236: How Dentists Use IV Sedation to Close More Treatment Plans

But if you have this really powerful tool, you can make more money and profit from it and you can provide really comfortable dentistry for your patients. So everybody wins, but you have to commit to implementing it into your practice.

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.

Thrive.

Welcome to DEO's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Now let's get started.

Welcome back to the DEO Growth Secrets podcast. This is a place where growth minded dental leaders come for insights, innovation and inspiration. And I am your host, Kendall Hussain, and I am thrilled that you are joining us again. If you missed episode 225, I need you to go back and give it a listen because today is a continuation of that incredible conversation. On May 1, we spoke with Leah Zepperstein and Clay Griffith about how IV sedation isn't just a patient convenience, it's a production multiplier and a practice transformer. And so today we're going to be diving even deeper into the real world challenges, systems and mindset that turn sedation dentistry into operational mastery. And so these are two voices that you'll recognize. And so first we have Leah Zepper Stein, who is the head of strategy at Vesper Institute. And Leah helps Vesper navigate the modern dental education landscape with focus and clarity. I love that, Leah. And we also have Clay Griffith here who is head of growth at Vesper Institute. And Clay has a background in journalism and marketing. So he approaches every challenge with the story worth solving and brings to the field, you know, equal parts structure and creativity. And so, Leah and Clay, welcome back, my friend.

Friends.

Thank you. Excited to be here.

We are excited to have you guys here. And so I wanted to jump in because I have been giddy since I heard that we were going to be jumping on a podcast today because the two of two of you met me back in June at our growth summit. And as a coach, I was all over Vesper. I was like, what you guys are bringing to the table in terms of clinical excellence and support when it comes to IV sedation. I was just like, mind blown. And I can't tell you how many times I've talked to doctors in the past and they've been like, yeah, I'd really like to do IV sedation, but I'm scared My teams aren't going to be trained. What if something goes wrong? Is it really worth it?

Right.

And so I was like, yes, Besper Institute to the rescue. And so I want to dig in with you guys today and really start with the big picture. And so my very first question is, like, what is the operational value of IV sedation for the dental practice? Like, I just feel like so many dental offices don't know what IV sedation can do for them in terms of operational value and patient care.

Respect. Leah, I'll let you have first whack. Take it away, sister.

Yeah, no, that's a great place to start. You know, I think IV sedation, as you said, the hesitation for a lot of dentists is, is it safe? I'm worried about hurting a patient. And that is certainly where it needs to start. It is a clinical thing that you are doing, but ultimately the value is that it becomes an efficient efficiency engine for your practice. If you guys were at the DEO summit, we talked about this concept of value per appointment, and that's the game changer, is you are able to orient your day in such a way that you can stack treatment and basically hit your production goal out of the water in one or two appointments instead of waiting the whole day, the whole week. You know, if you're operating where IV sedation is that central engine and that central focus, your schedule is so, so efficient, and the patients love it because they don't have to keep coming back. Typically, that might be the case. If you have a really complex case, which, you know, hopefully you do, and you're taking care of your patient well, they come one week, they come back in three weeks, they come back, you know, in five weeks. With IV sedation, you can knock out all that, that treatment in one sitting. The patient's happy. And then it's also great for you and it's great for your staff. Imagine those days when your schedule runs smoothly. It's not chaotic, it's focused. That's what IV sedation allows you to do. Kind of operationally. Yeah.

Those are the days when the schedule runs smoothly, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think when. When we're at the summit, which was, again, just lovely. If listeners, if you haven't been. It's fun, it's gone. Check it out. When we're at. At the summit doing our talk, we. We pictured up a fictional patient and a fictional doctor. And in our, you know, trotting out of this fictional doctor, we kind of said, like, hey, like, I, the doctor, feel strain. I feel like I'm running from, you know, operatory to operatory, column to column. You know, not a piddly appointment, but not this grand, meaty thing either. And I would love the opportunity to have a grand, meaty thing where I do get to, quote, unquote, sit down at the workbench and do a larger bit of treatment, perhaps something more complex than stimulating for me as a clinician. And it's operationally efficient and the production value is there as well. And so really kind of like IV sedation is the unlocker there. And I think what we really found in kind of discussing with lots of folks at the event was more folks actually than I thought. Kendall had the. Not a huge amount, but certainly more than I thought actually had the permit. They've got the skill, they're ready, ready to roll, and they're actually not deploying it in a consistent, cohesive way. And I think it really comes down to understanding this unlocking mechanism of that's where the value is. It's not the one off charge that you get back for the deployment of the thing of the sedation. That's nothing compared. It's the fact that you can now stack up treatment and create value within each sitting. And if that's starting off in wave, one of you doing it, maybe that's one day a week, maybe that expands relatively quick into phase two. Now you're doing it a couple days a week and then eventually you're just doing it as much as you can all day, every day. Imagine that efficiency. Imagine that flow for you as a clinician, for your team team, that sense of purpose, and then what you're giving to the patient, they don't have to come in all this time, take time away and you know, time off work and all that stuff and battle their fears and they're able to kind of just sit down, get the thing, leave you alone, and not have to think about you again. That's a great thing for them as well. So just another way of saying what Leah said.

Yeah, I love it. You know, you mentioned fears, right? Patient fears. And as a clinician myself, really, you know, when what holds patients back quite often from executing their treatment plans is fear time or money. Right. And how great is it to be able to ease those patients fears by offering them a solution, right. That is cost effective, time effective, and it helps them get over that, that hurdle. And so what do you see as like the big misperceptions from like the dental offices that ultimately hold the dentist back from fully realizing the impact that IV Sedation can have for not only their practice, but for the patients. And from a patient perspective.

Yeah, great question.

Yeah. I mean, I think starting with dentists know that patients don't love going there. It's common for a patient to say, I don't want to be here. I hate the dentist. I'm scared. But it's also common practice. If you're not offering IV sedation, it's not part of your routine to be like, I know, but I'm going to try to make you as comfortable as possible. There's oral sedation. You can listen to some music, you can turn on Netflix. It'll be okay. And we just sort of, you know, encourage to the best of our ability, patients to grit their teeth through a not comfortable kind of painful experience. And a lot of patients do that. And dentists can be profitable and productive. But I would encourage dentists listening to go have a conversation. Just, you know, next time you're out at dinner with friends and toss out the idea of like, you know, what if I offered IV station? What if I knocked you out? And this could be a patient that has routinely paid for treatment. They're still a good patient. I don't want to say they're going to be excited for the next time they need treatment, but they're going to feel so much better about it. It's going to be so much easier for them to not pop up the nose. Oh, that doesn't work with my schedule. I'm not sure. Kind of push it off. You remove those barriers. So not only are you helping a patient population that wouldn't see you at all because they're so fearful or it's so complex, but your current patient population who have kind of just been like pushing through is going to say yes a lot more. So those treatment plans that have just been sitting there, you're going to get the yeses and you're going to fill up your schedule and you're going to do kind of what we just said is have that highly efficient schedule where the value per appointment increases exponentially.

Yeah, my thought there is like. So that. That there is like focusing on. It's the same thing on all sides of the fence. It's time fear of money for patients. It's time fear of money for clinicians and owner operators and the team. So Leah kind of just like, definitely, you know, outlined the. The fears that are inherent in your own patient base. And that's kind of like, just re. Outline that in my own verbiage so I can structure it in my brain. So let's say you've got some patients in your, in your book of business and they've been coming like Leah said, and, but they're not really biting onto this thing that you think they need to do and you've kind of pitched to them and they're like, oh, they're just kind of just treading water. This is indeed just like Leah's teeing up a really wonderful way to kind of like knock down the hurdles and get them from those no's for time for your money. Hey, you were planning on thinking of thinking about this in four ways. It's going to take a month for you to do. I can do it in one sitting. They're like, oh, okay, I'll be there on Thursday. And actually it's not much more money and you get the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, take time off work and they really start stacking it up. So indeed, to underline what Leah saying, totally an easier way to knock down the nos and get to a yes. And then really love to also kind of like focus on this side of the fence, on the clinician side of the fear there. If you're a clinician who's aware of this, of IV sedation and you're like, you know what? That might not be for me because I'm afraid to do it. First thing I would say to you is like, you're not alone. And like Leah said at the top, we, we applaud that instinct. That's where you should be starting. And Leah says it better than me. She always notes that when you, you know, the first time you, you know, had, when it went to your, your D1D, you D4, your first time, you get that drill in your hand, it's not natural and you're, you're nervous to do it. And now it's like second nature. It's like breathing. IV sedation can theoretically be like that as well. And the difference there, the gap, is repetition, structure and systems. And, and I'll toss it to Leah because she's more smooth of the communication on this bit. But that's really the, the gap. And that's where a lot of clinicians who are either curious about it and haven't pulled the trigger or have gotten it, pulled the trigger, you know, invested the time, the money and time away from their family and their practice to go and get all these, you know, all this education they haven't actually implemented in their lives. And typically it's because the structure is lacking. It's not easy to implement. It's a slightly different way of holding it, of holding your practice, of holding dentistry. The whole art and science of it's a different way of thinking about it. It's a different operating system. And so kind of like extolling that, outlining that, and taking dentists through the paces of really kind of like getting that into their body, into their brain, into their team. That's the missing gap that we think, and that's where we kind of stepping into. So, Lia, does that tee up at all? Anything you want to say on that particular front?

Yeah, I think so. You know, Vesper Institute, which is where we're operating from, is a training program for dentists to become IV station certified. And one main differentiating factor is that when you do your patient cases, that's kind of the culminating experience. To get certified for our program, you do it inside a real GP clinic where they're doing IV sedation every day. And so that's kind of all of what we're talking about. If you can't conceptually get it there, it's. They're not just doing it one day a week, they're doing it every single day. So you would have the experience as the dentist. And we encourage one of your assistants to come to see. Okay, every day, multiple appointments a day, patients are coming in to be treated using IV sedation kind of as that vehicle. What does that look like? What are the treatment plans? Can I talk to, like, the scheduling coordinator? How do they do that? That's experience you don't typically get elsewhere. And we think, you know, that is our unique value proposition is like putting it up on its feet. For that to be your goal, you're not going to bring back to your practice in five days a week, do IV sedation. But like Clay said, you have to commit to at least maybe one day a week, one, you know, one case. Otherwise you're going to get rusty and that fear is going to get back in your head. And that's completely understandable. But if you have this really powerful tool, you can do it safely, you can make, you know, more money and profit from it, and you can provide really comfortable dentistry for your patients. So everybody wins. But you have to commit to implementing it into your practice. And that's kind of where we come in to help. You know, we have certain support systems that already exist. We're continuing to explore what else can we add and offer to bridge that gap? Because I think that's what we've really found is there's other Great programs that can teach you how to get certified in IV sedation. And we always encourage everybody to shop around, you know, based on your own time, fear, money, schedule, like you need to look around. But where we think our program is really different is bridging the gap between certification and implementation. And how can we make sure that you are not a dentist who got certified and is like, okay, well, I'm not really sure what to do with this and I'm actually still afraid to use it. And you're a dentist who is getting the value for yourself and delivering care to patients who truly need it.

Yeah. That hands on mentorship, that opportunity to go and observe and do it, live with somebody there and be able to see what the workflows are, the treatment plans are, how you can actually integrate it is where the magic really is for Vesper. From my perspective anyways, because I've seen, seen so many of my own doctors go and take this IV sedation, they come back, they've got their certification, they're all excited, and then, you know, it falls flat and they never actually integrate it into their practice and into that day to day. And I think the magic ticket is that support afterwards. Right. Being able to see it, touch it, feel it, ask questions. And so, and that's, that's, that's huge. Right. We all need to have that additional support. And when there's uncertainty or there's scarcity, from my perspective as a coach, that's when things ultimately don't take off. And I think it's a beautiful segue into safety because I also believe that that's one of the things that I hear so often from my clients is like, well, safety, the team protocols, the training, accountability, what actually happens when sedation. Because part of your regular clinical rhyth. And so, you know, Clay or Leah, I would love for you to share. Like, what do you see that actually, like works about this? You know, IV sedation, the protocols, the training. What is Vesper doing to bring that in that from a support perspective?

Love it, love it. Take away.

Yeah. You know, I'm not a clinician, far from it. Sometimes people start talking things and I say stop. I don't even want that image in my head. But just in this role, this is what I hear. Airway, Airway, airway safety, safety, safety. That kind of gets drilled into your head. As a dentist who's in our program, it is safety first. So it's case selection, it's mock drills. It's turning safety into, you know, a habit. You have to do it consistently. You have to just make it a part of your practice. And I think the. Again, the really powerful thing can be if you're practicing with IV sedation, then you need to be doing mock drills. You need to make sure that your staff is ready. If you're not doing it, I don't want to believe. But I think it can be the case that certain dentists don't take some of those things as seriously. They're not always doing kind of routine checks to make sure for any emergency they're prepared. But you raise the standard of care if you're practicing with IV sedation, because you have to. You kind of can't get away with it otherwise. And so that means if it's IV sedation or not, you're prepared for any emergency. And that's a lot of what our, you know, students who have gone through the program have said that they feel like, you know, we make sure it's safety first and they are prepared and their dental assistants are able to come through. So they have that experience and training. I think a lot of it, you know, just for tactically, would start off also with case selection. We want to show you what your limits are. Like, you're going to get to experience cases that you probably shouldn't do, but that's good for you to see where the boundaries are and then also talk to the faculty about. About where should I start? Okay, I want to do this, but what sort of cases should I be, you know, putting on my schedule? That's a good place to start then. Now I can build towards additional skills and add this to my repertoire.

Yep.

Yeah, I love it. So I'm going to make an assumption as well. And so please correct me if I'm wrong. I think, you know, a lot of integration and just kind of moving the doctors and the team from one side of the scale fail. You know, where you're not doing it, you're scared, you're fearful, you know, this isn't for us to the other side where, like, you're rocking this out, you're doing it every single day, you're maximizing your schedule. There also has to be a mindset shift that comes along with this. Right. And so what are some of the mental roadblocks? Because, you know, our mind is such a powerful thing. Right. If you tell yourself you can't, you absolutely can't. Right. And so how do we. How does Vesper move, like, the teams and the doctors through those mindset shifts to get them to a place where they do have that operational confidence.

First of all, amazing question. Well done. You don't need that for me, but it's genuine. I think for us. And I think different people on our team might verbalize it differently, but the concept is it has to start with you. It has to be genuine. Like this is. I often describe it, hopefully it's accurate. I describe this as like a Top Gun type of thing, which is to say, like, not everyone needs to. Not everybody needs to do this. Not everybody needs to go learn how to, you know, drive a Maserati or like fly a plane or, or whatever it is. But if you want to, and if that's your general or your genuine, rather, if that's your compass, then like, then it is a good fit. And you really have to start with that self audit. Is this a good fit for me? Is this what I want to do or do I want. My dad is a dentist, would never touch this. All my friends dentists would, half of them. It's not for them, it's just not for them. And that is fine. That is okay. That is. There's more than enough people and teeth out there. So it really does have to come to you. Like, am I going to steer myself, my career, my time commitments, my team in this direction? And if that's a yes, then we start going. And like the really the next step in the waterfall, that's the top of the waterfall, moving on down is how do you operationalize this and how do you amortize this across your team? I mentioned before, like whoever your office manager is or clinic administrator or whoever your chief of staff type person is, that person is really key. And we have lots of structures where the DAs are learning alongside. We often say, like, safety is a team sport and safety is a mindset. That's true. So if you can get the mindset into the team, that's where it starts going. Because if Leah talking about mock drills and things like that, it's everyone, everyone's got their role to play. You have an accountability mapped out as a team. And so if something negative occurs, everyone knows their piece, everyone knows their part to play. And that's what the trust is there, not only on your own shoulders, but across the team. And then you go back quarterly for your mock drill, you go back to all your learnings. You go back, you go back, you go back. So really, really, I think that's my. To distill it down. My short answer is it is the mindset and you just have to trust that and it's consistency, like you know, look at everything. You go back to, to the well, you keep drinking, you go back to the well, you keep drinking, you go back to the well. You know, in military, they're like, train, train, train. Again, this is no different. This is no different. You train, you go out, you train. Again, you go out, you train, you train, you train. And that's. And again, if that's. And by the way, the, the, the ROI is there. Like, you know, you train, you're doing all this work, you're bringing your team along with you. All the goodness comes. Patients are having a great time, teams focused, the economics are great, and so it's certainly worth it. But it really does have to start with you. Is this right fit for me? Is this where I'm going to steer? Leah, anything to add on top of that?

Yeah, I'd say, like, you know, you as the clinician inside your practice are the leader. And I think we would want you to look at vesper as if we're kind of the coach or the guide. And a lot of times, fear or change exists in the unknown because you don't know where that next step is to take. And what we try to do is give you the path a few steps at a time. Okay. Okay. When you bring it back to your office, here's the checklist that you're going to use. Here's how you think about case selection. Here's, you know, a scheduling or, you know, call script that you could use. Here's the, you know, patient note, all of those things. Then that removes some of the fear and the unknown. So you say, okay, I can do this. Now. What are the next three steps? So you, you know, work on your guide, you become the leader to your team, and you keep coming back to us. And we continue to explore ways, especially based off of feedback we hear from students who go through the program. What do you need to make this work? That's our goal success for us is that you didn't just get certified. It's that you are offering this to your patients so that again, your patients have the benefit and you have the benefit. But we try to then, you know, give you that map to make it a lot easier.

Oh, so good. I want to zoom in on the team because quite often our CEOs, right, they're like, I'm already doing so much. I'm trying to, you know, work my clinical excellence. I have to be hr. I have to, you know, worry about all of the things that go on as being a CEO. And so team is A big part of this process in order to have amazing cases, in order to actually really work this system of IV sedation. And so how does Vesper help our doctors hold their team to these consistent high levels? Because IV sedation does require a complex level of coordination as well as like vigilance. And so I heard you speaking about, you know, checklists and things like that, but maybe give a little, you know, rundown of what, what is provided to the team in terms of, you know, maintaining those high standards for IV sedation.

Yeah, I would say the general backdrop to give you here is, you know, Vesper is kind of born out of a set, a group of practices in Cincinnati, Ohio that are doing this all day, every day for 45 years with zero adverse incidents. And it's come out of that, the positivity that we all live in on that side, on the clinic side is like, oh, what? Well, let's go take this gospel to the world, right? And so inside of that firmament, inside of that structure is everything is, you know, like, you can't run this well oiled of a machine without all the bells and whistles of the structure and system. So we're living it. And all we have to do, like Leah said earlier, we're very, very with our, with our graduates. You know, what, what do you need? What would you like? What would make this easier for you? Okay, great. We might have that in our back pocket, but it's over there in the, in the binder. So we just go get it. And so, you know, do we have checklists? Yes. Do we have flows? Yes. Do we have SOPs and KPIs and all these little things that kind of help us on the clinic side do it every day, all day for 40 years. Yeah, we've got it. And so Leah and Claire, happily happy little warriors of finding that and boxing end up and getting it into the hands, minds and teams of our students. And that's kind of just a broad brush way of saying that. Leah, do you know details out on top of that?

Yeah, I mean, I think the stuff that's pretty darn built out would be obviously for the dentist, it starts with the dentist and then the dental assistant. So you know, the dentist goes through and has the most robust training. The dental assistant is encouraged to come for kind of the last bit of our in person didactic where there's a simulation day and mock drills along with all the patient cases. So the, so the DA and then really all of your DAs would have your own separate kind of curriculum to Refer to, and there's some videos and modules to how do I set up the room, how do I monitor all those things that are a good reference point. And then on top of that, you know, certain things that we already have or looking to add would be, yeah, what's, you know, call scripting or scheduling blocks or, you know, the record keeping that you need to do. Some again are right there, others are just within our reach. That's where we would encourage, encourage and we do encourage our, our students who have gone through the program to be like, hey, what do you need? Like, what are you missing? You know, we have a connection with a equipment and supplies rep. So at a discounted rate. Like that's kind of, you know, just all these starting things that instead of saying, good job, you're certified, best of luck, it's like, all right, well now what's all the equipment that I need? Okay, well, we've got this handy dandy sheet. We've got a number for you to call. Here you go. You're, you know, get set up so that you can offer this, things of that nature. But ultimately I think, you know, where it wraps in. Dentists do have to wear a lot of hats depending on the practice, like you really might be doing it all. Or maybe you're in a position where you've got a great office manager and you have somebody who's kind of handling other those things. Either way, you know, the buck stops with you. You have to be the account, the accountability police in the structure. But what we have seen is if you do that and you take that on and you raise that standard, then the rest of your staff will follow. And it's a tough job market out there. There are people that are looking to jump ship every single day. So if you can be the office that offers really interesting cases, it keeps your staff engaged and you're able to increase your profit margin and you're probably able to pay better benefits to the staff and just a regular salary. That's another way that you can stand out in this really challenging job market. So it's not easy. And I don't want to say that that's, that's easy, but it's another way to kind of differentiate yourself to get the best team because you're going to need the best team to do these types of cases. But I, you know, I'm confident that there's staff out there that wants to be involved in that.

Absolutely. Cutting edge dentistry. So great. So great. And so I would say with certainty that we probably have some listeners out there that are certified but still a little bit hesitant to maybe implement IV sedation in their practice. And so what is your advice for that dentist who's on the field fence?

I would say, really, I think, I think it has to do with what you want. Like, again, like, if, if you put it up on the shelf because it wasn't right for you, you know, that there's. I think we all, you know, kind of live in a sunk, sunk cost fallacy world. We're like, I got it and wouldn't do all this stuff, and then I let it wither on the vine. And if that's because it was never going to be a right fit for you, or you kind of like just were holding it in a way that kind of really didn't fit, I think the first question is, like, be okay with that. Like, if it's not a great fit for you, it's not a great fit for you. You could still be a phenomenal dentist, practice owner, whatever it is, you can still be phenomenal without this. So, like, if, if, if it's up on the shelf and you want to get it back out because it's a genuine match for you, the next question is, I think, really isolating. Why did, why did it stay on the shelf? Was it operational? Was it an implementation piece or a clinical confidence piece? And the confidence piece, actually, they're both addressable. Almost everything in our world is a solvable problem. It just depends on how much you want to commit to solving that particular problem. And this is a problem that you want to commit to solving. Give us a call. I would say is a short answer of. Sometimes people will have been out of the game for a little bit and they've let their certification get a little dusty and they're like, I want to just come in and do some cases. Easy. Yes. Could. Do you have a research course? Do you have just coaching? I think it really depends upon what the individual is asking for and where they are in their IV station journey. And, you know, we'll be kind of the first ones to say, yes, that's a match for what we can deliver for you and really provide. Or now it's not really our cut, and that's okay. So I really think it starts with the clinicians being honest with themselves.

Leah?

Yeah, I mean, I just reiterate what Clay said. If you, you know, have the confidence, it's just a matter of starting, then start. Start small. Like, you know, tell your team I want to book one case a week or I want to dedicate a day to IV sedation and do it if you aren't quite there yet. You, like, you want to get to that point, but you're a step behind and it is. I'm not entirely sure. I need, you know, more practice and experience or either. I think either way. Yeah. Reach out. Go to our website, Vesper Institute, fill out a form, say, you know, you heard us on the podcast and. And you're one of those dentists, and be vulnerable if that. If that's kind of how it feels. But that's a good thing because you do have a very powerful tool and it can make such a positive impact for you, your staff and your patients. So we would hate to see that it's just sitting on the shelf. We would love for. For, if we can, to help you, you know, put it into practice and be able to reap the benefits.

So.

Good.

Final question, my friends. Where do you see IV sedation going over the next three to five years? Are you noticing trends? Is there shifts? Are there predictions that perhaps our dental leaders should really be paying attention to?

Lee, what you think?

Yeah, you know, what we find is, and I think you would agree, patient anxiety is not going anywhere. Just everyday anxiety isn't going anywhere. It's increasing. So patients are searching for this. Even if you were to, like, you know, look at keyword searches and Google searches, there is a ton on the patient side. The demand is there. Unfortunately, we're trying to change that, but dentists need to catch up, and I think that they will. I think the more the patients demand it, the more dentists are going to feel the need. And perhaps in dental school or other kind of programs are going to offer it, but why not get ahead of the curve? So I think if we can all see, like, this is a need that's out there, this is a way to differentiate it yourself. If you're willing to, you know, take on, you know, what's required and commit and be able to be that clinician who. Who wants it. Starting now is better than starting tomorrow. So that's what I. That's what I would encourage. It's. You can own this market if you get ahead of it.

Yeah, I don't want, like, I think when we were. Well, I know when we were at the. At the summer, this summer, you know, we kind of framed it as like, yes, like, yes, this is kind of a blue ocean, but we don't treat it that way because it really does have to come to the patient. Like, are you the one. Do you trust yourself. Are you genuinely aligned with doing this? Is this a help for your patient population in your practice? It has to come from that. It can't. From the. Can't come from the gimme, gimme of is this a blue ocean? That being said, it kind of is. But that won't last forever because everyone wants a piece of the blue ocean, right? And to Leah's point, like, you know, we're constantly involved in, like, what's the market do? What are patients out there looking for? And yes, suffice to say, they want this. It's not everybody. And we talked about this a lot during the summit. Just go back a half step toward that conversation. The portions of the population that really are kind of like knocking on this door are the fearful spectrum all the way from, like, you know, like, I don't like the sights and sounds of the dental office, which is very small to like, full on phobic, has a very large spectrum. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of people. Then you have medically compromised special needs, obese gaggers, all these people. You start stacking up those subsets and you get to a huge portion of the population very quickly. And so, again, it's not necessarily like this certain demographic that's right down in the neighborhood next to you. It's everybody everywhere, and they're hiding, and there's no one else talking to these folks and saying, hey, if you drive, you know, five minutes or an hour to my office, we know exactly how to treat you, alleviate your fear, give you the treatment. It's safe. I'm trained, I feel competent, I feel confident, my team's aligned. Let's go. Very few people are out there with their hand up saying that. And if you can be that one.

Yeah, I love that. That's. That's why we do. What we do in the world of dentistry, you know, is ultimately to get our patients healthy and to reach out and, you know, affect our communities for a positive change. And if we can offer something to our patients that other people in our neighborhood aren't offering them, from a standpoint of care, I mean, it's actually such a beautiful thing. And so I'm so grateful that we had an opportunity to chat today. It's been such a valuable conversation. And before we wrap up, Leah and Clay, is there any specific insight or an action that you hope that your listeners take away from today's episode?

Take away, Leah?

Yeah, I would kind of challenge you to. I, I tossed it in earlier, but just start having conversations when you're going out to dinner with friends and see, like, hey, hey, you know, imagine you need all this dental work or if it's a family friend who does, if I knocked you out, would you be more inclined? How would you feel about that? And just, you know, toss it out there and see what the reaction is. And I'm pretty confident you will find that folks who perhaps thought were just, you know, getting by and it wasn't an issue if they knew this was an option, they would say, oh, yeah, can you do that? Might encourage you to go get certified or if you're certified, to really, you know, put it into practice.

And then my add on would be to all the clinicians out there, if you're thinking of those things, you have those, those conversations on the double date. To think that, like, whether you're interested or intrigued about getting certified or actually already certified, if you have questions, just like, like Leah said earlier, like, send in a form, be vulnerable. Hey, I heard you. I have some questions come with the questions. We, we really applaud, like, healthy skepticism, like I said earlier, like, about the drill, you know, like, everything is foreign and unknown in the beginning, and it's okay to say that, like, I'm, I'm scared about this. I'm intrigued. I want to learn more. It might not be for me, but I'm comfortable asking the question. I think the comfortable asking the question is where I want, where I'd say start.

Amazing. Well, Leah and Clay, thank you once again for joining us and sharing your insights. And for anybody that's listening today that want to learn more, please go and check out vesper institute.com we will link it into the show notes. And as always, my friends, thanks to our audience for tuning in and we'll see you again soon. Keep smiling.

Thank you for listening to deo's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Continue the conversation on our Facebook group and meet other dental leaders. Get questions answered and the strategies you need to to succeed. Plus, we have some free resources for you right there on the Facebook page. Remember, you're not alone. Let's do this together. Join DEO's Growth Secrets Group on Facebook. And until next time, keep smiling.