175: Perio Opportunities to Increase Revenue

What Periprotect offers is not only healthier patients that come in with fewer deposits, but also a revenue stream that will help the practice and the hygiene department prosper.

Hi, I'm Emmett Scott, and just like you, I've had my ups and downs in the dental industry, but times are changing. The DEO has built a map of how to succeed in one of the most challenging industries to navigate. On this show, we talk to dental industry leaders, solve problems, and get you the answers you need to face these challenging times and thr. Welcome to DEO's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Now let's get started. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of DEO Grow Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott. And today we're taking on another opportunity that exists in every dental practice. We're here with Liz Neese, rdh, DSO liaison team trainer for Perio Protect Teched. And Liz, thank you so much for being on. You know, give us a little bit of, of your background. I'm excited to dig in because, you know, with labor costs constantly moving up, everyone's like, how do I move this needle? And yeah, they're negotiating with insurance companies and. But that, that takes a while, right? So what I'm excited about this conversation is like dollars that are there that could provide more care, more value to the patients. How to start thinking about that? Or maybe some people have started thinking about it and just need that confidence to go faster. And so anyway, but give us a little bit of your background before I start digging in.

Awesome. Well, I've been a hygienist since 1984. I've been a director of clinical hygiene at a corporation. I've been a consultant, I write. But my favorite position is this position because as a clinician, I, I needed something that was going to keep my patients healthy after the great work that I do chairside. And what Periprotect offers is not only healthier patients that come in with fewer deposits, but also a revenue stream that will help the practice and the hygiene department prosper. We think it's a win win for all parties involved. And my main job at Perio Protect is to make it easy for you and to support you as well as the rest of the Perio Protect.

Well, why don't you just give us a little bit of a commercial of Perio Protect, you know, Maine's value offering, and then, then we can dig into some of these other questions I have because that'd be just good context for people.

Awesome. So Perio Protect is basically a home Care tool we've been around since 2004. There's medication which is a hydrogen peroxide gel at 1.7%. That medication is with a custom fit tray with an inner peripheral seal. That seal forces the medication underneath the gum line creates an oxygen rich environment. Lysis the cell wall where 15 minutes a day. We give our patients a healthy biofilm every day. Plus it whitens teeth and freshens breath. That hydrogen peroxide gel is a broad spectrum antimicrobial that's natural to the body. And that effect of the gel on deposits makes them softer, which ergonomically helps your clinicians remove the deposits faster, which makes your appointments for your patients more comfortable. And patients love it. We have over 2500 Google and Facebook reviews. So they love the investment that they make and they think that their offices are just the best thing since sliced bread.

Yeah. So this is something that is not going to take a ton of chair time. A lot of the work is going to be done at home. And then what's kind of the follow up? Is it at the six month mark or is it more frequent than that?

So the trays are made with scans, impressions or models. We love scans. We get them back to you in about two to four days. Turnaround time in the lab is two days. We're shooting for it, so very little doctor time. And assistants can deliver the trays. If you see them every three months, you're going to dispense two tubes of gel every three months. It's something the patient uses every day to manage their own biofilm. Because bleeding isn't normal. Right. If patients are showing up with bleeding, they have active disease and I hope I'm answering your questions.

No, no, no. This is fabulous. Yeah, no, this is, this is great. So, I mean, from a business perspective, everything I love about aligners and being able to provide that extra care and so forth and them being able to do a lot of this at home. This has a lot of that same model. And in fact, if I'm doing aligners or I've been wanting to, I probably have a lot of the same technology and, and processes that I could integrate into this. Correct?

Absolutely. So it's, it's, it's almost, it's almost so simple. It's stupid because you just have to invest a little bit of time in educating the patient. And we kind of set up everything where they can log on to our website and review how it's done and just benefit from the results. Tray delivery. In the past they've told us it's compliance with the patient. But patients, we all like to do the things we want, right? We don't like to do the things we need. So they love the wider teeth and fresher breath. So they're naturally continuing to do that because once they stop the teeth.

So you put the. You put the chocolate in with the vitamins, so to speak, Right. So it's like, hey, we all know that we want to eliminate the Perio disease, but that's a lot of vitamins for them to take. And it's not like, where's the instant gratification in that? You put in the whitening. And now it's like, okay, there's an aesthetic component, right? Brilliant, by the way. Yeah. Like, I want my vitamins in a snicker bar. That's how I want my vitamins, you

know, and we've made it easy that once. Once you open our box, you just pull out a spa bag that has the. Everything you need to hand to the patient. You take the trays out, you deliver the trays, you show them how to use it, and that's really all it takes on your end to deliver this system.

What's the. What's the total addressable market? What's the. Like. If I thought of my patients right now, and let's say I haven't really dug into this, you know, but I'm sure there's several that are like, oh, yeah, I have a lot of. But I mean, if we think about Perio disease, what percentage of my patients do I think I could actually have this conversation with?

Well, that's a great question. Most people start with their maintenance patients. Why? Because they want to be healthier. They've already drank the Kool Aid. Right. They come every three months. They've invested. So that's a great place to start because they're going to get great results. They're motivated. Also, think about it. Preventatively. Gingivitis, the only form of gum disease that's reversible. So if you treat it there, hopefully we can save them long term. And if you're doing restorative, you want that restorative to actually work long term. And we have many doctors that will recommend periprotect for implants. Bridges use the trays prior to treatment to create an area that's very, very healthy, plus the whitening effect. If you're using the trace pre treatment, you can match your new restoration color to your new tooth color and then maintain that dental work for the lifetime of that patient.

I love this because there's a lot of pre and post care opportunities, right. To almost create an insurance policy around the restorative that you've done to enhance it to that next level. Right. So again, anytime we can align the business side of like, okay, financially we'd like some more revenue with real value offering around what the patient wants, you know, because let's, let's be honest, they're not all lining up like, hey, I'm so excited, I get my root canal this week. You know, so if we can start doing things or like I'm hoping I have period disease because I've been bleeding like crazy. Right. But if we can align those things with one convenience, which is Amazon's pushing us towards. Everything needs to be more convenient. So if we can make it convenient, like, hey, this is something at home, etc and then it has an aesthetic component but then it's really underlyingly creating the foundation of just better oral health. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Okay, what about do I have to have like right now there's practices like, I love this. I don't have a hygienist that could deliver this. Can I do this with other staff? You know, like how would that work as well? Do I need to make sure that I have enough hygienists and enough time and free time for them to do this or can I do it through other staff if I had to?

You can do it through other staff if you have to. Basically the doctor would fill out the prescription form, the assistant would take the impressions or scans. Comes to us, the assistant can deliver it. So very little doctor time if you have a really good assistant. Rda we've had many offices because it is true that there is a shortage and hygienists are getting higher pay, higher, harder to find them. And I think if you have something that's going to make their job easier and ergonomically protect them. Because if a patient has fewer deposits that are softer, easier to remove, that means that hygiene appointment is going to be faster. That's the whole idea. We need time to talk about health issues, restorative issues, how we can. And a little chit chat time. We all like to talk with our patients ergonomically. Repetitive motion is one of those things that you lose hygienists for. A lot of our larger corporations are actually using it as a marketing tool to have hygienists come join their teams.

Yeah, that's brilliant. I'm thinking too, I was just at a DEO elite intensive and that's. That's where we bring in our top group. And you know, we'll just sit down for a day, day and a half and just go through different strategies together. There's about 150 in the, in the room. And one of our great leaders was talking through different ways they've been structuring hygiene because that's the cool part about deo. You're just leveraging off of each other and getting hygienists who have multiple columns but have assistance underneath them. Right. And so you start getting into strategies like that and then now you bring something like this in where you can provide additional care. Well, now the hygienist doesn't have that load on them. They have an assistant who's helping take care of that. And what with what you're saying, that six month appointment is going to be even easier because if they've been using this product. Right. So anyway, I just see some synergies starting to come together.

So it's really funny. One of my first articles I ever wrote was on assisted hygiene and working with an assistant. And I loved it because I just had to sit down. The assistant did all the work and I say, sounds good. Here's what the treatment plan is. I would do my part, that license that I had to do and then it was just taken over. So you are right on the money, Scott. It just makes life easy.

Yeah. If I was, if you don't mind if I went into some of the dollars and cents on this, what, what could be some expectations? I mean, kind of tell us like ideal best performing customers, how should they think about that and, and what the potential is and maybe just even on a per patient basis, you know, what's the potential here?

So we're talking about what a fee should be. Is that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. $10 and cents.

So we do have CDT codes that are. You can send in not getting a lot of coverage. They're kind of new CD D5595 D5996 is covered by flexible spending and health savings accounts. So that's something good, especially this time of year. The fees we're recommending currently is about 350 a tray when you're including three tubes of gel, a home care kit, a tube squeeze spa bag. And I know I'm forgetting the trays. Got to have the trays. And there's also a little travel carrier that we've come out with which is really nice. So you're looking at about $700 for the entire kit. Which I think is good pricing. Doctors do charge. You choose your own. Usually it's three times somewhere about where the lab fee is, and that falls right into that spectrum.

Okay, great. And yeah, it seems like that that price is consumable by the patient could possibly finance it, but they could swipe a credit card easily to get that. And then that includes a whitening component too, then as well, right?

Yeah.

So you start mixing care products like that and you're kind of getting an all for one. That seems like that's very sellable.

Well, if you think about whitening, you have to remember to put in your trays to whiten your teeth. So this is something that you use while you're living your life, while you're watching TV. You just have to keep them for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, it's inert. And I was going to say that we all buy products now. I look at Google reviews, Facebook reviews, and so that 2,500 Google Facebook reviews is really big for us.

Meaningful.

Because patients want to buy something that works well.

What they do is they look for themselves. You know, so when you have that many reviews, you can kind of find yourself in there, you know, someone describing their situation and how they thought about it, and they're like, okay, great. So, yeah, that's super helpful. What if I was just thinking through demographics, because we've got practices that are all the way from pediatric, Medicaid all the way up to geriatric, all in four, you know, whatever. Where does this kind of work? And maybe not work as well, you know, so let's take on each one. Is there any. Is there any pediatric application here or is it more. At what age does this really become a viable option?

So you really have to have your full dentition. Right. Because otherwise you're going to need 100 trays. So I've had like 17 on that. It's great for orthodontics.

And there's enough issues, by the way. I mean, anyone who's not working in that, that lower age groups, there's plenty of issues. By 17, some of these kids need quite a bit of help. So if you can. If you can get them into some kind of perio treatment plan, that level, it could be huge for them. I mean, maybe they're finally starting to realize that drinking soda every day isn't ideal. Right.

Well, and these trays are great for fluoride too. You could use fluoride in there for remineralization. So orthodontics, I would just include it into your treatment Plan. If they're really inflamed, start with a set of trays at that older level. Right. Even if it's like 15, just to get them healthy. And then at the end you make them a second set of trays, but it's all inclusive into what you're charging the patient in their monthly payments. And then they just automatically get a second set. In fact, I recommend that if you're doing restorative, like an implant or a bridge, just include two sets.

Everybody wants to do the whitening after they've done the ortho anyway, so why not get the perio, you know, I mean, it's just, it's smart to, to almost have, you know, a tier where you say, hey, do you want just whitening or do you want whitening with this? You know, so, yeah, anyway, it's awesome.

And then general dentistry, just so many applications. I mean, I, I think that is preventative. Right? We talked about gingivitis patients and you have to remember people want a healthy alternative. They don't want fluoride, they don't want antibiotics. We've tried all those things. They don't, they haven't given us the results we want. Do they work short term? Absolute. But hydrogen peroxide is a natural in the body and so nobody's allergic to it. There's a six year long study from the FDA deeming it safe. And at 3%, we're way below at 1.7. So it's safe because it's natural. It's safe with a study. So in your general practice, if you have a holistic practice, it fits right in.

Is there any place where it's contraindicated to use this? I mean, I'm kind of trying to get rid of like, where's the place, you know, that I can just. Is there any age too old or a situation where you say, yeah, don't, don't use it here, I just made

a set of trays for my 89 year old mother. Yeah, right.

So this, it's, it's just great to have because there's so many things where the application. Let's just take even ortho, where there's a lot of education that needs to happen in order to know this situation. Yes, this situation, no, you know, this age group, et cetera. This feels like much more broad opportunity, which for me also means easier to train. And so as soon as you say, hey, it's a broad opportunity, it's easy to train, we can start looking at this great dental assistant. If you've got the hygienists who are like, yes, please make my life easier. I mean, that sounds like no brainer. Move forward. So if. If people wanted to just dig in more like their specific situation, what's the best way, Liz, for them to get a hold of you?

So they can either call me at 314-256-077 to ask for Liz or extension 132 or anybody at Paraprotect can help you. My email address is L as in Larry and as in Nancy, I as in igloo, E as in elephant, S as in sam@perio hyphen protect.com.

okay, great. And they could jump on and look at all these reviews too, and get that second confirmation.

Yeah. And if they're ready to go, it really is no investment up front. You just call us, we set up an hour long training, we send you everything you need, and you can do your first case the same exact day.

Oh, wow. Okay, great. Yeah. Because whether I already have the scanner or I want to use some other method to get you all those pieces, that's huge. Well, thank you so much for being on. We're constantly at DEO looking for these opportunities where we can help our members to be able to upgrade the care they're providing to the patients in a way that brings a ton of value to the patient, but also helps the business side as well. So this has been awesome. I really appreciate you being on today.

Thank you, Scott. And I really appreciate the opportunity. I hope everybody has a great, great weekend.

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