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Deep Dive Into the Dolphin Practice Management Platform · Orthodontic Products Podcast

0:04
Hello and welcome to the orthodontic products podcast.
0:06
I'm your host Alison Werner.
0:08
Today we're taking a deep dive into the Dolphin practice management platform.
0:12
so often practices implement a software system and then never really maximize all
0:16
its functionality.
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But today we have with us someone who can talk you through how to do just that.
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Rebecca Pickett is a treatment coordinator at Pickett Orthodontics located in Mobile,
0:26
Alabama.
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She's a longtime user, which means she knows the ins and outs of the platform,
0:30
and she's found ways to maximize its functionality and is here today to share
0:34
those tips with you.
0:35
Rebecca, thanks for joining me.
0:37
I'm happy to be here.
0:38
Thank you, Allison.
0:39
Great, so let me get started by asking you, what brought you to orthodontics and
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how long have you been working as a treatment coordinator at Pickett
0:45
Orthodontics?
0:46
So my husband was originally in a joint practice and in 2008 he kind of had a
0:52
forced redirection there and I at the time was working for an oral surgeon's office
0:57
and he called one day and said, I need you to help me open up a practice.
1:00
And he was just kind of on a whim.
1:01
And so with just a lot of adrenaline and urgency, we just kind of went home and I
1:09
had some experience in graphic design.
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I whipped up a...
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really random logo and all of a sudden overnight became his treatment
1:17
coordinator, office manager, IT, the whole nine yards there.
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So it was kind of crazy, but we wouldn't have it any other way.
1:24
So.
1:24
So how many chairs does the practice have now and do you still just have the one
1:28
location?
1:30
So we actually have two offices.
1:33
We have our primary office is located in Jackson, Alabama.
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We have a satellite that we go to once a week in Jackson, Alabama, about 45 to 60
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minutes due north of Mobile.
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That was part of the practice when he bought in in 2000.
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It's been a huge blessing for us, just super sweet people.
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They're very appreciative of us going up there to see them once a week.
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And in both offices, we run a five chair clinic.
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In Mobile, we have two consult rooms.
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In Jackson, we only have one consult room.
2:02
So how long has your practice then been using the Dolphin platform?
2:06
So we have been using Dolphin since day one.
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Kevin was a Dolphin user in residency.
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The practice that he was in was not a Dolphin practice, but that was kind of one
2:18
of our first calls that we made when we decided to open up the business.
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So there was never a question for him, the direction he would go from a practice
2:26
management standpoint at all.
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So how are you interacting with it from day to day?
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Because we kind of want the staff perspective, because honestly, you're the
2:35
ones who kind of use it more often than the doctors.
2:39
yes.
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So I really think in all honesty, the question is how are we not interacting
2:44
with it daily?
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I mean, it is such an integrated part of our lives.
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Every single thing that we do is within Dolphin.
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It is just such a big part of our practice.
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We're using it not just to facilitate our daily protocol, our processes.
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But the patients are using it.
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We use a lot of different things, whether it's concierge, letters, the MyWortho app.
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I mean, there's just so many valuable tools that are a big part of our practice.
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features you find valuable because we kind of talked before all this and you
3:22
identified some and so I want to start with number five and we'll work our way
3:25
down.
3:26
So number five is the letter system which you kind of just mentioned there for a
3:29
second ago.
3:30
Can you explain the feature and how it benefits your practices work?
3:34
Okay, so letters is for long time users is really just an inherent part to them.
3:41
We're also used to using that, but for new users, basically it is a program that is
3:47
called technically the letter system.
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It utilizes the Microsoft Word program and it allows us to pull desired data or
3:57
desired fields from the patient chart, from dolphin information to design letters
4:01
that are patient specific.
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I primarily use them as a treatment coordinator every day to do my fee quotes,
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my fee sheets.
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Our financial coordinator uses them to design our contracts, our pretreatment
4:16
information there as far as the financials go.
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So it really lets us to customize really patient information there.
4:25
Okay, and then the next one you had, number four, was the proposals feature.
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What does this do and how are you using it?
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So proposals is something that really I think in many offices is probably not
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utilized enough.
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Any user meeting I go to, it seems like there's a lot of long time users that
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really don't know much about the proposals.
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But basically Dolphin, there's several layers in proposals.
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I'll just say that from the beginning.
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You have the ability to design specific proposals.
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So say I have a full banding case that is estimated to be 18 to 24 months or
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whatever.
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I can actually pre -design a certain down payment with so many monthly payments that
5:08
are inherent to that treatment plan.
5:11
And so what that allows us to do is be able to pull up a letter.
5:14
We just talked about that.
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Merge that specific or patient specific data and show them their proposals right
5:20
off the bat without really having to do much other than bash a single letter with
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that.
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And so that's one part of it.
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A lot of offices are using programs, I believe, like OrthoFi or I think OrthoBank
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might now.
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I'm kind of removed from all of that, but honestly, because we use so much of
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Dolphin.
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But with the new or one of the newer updates with Dolphin, there is actually a
5:44
proposal presentation option.
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So say I have.
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three proposals within that treatment type, maybe one for a $600 down payment,
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$1 ,000 down payment, a $2 ,100 down payment.
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That proposal presentation actually gives the billing party the ability to use a
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slider and say, what if I don't want to do 1 ,000, what if I want to do 850?
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And they can actually physically move that slider up and down.
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And that will save that in that chart where we had already put those proposals
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before.
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And then that lets me print a letter right there with the proposals that they have
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chosen themselves there.
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We're in the South, so there's a lot of moms that come, but they also want dad's
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approval before they start.
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So we're not the office that really necessarily pushes same day starts.
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We do a lot of that, but a lot of it we want them to have the family conversation
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and be comfortable in their decision.
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And so that allows them to take that home and sit down as a family and really say
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what fits us, what works for us here.
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Okay, so it's really personalizing that information.
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Yeah.
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Okay, so the number three feature you listed was the questionnaires feature.
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Can you talk about what that, how you're using that?
6:57
So questionnaires is something that I was really kind of intimidated on early on in
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our time with Dolphin, but it's really very simple to the proposal.
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It's very simple to the letters where you can customize your own questionnaires.
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Think of those essentially as digital forms and you can use it for patient
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information, health history.
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We have a pretreatment questionnaire or financial questionnaire that they will
7:21
complete before we actually do their contract.
7:23
which will allow them to say, hey, we want to do the braces option or we want to do
7:27
InvisLine.
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Hey, we want to do metal brackets or clear brackets on the upper arch or the lower
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arch.
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Here's how we want to take that financial proposal and use it to fit us best.
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So how do they want to make their payments?
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Do they want to do automatic draft?
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Do they want to pay through the app or do they want to pay online?
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I spent a good amount of time during COVID really designing our custom
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Pickett Ortho questionnaire for new patient information in general.
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And it actually combines patient info, responsible party info, insurance, health
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history, referral information.
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HIPAA is all in one questionnaire for them.
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So they go to one place, fill out all that information, and Dolphin actually allows
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them to sign that too and save it to their chart for us.
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And what's really cool is that they have mapping fields.
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So you can choose what information the patient gives you.
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and automatically links to Dolphin so you don't have to do that data input too.
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So that takes a lot off the staff as well.
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So it really does, like you talked about during COVID, how you customize that.
8:31
It really does walk you through how to customize it.
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And you can do it in the platform, so you're not trying to figure it out on your
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own in like a Word document or something.
8:39
Yeah.
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And to say, to of devour a little bit from that, but just highlight that in a way
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too, Dolphin has so many different webinars that are available to users.
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Of course, our user meetings are a huge deal too, but so much of the
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questionnaires for me was really just taking time and sitting in that and really
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figuring how it worked, not just within the questionnaire, but how it worked for
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us and what we needed from that.
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Questionnaires are probably one of my favorite things to actually work with just
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because there's so many things that you can do with it.
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It's really pretty impressive.
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They are on the capabilities of that.
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So number two for you was the messaging center and the concierge features.
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And you mentioned concierge when we first kind of started this conversation.
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So, and I know you added this at the beginning of the pandemic.
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So what does this feature do and how are you using it?
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so in a way, a lot of newer users can kind of think of SMS or messaging center and
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concierge is just kind of one in the same, but they're not.
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They're they kind of highlight each other.
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They're really a compliment to each other.
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You know, everybody in the orthodontic field or dental field knows what it was
9:47
like to be shut down during that time during the pandemic.
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And for us, we just said right away, we know we're going to be shut down, but we
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want this to be a time of innovation for us.
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And so we really
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really spent a lot of manpower in designing and doing things and systems
10:00
that we really had wanted to do, but just didn't have the time to do that.
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So our first thing at that point was really diving into the messaging center,
10:08
which allows us to do 2A texting with the patient.
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There is standard SMS, but then there's also secure messaging that will lead to
10:18
the MyOrthodontist app that we'll talk about in a little bit too.
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And so it gives patients the opportunity to reach out to you, but it also gives us
10:26
the opportunity to help confirm appointments.
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Every single SMS that we have is customized pretty much.
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So, and we're thinking of new ones every day.
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That's the best part of it is that we don't have to sit there and type out a
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paragraph every time we need to answer something.
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If somebody says they have a wire stick or texts and say they have a wire stick, we
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have a auto -generated message for that.
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So, and that's customized for everything for us.
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And so SMS is a huge part of that.
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We had a platform before that was outside of Dolphin, but having this within Dolphin
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and saving it to the chart automatically is a game changer from a history
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standpoint.
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But then Concierge is really the compliment to SMS.
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So that allows us to customize appointments or appointment scheduling
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really based on what our specific appointment schedule template looks like.
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So if I have a banning appointment or a new patient consult open or a removal or a
11:22
debond open, we're able to send links to the patient and we can specify what
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specific days of the week we want them to come.
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Do we want them to come in the morning?
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Are they that trouble patient that always wants to come in really late?
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We need to kind of veer them to the morning appointments.
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We get to spec out exactly what timeframe for Dolphin to look at.
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We send them a concierge link and then they can use that and see, hey, here's
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three different options I get to choose from.
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Here's what date and time that I want to come, automatically drops them on the
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schedule.
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Same thing with rescheduling.
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So they send a text message, I'm so sorry, I can't make it to my appointment
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tomorrow.
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No problem, we'll send you a concierge and it just shows them right away when their
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options are and it moves them from their existing appointment to their new
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appointment.
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We can use concierge to confirm appointments and we can even use it to
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check in for appointments.
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So there's a geo tracking feature.
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We use this a lot more in our Jackson office where we can send a concierge about
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five minutes before the patient is due and it'll allow them to check in right as
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they're walking into the office there.
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So many really cool features with that.
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There's a lot of it right now that we don't have enough users that are really
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using it.
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So development is...
12:32
Needs more.
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They need more people to really embrace it so that we can we can really maximize the
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use of it.
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Developments sitting there that they want it.
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They want to get it where it needs to be.
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But there's so many different ways to use it that we need a lot of users to really
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be a part of that for sure.
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Okay, so your number one feature was the Myorthodontist app.
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So you already alluded to it a couple of times there and talked about this is
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connected to other things.
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So let's talk that through.
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Yeah, so it sounds funny to say this, but I kind of think of my ortho as this like
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nice, beautiful mansion and all of the things that we've already talked about are
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kind of the specific special rooms or pieces of furniture there and there that
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make that such a beautiful place.
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And it sounds so cheesy to say that, but my ortho is really the culmination of
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bringing all of the things that we just talked about together.
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This is another thing that we actually had my ortho before the pandemic.
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But we really being able to use questionnaires within that really changed
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the whole entire flow of our practice as far as patient acquisition and everything
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kind of went there.
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With MyOrtho, basically when we schedule a new patient consult, they will get our
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whole spiel at the beginning about how important it is for them to be a part of
13:45
the MyOrthoHonest app.
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When we schedule the consult, it automatically generates an email to them
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from Dr.
13:51
Pickett that basically invites them to download the MyOrthodontist app, complete
13:56
their new patient questionnaire.
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So they go through that process.
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And the way that we've kind of designed certain parts of that allows the system to
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alert us once they've completed that questionnaire.
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Our front staff is able to make sure the data input is where it needs to be.
14:13
using the MyOrtho app.
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Once they finish the questionnaire, they can also submit their ID.
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They can submit copies of their insurance card.
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So that's already loaded into the chart before the patient arrives.
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So when they come in, we're actually able to spend more time talking to the patient
14:27
about the patient and the family when they first come through the door, then, hey, we
14:31
need your paperwork.
14:32
We need you to sign this.
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We need you to do that.
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So that really builds a whole different camaraderie between us and the patient.
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They're a really, really good relationship.
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But then we see them for the consult.
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We're using questionnaires within the Dolphin program to do their new patient
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exam.
14:48
But I can share all the letters that we would normally print for them, whether
14:52
it's their fee sheet, their treatment plan, all of that through the MyWortho
14:55
app.
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So they can access that anytime.
14:58
Where we are, there's a lot of dads that work offshore or are military, so they're
15:04
not close by.
15:05
So dad actually has instant access to all that information too.
15:08
So mom either gives him the login or she can actually email that information
15:13
directly from the app too.
15:14
So that's been a really interesting factor that I really didn't think about was just
15:18
including the whole family in that conversation from the very beginning.
15:22
And if they schedule at the new patient consult schedule their banding
15:28
appointment, that will trigger them to get their.
15:31
pre -treatment questionnaire, which is where they tell us, like I mentioned
15:34
before, what brackets they want, how do they want to finance, but say they had to
15:38
go home and talk to dad.
15:39
So I'll say, not a problem.
15:41
Let me send you your concierge link.
15:43
That will allow them to schedule as soon as dad gives them the go ahead.
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And that automatically will trigger them to get that pre -treatment questionnaire
15:50
as well.
15:51
So it's just this continual revolving.
15:55
cycle there that really just lays out everything digitally for us and takes all
15:59
of that stress away from the office.
16:01
It's incredible.
16:02
Well, it kind of keeps it in one place for the patient too.
16:04
So they're not having to go to 6 million places.
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Like where did I write that down or where was that email?
16:09
That kind of thing.
16:11
Yeah.
16:13
Okay.
16:13
So now that you've outlined these features, can you talk us through how the
16:17
practices use, how the practice uses them as they move the patient from that new
16:21
patient call all the way through treatment?
16:23
Cause you've talked about the different pieces, but how does it all fit together?
16:26
Yes.
16:27
So kind of going back to what I mentioned about kind of starting the ball rolling
16:30
with based on what the appointment code is that we're dropping on the schedule.
16:36
That's really the trigger that that kind of links everything together at that point
16:40
to send the questionnaire, the questionnaire.
16:44
There's certain questions that are on there that are linked to patients, certain
16:49
alerts for the patient.
16:50
So they're automatically adding medical alerts for the patient.
16:53
They're automatically letting us know that the questionnaire has been completed.
16:57
So it's just kind of stepping through those things.
17:00
I do want to give an example of kind of using Concierge, which is just the
17:06
craziest kind of thing for me to see it.
17:08
But back in January, we had a snow day.
17:10
You don't ever have those here in Mobile.
17:12
It was really more, I guess we call it an ice day here.
17:15
But on a Monday at around 1 o 'clock, we realized we probably need to have at least
17:21
a three hour delay tomorrow.
17:22
Mm.
17:23
And so when we did that, instead of us having to call every single one of the
17:27
patients and reach out to them verbally, we basically were able to use the program
17:31
to say for every patient before 11 o 'clock tomorrow, let's send them a text,
17:35
let them know that we are going to be going on a three hour delay and to expect
17:40
a link from us.
17:41
And so between myself and one front desk team member, we were able to send the
17:46
concierge link to reschedule those appointments.
17:49
And it was as simple as going to the next day.
17:52
we usually take an hour to hour and a half lunch depending on the day.
17:56
We replace those reservations within our lunch schedule and literally within 10 to
18:01
15 minutes, we had the entire three hours rescheduled and we did not talk to a
18:05
single patient over the phone.
18:07
And so it was so much of an ease for the patient because the initial text message
18:13
let them know what was happening.
18:15
We made it a automatic template for that, but it also took the stress off.
18:21
off the team too, because we were able to still work on the patients that were here
18:24
that day.
18:26
And then going back to that, some of those were banding appointments, some of those
18:29
were new patient consult appointments.
18:31
And so because a lot of those had already completed the treatment questionnaires, it
18:36
already completed their contracts and everything, that didn't trigger again, the
18:39
system knew that too.
18:41
And that's something too, I don't think I mentioned that we are actually able to do
18:46
all of our documents, the signing is within Dolphin as well.
18:49
So,
18:50
Okay.
18:50
to use an external source for that.
18:52
So that's been a big part of our letter system too.
18:55
Yeah, okay.
18:57
Okay.
18:57
So when it comes to the dolphin software, what do you think?
19:02
You know, we talked about the features, but what do you think is the biggest thing
19:04
practice practices miss?
19:06
And I think this is true for a lot of software.
19:08
What do you think the biggest thing they miss is?
19:11
So I think the biggest miss more than anything is triggered by fear for a lot of
19:17
users.
19:17
It seems bulky and it seems really heavy.
19:20
And there are so many people that come in and they're scared to really take the
19:24
initiative to learn the system.
19:26
So I think that's probably the biggest challenge for any practice is one, getting
19:31
doctor on board because.
19:32
Usually most of the doctors, they just want somebody else to kind of do it for
19:35
them.
19:36
That's at least what my experience has been over the last 16 years for sure.
19:40
But also the team, you know, the team there's, they're scared to say, Hey, I'm
19:44
going to, I'll do this.
19:45
Cause they don't want it that on their shoulders with that.
19:48
But I think for me, it is really just investing the time, investing the thought
19:54
process to want to learn it, to want to understand it.
19:57
And then that just opens so many doors on the capability and the functionality of
20:01
what it can do for you.
20:03
Um, but another thing is to, I think everybody goes into and not just often,
20:08
but any software or, or any, anything business related, you, you want so bad for
20:14
it to be customized for you.
20:16
And the, the, the, that perspective is so skewed in so many ways because dolphin has
20:21
the ability to customize it for every single one of us, the way we need it.
20:25
So the way I do things and the way you do things are totally different.
20:29
And that flow is totally different.
20:31
And Dolphin realizes that.
20:33
And so if you have somebody within the office that sees that and can kind of link
20:39
those things together, you're set.
20:41
You have the ability and the mindset to get whatever you want out of the program.
20:45
Yeah.
20:45
So how did you and your coworkers work to customize the dolphin platform for you?
20:49
Did you work with a dolphin rep?
20:51
Did you do it yourselves?
20:52
How did that come about?
20:54
So we had the pleasure of having Steve Murray.
20:57
He's one of the trainers, long -term trainers with Dolphin, was the guy that
21:00
Dolphin sent us who walked in as an angel in disguise because we really did not know
21:05
what we were getting into at all that very first day.
21:08
But he is so versed in the program, one.
21:13
So he is so, so knowledgeable about what it can do, but he has a trainer's benefit
21:18
of knowing what I just said, everything is customizable per office.
21:21
So he knows how.
21:23
Hundreds of offices all over the country utilize the program.
21:27
And so really our trainers, not just Steve, but all of the trainers are so
21:30
valuable because they see different components and different dynamics of each
21:35
office and they're able to say, well, this worked here and here's a way we can tweak
21:40
this a little bit.
21:40
So that is the very first thing I would encourage any office that's considering
21:44
Dolphin and bringing in a trainer, that investment is going to pay dividends for
21:50
you to have the trainer in office.
21:52
not just to get the knowledge, but also it's just such a pet for the team.
21:56
When they really have somebody that they can trust to really learn the program,
22:00
that changes their perspective going forward huge.
22:03
And then we also use the actual support as needed with that.
22:08
We use that frequently when we can't troubleshoot.
22:11
We've done it long enough that between myself and our team, pretty much at the
22:15
time we're able to figure out what's going on.
22:18
Or if it's something that we know we actually need to make dolphin aware of,
22:21
because a lot of times they don't know a problem is there unless somebody is
22:24
calling them to let them know.
22:25
So that's a big part of it too, is not just learning the system, but also being
22:29
comfortable to be vocal with development.
22:31
I mentioned before that they're sitting there, they want to learn, they genuinely
22:34
care about how it works for us.
22:37
And having that relationship with them has been a really big part of that too.
22:40
Yeah, you mentioned the user meetings.
22:43
I wanted to ask like, how valuable is that to you?
22:46
What do you get out of those?
22:47
And how many members from your staff go because, you know, I know that a lot of
22:53
orthodontic practices do send staff these user meetings, but there probably are
22:56
those out there who think, well, it's not going to be worth my time.
22:59
So what do you say about those?
23:01
So this is kind of one of our like marital disputes because I believe in taking the
23:07
whole team, I think that they all need to be immersed in that.
23:10
And just because the user meetings are not just specific for one job or one duty or
23:14
one function.
23:15
And so you can have the financial coordinator doing financial classes.
23:20
You can have the clinical team learning how to utilize imaging or.
23:24
or whatever that they have planned for it.
23:27
There's so many different valuable things and we can't all see it all.
23:29
So the more people that are there and dispersed between different lectures, the
23:34
more valuable that time is for you.
23:36
Kevin on the other hand does not think that the staff, just in his mind, we just
23:41
need to go, we need to learn it and then be able to bring those tools back with
23:44
them.
23:44
So we've gone to several meetings so far and unfortunately it's just been the two
23:49
of us.
23:49
I don't know if I'll ever get him on board with that.
23:51
But, and I just, I feel like it's such an unfortunate thing and we're doing the
23:56
ladies a disservice to not have somebody there.
23:57
The teams and the offices that do bring their staff, you can tell that they go
24:03
back so fired up and so ready to see patients with just a whole broad knowledge
24:07
of what they can do now.
24:10
And so I think that's a game changer for anybody to consider, highly consider going
24:14
to a user meeting, absolutely.
24:15
Well, and I would imagine taking like the financial coordinator, they're going to
24:18
understand what they need in their job on a day -to basis that some, you like you
24:22
who you're the treatment coordinator and yes, you're help running the practice, but
24:26
you're not in the weeds with them all the time.
24:29
So yeah, yeah.
24:31
Well, Rebecca, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us and to share
24:35
your, you know, your knowledge about the platform and how to, you know, better
24:39
utilize it because I think it's true for Dolphin, but I think it's also true for
24:42
many platforms out there.
24:44
that you have to take the time to figure out what features work for you and what's
24:46
out there and then figure out a way to customize it for you.
24:49
So yeah.
24:51
Yeah, exactly.
24:52
Well, thank you so much.
24:53
I appreciate it.
24:54
Absolutely.
24:55
Thank you.