"Get Off The New Patient Treadmill" Million Dollar Dentistry Masterclass September 2021

Hey, practice owners, welcome back to episode number nine of Million Dollar Dentistry. Holy cow, Gary. It is hard to believe this is number nine, man.

You know, it flew. But, man, do I have fun with you every time we get into this, man.

Likewise. Well, and I dug out my Million.

Dollar Dentistry, but you got, you need this one, man.

I got this one. This is the first one. It probably got smarter by that version. There's, like, super secrets in it. And for anybody who's watching, as I see as the numbers start rolling up here and people are coming in, if this is your first time, we're going to tell you at the end how to get your own copy of Million Dollar Dentistry. And you can go back and read the chapters, or you can go back and watch each episode, the first eight episodes with highlights like cash in your pocket now and what you really should be doing with your hygienist. Some previous chapters that have gotten a lot of attention. And tonight we're Gary, we're going to talk about getting off the patient or the new patient treadmill.

That's scary for people. It is. It's scary. We're going to open it up.

Well, in dentistry, they, I think it's ingrained in them in, you know, fourth year, maybe the only business class they have, which is, here's a bunch of clinical education we're going to give you. And then here's the business education. Spend a lot of money and every month just hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer to get new patients. And if you're losing money, well, the solution is get new patients, Right? And I mean that. That is almost what's funny is when we do these kind of things about new patients and you have a great take on it in the book or otherwise I've read ahead and that new patients aren't the answer to necessarily you need new patients, but new patients aren't the absolute solution to your practice.

So, yeah, they're all, they're, you know what they do? They put a nice band aid on source problems. They're great for, like, symptomatic masking of, like, you know, not having to look at what really the core issue is. And when you start peeling it apart, this is like, you know, I always, I was always profoundly, like, dumbfounded. I don't know if that's two good words to put together, but I guess we're going to go with it right now. Steve, like, a practitioner has been in business for when I go, like 20 years and then they have a thousand patients, and I'm like, wait a minute, there's something, there's a gap here that we need to really get to the root cause of. And when you do that, you know, you talk about taking more vacation time, having more money, getting your team on board, doing all the things that, you know, getting your patients on board, those are all the things that really, like, once you really understand what we're going to talk about tonight, oh, man, you changed the way you look at your business and now you can run a profitable business and have fun doing it.

You know, and that's the key word, profitable or profitably. You know, it's practically in the name of my company. That's the key. And I think a lot of practice or a lot of dentists who become practice owners struggle with that. And they, you know, they hand a lot of things off to their team and just don't think about them again. And, you know, you're, you're a, you have a good way of presenting. You know, when you have as many patients going out the back door after a visit or two as coming in the front door, then yes, all you need to do is keep cranking them through. But wouldn't it be cool if you could find a way to keep a few and only a few makes a gigantic difference. And I think we're going to go through the math tonight that again, you can find in the book. We'll tell you how to get one at the end. But as we start here, Gary, I've got a couple things popping up. Number one, and I'm watching the timer here. I'm watching questions and people coming in. I wanted to remind everybody, ask your questions, type them in a little box and we'll get to as many as we can tonight on this episode. But whatever we can't, we'll get to by tomorrow morning or in the next few days. So all the questions will be answered. There's no silly question. You know, they're anonymous for a reason. You can ask whatever you want. If you're a practice owner and struggled with this and don't understand it, you can just, you know, you can click and say, I don't know what the heck you guys are talking about, but ask your questions is the, is the point here. So, Gary, number one, we're going to talk about your 11 step process near the end that you sort of refined over the years to help prepare practice owners understand that there are, number one, the right kind of new patient for their practice.

Right.

And how to evaluate those so that you're not, you know, again, you got as many Going out the back doors, coming in the front door. So if we can kind of jump right in. You say, you say here in the book, you don't want every new patient that comes through the door.

No.

What the heck does that mean?

Well, you know, when I first say that in a room, when I say, you know, when we were doing live stuff and, you know, we'd go in a room and I'd say, like, all right, you know, how are you going to grow your practice? 99% of doctors go, new patients. And then they sit there and they go, well, I can't keep up. I'm working too hard. I'm working on roller skates. And they're just slapping them in without really thinking it through. And this happens quite often because here's what's happening. You have a certain integrity that you operate from in your practice, like seeing patients on time, paying their bills. You know, you have a certain expectation that you have for your customers. Here's what happens. They're out there going to medical practices, not having to pay anything. They can show up whenever they want to show up. And if you don't get the. If you don't have an alignment for your marketing, for your vetting of patients, for your. For getting the patient to your chair on time with the right mindset, if you don't have that, what happens is you waste a lot of time. Like, I'll get these docs that have 80 new patients. They're running Groupon ads, and meanwhile they're doing. They want to do comprehensive dentistry. People are buying on price, and you're trying to offer a value proposition of whole body health, for instance, or aesthetics. And there's like a mismatch of new patients coming in for the type of dentistry that's being done. And people just, they just don't spend the time to think about that. One distinction.

I was always, you know, when I got in this business, marketing was you got a yellow pages ad, which was usually expensive, and you got a big sign on the side that said, dentist now accepting new patients. And if you want to get really fancy, what, you know, it swept the nation, free whitening. Because, you know, docs would look and they would say, you know, it cost me a few bucks for whitening, so I'm going to get a bunch of patients by offering free whitening. And when I got into the practice part of the business, I would say, okay, how many new patients do we have? Well, you know, we have three this month. Well, hell, we've given away. I don't know, 50 containers of new whitening.

Yeah.

They just didn't stick. And I would always say, right, because you're not inviting them to be a new patient. They're doing exactly what you asked. You invited them to get free whitening.

Exactly.

Maybe you tie it to a new pay a free new patient examination. But you're right, you know, if you get 50 people to accept that this month and you're thrilled and your marketing worked, and they all leave because they got their free whitening and they sat through one comprehensive exam and you know what you didn't bill them for? You got exactly what you asked for. Right?

Exactly. Exactly. And Steve, you know, your, your quote is, you can't out DSO the dso, Right. So. So if you're a private practitioner here, don't try to out DSO the dso. Know your position in the marketplace. Quality, service and price. There's Banana Republic, there's Old Navy, and there's the Gap. They're all owned by the same company. And if you're, you know, quality, service and price, and you can only offer two, quality and service is Banana Republic. Service and service and price is Old Navy. They get you on the phone, they, or they have the headsets are running around, they're getting you your size, but the quality of the, the T shirt you wear, that, you wear that 4th of July T shirt, and then you're trashing it the next day on the 5th of July. So it's like. And the Gap is quality, quality denim and shirts and low prices. But you don't have any people matching your, your, your clothes, your tops with your bottoms like you do at Banana Republic. You have to know your niche, position and own it, and then build out and line up from there. A lot of people want to drop, tons of people want to drop insurances. They're just sick and tired of it. And I get it. But they're not positioned, Steve, to know who they are. Have their infrastructure built so that if you, if you can't close a case, if you can't retain a patient, don't drop insurances. You're just, you're, you're ready for a catastrophe waiting to happen. Don't do that. So this also will give you how to do that. Transition into, if you, if you do want to get into fee for service, how to do that is in this session tonight.

Okay. And I know we've got a. I'm going to summarize questions. And again, docs who are listening, watching, keep putting your questions in. I'll kind of roll them up into a bundle. We've got one here that is. What do you mean by my. And they put air quotes, my right patients. And I think that's sort of what you're just saying there is your right patients need to align with what you're comfortable doing, what you do, and what your team wants to do. Or again, they're, you know, back to the whitening patient. They're. There's somebody who wants free whitening. They had to sit through an exam. They're not a new patient. They're. I don't know what you call them, a traveler, but they're passing through. And I think you had some stats in your, in your book about those. We'll call them those patients. The not right patients for you.

Well, they're the ones that don't accept treatment. We're talking 17% of proposed treatment is only accepted and only 38% if you don't have this fixed. 38% retained after one year, Steve. So those are very low inefficient numbers for sure. Right. See, there's four types of dentistry. Emergency dentistry, maintenance dentistry, optimal dentistry, complete health dentistry. Those four levels, like when you know what business or what level of dentistry you're in, you know, if you're doing extractions, you're in. You're an emergency business. If you're in maintenance and you have some retention going on in hygiene, or if you're into whole, you know, optimal, complete comprehensive care, that's optimal dentistry. And then the ultimate dentistry is what we call complete health dentistry. And that's where you're collaborating with medical providers. So those four levels of dentistry, if you don't have the right alignment to marketing and you don't get the right person in, statistically, we know they don't accept treatment and they don't stay. So I want to introduce a concept here of the right patients, patients that show up on time, ready to go, listen to your recommendations, invest in those recommendations, and come back in the recare system and refer other patients. That is what we're looking for here. Now, a lot of people go, well, man, if I had that, that would be a dream way. You actually create them. You actually cause and create that as a way like you can actually attract the right patient and then you vet them and then you get them in. So let's, let's just talk about, like, this concept of there's three ways to build the practice. So getting off the new patient treadmill here, Steve, is really important. First, knowing that if you don't, you have to know how many new patients you need and how do you do that? So I'm going to go. I'm going to give you. I'm going to go to my website and I'm going to show you how to do that. All right, so let's do that right now. So let's see if I have it here. Here it is. So can you see my screen, Steve? This is that nextlevelpractice.com so right on the homepage, it says, take the quiz. So the quiz is really simple. Let's say you have one location. Let's say you have one associate. Let's say you have four chairs. Let's say you've been in practice for 20 years. Say you've been doing, let's say, 750. This is actual somebody who is. Who I just talked to from last month's webinar. And then he. This person had. I think they had 2,000 patients. Let me just put my information in here, and I'll just give you my personal email. How nice is that, Steve? There you go. So if you get here, if you go here, our calculations, practice should be doing $3 million. They're operating at 25% capacity. 750 is what they're doing. They can be doing $3 million. Where do we get that number from? We focus in on your patient retention and your case acceptance. Have a general generalized number for those two things. When you run the equation with that number of patients, the capacity of this practice, if they just focused in on patient retention and case acceptance, is four times what they're doing, Steve. So let's unpack this for a second. I think this is really, really important. Let's just say my calculations are crazy, crazy. But if I cut them in half, I'm at 1.5 million with the strategy of moving from new patients to focusing in on patient retention through your hygiene department and when they're in the hygiene room, because that's. Steve, the strategy here is people buy what they want, not what they need. 99% of patients want a cleaning. They don't come in and go, hey, I can't wait till that fractured tooth that I have gets crowned. I just can't wait for that. That's what they need. You give people what they want and then you share with them what they need. In an education process that does this, you share intelligent things with intelligent people. They make intelligent decisions. If you don't have a system in your hygiene department that is an educational system, your case acceptance is not going to be what it is. So now getting off the patient treadmill. This practice with 2000 patients almost needs 00 new patients for four years. Four years, Steve. Now, when I first tell a doctor this because they're so addicted to new patients, you know what the first question is? After I just present what I just presented to you, they go, hey, can you help me with my social media and my website?

Right, right. New patients.

That's new. Like, even after I just explained this, they'll say, hey, Gary, do you really include social media, marketing and my website? Because they don't have a system to retain their patients and they don't have a system to get the cases closed. And, and they don't, they don't even think that way. But by the way, it's. Look at this inefficient model. It costs $300 on the average to attract a new patient. Just on the average. Let's call it $300. Oh. Oh, my God. Siri just thought I was talking to her. Steve, how funny is that? No, you're good, Siri. You're good. You're good.

I got a question here from Siri.

I'm talking to Steve right now. Listen, the game here is this. It's real simple. $300 to attract a patient if only 20% of the time they come back twice. Now all of a sudden that $300 is costly. Now watch this. If you get them to come back twice, just say in a PPO practice, a prophy exam and an X rays, let's just say 150 per visit. Two visits, 300. Now all of a sudden you have a break even point. Now you add the value of, let's say a crown a year on average is about the case acceptance. With a good case acceptance, now you're talking 300 plus 1000. That's $1,300 is the average annual value of a patient that came through the front door that cost you 300 bucks. Now all of a sudden the equation works and you'll be profitable. Is that clear? Steve?

Yeah, I think the, the, the neat thing too is what you're saying is, you know, when I spend the money to get that new patient in and they stick for, you know, one hygiene cycle or two, and I'm starting over with another new patient, that's another $300 of money going out.

Yes.

Without any coming in. But if I can keep them. Yep, do what it takes to keep them. Just keep them even. And in a simple practice, then I spent that $300. I made it back the first year. Now I'm making 300 the next year. Now the next year is 600. They do nothing except the minimum. But if you can add some during the course of that relationship, then it becomes sort of exponential. And now in the fifth year and the sixth year, that $300 investment is paying off. You know, three or four to $1 for hygiene to restorative. And then if you add in, I know you, you do a lot with airway and a lot of oral DNA, a lot of oral systemic health injected into the practice. Now it's not 3 or 4 to 1 hygiene to restorative, it's 10 to 1 hygiene to everything else they need. So no, I think that's, that is spot on. So you've got here back to finding the new or the right patients. And I got a bunch of questions as they sort of come through. You are a big advocate of seeing the patient. One of the things I, one of my notes was seeing the patient through their lens. Not your lens.

Right.

Not the lens of, oh my gosh, here's a new patient. So we're going to say, hi, Mrs. Jones, fill this form out, here's your free whitening. And now we're going to, you know, check you out and you're on your way. They, they feel like a patient is what they feel like. Not, you know, not somebody who's new to your practice. So you're big on treating them or seeing, teaching your team how to see the patient through their lens, not your lens. Yeah, sort of expand on that.

Yeah. What happens is, you know, we usually look at when we're dealing with a person that's coming into the practice from our perspective, and one of the things that we, real simple, put yourself in the shoes of the patient who's calling it. Right. Because if you're sitting there and you've done this for 20 years and you're going, oh my God, this person's this. And you have like your judgment or your interpretation on the patient. What we're suggesting is put yourself compassionately and with empathy inside the shoes of the patient. Be in their world. So when you're talking to them on the phone, you want to be in their world versus your world, and they're an intrusion on it. No kidding, Steve. We did this, we did that. We do this study all the time. We do, we do shopper calls where we actually call offices and we, we, we just check in. It's mind blowing to the dentist that hears how their team is answering the phone. It is a complete intrusion on the. And we're talking nine and a half out of 10 offices.

They.

They're not set up to receive the patient in a calm, peaceful space that. That has a systematic approach to engaging the patient and finding out what's most important to them and also what's in the way. So you want to really find out, like, what do they want to get? What is their experience that they want to have? Why are they calling, like, getting in their world. But it's never. It's never just what the surface is. Yeah, I need to come in. Why do you need to come in? What, you know, really getting in their world, getting related. You know, does this feel like a transaction or is it relational? You want this to be. If you're a quality and service position practice, you need to have dedicated people with a systematic process that does two things. Why emotionally are they coming in and what has been their experience in the past that has some form of trauma, Whether it's financial trauma, physical trauma, emotional, whatever that trauma is. There's always trauma associated. Too much, too fast, too soon, bad experience. And then they're wondering if you're going to be the one that does that or not does that. My wife, where I learned this was. My wife had a. She had a spa. That's where I met her. And. And you know, it's a very personal thing to do massage or facials for people. And one thing she had 99% fill rate. And why was because she got in the world of the other person and found out why they were coming in for the massage. Some come in for physical, some come in for an escape mental. She really understood the why they were coming in. And like, there's some people that, like, if you touch my quad, Steve, I hang on the roof like a cat and I lose my mind because it's so sensitive. Like, I'm worried if I'm worried about the whole massage that you're going to touch my quad and I'm going to lose it. Like, I'm waiting for that to happen. And if that happens, well, I can't read mine. So there's a way to really do two things with patients. Get in their world and find out what they want emotionally and get in their world and find out what's been the barrier for their experience to go to a dental practice. And when you do that really well and systematically and have the time and space to do it, you eliminate what the barrier is. And the no shows. See, because the cost of a no show, of a new Patient no show is a lot of money. It's the cost of an hour for a hygienist. We have a way to vet this, that it's your vetting and getting alignment with your patient. And even before they get onto that, that, that schedule, you.

And you used a really good word there, transactional. And I think in my experience, you tell me what you, what you feel. A lot of those, a lot of practices, they see this as a transactional experience. You know, get your free whitening, get your free, you know, exam, get your free whatever. And so again, back to what we said at the beginning. You're creating that for the patient. You're laying the groundwork. Or you have this. I get that. And that's it. And. But you're hoping that, you know, it blossoms into this amazing relationship when you come in and it, and it doesn't. I don't know. I don't know a percentage. I'm making it up. But in my experience, it's high 90s that it ever really blossoms into a relationship. You had said one of the things is get into their world. And I'm going to paraphrase some questions here, and what I remember from the book, but fears. And what I'm gathering is a lot of docs think fears are as simple as, you know, fear of pain or fear of, you know, they went to the dentist when they were younger and, you know, it was a bad experience, and now they're just going to suffer through a cleaning or money. And I have a couple questions about money. And to lump them together, it's almost like, aside from pain, how could patients be afraid of money? And you do a good job of explaining the money piece of it in chapter nine here. And getting off the new patient treadmill is. And what I want to tie it to is that transactional approach to what you talk about is value, the value you're giving the patient that you invite in. And so maybe just a second on how you. How money, how they should look at money. You do a good job of saying get your money right in earlier chapters, but how money works in this sort of framework of how you approach the patient.

Yeah. There's three natural objections that a patient has around dentistry. Time, money and pain. Time, money and pain. Right. And you can control those. But if you don't know that, that's the button that's in the world. So getting in the patient's world is really, really important. And the key thing about money here is really creating value. See, it's not that they People go, well, just do what my insurance covers. Or they say, you know, I have no money for it, or I have to talk to xyz. What they're really saying is, you did not create value for me. So that what, there's three things. When somebody's making a purchase, why should I care about this? Is it worth it? Can I do it? Why should I care? So if you really learn how to. And this ties back to the transactional versus transformational. That's what I want to introduce here. If you're in the transactional business, it's like box, check this, spend that, present this, get that. What we want you to begin to start looking at is how do you get in the transformation business and out of the transaction business. The DSOs are in the transaction business. I have a pain in my tooth. Fix the tooth, send them on their way. Relationship based and transformational. When you transform the way a person relates to a dentist and dentistry and you have them relate to their health in a new way and they come in a certain way and you have them leave experiencing known value and they look at themselves and they feel better and they, there's a new relationship that they have and it's emotionally driven. Now all of a sudden you have a patient for a lifetime, right? And they'll always come back. But most of us are still in the transaction world rather than the transformational world. Now let's deal. Now, how does this translate to money? Very simply is that when you know how to create the value for the patient, the patient says, how do I get this out of my mouth? And how do I address this? You know, they're going to be asking you versus you, having to push things. 99% of dentists hate to sell dentistry. Or they're just, they just don't like it. And then they have the money considerations in their head and then they're mapping that out over the patient. I call it wallet biopsy. They scrap the patient's wallet and if it's green, they present the case. And if it's not, Steve, they don't. That's called wallet biopsy. I thought that was funny, Steve. Pretty good.

I have. I haven't heard that Gary ism yet. I'm gonna write that down.

That's a new Gary ism.

Get that one biopsy.

But here's the way, here's the way to overcome that. Get in their world, find out what they need and want emotionally remove the barriers for time, pain and money. And then here's the way you handle the money. Thing. We share intelligent things with intelligent people so that they can make intelligent decision decisions. It's a systematic process that goes in place, that gets to the patients. Why people buy on why most people are selling. What. Here's what you have. Here's what I can do. That's what people don't buy, what they buy. Why I want to be healthy, I want to look better, I want to have a relationship. There's their motivation or their why behind coming in. Or here's a why. I don't want to end up like my parents, Steve. I don't want to end up like my dad had a heart attack, my mom had dementia. If you're giving me how I can live longer and better, I'm buying what you got. But most people don't even realize in dentistry that they're selling those things. They don't even. They don't. They don't. That's such a blind spot for them. And it really highlights what you're talking about with transaction and money. Transactional is like, I'm a dentist. I was trained to find a chief complaint and fix it. That's transactional. Going in to find out what people want and what they don't want. When you give people more of what they want and less of what they don't, Steve, money goes away. Because now you're serving the internal motivation and drive of what they really want to buy.

Well, and. Yeah, and profitability wise, you're spot on. If I, you know, the dynamics of this industry, Gary, haven't gotten good for transactional dentistry. If you, you know, I don't think, you know, without naming, you know, names like Delta Dental, they are never going to come to you and say, hey, you did an awesome job last year. You're the best dentist. In fact, you graduated in the top of your class. We're going to pay you 20% more, reimburse you 20% more. Every year it's going down. And every year, your rent, heat, light, payroll, everything is still going up. That squeeze on profitability means you need something. And if the answer is new patients, you know, you almost, you said at the very beginning, I'm slammed, but I'm struggling to pay my bills and I'm not saving a nickel for retirement. So I need new. I need more new patients. What were you going to do with them? You know, I'll bring in an associate. Well, there's a big cost to that. So it's, I think what you sort of, what you advocate here in this particular chapter is basically pick the Again, the right patients for you. And that means, you know, you've got, they show up, they pay, and they keep coming back and they refer. But the, the most important thing is focusing on that profitability of the patients you keep. And not that it's about money, but at some point it will become about money if you, you know, if you don't make it about money. I know a lot of. Again, I got a lot of questions here. There are a lot of docs who watch this that are struggling to pay bills, especially now, you know, kind of getting their practices up and going and back up and going. And it all comes down to the patients. What you've trained your patients. And I wanted to ask you, say, I got two things going on here. I've got, I got a question here that says, I currently spend about $6,000 a month on new patients and most don't stick. How do I get them to stay? And I think that really dovetails into how you've taught them to see you. Right?

Yep. Yeah. So what we've developed is a systematic process because we understand investing. It's not what you spend on marketing, it's what you get back on marketing. Right. So if you're spending six grand, you know, I want to show you this stat. I think it's really important to understand where, where this strategy that I'm about to unfold came from. And it's right here. And this is what most. I'm going to show you my dashboard, Steve, because this is what most people don't look at. And this is why what we're about to discuss is important. Can you see my screen, Steve?

I can, yes.

Stuart says new patients right here. This practice, this Practice spends about 10 grand a month on patients. They got 57 in the front door. You see that?

Mm.

They have 918 patients, Steve, that are not in the recare system. So they don't have a way to reactivate. Right. So these are people that already trust them. They just, they just dropped out. Especially when we went through the crisis piece. Right. So 57 plus 26. Do the math. It's like, what is that? That's 83, right? 83. Now this is what people aren't looking at, lost patients. They don't track the equation with lost patients. Steve, in the month of, you know, the month that we're tracking this, 18 months prior, these 168 patients haven't been in. So you do 57 plus 26 minus 168 is a negative 85. So this practice's patient base is shrinking. 85 patients a month. You don't see this until downstream, maybe a year. Do it. Do 12 times. 85, and you're at a thousand patients. You're like. And then you can't figure out why your practice isn't growing. So how do you fix that? Well, specifically to new patients, you must have a systematic process on how you answer the phone. And you want to get a step if you know, I'm going to offer 10 sessions to meet with your audience, DB just because I block this out and I want to be able to offer customization and I can give them the VIP intake form if that's what they want to talk about. But there's a step by step form that you fill out that you walk the patient through. And these questions do what we've been talking about on the session, getting to their emotional why and removing and finding out what their trauma is. And when you get those two things now, you remove the friction and barriers to then come in and show up, right? So that's, that's huge. Now that's called the VIP intake form. We have a new system post crisis right now. What we do is we do an interview with the patient for, and this is for a high customer service practice. We actually scheduled them for a new patient. Welcome. Zoom call. 15 minutes. We get all their paperwork organized, we set them up. We actually even present to them. Like, if we say, would you, do you need us in the VIP intake form, Steve? We say, do you need help? And you don't say, do you have insurance? Do you need help filling out your insurance forms? You see how that doesn't alienate somebody who doesn't have insurance? They go, no, we don't need that help. We don't have insurance. Oh, we have good news. We have a dental savings plan that we can offer you that gives you a discount on your services. And we wanted to give our patients who didn't have insurance the same ability to save money on their care. So we'll be able to put that in place for you. Would you like to learn more about that now or would you like to learn more about that later? Now all of a sudden you're having conversations that relatedness conversations, connected conversations and problem solving conversations in those in this 15 minute Zoom call. So now you're, you're getting related to the patient and you're saying, what do you want more of? What do you want less of? What's most important to you? And then you're actually giving the features and Benefits of the things that are happening in your practice in that call, even before they come in for the first time. That's relatedness. Now, we don't do that with every practice, only the high level of service practices that want to retain their patients. But I'm giving you the whole system here just to begin to show you the steps that you need to take to retain your patients. If it's transactional, you're at your 38%. We like to retain 80% of the patients. That's the, that's the target. And then once they're there in the, in the, in the hygiene room, you begin to educate them from a whole body health perspective. So we went through this in one of our other sessions is called the healthy mouth Baseline. Here are the symptomatic issues that are in with the patient, and here's how they connect to your overall body health. Now, they're not coming in for a hygiene cleaning, which is transactional. They're coming in for a wellness visit, which is very, very different than, you know, just getting your teeth cleaned because people think, I can push that off, I don't have to do it. There's nothing valuable there. So again, I just gave you very high level, very advanced conversations. Not for every practice. Some people want to just say bread and butter and transactional. And you'll still do really well with these systems. You could just customize them down a bit.

And I know that's one of the things you do well with your community, with your practices. You, you call it reverse engineering. And I've seen it in action. And I think you've done it with a handful of practices now. Like, I don't know, like 6,000.

Yeah, just like 6,000.

And it really is about taking what the doc wants back to their right patient and the time they want to work and how much, what, maybe, maybe what value they want their practice to have at the, you know, when they retire, whenever that is. And it's backing into where they are now or from where they are now to where they want to be. And you give them, you help with that roadmap. So it could be, you know, keep taking a lot of delta dental and working five days a week. And, you know, I mean, you and I both know docs who are happy with that, they'll work six days a week if you let them. And, you know, they don't need to change. But if you find yourself struggling, you do. And I did want to reiterate that here in just a minute, you're going to See some little things pop up that Gary does graciously offer some time to any of our readers, viewers and listeners to just an open conversation about their practice. What do they do? You know, nobody's going to try and sell them anything. You can ask any questions you want about your practice and you can click the little in the link in the little box that's going to pop up here to get in the schedule for those. And you know, I think Gary does. You do 10 every month?

Yeah, I do five, five hours a month, half hour sessions. We jump on zoom and it's awesome. I have so much fun doing these. Steve, it is so great to get to know your community and your audience. It's a blast. I have guys from rural places and nowhere, Indiana and, and then I have, you know, I just talked to a guy yesterday from, from Philadelphia, North Philly. And you know, and it's interesting like what I'm seeing now. A lot of people are wanting to bring on associates. They don't know how to do that. A lot of people are dealing with like after the transition period of how do I get my patients back in? They're not, they're not showing up. I thought we'd have them back in by now. There's people that are like, I want to take more time off. There are people that want to like, add an associate. There are people that, you know, want to add hygiene. There are people that are sick and tired of not having an A team and they want to clean that up. It is really, it is really interesting where we are right now and some people are preparing to transition. They don't have a transition plan. So it has been really, really fun to collaborate and get to know your community.

Yeah, likewise. I appreciate you doing it. I think you and I have learned as much from the questions and we've got a lot here. Keep putting them in. From the questions and from the perspective of docs who just regular docs. Regular, you know, they've got a practice, you know, somewhere in Indiana and they think they're totally unique. And as it turns out, they're not. There are a lot of people that are like them and you've probably dealt with them, you know, a few dozen times and suddenly I think that connection helps. So, you know, even 30 minutes of conversation and they say, you know, but I'm here. One of my favorites is the Merrills, one of your clients. Some people that you've worked with for a long time in New London, Ohio, and the town has more cows than people. It's like 2,200 people in the whole county. One street goes through it. And they just built like a. They went from, you know, a very, very small practice. Because I think in Josh's head, it was, well, this is all I can do, right? This many hygiene slots at, let's say, 80 to $100. And if I have treatment plan, $3 of restorative off of that, then here's my. Here's how much I can do. And I got to draw people in from somewhere because there's only 2,000 people in the whole darn county. And he didn't he, like, I think he double or tripled the size of his practice, didn't he?

Yeah, he did. And he's now moving into a new location. And they're his. His original practice, Steve. They're going to turn into access to care facility for underprivileged people. I mean, these are amazing human beings. And they just thought that they were stuck because they were on the new patient treadmill. They were trying. They just thought, like, how can I. This is all there is because I'm in a rural place. I can't attract wider. No, but they didn't realize their retention number was 17% and their conversion rate was 22. And they just never looked that they could. And the reason is, is because they look at their colleagues, they go to the study club, they read books and they go, well, it's the new patient acquisition game. And if you can't do that, like, this is it. This is all there is. And now he's like, literally transforming how his community relates to health. Because watch this. They all come into hygiene. They come in and they're educated on whole body health through the mouth and its impact on the body. And they're starting to take on. I mean, I'm hearing stories like, you know, people are losing weight, stopping smoking, like, this is what a dental office. But his stand, this is what his vision is for his practice, that greater the greater county, greater New. Oh, greater Greater New London has access to complete health. And then his purpose is we inspire people to live life better and longer. Like, there's no dentistry in there. Once he got that the product was living life longer and better, and they're having those conversations. He's now in a transformational business rather than that transactional business that really only allowed him to get to 50,000amonth. Now he's doing triple that, you know.

And that, that really is part of back to your reverse engineering. That's really a thing that, you know, a lot of docs that's not in their, you know, in their sandbox. But a lot don't even know that. It's possible. They don't even know that they're. They can look at their practice differently. But, yeah, just do the math. And, you know, Dr. Merrell says, all right, this is what they taught me in dental school. X dollars for hygiene. X times three. And this many new patients. And I'm cranking, you know, I'm cranking them through. It's all I can do. And he does. In fact, he has. We did a series, and he was one of them. Has a very powerful story. I mean, he was ready to give up. He had done the math. The greatest experts in dentistry said this is the most you can do. And he literally has tripled that. So, you know, very inspirational for anybody who's watching, number one, to at least know it's possible.

Well, quick update. He just got his associate just started. She was like, I did not want to work. I did not want to come here because her husband works at the Cleveland Clinic. She goes, I have to drive an hour each way, but I'm coming here because of what your practice stands for. She goes, I passed 100 practices between Cleveland and New London. But because your practice stands for something greater than transactional dentistry, you see how, like, this whole concept not only affects your profitability, but in your income and the impact that you have on patients. Because now you're focused on their care, not their symptoms. You actually attract the top talent because they don't want to work in a drill fill and bill PPO mill.

Yeah. And that. So it all blends together. That also is a good segue into. As we kind of get to the end here, I wanted to cover a cut, just a couple, two or three of the list. Your 11 steps, your new patient protocol. And again, we're going to have a link here at the end. You can click it, get your own copy of Gary's book free. You can also click and see if Gary's got some room to schedule. And usually those fill up pretty quick. I think a lot of them fill up like they'll fill up tonight.

Oh, yeah.

So, I mean, you only have 10, and we appreciate those, but so you say it's extremely important to teach your patients that your practice is different and how they're going to be better treated from day one. Yep. That's how you find your right patients. The first one is the phone interview with the treatment coordinator. And I think that's what you were talking about 15 minutes of you're going to ask more questions than just who's your insurance company and what hurts?

Exactly.

Plug in the schedule. You're going to expand that a little bit in that 15 minutes.

Yep.

Number two is the in office interview with the treatment coordinator.

Yep.

So kind of briefly, how's that different than what we just did on the phone?

Yeah. That is all about going face to face, eye to eye. And we're able to do it on zoom now, which is even better because we take it out of the office. And they're so related and so set up for what the practice stands for and how the patient experience is going to go. They're mind blown. And it just really is about getting related to the patient. And we have specific questions that we ask, like, you know, what's most important to you? What. What has been your past experiences? When people get a chance to share and it's a safe space and a quiet, safe space. And that's when. When they reveal vulnerably what's going on. That is how you get intimately connected to somebody and they become a lifelong connected friend. This is also really important because you don't want to show up as the money gal at the end. So we have the treatment coordinators do this on the front side so that they become the concierge, if you will. They become the person who is there to serve them, not the principal and, you know, not the car salesman in the principal's office. You know, dealing with money because you deal with the emotional side on the front side. And then you become their partner in removing anything that's in the way for their healthcare. And it really sets up the team to be related and to not just be the money galaxy, but to be the caregiver and the advisor.

Yeah. You say become a trusted advisor for your patient, not just, I guess, the transactional person. So here's. And I want to make sure we get this last one in. And then again, you can get all of them in the book, Chapter nine, Getting off the New Patient Treadmill. It is the trust exam with the dentist.

Yeah.

I don't think there's a dentist listening to who went to dental school. And at any point in their dental career, the dental school said, all right, you need to have a trust exam with your patients as opposed to. What do you say? You drill, fill and bill as opposed to get them on out of there. And that's your relationship. So what is a trust exam?

Yeah, a trust exam is really something that actually tees up the doctor for when he or she walks in the room. Now we found that when you send the patient through hygiene, all the diagnostics can get done there. That's what the patient really wants. And then when the patient, when the doctor comes in, that person has edified the doctor already and now the doctor, the listening for the doctor. Because here's what. If you put this into your mind as a doctor, you know, you might think that you're a trusted, non scary person. And what we found is that 9 out of 10 patients think that you're not the most trusted person because they think you're trying to buy your next Porsche in their mouth. And it's not your fault. It's because you're presenting asymptomatic care or the dental industry is presenting asymptomatic care without really letting the patient know what they need and why they need it. So when you make a recommendation, I can't tell you how many times I say what I do. And people go, yeah, I like my doctor, I think he's nice, but I always think he's trying to sell me something like even. And I know that doctors, absolutely, I have to engage them because they don't want to be known as that as well. But the patient still perceives it. So creating a trust exam is really getting in the patient's world again. This is whether it's answering the phone, doing an interview, or having the doctor, if you ask the patient why they came in today, now all of a sudden you've given your power away. And the reason why most doctors do that, or is anything hurting, anything bothering you? What brings you in today? You gave all your power away. You're not the trusted advisor anymore. What you are is a searcher of chief complaints. And now you're only going to do the dentistry that is symptomatic. And then that's why the patient says, do whatever my insurance covers. So a trust exam says, you know, I want you to know, like why I became a dentist. And then we teach our dentist to have a purpose is to really educate my patients and have them understand what they need and why they need it so that they can have a healthy life. You know, dentistry has gotten a bad rap over the years, but it's really evolved. And we take, you know, our education and we care deeply about the, not only the teeth, but, but the person behind the teeth, the family behind the person. So we care about the community. And I just want you to know what I stand for. And here is what Josh would say that our practice is about you Living life better and living life longer. And we can help you do that. And that is what my purpose is behind this, is to enhance the quality of your life. That is why I am here. I happen to do dentistry, but that is why I am here. Very simple context shift. And then say, look, you know, then turn to your team member who, by the way, the two most trusted team members, assistants and hygienist, by the patient, turn to them and pull off the trust from them. They are the people that the patient trusts and turn to them and say, tell me what you've learned so far. And they now trust. We call it a trust transfer. They trust transfer what they've learned. And now the patient listens to the doctor in a brand new way. You set up the listening for the doctor so that what comes out of that doctor's mouth is a trusted listener.

And I think, and I appreciate you sharing that, also appreciate you sharing it in the book. And the other eight are equally, I think, people who listen. Some people who are watching this will say, I've never heard anything like that. It's, you know, it's impossible. I always go back to, it's impossible until you're watching somebody do it. And, you know, I've personally watched a lot of your clients make that transition. And it really is. It's amazing. I mean, you have people that, you know, Dr. Donna Williams takes a couple months off every year to do work that she wants to do. And, you know, they're very genuine people. And I think that is, you hit on something very important there, Gary, is. Is it has to be you. You have to make these things align. You, you're giving. And especially in the book, you're given a roadmap that anybody watching listening can do it yourself. They can take this, they can go back to their practice and just do it. Free information. It's a roadmap. You know, it's the 11 herbs and spices. But I would encourage anybody who's listening to, to click here when, when little box pops up, try to get a half an hour with Gary, you know, get on the schedule, walk through your situation. And, you know, you and I have talked in the past, like we said earlier, they think they're the only ones, and suddenly they find out they're not. And there's something simple. And, you know, some people can do it themselves. Themselves. Some people need a hand. And I appreciate you doing that, especially with our profitable dentists, readers, viewers and listeners. The, you know, all 11 steps in the new patient protocol are in here. Easy to get. Just click the link, Gary, as we sort of wrap up. This is a good, a good paradigm shift for practice owner docs who are spending like this guy. I mean, I've had a few others that say I spend $10,000 a month and they're not sticking. Their patients aren't sticking. And they're, in fact, they're barely making it now. And the answer is pile more money into marketing to get more patients in to have 80 to 90% of them never show back up. What is some parting words of wisdom I always ask at the end that sort of puts a bow on the idea of a new patient treadmill. And you know how you can get off of it?

You bet. Here's a great quote, and I live by this, because willingness is the key to all new results. Willingness and the problem. Here's the quote. The problem doesn't go away until you get the lesson. So the problem doesn't go away until you get the lesson. If you find yourself on the new patient treadmill or any kind of treadmill of like, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of doing the same thing over and over. It doesn't have to be that way. Even though you might have been. Like when I, you know, I'm 13 years sober now and like, when I was drinking, I thought everybody drank until I didn't drink. And then I realized, like, where the hell are all the drinkers? And I thought everybody was drinking. It was because I was in the world of, you know, being on that treadmill of drinking. The minute I got off the treadmill, I saw this whole new world opened up of non drinkers. So the same is true with dentistry. If you're sick and tired of doing the same thing over and over, if you're sick and tired of making the same amount of money, if you're sick and tired of, like, dealing with your team in a way that, like, it doesn't work for you anymore. Make the unacceptable unacceptable. Know that you're not a bad person, you're a good person. Doesn't you weren't trained at a dental school to understand all these things. I spent the last 27 years getting every little nuance I could find and then putting a systematic process to it so you didn't have to figure it out. And you just step on the court and play your game and do dentistry and your team and whoever you hire will do the implementation and you don't even have to worry about it. It's like done for you. And so again, my Quote is, you know, the problem doesn't go away until you get the lesson and make the unacceptable. Unacceptable. If it's. If you're sick and tired, be sick and tired and say, I'm done with this, and move a muscle, change a thought, move a muscle, click, and get on my schedule. And I promise you, I will help you see a blind spot that you might have been missing or a limiting belief that doesn't allow you to move forward. And once I unlock that thing, you are like, you know, the roof's lifted off and you can now play a game that is bigger and wider than you ever thought you could play. And I promise you, it happens all the time, as long as you're willing.

I think I would also throw another challenge out there to anybody who's listening or watching and think they're the only ones and have a. Like a. Like a curveball challenge. You know, hey, I live in a town of 2,200 people in northwestern Ohio. Or, you know, oh, I'm in. You know, I'm on a strip with 14 dentists or, you know, whatever it is that they think keeps them from the success they think they should have. Again, I think that's back to chapter two, to what you deserve, whatever that is. Challenge Gary with it.

Oh, I love it.

And here's one of the things that I've seen, Gary, the reason I'm. I'm confident in suggesting that to somebody.

Yeah.

I think in the. And I know your community fairly well, there will be somebody that you have taken who said it's impossible and is now two or three or four times the revenue they were doing. They're working less, they're happier, they're taking a week off every quarter. They're doing exactly what they wanted to do because they set out to do it. Rather than, you know, letting the situation control them, they're taking control of situation. So I would challenge anybody who thinks, oh, these two guys are, you know, they're full of it. They don't know my situation. You know, I'm unique. I'm in, you know, in Idaho or wherever. And challenge Gary, what you got? And I'll bet you he can come up with somebody who, you know, maybe you can chat with, that did. Went through exactly the same thing. So.

Yep.

So there you have it. Well, Gary, nine, getting off the new patient treadmill again. I would encourage anybody, click, get the book, click. And try to get one of the spots with Gary next. Next month is attaining the next level in your practice. And I think what that does is takes the first nine chapters, bundle them together. I have read ahead just again, this book is a great read. It's, it's comfortable, it is full of lists and you know, if you're trying to take notes right now, just get the book and you know they're all in there. But it does a really good job of helping you realize that there is a next level and you can, you can do it, do it yourself or you know, let Gary help you but you don't have to be. What do you say? Don't make the unacceptable acceptable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Gary, I appreciate it. Practice owners, thanks for tuning in. If this is your first time, go back and watch the others. If you're just keeping up with number nine, I think you're going to be excited next month. I know I am at chapter 10 attaining the next level in your practice. So Gary, till next time we'll see you Practice owners signing off and see you next month.