Establishing the Link Between Oral and Physical Health with Dr. Tom Larkin and Dr. Brad Bale

Establishing the Link Between Oral and Physical Health - RD PodcastThis week on the Relentless Dentist, I share a fascinating conversation with Dr. Tom Larkin and Dr. Brad Bale from the Voices of Dentistry 2017 conference. This dynamic duo is leading the effort to highlight the link between oral health and arterial disease – the root cause of many forms of physical illness in this country.

Tom and Brad are collaborating on an initiative to raise awareness about the link between periodontal disease and arterial wellness. The Bale-Doneen method is revolutionizing the treatment of ailments and putting an emphasis on oral wellness. We talk about the research underway which is helping to establish the relationship between heart failure and poor oral health.

On this episode, we also discuss the programs that Brad and Tom have created to train dentists and their staff to focus on a patient’s holistic oral well-being. They’re working to help open the minds of both dentists and patients to help everyone understand the link between oral diseases and a patient’s long-term, overall physical health.

Key Quotes:

  • Inflammation is what drives arterial disease.
  • You really need to maintain the health of your arteries to maintain an excellent quality of life.
  • Understand that our work maintaining a healthy mouth is actually saving lives, not just making people’s smiles look great.
  • The beauty of the Bale-Doneen method is that it’s an exact diagnostic protocol.
  • There are three areas of inflammation that the dentist can address.
  • Our method does actually halt and regress disease. That’s been shown.
  • Most dentists aren’t anchored in insurance.

Featured on the Show:

 

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Building a Life and Practice Without Regrets with Dr. Peter Boulden

Building a Life and Practice Without Regrets with Dr. Peter BouldenThis week, I’m thrilled to bring you an interview with fellow podcaster Dr. Peter Boulden: dentist, marketer, and businessman extraordinaire. Peter is the brains behind the Bulletproof Dental Practice podcast and the owner of several dental practices.

Peter is here to talk about why he loves the business side of dentistry and what attracted him to the profession in the first place. He’s also one of the best advisors on dental marketing and systems out there, so be sure to tune in for that advice!

We chat about Peter’s first job out of dental school and why he offered to work three months for free – seriously! – just to be at a practice he admired. We then cover entrepreneurship and the ups and downs of owning your own practices. Peter shares some of the quotes and books that motivate him now and in hard times, and why he thinks perfectionism is a detrimental concept. He’s also chock-full of actionable marketing tips you won’t want to miss!

Key Quotes:

  • I knew that my chances of being successful were more enhanced by coming back to the place where people knew and loved me.
  • As a new grad, you have the tools but you are by no means ready to roll.
  • People told me we were gonna fail, which is kind of a blessing because it fuels you every morning.
  • I like the multiple ownership model because it keeps me busy, and I get to flex my muscles with marketing and systems and all that stuff.
  • I’m a big fan of reverse engineering – visualizing what I want and then filling in the steps going backwards.
  • I don’t strive for perfection; I strive for progress and value.
  • People have depth in so many areas that I don’t and I just want to pull all the pearls I can from their brain.
  • No one has a vested interest to grow your practice the way you’re going to.
  • People will pay for value – and the same thing can transcend for dentistry.
  • The only sure thing you have in this world is you. You are your best investment. So don’t doubt for a second that you can do it.

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Sandy Pardue: Increasing Your Case Acceptance (Part 1)

Quotes & Notes:Sandy Pardue: Increasing Your Case Acceptance (  Part 1) - RD Podcast

  • Well first off, it’s (case acceptance) is averaging about 35 percent and that’s really low. A lot of times what we see is that practices are not telling patients what they need, or they’re going to the opposite and going too far into what the ideal treatment plan is.
  • That’s one thing that we really stress to dentists, as well as team members, is you have to tell the patient what they need and what will happen if they don’t get it.

Get out there, utilize the tools like Facebook, you’ve got 1 billion people of Facebook, I mean what a great way to promote your practice and what you can do for your patients.

  • Your most skilled person should be the face of your practice to the person on the phone or the person walking in the door.
  • Back when I worked in a practice at the front desk I used to record all of my calls for that was the best practice.
  • You want to make sure your office is clean, and here is what I want you to do; go sit in your own reception room and look around… You want people to be comfortable.
  • I don’t think you should go so far into that new patient call that they get uncomfortable, but you need enough information.
  • You have to find out what is real for the patient, why do they come there? Maybe it is one little tooth that is bothering them. Listen to what motivated them to get there.
  • The top three patient objections are always going to be un-aware need. They don’t understand that their condition will get worse, it will cost more, and it will not go away. Another objection they will have is fear, and they will not tell you they are afraid. And then the other is a financial problem.
  • After you have presented this you want to ask them this one last question; “Have I answered all of your questions?

If you would like to learn more from Sandy Pardue then you can stay tuned for next week’s episode when we will get into the next five.

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A non-conformist’s view on growing a dental practice with Jeff Gladnick

Quotes & Notes:A non-conformist's view on growing a dental practice with Jeff Gladnick

  • I do think it is a trend [of digital marketing] that will continue and I do think it is a national trend.
  •  If you really want to do it right, you really should track it.
  • It’s useful to have a website so your patients can download forms so that they can have a very easy way to contact you. People have an expectation you will have a website or some way to contact you.
  • Websites are kind of viewed as a piece of technology and a bar of professionalism. It’s like you hand print your business cards on your home printer. You could have a state of the art office, everything could be beautiful, but you cheap out on the business cards.

Take a smartphone, and bring up your office’s website. It should at least function. You should be able to navigate the site and click links. If you have flash you need to change that ASAP.

  • All the sites we make are responsive, which means they will adapt to a smaller screen. If you want to impress them or convert someone who is doing research, you want to update to something that is responsive.
  • Anything that you can promote that will positively impact the impression of the practice [should be put on social media].
  • There are two kinds of ways that your practice will appear on google search results and one of them is the local results. Part of the algorithm is the number of reviews and the quality of reviews that you have.
  • One thing we want them [clients] to do is have a video for every single service or procedure that they provide. And what we want them to tell patients is what is their unique training for this? What are the special materials they use?
  • The other two bits of content that we’ll twist our clients’ arms is a little bit are pictures and copywriting.

If you would like to learn more from Jeff Gladnick, you can go to greatdentalwebsites.com, call his company with (415) 814-0078, or email him at [email protected]. You can also find him on Dental Town.

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Part IV: Dr. Mark Costes’ Practice Growth Bootcamp – Referrals

Quotes & Notes:mark costes

  • I believe that referral generation is the number one thing for building any person’s practice very very rapidly.
  • We want to identify who our ideal patients are.
  • You get those people to bring in their friends and families, and then you will have more of those ideal patients.
  • We have to do everything we can to build trust. To lower the suspicion level and show that we are there for their best interest and not to just steal their wallet out of their back pocket.

We have an eight-step process where every step-point of the patient has a very set script and it’s choreographed really.

  • We have to remember that this is a job interview for us.  We want that patient to hire us for their lifetime.
  • What we like to do is create a culture within our office that they look like “We know that you are the ideal type of patient but we want more patients like you.” To do this we have a built-in system.
  • All we do is take our active patient base and we send them a letter with three referral generation cards inside.  For each referral generation card, we have a referral reward.
  • When people send in a referral we have a fishbowl on top of our counter.  That referral gets dropped into the fishbowl and every three months we pull a grand prize winner out of the fishbowl with the referrers name and referees name and that person gets a grand prize.
  • We have a quota every week to get three testimonials and three pictures with the doctors. We only get them with our favorite patients. And that makes it much easier on the staff.
  • People will automatically assume you are busy enough and don’t need more patients unless you say you are never busy enough.

A simple thank you will sometimes go a long way.

  • If you create this feeling for the patients that they are recognized and everybody on staff knows who they are, when they walk in they feel like norm from cheers, those are the people that will become the walking billboard.  They are the rockstars, just because they feel like they belong there.
  • If you want to learn more about what we talked about on the relentless dentist, be sure to check out Dr. Mark Costes book, Pillars of Dental Success.
  • Be sure to check out the dental success summit, which takes place on March 20th and 21st in Scottsdale Arizona at the Scottsdale Resort, if you want to hear more from Dr. Mark Costes. 

The website is dentalsuccesssummit.com. Have any questions? Then email them at [email protected].

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