249: The Truth About AI Every Dental Practice Owner Must Hear

When people start to pitch different products, they might say, well, this will save your front desk staff 15% of their time, but what does that actually mean? And do you actually care? Because unless you have something else for them to do the other 15% of the time, then what is the benefit that's actually being received?

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 sol problems and get you the answers you need to face these challenging times and thrive. Welcome to DEO's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Now let's get started.

Hello and welcome to the DEO Podcast. I'm Kendall Hussain and you are listening to the show that dives into the trends, tools and transformations shaping the dental industry today. We are talking about something that is generating a ton of buzz, my friends. It is AI and dentistry. What's, what's hype and how practices can use it practically. And before we get into it, I want to remind you to please click and link and subscribe to our DEO podcast so that you can get all of our updates and announcements here. And I have an awesome, amazing guest with us today. I am thrilled to welcome Mike Huffaker, who is the chief revenue officer at Planet dds. And so Mike oversees sales and marketing in this rapidly growing software company that is serving 13,000 dental practices nationwide. And so he's really got a front row seat to the innovation that's happening around the industry. And so, Mike, welcome to the DEO podcast.

Kendall, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to the conversation.

Likewise, and it is so great to have you. And for those of you who may not be familiar, Mike, please tell me a little bit about your background, your role at Planet dds. Give us all the good stuff here.

Sure. So I'm kind of in my second career, I call it, which is in technology. But in my past life I worked for a luxury Italian shoe brand and I sold all the major accounts. Nordstrom, Neiman Saks. We were talking before we started recording about all my Seattle visits and that was to go visit the corporate headquarters of Nordstrom up there. But about 12 years ago when I was 34, I decided I wanted to do a career pivot and get into technology. I had no experience at the time. It was firing off resumes into black holes. Nobody wanted a 34 year old with no technology sales experience to be one of their technology sales reps. But I found my way into the startup world and began working for a technology startup that was doing iPad point of sale solutions, fancy cash registers, you see them everywhere now. But back in 2014, it was really kind of innovative and disrupting that space. And so they gave me my first start in technology. They're like, sure, we'll take a chance on this old guy, no problem. And you know, I spent three years there, watched the company go from 70 people to almost 600 people. Ended up having almost 100 people within my organization when I left, went to another early stage startup. And then Planet DDS came calling. And when I first got the call, I was quite frankly, not super interested. I was like, wait, dentistry? Like first off, I know nothing about dentistry. I was like, this is the thing where people have their hands in people's mouths all day long. Like, it seems like kind of an odd thing. I don't understand the technology. But then I learned that there was a lot of parallels between what I was doing with point of sale solutions for restaurant and hospitality, which were really kind of core system of records that laid the foundation for restaurants and retail establishments to run their business. And practice management software does much of the same thing, except in a dental practice. And so after learning a little more about the industry, understanding that there was a rapid consolidation taking place with the advent of dental service organizations and group practices, as well as the opportunity where technology adoption was significantly behind the curve in comparison to other spaces, I thought it was a really fantastic opportunity. And six years ago joined Planet DDS. We were doing roughly 10 million of annual recurring revenue. We just passed 100 million this year. And so it's been really rapid growth and it's been a whole lot of fun. And I love the industry now. And so I'm very glad I decided to make the shift into dental.

So cool. From shoes to POS and into dental. Here we are now. And so for those that maybe aren't familiar with Planet dds, can you give us a bit of a background on, like, how Planet DDS came to be? It is this high powered cloud based practice management system. But it is so cool because you offer practice management from many different specialties in the world of dentistry. So give us a bit about, you know, the beginning and where did Planet DDS come from and stuff.

Sure, yeah. So it's interesting. Planet TDS has actually been around since 2003, so I don't think a lot of people recognize how long that we've been in existence. And that was just shortly after cloud became a thing. Like if you've ever used Salesforce, Salesforce came out in like 1999, 2000. Their whole thing was no software with a line across it. And that was kind of the advent of these cloud business to business solutions really taking off. So our founders at that moment in time were looking at the landscape within the dental space. Everything was server based, everything was siloed, everything was using different fragmented solutions. There was really no ability to easily scale up, have visibility into your organization, an understanding of the data and the ability to operationalize consistently across multiple locations. And so we were really built from the ground up as an enterprise practice management solution. I say we're the category creator of enterprise practice management for dental. Over the years we've done some acquisitions. We also acquired Apteryx Imaging. Apterix was the first cloud based sensor agnostic imaging solution. And then we also acquired Cloud9. Cloud9 was the category creator for ortho practice management software. All three of those products integrate with each other. We're very big in interoperability. We don't buy things for the sake of buying it. We buy em when we look like, when we look for areas of opportunity in the market where we can help close gaps and provide better services to the dental professionals on the front lines handling patients every single day. And so that's been kind of the direction that we've taken. We've happened to focus on multi location groups and DSOs. We think that makes us unique in the space. We do that because there's a unique set of needs that folks with more than one practice have that just don't exist when you're running an independent solo practice. And so we really focus our efforts on trying to ease administrative burden, allow for patients and providers to really connect and then also make sure that you're collecting the money for all the production that's taking place, which, you know, it's important. We, we do want to maintain the purpose of the space and there is a very noble purpose in dentistry, which I love, but it is at the intersection of profit and purpose. And in order to continue to deliver great care, you need to make sure that you're running a good business and that's what we try to help.

I love it. I always say if your money ain't right, you can't put up the fight. So that's right. I love it. I love it. So let's chat about AI because there has been a lot of conversations and I'm sure You've been in a lot of conversations around AI lately and so what are you hearing and what's your perspective on the practicality and adoption of AI in dentistry?

Yeah, so, gosh, we could talk about this for a long time and it is, it almost gets exhausting to talk about AI sometimes. And I know people hear it brought up so often. And so hopefully some of this perspective will be helpful for folks that are trying to navigate the world. First off, AI is transformative technology. It is absolutely 100% going to change so many of the ways that we go about our business, both in a dental practice, both as a support organization and, and everything in between. And so it is a little complex right now to navigate, but we're seeing real applications already in the scheduling tools and operational efficiencies and clinical efficiencies with the advent of radiographic AI with ambient listening, with perio charting, voice Perio charting, and on the RCM side of things, with, you know, automated eligibility checks, writing back to the tables. From having the AI actually log into payer portals, scrape all the data and move it into your system, to having narratives auto generated and attached to claims for auto submissions. Like, there's so many opportunities, but how do you, how do you choose? Like I it, it becomes very, very challenging to understand what's real and what's not. And so I think one important thing is to have a strong practice management solution provider partner because none of this works well without integration. And right now the landscape is littered with hundreds. I just saw a post on LinkedIn recently. Somebody put in the legwork to put together a logo chart of like all of the AI solutions that are currently in the market for different areas and different categories within dental. And it's overwhelming. You look at it and you're like, whoa. So foundationally, if you have a strong cloud PMS partner, you should have a conversation with them like, hey, who works well with you all? What solutions integrate in a seamless way where we can gain adoption within our practices? Because what often happens is they'll work the opposite way. They'll start with a bunch of different solutions that they think look cool, they'll buy them and then they'll find out they don't actually work with their practice management solution or they don't work well and their teams and their staff and the practices will not adopt the tools. The clinicians will ignore it. It's not in the right workflow. I don't want to open up this other window and click on four different things over here. And so you end up spending a lot of money on things that you can't take advantage of. And so I think that that's a big key that we try to help our clients navigate is what's real and what's not. Kind of a last note on that part. There are a lot of quote unquote companies right now that are really features. And so if you're evaluating something that you want to add into your technology stack and you ask yourself, could I build a company off of this one thing, or is somebody else going to build it themselves as part of their platform, or should it be part of like a larger suite of products? And if so, who is building that larger suite? So I don't have to buy from six different vendors, six different features, because what will happen is there will be a consolidation. We're going to see the explosion right now. And then some people are going to go out of business, others aren't going to work, others are going to merge together, other things are going to be built into the practice management solution, and there's going to be. It's unsustainable where we're at today. And so that's just some things to think about when you're out in the market shopping for AI. Right.

I love that One of the things that you subtly touched on, and I hope our listeners picked up on it, was, you know, the ROI for AI. Right. Obviously, as business owners, we're trying to make sure that we're getting, you know, that return on investment for the products and the services that we're investing in so that we can use them inside of our practice. And I think what you said was that, you know, doctors offices, you know, buy these products, looking at the shiny bells and whistles, thinking, oh, this is going to work, this is going to be amazing. And then the team doesn't adopt it. Right. And that's typically where we see that loss of revenue is, you know, it can go across the board. It can be from, you know, buying a scanner, buying a CEREC machine, investing in, you know, a product and when the team's been able to use it and adopt it, that's how we end up losing that roi. And so I love how you were sharing that. You know, one of the greatest things that they can do is actually connect with that practice management provider and say, how can you help us integrate this into our workflows and does this work with what we're trying to achieve and accomplish? So I think that was just great. And I really just wanted to highlight it because Again, at the end of the day, you know, we can invest as much as we want in all of these wonderful things, but if we don't use it, that's when it's ultimately going to fall flat and then people will get frustrated and then they, they are not inspired to continue to move with the flow. And AI, as we know, is moving so fast. It is like you said, there's all these bells and whistles, there's all these companies, but at some point things are going to be, you know, consolidated. And so I know I was looking at Chat GPT the other day, and I think from what it could do for me from, from Monday to what it was telling me it could do on Tuesday was something completely different. Right, right. This is so cool. Like, you can do it now and it couldn't do it 24 hours ago. So. Yeah, very cool, Very cool.

Yeah. The ROI conversation is actually really interesting and I would even take it a step further. I was talking with Ray Caruso, who's a big DEO guy and he's the CEO of Lone Peak Dental, for those that aren't aware. And he was making the point that when people start to pitch different products, they might say, well, this will save your front desk staff 15% of their time, but what does that actually mean? And do you actually care? Because unless you have something else for them to do the other 15% of the time, then what is the benefit that's actually being received? And so when you start to look at a lot of the tools, you have to really determine where is the value or what outcomes am I driving, what problems am I solving for before you just look at the shiny object, like you said, and go, let me just buy this and we'll use it, and maybe it will make this one individual's life 10 or 15% easier, but is that adding any benefit to your practice? And so you really have to start thinking about all of those things when you're looking to implement these tools to understand where the real value is.

Absolutely. And so where do you think AI is leading the most value and efficiency for practices today?

Yeah, so I, I think on the clinical side, the advent of radiographic AI has been massive. I think it's probably the most well understood by the broadest segment of the market today. It's like, yes, okay, I get it. I can capture my X rays and I can get decision assistance or support where it's highlighting, you know, caries and bone loss and, you know, all of that, and it can be helpful. Now I think that the benefit to it has actually been somewhat different than what people initially anticipated. Like the numbers you'll see are increases case acceptance by 15 or 20% or does this or does that. You know what it does? It increases trust with the patient and the provider by a whole bunch of percentage, which then is creating these outcomes of increased case acceptance and things along those lines. And so I think when you look at it as like what the root benefit is, when people go to dentists, there's quite frankly unease for much of the population. They're worried about it, they're nervous about it. When they can sit down with a provider and the provider can say, let me show you what's going on. You can now see what I'm seeing. I've been trained to do this. I don't need this to show up. I would know anyways. But this now helps you understand what's happening in your mouth and what needs to be treated and how we're gonna go about doing that. So I think the radiographic AI piece is probably the furthest along with the most broad utility, you know, your overjet, your pearl, your vidia in the marketplace today. Now where I think the next wave is coming from is on the RCM side. RCM is traditionally one of the most challenging things to navigate within a dental practice. There's the submission of the claims, the rejections, the resubmissions, the improper patient estimates, like the write offs on the back end, the missed payments, the collections, the accounts receivable, the list goes on and on and it's a bear to manage. And we're seeing more and more tools come out that are effective to help with your 835s auto posting and reconciliation against your bank account. With narratives being auto drafted by AI LLMs and attached to the claims. By scrubbing a claim pre submission, measuring the likelihood of the claims acceptance based off of running through a whole series of past claims to understand whether or not it's going to actually be accepted or not. There's the scraping of all of the payer portals to write back to the coverage tables so that you don't have to have people on the phone for so long, like manually putting all that in. It also helps create your plans and make your plans more accurate. And so I think all of those areas there's a lot of utility today. And then the other spot where there's a big highlight on AI are front office tasks, particularly AI receptionists. Now the part with AI receptionists that makes me a little bit nervous is that there's so many of them out there. And so you're seeing almost every week a new claim of, hey, you know, you can make it where this receptionist will call and do schedule appointments for you, or it can call and look to collect for you, or it can answer the phone when your staff is going to miss it and they can book an appointment. At some point, the threshold of the percentage of those calls that are successful have to be where you're not getting so many people saying, human, please let me talk to a human. That's what I want to do today when I get an AI. And the problem is there's still so much latency in the kind of. The previous versions of voice reception, you'd talk to a system, then you hear that, like, sound like that. It would kind of fill in the space while it was thinking for you. And it was annoying. You knew what it was doing. But now they're trying to make it so conversational. But there's still the latency there. So if you're a person, you're expecting a faster response. The AI is still thinking. You're like, this is annoying. And even though it's just a little bit of friction in the interaction, like the consumer expectations are so high today because in so much that we do, there's no friction that while that still exists in that second, that person's like, can I just talk to a human, Human, please, Human. And then you're not getting any value out of the, out of the tool. So. But I think there is real utility there. I think there is going to be a huge benefit. I just think that's coming along and not quite 100% ready for primetime in all cases. There are some use cases, though, that.

Where it is absolutely. And so AI can be overwhelming for those that are just starting to explore it in their dental practices. You know, what advice do you have? Maybe for the dentists who are just starting to incorporate AI in their practices, is there perhaps, like a practical place to start? Would you say that it's with the, you know, radiographic imaging or how. How do you kind of think about those practices that are perhaps a little bit skeptical, but they see where it's going and they're like, I want to jump on this, but I'm not so sure about this. Where. Where would you recommend they start?

Well, so I think radiographic AI is a good spot to start because it's not all that difficult to implement. And then what you have to focus on is the adoption and the use of it. I would say, in general, my Recommendation is look at your entire kind of technology ecosystem first. If you're running a group practice with five or six offices on three or four different PMS systems, likely nothing that you seek to pursue will ultimately be successful for you. And so until you lay the foundation of standardizing across your practices where the data sets are the same, the way that you interact with the software is the same. So that you can create one training guide for how to do things, not one for every single PMS system that then is likely not going to be leveraged. I would start there, but now let's say you already have a really strong foundation for practice management. I would suggest that you don't bite off too many projects at once. Take them one at a time. And when you decide that you want to pursue something, create what the success criteria looks like for you so that you know whether you're getting that roi. If it is a. You're trying to solve for case acceptance. Let's say your, your, your numbers are lower than you would like and you're at, I don't know, call it 30%, you want to get to 50%, set that as your standard and say like, I'm going to try to implement this solution to solve for this problem and if I get this outcome, then I'm going to keep it and we're going to move forward. If I do not, within this window, I will evaluate. Is it because my team is not using it? Is it because we didn't train them enough? So first, like seek the internal accountability as the leader of your organization. But then if it's none of those things and it's just the tool doesn't provide what was expected, then you can move on and not waste your money on that. And so I would, although I'm saying radiographic out of both sides of my mouth here, I'm saying radiographic AI because it's one of the most established and easiest to implement. However, the other approach is what are the, what's the biggest problem I'm facing today? Is it an RCM issue? Is it a staffing issue? Is it a front desk scheduling issue? Is it a clinical issue? And then maybe pursue a solution to that particular pressing problem. So two, two different ways that you can look at it.

I love it. Let's bring it back to Planet DDS for a bit here. How is Planet DDS incorporating AI into its products?

Yeah, so a number of different ways. We have launched what we call dental OS or it's dental operating system and it's intended to be a Single pane of glass for all of your software solutions, including third party solutions that are not provided by Planet dds. Historically, integrations with practice management solutions are a simple data exchange. You have your PRM software window up over here. It's able to read the patient demographics from your PMS solution. It is also most likely able to write back to the schedule of the PMS solution. But there's no kind of interoperability inside of the pms. So you're still working out of multiple systems. What we're looking to do is to streamline those workflows and put functionality directly in the practice management solution that is powered by other third parties. So an example of that, we use Dental Exchange. We have a very close partnership with Dental Exchange as a clearinghouse. Dental Exchange also has a couple AI products that they're doing right now, eligibility AI being one of them. When you work inside Denticon, whether it's submitting claims, doing attachments, working denials, having 835 auto post, all of that happens inside our software. You don't need to log in to the dental exchange software. So it's like a single pane of glass for the practice to be able to use some of the AI tools like the auto eligibility check, without needing to log in separate places. So that's one way that we're inserting AI on the radiographic side, if you're a doctor and you're there with a patient, you take the X rays and it appears right inside your clinical workflow. So you've got your odontogram, you've got the images, they're all within the practice management software. You're not clicking open another window, which is where the adoption goes to die. You're actually getting to see it all right there in front of you. And so we're starting to infuse throughout the entire solution. Agents is another case. Now, I know I just kind of spoke down on some of the voice receptionist solutions, but we are putting out voice receptionist solutions as well. And the way that we'll handle it is it won't be an ongoing subscription that the practice has to pay for. They will just hire the agents as they're needed. So if you have four offices and one of them's schedule utilization is really low, you can sit and go like, you know what, I need to fill up the schedules over there. Click a button, go fill those schedules for me. It will scan and figure out which patients are most likely to show up based off a whole bunch of factors and what are the highest value Procedures and then it will reach out, make phone calls, schedule the appointments, book it right there on your calendar and you'll just pay for the appointment that's being set up as if you were hiring a temp worker to do something for you and get some patience and to fill up your schedule. So those are just some of the ways. There's about 18 different agents we're working on deploying. We have something we call AI Insights, which is the ability to tie into third party AI analytics tools. You're going to be able to do like a ChatGPT style prompting over all your data, show me the production by this provider over this time range without having to like run an actual report where you just get the data fed to you that you're looking for. Hey, give me all of my patients with an ar balance over 90 days. Here you go, here's your list, like really easy kind of interfaces that we'll have as well.

Oh, as a previous operations manager and office manager, I'm like, that sounds like heaven. I know it to me all day long like, oh wow, that sounds absolutely amazing. And so with all this momentum though, there is a complexity aspect to it and so believe is going to be the biggest challenge for the dental practices when it comes to scaling AI. Like, is it the technology, is it the regulation, the training, like the culture, is it something else else that you see is going to be, you know, a challenge for, for dental practices. What do you, what do you think there?

I think the change management and training is always a massive challenge, particularly when you're implementing a new practice management solution. But really, quite frankly, when you're doing anything, if you're introducing curidance to a clinical team, if you're bringing in a new scanner, if you're bringing like, it doesn't matter. It is always a challenge to get that type of adoption, a real good process in your organization for how you deploy. Change is super critical and I think that the ones that are already are doing it well in other areas are probably going to still do it well. On the technology side, I think the adoption will come with ease of use. And you're right, there's a lot of complexity to it. But in the instance of the agents that I spoke about, if you can do things on demand and hire as needed and know that you're not just paying for something for every single month, whether you use it or not, I think that that will add a lot of value to the way that dental practices operate. And so I don't know that the regulation Pieces is kind of on would be in my top three or four concerns related to the complexity. But I would definitely do the change management, training, adoption and really it really all ties back to what the user experience is. And if you can create a user experience that is as simple as using your iPhone or whatever phone that you use that have these really beautiful interfaces that are easy and intuitive to use. I've never read any sort of instruction manual on how to use my phone. I just know how to do it. And if software products can create solutions that are that easy to adopt and that seamless without the friction that currently exists with the complexity of software, then that's where we'll really see the acceleration of all these new amazing capabilities that can really drive positive outcomes for the industry.

Yeah, absolutely. Ease is key for sure. Now one of the things, you know, as a previous team member here, there's always this space of fear or you know, scarcity where you know, your receptionist freaks out and is like, but I'm needed, I'm going to lose my job if there's AI, like what am I going to do? Like they're replacing me. You know, all the things. And really AI is the tool to help team members be more effective, more efficient, you know, better at their role. We free up time so they can focus on that patient interaction. Because dentistry is very much still a human profession. Right. It's all about relationships, clinical judgment. And so how does Planet DDS balance that human element with the rise of some of the AI driven automation that's coming down the pipeline?

Yeah, I think it's a matter of offering flexibility and allowing practices to have the flexibility to operate their business in the way that is aligned with what their values are. And so look, you will see practices that will turn into a workflow where the patient walks in, checks in through a kiosk, doesn't speak to anybody, somebody comes and grabs them, they're brought back, put in the chair in the operatory, then that's when they'll have their first human interaction. You're gonna have other people that are like, no, that's not good enough for me. I want there to be a human touch from the outset and I want there to be a little bit of chit chat. When our patient walks in, they should feel warm and welcomed and like they're not just gon check in on a tablet and our tools will enable you to do either. And so it becomes a choice of the type of business that people want to run. And while I don't think that there Is the opportunity right now where you just replace a lot of individuals? I do think that there will be that opportunity as AI continues to advance. And it also depends on the type of practice that one has. If you get 15% more effective at scheduling for patients, but you have two practices and you have two people that are doing that work, that means you're saving 30%, but you're not up to 100%. You'd have to be at 100% to have any sort of labor arbitrage where you could replace a human with the AI. Now, if you have 15 practices, though, and if you're getting 15% more effective and you decide you want to centralize some of the services that you offer versus have it run individually out of each individual practice, well, yeah, you're going to get an economy of scale that could be facilitated by AI that may result in lower labor costs overall. And so there's just a lot of different ways to think about it. And I think people need to put some thought into what their patient experience looks like, what the expectations are that their patients have, what their expectations are for the team members within their practice, and then you can implement the right tools to help you achieve those goals.

Love it. So, as we wrap up here, Mike, what's the single most important takeaway that you want our listeners to remember when it comes to AI and the future of dental practices?

You can't hide from it. You know, it is here. It's not going anywhere. You probably don't have to rush into it and with the same urgency that you may feel out there because you hear it being spoken about all the time. So be methodical in your approach, be patient with your deployments. And it's not a FOMO sort of thing. Like, you're not going to miss out. It's not going anywhere. But just as an operator of a dental business, you do have the responsibility of staying up to date with what's happening in the market to be. To make sure that you don't become irrelevant. And so while I don't think that there's a risk of that, in the near term, it will be important to kind of keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on out there so that you can do best for your business.

I love it. And if someone wants to learn more about Planet DDS or if they want to connect with your team, where should they go?

Yeah, so you find planet dds@planetdds.com, you can find me on LinkedIn. It's LinkedIn.com M. Huffaker I also host a podcast called the Dental Economist Show. Speak to C Suite leaders of DSOS releases every Thursday. We just hit our 100th episode and so yeah, I'm happy to chat with anybody that wants to reach out to Amazing.

Congratulations, Mike. Thank you again for joining us and for sharing your perspective on the future of dentistry to our listeners. If you found this helpful, as I said at the beginning, make sure you follow. Subscribe, share this episode with your friends or colleagues and we will see you next time. And as always, keep smiling.

Thank you for listening to deo's Growth Secrets Podcast for dental organizations. Continue the conversation on our Facebook group group and meet other dental leaders. Get questions answered and the strategies you need 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.