach hygiene in your practice and we'd love to partner with anyone who'd like that information.

Yeah, and I'll throw for those that are listening. I'll grab that link, I'll put it in the show notes along with. I'll probably tag your guys's website if you want to come check out the team training institute and I'll probably throw a link to your podcast as well so that folks can come and grab, you know, any content they want from you. Wendy, it has been an absolute blast to have you on. I can't believe the time has flown. We're already there at longer than I expected. But that's great. I like, I like these longer episodes. Gives us time to really like dive in. So.

Perfect. Well, thanks again for having me. It's always great chatting with you and your dental intel people. You know, we love working with dental intel practices because they typically already share some similar values with the practices that get the best results with what we do. You know, being understanding and have an awareness of the business and where they want to grow is, you know, one of the ingredients that we look for when we look for clients to work with.

Yeah. And I'll just say this too, if you're listening and you're the least bit curious about whether or not there's potential for your hygiene team to level up. Absolutely. Jump on a call and chat with Wendy and the team at tti. Like I said at the beginning, I'm not dislike saying that. I genuinely think that they're the best in the business. They've been doing it for a very long time and they have proven results. That's one thing that I will say is we've got over 10,000 practices that dental intelligence work with and they are the highest performing ones. So definitely make sure you chat with them. Well, Wendy, like, once again, it was great to have you on. And for all listeners out there, thank you again for joining us for another episode of the Growth in Dentistry podcast. We will talk soon. See you guys. You.