Latest / Hey Docs! / Visualizing and Optimizing Treatment Outcomes with DIBS AI

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Visualizing and Optimizing Treatment Outcomes with DIBS AI · Hey Docs!

0:03
Welcome to the Haydocks podcast with your host Jill Allen. In this episode,
0:09
Ryan Williams from Ortho Select is joining me on the show. Today's episode is
0:14
all about AI and how products like dibbs AI are changing the game for indirect
0:19
bonding and practices. From efficiency to challenges practices face, we are covering it
0:25
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you don't know today. That's contact kl dot com. Ryan, thank you
1:19
so much for being on Haydocks with me. I'm super excited for this episode
1:23
today. Well, thank you, Jill, it's great to be here.
1:26
I appreciate it. Yes, So I'd love to start us off by just
1:32
having you tell us a little bit about yourself and about Orthoselect and you know,
1:37
kind of what you're doing in the industry right now. Well, yeah,
1:41
it's great. So about twenty years ago, Steve Gardner found out he
1:46
was going to have a baby and he needed to grow up and be serious
1:49
in life and get a job. Right, So previous when he was little,
1:53
when he first had braces, he had worked for his orthodonist and had
1:57
done study models and he said, well, I can do study models.
2:00
So that was the genesis for ortho Select. He started in his unfinished basement.
2:05
He hired his wife and they just frantically made study models all day,
2:08
and that eventually pivoted and he added more products, and one of those products
2:15
was digital indirect bonding. And I guess it's been ten years ago Steve started
2:21
developing the original dibbs software and that has since morphed into dibbs AI as we've
2:28
incorporated new technology and better processes and protocols, and here we are today.
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We're arguably the largest provider of digital and direct bonding in the world as far
2:38
as we're aware, and it's been awesome. It's been an exciting rite.
2:42
Yeah, that's great. And I'm going to take you down memory lane with
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me just a little bit here, because one of the things why I have
2:50
been looking forward to doing this recording with you is being able to talk about
2:55
this technology. And when I got started in orthodox and it's been thirty two
3:00
years now that i've been in orthodonics, and you may or may not know
3:05
this, but I actually started as a sterilization assistant and then was actually in
3:10
the assisting role and probably about thirty years ago, maybe twenty eight years ago,
3:20
my doctor was a very, very progressive orthodonist and I can actually remember
3:27
when indirect bonding was just coming onto the scene, and just to kind of
3:34
take you back in memory lane, I can remember when it was done.
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For any of our young docs out there listening, you're going to not even
3:40
believe that we used to do this. But again, you know, even
3:45
doing the type of bonding that we do now was very different. You know,
3:47
we were still bending straight wire and tap welding bands, you know,
3:51
way way back when. But the stuff that I worked with was actually very
3:54
progressive and bringing this into the market and his practice and at the time,
3:59
the material that we used with this really really thick, hard you could not
4:04
see through it, white plastic almost material. And the way we would do
4:09
it to try and do these indirect bondings is we would put it up onto
4:14
the teeth and then we would use a scalpel, if you can believe this,
4:16
and you could not see through the material, and you would use a
4:20
scalpel to cut this material off, praying that you did not hit the gingerbole
4:30
that doesn't make me nervous at all, and then you'd crack it off and
4:35
you know, maybe you know four of the six brackets in the quadrant state
4:40
and you'd be like, this is great, you know. So I bring
4:45
that up just to say this kind of takes me down memory lane in the
4:47
sense that I can remember when indirect bonding, you know, and I can't
4:53
even tell you that it was a company. I can't remember way back when.
4:56
But it's so much fun for me to see how fun are our industry
5:01
has come and what we are able to do now with the way we place
5:06
brackets and the way, you know, we can work on efficiency in our
5:10
practices now. As to the days of a very very thick one inch material
5:15
and a scalpel, you know, when when we're doing in direct bonding compared
5:19
to the dark ages. Yeah, literally, the dark ages, you cannot
5:23
see what you're doing. So I just I just had to tell you that
5:26
story because I think you can appreciate it with you guys doing what you're doing,
5:30
and so that kind of leads me into not only have we just come
5:34
so far with what we can do with technology, but I really want to
5:38
talk a little bit about AI, and I think that is what you guys
5:42
have really brought to our industry, and you know, in the sense of
5:46
we've got software now that can really help us dial in what we're doing and
5:50
how we're doing it. So I'm wondering if you can talk just a little
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bit about how AI is really impacting the orthodonic industry and what is doing within
6:00
your company as well. Yeah, I'm happy to so. AI is really
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exciting and it's pretty new to orthodonics. I can think of for companies off
6:11
the top of my head that actually are doing AI like today, right,
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there's a lot of buzz and a lot of talk about it, and there's
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all kinds of different AI. Right. So, I think the secret to
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AI and why it'll be amazing for orthodonics is it actually answers specific problems.
6:30
Right. So, for example, in our in our industry right now,
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staffing is an issue, right, we have to do we have to figure
6:38
out in our businesses how to do more with equal or less, and staffing
6:43
is a big piece of that. We have pricing pressures, we have inflation.
6:47
We need to if we can do more with less, then we can
6:50
actually maintain prices that attract more patients. So that's all very interesting to me,
6:58
and I think AI is going to play a huge, huge role in
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allowing us to be more efficient and orthodonys than we've ever been in the past.
7:05
Yeah, I completely agree. And I think the thing that my mind
7:09
goes to a lot, and I think a lot of doctors, is we
7:12
think about AI maybe on the business side of our business. You know,
7:17
I'm going to use it to help write my ads, Yeah, exactly.
7:24
But what you're talking about is how AI is helping us on the clinical side
7:30
of it, and how it is maybe taking away our doctor intensive time that
7:38
I'm working my way through this too. Now I'll let you expand on that
7:44
a little bit. But I'm envisioning that I can teach this program what we're
7:48
doing, or these pieces are already built into it, and now I,
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as a doctor, don't necessarily have to sit there and do it. I
7:56
can have a team member do it, or I can have some of these
7:59
pieces already in place for me. Can you expand on that just a little
8:03
bit with Dibsi. Yeah. So, I don't know if you remember who
8:07
Ray Kroc was is I don't know if he's doing still alive, but Ray
8:11
Kroc was the guy that originally bought the original McDonald's, right, And what
8:16
he did to fast food is he systemized it. Right. So up until
8:22
that point, you had like a hamburger person, and you had a fries
8:24
person, and you had a shake person. But they didn't know the other
8:28
jobs very well. They couldn't fit in. So what he did is he
8:31
systemized it. He made a system and he could plug in whoever he needed
8:35
into the right spots. Right. So, orthodonics is obviously a little more
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difficult than fast food, but if we implement AI clinically and in our practices,
8:46
we can systemize that and that creates efficiencies. So if we can systemize
8:52
it. Then we don't have to have the extensive training for our assistance that
8:58
maybe we needed in the past. Right can do equivalent work without that time
9:03
and expense, and that gives us more options in our hiring and allows us
9:07
to build out our staff a little easier than in the past. So I
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think AI in phase one, which is probably where we are right now,
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AI in phase one is really all about systematizing and automating what previously was just
9:22
my numbing, stupid repetitive work. Right, AI is really really good at
9:28
eliminating repetitive tasks. It's not very good yet at you know, replacing a
9:35
doctor, you know, or building machines that kill all mankind and take over
9:39
the world. That's not really in the parts either, But right now they
9:43
can make our lives a lot easier and a lot more efficient. Yeah.
9:46
So we talked a little bit about my intro into indirect bonding many years ago.
9:52
I'm wondering if you can talk about kind of how the evolution and where
9:58
indirect bonding methods of the past to the present and where you see it going
10:05
future, especially with DIBs, how you see past to present to future,
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what that's going to look like and is looking like, yeah, so we'll
10:15
work our way forward. Right. So in the past traditional and direct bonding,
10:18
you take that algae impression that gags people, and then you pour up
10:22
the model and the stone and you do the x's and your crosses on the
10:26
teeth, and you place some brackets and you use sugar babies or your nasty
10:30
tray that you're describing your right, you create that using the old suck down
10:35
method, right, and then you cut that out manually. In your case,
10:41
you did it while they're on the teeth, which sounds freaky scary,
10:46
or you just did it, you know, prep, and then you bond
10:48
the patient and then you have d bonds and et cetera. So that's old
10:52
school. And if you can remember back in those days how much work that
10:58
took, right, Oh gosh, yes, you had to hire people,
11:01
and people would have a permanent residence at the practice because they happened to know
11:07
how to do all of that and to do it well. And so and
11:11
then once that person left as a doctor, you're that was a good run
11:15
while we had it, But now I don't have a replacement person that can
11:18
learn all that, and so you reverted back to direct boarding. So fast
11:24
forward to aligners, right, So now we're introducing a digital workflow, and
11:31
to me, that is what was extremely attractive to aligners from an orthodonist point
11:37
of view. From the consumer point of view, the idea of having invisible
11:39
races I totally get. But from an orthodonist perspective, now everything's more digital
11:45
and that equated to share time efficiency, So it made sense. Right,
11:48
that was a smart idea, And I feel like the pendulum really swung that
11:54
way towards aligners because of that digital workflow. But now we've got that with
12:01
buckle appliances right, and lingual too. But now that we see that pendulum
12:07
swinging the other way, and now the entire manufacturing process, the entire case
12:13
setup process has all been highly automated and so we don't have to do all
12:20
that. So all that old work that would take a long long time and
12:24
a lot of effort and very skilled effort, that's no longer the case.
12:28
Like today, we can get a case set up in a digital case setup.
12:31
We spit a case setup back to the doctors in twenty four hours or
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less. Wow, we can print and manufacture package and have in the delivery
12:39
truck the trays for that patient in twenty four hours or less. So AI
12:46
is really that when I say automation and simplification, that is the name of
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the game here. Because now we're fast, you can also imagine we're a
12:54
lot less expensive than in the past as well. In fact, when we
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first got into digital indirect bonding, we charged I think it was one hundred
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and eighty or one hundred and eighty five dollars a case and it took two
13:07
weeks or three weeks to get to you. Now we are actually less expensive.
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So here we are about three years later or four years later from that
13:16
price, we're one sixty five yeah, and we are you know, five
13:22
to six days turn around town. So that's amazing. In today's day and
13:28
age, where you know, you go to your favorite restaurant and suddenly you're
13:31
paying twenty five dollars plate when you used to pay twenty right, right whatever,
13:37
and prices are increasing, We're the only ones I'm aware of that actually
13:39
decrease their price. So that's kind of cool, I think absolutely. And
13:43
you know, one of the things that kind of makes me think about when
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I'm especially when I'm working with my startup docs and most of our audience are
13:50
younger doctors that are getting going with their practices. One of the conversations that
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we continually have is just thinking about how can we as efficient as possible in
14:03
our practices. And I always tell my startup docs there's never a better time
14:07
to work on your systems than in the first year of practice and to really
14:11
hone in efficiencies from the type of brackets that we're going to use to the
14:18
systems, you know, and how we're going to deliver. If it's a
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fixed appliance, how are we going to Are you going to sit down and
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manually do it or are you going to do it in some type of an
14:28
indirect bond way to the aligner system, you know, kind of all of
14:31
that, and I think that also thinking about the technology component, there is
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never a better time, in my opinion, to learn the technology than when
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you're also a tadbit slower and you know, you can really work through what's
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going to work for you, what's not going to work for you. As
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you're thinking about that in your first year, I'm wondering if you can,
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you know, just kind of talk to us a little bit about what you
14:58
guys are seeing the impact from an orth of office, whether it's a startup
15:03
or even an existing practice that's saying you know what you know? For me,
15:09
I work a lot with doctors where we're working on doctor time scheduling.
15:11
When we're looking at their schedules and we're saying, Okay, you know,
15:15
it really is not just about shared share time with the liners, but can
15:18
we be even more efficient with our shared doctor time. We've only got one
15:24
doc and we've got a lot of places that doc has got to be.
15:26
So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what you guys are
15:30
seeing from a feedback standpoint with your doctors from implementing technology like this that allows
15:37
them to have very limited time at the chair, be more efficient with their
15:41
doctor time throughout the day, and what type of an impact that's having on
15:46
their practices. Yeah, happy to. So you started out your comments talking
15:50
about a new doctor coming online, right, So let's touch on that and
15:54
then we'll talk about efficiency, because I get it when you when you start
15:58
a practice, you got all I'm in the world, right, and so
16:02
I talk to doctors all the time and they're like, eh, you know
16:04
what, I have a lot of time and so I'll just direct bond and
16:08
do it the old way. And I think that's interesting because I think as
16:12
a medical profession we really should have the needs of the patient first and foremost.
16:18
And I'm unaware I've never met you guys could correct me if I'm wrong,
16:23
But I've never met a teenager who's pretty excited about being embraces for two
16:27
years, right, if they could be fourteen sixteen months, I think they'd
16:33
be all about that, right. And as you're starting a new practice,
16:37
I don't think you want to come across as old school. I think nowadays
16:42
you want to attract patients that are interested in the new way in modern orthodonics,
16:48
right, digital orthodonics, for heaven's sakes, that's why they come for
16:52
in visiline, right. They want the modern stuff. They don't want old
16:56
school. And so for a new doctor, I think, Jill, you
17:00
make an excellent point about setting up your processes earlier so that when you do
17:06
bring people on, you've got those nailed a little bit and you get they're
17:10
easier to implement because it's just how you do things. So there's a lot
17:12
to be said for that. And I come from more of a marketing and
17:17
sales perspective, So I put on my marketing hat and I go. I
17:21
would rather communicate to the community that I'm a modern orthodonist, even though even
17:26
though I have extra time. And then again, I don't really want to
17:30
create a perception that I have extra time, and I don't have enough patients
17:33
either. So anyways, if I was starting out, I would focus on
17:38
what that message looks like to my community, because I'm going to attract more
17:42
clients faster if I'm a modern orthodonist. Now as you go, yeah,
17:49
suddenly it becomes hard because you've got more clients. You've got people waiting hopefully
17:56
right to get bonded and to start with you. So suddenly efficiency becomes a
18:02
necessity in your workflow. And what we are seeing with our doctors and the
18:07
data we get back is from a workflow standpoint, your bonding appointment instead of
18:14
being an hour and a half for a direct bonding for upper lower full you
18:18
know all teeth hour and a half, we can get that to forty five
18:22
minutes. Right, So what does that mean? Well, if you're talking
18:26
about efficiency, that means you just doubled your capacity or close to it to
18:30
bring on new patients, and that's one element of efficiency, and sometimes doctors
18:36
are stuck on that. They just want a more streamlined workflow, which is
18:41
valuable. But there's a whole other side too, Right. You can be
18:45
efficient in treatment time because if you reduce the treatment time by six months,
18:49
your capacity as a company to handle more active patients at any one moment in
18:56
time is increased as well. Yeah, and so those appointments and the busyness
19:00
of your clinic or your practice, it's manageable. Yeah. Right, So
19:06
there's two elements to that efficiency that we have found. We impact that bonding
19:10
time efficiency as well as the treatment time efficiency. Is that answering your question,
19:15
Jill? It is, and it kind of leads me to a question
19:19
as you were saying that. I always say to docs, you know,
19:22
a busy schedule is just a busy schedule unless you've got time for new patient
19:26
exams and starts. Yes, because that really is where we produce and so
19:30
many times, especially if you've come from the dental side first. You know
19:37
a lot of my docs have been dentists first, and when we look at
19:40
a dental schedule, we can count up our day and go, oh,
19:41
I just produced x amount of dollars by all of these appointments or ortho.
19:47
It's almost the exact opposite. If I have a whole lot of adjustment appointments
19:51
and big long bonding appointments, and you know, unless it's a start appointment
19:55
or unless it's a new patient, you're just busy and you're probably running your
19:59
pract just not very efficiently. So I love that you talked about it kind
20:03
of touched on something that I think is really important that docs pay attention to.
20:07
Is it's not just about shortening that bonding time to have more times for
20:11
your adjustments, shortening that bonding time, to have more times to get your
20:15
new patients in, or to have more times to do bondings and have the
20:19
doctor have more time to scoot around to be in those appointments. Yeah,
20:23
that's right. So you can actually kick that to the next level because it's
20:26
one thing I have a shorter bonding time, but it's another thing to not
20:30
have the doctor involved at all in the bonding, right, because then the
20:33
doctor can be in the console. Actually you can be bringing in the business
20:38
that you actually making the money and doing things that only the doctor can do.
20:44
Because once a doctor has done a digital approval of these cases. That
20:48
role has been fulfilled. Now you just let your staff go. The cool
20:52
ancillary benefit, right, The bonus to delegating to your staff is they feel
20:59
empowered, right because now they're not sitting there awkwardly trying to deal with a
21:03
parent and a kid who's you know, i'll know it up, and waiting
21:07
for the doctor who's late because the doctor's tied up elsewhere, right, And
21:12
so now they're empowered and they're like, I don't need to wait for the
21:15
doctor. I can just go ahead and do this case and move on,
21:19
and everybody's happy. And the only thing that parents says to me is that's
21:22
it, We're done, and is yeah, you're done, let's go.
21:26
Yes. So I think that's missed a lot. And in a world where
21:32
it's hard to staff and it's sometimes hard to keep staff on board, it's
21:37
empowering for your staff to be able to finish a bonding and just do their
21:41
jobs and not have to be stuck waiting for you. So I think that's
21:44
unnoticed bonus sometimes. Yeah, I completely agree with you on that, and
21:49
I think which is why so many times a dental assistants who get into Eartha,
21:52
were like, where have you been my whole life? This is so
21:56
great, Like I can't believe how much I get to do. There was
22:00
another part that you talked about that I think is worth just circling back around
22:06
to, and I'm going to have you unpack this just a little bit more.
22:10
But I think it also has to do with just efficiency of treatment in
22:14
doing indirect bonding. And I know from way back when I was in that
22:18
clinical role, and it's been a while from then till now, but I'm
22:22
wondering if you can talk a little bit about this just what it does and
22:27
being able to have good bracket placement right from the beginning, because I think
22:33
that was one of the beauties that I loved on top of all the other
22:37
things, you know, and we were definitely phase one early school doing this,
22:42
but what I noticed from being a clinical assistant was it did decrease us
22:49
having to do so many repositioning And I think it's interesting now that in our
22:55
industry we don't even build out appointment codes for repositioning anymore, or wire bending
23:00
and you know, all of those different things, and I think a lot
23:03
of it just has to do with the technology. But I can't help but
23:07
think that DIBBSI plays a big part in this as well. Well, you've
23:12
hit the core of the issue right, nailed it, Jill, So nice
23:18
I get a gold star today. So I mean, I mean really,
23:23
ultimately, dibbs I exists for accurate bracket placement. That's the name of the
23:30
game. And because we know that if we can place the bracket right in
23:33
the first time, beautiful, wonderful things happen. That's how we shorten treatment
23:37
time because you have less repose and you have less wire bending. Even with
23:41
stock brackets, you reduce all of that work and you have more efficient tooth
23:48
movement. It's all based on the bracket placement. Now, I will admit
23:52
that I am terribly biased towards bracket placements, but I do believe that if
23:56
you're looking for a straight wire solution of bracket placement is like eighty percent of
24:02
the battle, right, It's the vast majority. And if you nail that,
24:06
if you can do that correctly, you're doing wonderfully well. So now
24:10
there's levels to bracket placement. Now. Hearkening back to your comments earlier,
24:15
Jill about old school, right, you did the crosshairs on the on the
24:18
bracket and you stuck it on there. If you remember your doctor's pivoting and
24:23
looking at that model, it's a pre existing model. It's the existing teeth.
24:30
And what's difficult back in the day was taking the model and looking at
24:36
the occlusion right and making judgment calls on bracket placement based on that. So
24:41
it became kind of formulaic a little bit. You know, your heights would
24:45
be just so, and you just do that, and that had wonderful effects.
24:48
I think universally most doctors would say IDB old school or digital, better
24:56
treatment outcomes, a better patient experience. You know, nobody's ever argued those
25:00
points. It just never made business sense, but the results are really good.
25:06
But here's the deal. At that time, you're only looking at the
25:08
pre existing right. Now bring ourselves forward into the modern digital age. Now
25:17
we can start with the end in mind. I can Visiline taught us years
25:19
ago, right, you can position the teeth where you want them to be,
25:25
and then based on that we can reverse engineer where the bracket should be.
25:29
So that's a different game altogether, because now you can look at a
25:34
heat map of the bite right, and you can go, oh, I've
25:37
got heavy contacts on my six's and twos or whatever. Ye, And so
25:45
now as a doctor, before I give them a place of bracket, I
25:48
can make a choice. I can enamel plast or I can intrude, I
25:52
can tip torque, I can do whatever I want there, and in real
25:56
time the bracket placement adjusts. It's powerful because now a doctor can actually see
26:03
this stuff before he or she places brackets and waits for it to work its
26:07
way out right. So that is a powerful thing, and that I think
26:12
really, if you're trying to pinpoint a single factor that affects treatment time overall
26:19
treatment time, I think it's that. I think it's that ability to visualize
26:23
stuff rotations and torques and contacts. If you can visualize that stuff at the
26:32
beginning, how cool is that that you can make those changes and then just
26:34
let the wires and the brackets do their job. Yeah. Well, and
26:38
I cannot agree with you more. And I definitely think VISI line really helped
26:44
us see that, you know, visual like, you know, being able
26:47
to truly look at everything in a three D perspective and turn and see,
26:52
oh, you know, this is the impact that I'm going to have.
26:55
And you know, what I can see from again old school too, so
27:00
where we're at now to where we're going, I mean, what how incredible
27:03
is that? And going all the way back to your marketing comment, how
27:07
cool is it to be able to tell a patient we're treating you in this
27:12
virtual realm where even what we can see in the chair looking at you upside
27:17
down, we don't have to pull out not that they know this, you
27:19
know, articulating paper to see you know, where are you hitting hard or
27:23
how you do all these things that we used to do in the past.
27:26
Now you can see all of that with that AI technology. Just so cool
27:32
to see where we're going for sure. Yeah, kudos to and Visiline.
27:34
Really, I mean that was part of the digital age they brought to Orthodonics.
27:40
You really think about it, Ortho hadn't changed much. Yeah, I
27:42
mean, yeah, we had some different wire technology right that had come in,
27:47
but man, it had been basically Ortho as Ortho until they did that.
27:51
I feel like we're now in that next phase of that digital age.
27:55
It's pretty cool. And Visline has a really good modeling of what that future,
28:00
what the future teeth will look like in they're positioning and as far as
28:04
we're aware we have the most accurate prediction as well that simulation that's in there.
28:11
It's not perfect, right, but what we're doing is really cool because
28:15
we do know the morphology of the teeth, we know the bracket, we
28:18
know every dimension and dynamic of the bracket, we know the finishing wire,
28:25
and so we're calculating the slop and the slot, right, and so we're
28:30
getting an accurate prediction of the torque based on the prescription of your brackets,
28:34
and it can be any prescription of bracket. We accept all brackets, right,
28:38
So this is this is kind of a first that we're aware of that
28:42
anybody is taking whatever bracket the doctor prefers, and we're calculating the slot to
28:48
get an accurate prediction of that torque. And so that just makes that prediction
28:52
even more useful and more accurate. And there's more to do. Yeah,
28:57
And that's what's kind of cool about AI in the future is the level of
29:02
accuracy precision is just going to get better from here. Yeah, heydocs.
29:07
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29:11
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29:17
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29:22
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29:26
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29:32
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29:51
with smile Sweet, because every smile deserves a suite of excellence. I really
29:57
appreciate that you're saying that because I do believe, you know, talking to
30:02
lots of doctors, working with lots of doctors over the last eighteen years,
30:04
and with me doing consulting, and everybody does have their own preference. There
30:10
is you know, we all want our choice, you know, and whatever
30:12
that is, and however that's going to work out. And I can only
30:17
imagine again how AI is really helping with that process. As we all know.
30:22
That's that's what makes a bracket different from another bracket is from torque to
30:26
slot size to you know, all the different things. And so I think
30:30
that now we've got this technology that you could have two doctors working with two
30:36
different brackets still getting great results at the end. But it has to do
30:41
with that interface. That's paying attention to that the whole way through, versus
30:45
just saying well, you can only use this technology if you only use this
30:49
type of bracket or whatnot. That's right, that's right. That actually at
30:55
a high level you go, well, that's that's that's not very complicated.
30:59
But it has been a surreal rabbit hole for it sure be able to accommodate
31:04
whatever bracket is thrown at us self ligating twin and then all the variations within
31:10
each of those categories. Right, it's been a bear, but that's part
31:14
of what makes us unique is our ability to do that. Yeah, I'm
31:18
curious to know are any doctors using the simulator in any type of a way
31:22
that you have And I apologize that I don't know the answer to this.
31:27
Are they using it at all in a way in the new patient exam or
31:32
at all to show a patient kind of like we do with the liners to
31:36
show a patient the way their teeth will look at the end of treatment or
31:40
is that more just a diagnostic component that the doctors are able to use when
31:45
they're working up their treatment. Yeah, I'm unaware that anybody's using it in
31:48
the consult. It is a diagnostic tool at the moment. And the reason
31:52
it is is because in the diagnostic we actually put your bracket prescription on it
31:57
and then we return it with the bracket already on there. So we're taking
32:00
some extra steps there, and Visiline has a head start on that. I
32:06
guess they have twenty years, don't they twenty years had started. Yeah,
32:08
yeah, just a little bit, a little bit, but yeah, we'll
32:15
get there. Our goal is for you to be able to submit a scan
32:19
and in under a minute have it back right in you know, in a
32:24
class one by you know, looking nice and with doctor preferences in there.
32:30
Right, So if you prefer smile ARC for example, that's our goal.
32:34
That's our big hairy goal, as they say in business school, Right,
32:36
Yeah, that's what we're shooting for. We're not there yet, but you
32:39
know, time and money and software. It's all about time and money.
32:42
We'll get there, that's for sure. So let's talk a little bit about
32:45
some of the common challenges you see doctors having when they are looking at implementing
32:51
a system like yours. I know, probably and maybe you can talk about
32:57
two different examples. A startup younger doc who's you know, thinking about doing
33:01
this right from the beginning, to maybe a challenge that an existing practice they're
33:07
clicking along, they've been doing it traditional way for a while. Let's talk
33:12
about those two challenges. Yeah, yeah, well for a new doctor,
33:15
the challenges are significantly less here that docs here, that significantly less. That's
33:24
the easy one. So we'll tackle the easy one first and then do the
33:27
harder one. But yeah, it does require training. So DIBBSI is like
33:32
if you're a pilot, right, and you have three thousand hour flying hours,
33:37
right, you've been around, you've been in the Navy and you've flown
33:42
or the Air Force and you've flown your entire career. You still have to
33:45
go to training to fly the Boeing seven forty seven, right, or a
33:51
different airplane. There's training for each airplane that you go through, and that's
33:54
true of DIBSAI. So with a new doctor, you're getting trained on your
33:59
first airplane. Basically and we need to teach you how to do that.
34:02
DIBBSAI has different protocols than other systems, which makes complete sense if you think
34:08
about it. There's only in the past maybe ten twenty percent of doctors did
34:15
IDB. Right, you got to beg that begs a question, Well,
34:17
why didn't they Well because it was a pain and it didn't work very well.
34:22
So we had to change those protocols and change those processes in order for
34:25
this to make sense. And so yeah, we need to train you on
34:29
how to do it. And so when we onboard, we do that.
34:32
We own it and we train doctors and their staff so that they can be
34:37
successful. We don't benefit and the doctor and certainly the patient doesn't benefit if
34:42
you don't do it correctly. Which brings me to the more experienced office and
34:46
practice. And I hear it all the time, you know, don't We'd
34:52
done IDB for twenty five years. You know, I know how to do
34:54
this. Why do we need training? And well, the pilot experience,
34:59
you know example, is still valid. Right, if you're going to fly
35:01
the new airplane, you got to know how to do it. And again
35:05
we have changed protocols, and I realized that there's a lot of training in
35:08
ORTHO, but one of our challenges with an experienced office is the tendency for
35:15
staff and doctors to revert back to some previous, other unknown, unnamed system
35:22
and protocols and then try and use that in Dibsai. Right, it's kind
35:27
of it's like that analogy of new wine and old barrels. Yep, right,
35:31
it doesn't work right, And that's true at DIBSEI. There are key
35:37
differences in our protocols that if you don't train and you don't practice them,
35:43
you tend to revert back to what you maybe practiced fifteen twenty years ago and
35:46
think that's going to work, and it doesn't. Yeah, for sure.
35:51
I'm curious if you can talk just a little bit about the impact on moving
35:58
towards an indirect system and what that does for starts in an office, because
36:02
I think that there's got to be a doctor out there that's saying from a
36:06
startup to an existing But Jill, I like my same day starts, and
36:10
if I move to an indirect system, I'm just going to lose all these
36:14
patients. Or but Jill, I got nothing but time, So why wouldn't
36:19
I just do a direct bonding when I'm getting started. Yeah, So can
36:22
you talk to that because I think that that's a challenge too that doctors and
36:25
treatment coordinators maybe have to overcome. There's a little mental hurdle there they do.
36:32
You know, we're talking about digital orthodonics. So I mean, if
36:37
you want to do old school, then a same day start is typically been
36:40
you place brackets, but in digital orthodonics, in modern orthodox that's no longer
36:45
the case. I mean, are you doing the same day start with a
36:47
visiline exactly? Thank you? You're not You're not right. So I mean
36:53
the doctor is defining what a same day start looks like. The patient doesn't
36:58
know, right, So the doctors defining the TC is defining it. So
37:01
all you have to do is say, well, today your treatment begins with
37:06
an intra oral scan sign here, right, yeah, and that's the same
37:09
day start, and then have them come back with our turnaround time. You
37:14
start them on a Tuesday, you bond them then following Tuesday, right,
37:16
yeah, we can do it the next week. Yeah. I think we
37:19
are doing ourselves a disservice as an industry by not just defining what a same
37:23
day start is the right way. Yeah, we call those same day scans
37:28
a lot of times where that is our start, And I completely agree with
37:31
you, and I just wanted to hear you say that because it is exactly
37:37
that we've got to change our mindset. And I think it's so much usier
37:38
for my younger doctors to hear that because they've been exposed to this and we
37:44
kind of understand that maybe a little bit more, but a lot of times
37:45
for my existing doctors and my existing treatment coordinators, that can be a hard
37:52
shift to think about. And I would say, especially with our existing practices,
37:55
we may have to think a little bit more about, Okay, how
37:59
do we then get our placement starts into our schedules, and do we need
38:05
to kind of rethink about the way our schedule templates look and different things like
38:08
that. Nothing that we can't overcome, nothing that we can't deal with.
38:14
But I think, you know, along with just kind of changing up the
38:17
way we're doing our systems, the mental shift, it's also then thinking about,
38:21
Okay, this is our money making appointment right here, you know,
38:23
Like the scan was the start, but we still have to be able to
38:28
get them in to get it on and now it's just a bonding appointment that
38:30
we're fitting into our schedule. Yeah, I actually don't. I'll confess Jill
38:35
that I don't really know what the problem is with the same day start because
38:39
all you have to do is copy what you're doing within Visiligne. Yeah.
38:43
Yeah, as a TC, I would already know how to do that,
38:46
because that's an Invisiligne patient equivalent, right. Yeah, So yeah, I
38:52
think we define that for some reason. Somewhere along the road, we define
38:55
to our customers that the same day start as replace a bracket, and that's
38:59
that's not how to be Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think you kind
39:02
of touched on this already. But when we look at starting with dibbs Ai,
39:08
I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be a good start in
39:12
a practice. But I'm wondering if there's anything specific that if a doctor's building
39:19
out a practice that they should be thinking about from a technology standpoint. If
39:23
they were saying, yeah, I don't know why I wouldn't start, you
39:27
know, if I'm going to do fixed appliances along with my offering of aligners
39:31
and along with this, that or the other, is there anything specific that
39:36
they need to be thinking about in design a practice or from a lab standpoint,
39:40
or anything that you can think of that you know, we haven't talked
39:43
about or thought about. Typically there isn't to be honest, as far as
39:47
a facility or any of that. It doesn't require any additional equipment like that.
39:54
Now you can add equipment, so for example, you could do a
39:59
sea BCT scanner, right, because we incorporate CBCT scans into our diagnosis,
40:06
right, so you can see that, and that's really cool. However,
40:09
those are extremely expensive and normally, normally as a startup doctor, you may
40:15
not do that unless you're unless you have some other reasons obviously, but that's
40:19
the only thing I could think of is if you wanted to incorporate that type
40:22
of technology at the front end of your practice, that's a build out kind
40:28
of issue. Otherwise, DIBSI is not an overhead item right overhead, which
40:34
this is kind of an interesting topic because most doctors have never been to business
40:37
school and so I often often talk to doctors about they use the term overhead
40:45
and what they mean to say is expenses. Ye, because overhead is not
40:50
only an expense right overhead is a very specific expense. So that's an interesting
40:54
thing. So Oftentimes doctors go, I don't want to increase my overhead,
40:59
And what they mean to say is they don't want to spend any money.
41:00
They just want to be cheap. Yeah. Well, overhead is like rent
41:05
and wages, right, things that regardless of how many cases you do,
41:09
you're going to have to pay that same amount of overhead. So the name
41:14
of the game in orthodonics is to do as many patients as you can and
41:19
still pay the same overhead. Yeah. So DIMSEYI is not an overhead thing.
41:22
It is linked to your treatment of the patient. So the more patience
41:29
you do, the more profitable you become, because your overhead doesn't change.
41:32
Yeah. And so what I'm hearing, which is different than maybe we'll say
41:37
first gen IDB, is it does not mean that a doctor is going to
41:42
have to invest in their dry lab now where they have to have a printer
41:46
now, and they have to have all this plastic on hand, and they
41:52
have to pay an extra person to stand in there and you know, stand
41:57
at the computer and do all of these different things. Yeah, you don't
42:00
need to. And you reminded me, Joe. I mean there are some
42:02
doctors that are really excited about doing three D printing and they want to build
42:07
out a lab, and you can totally do that too, but again with
42:10
our system you don't have to, but you can. And if I were
42:15
looking at that, I would look at it from a business point of view.
42:19
I mean, as an orthodonoist, I would make all my money being
42:22
an orthodonist. The lab is a support, but I would take a critical
42:25
eye to that given the investment and the overhead. Right, that's extra space,
42:31
that's extra people that you need to train how to do stuff in there.
42:36
It's like, I mean that labs are like an entirely other business,
42:40
right, So if you're going to do it well, you kind of have
42:44
to learn that second business. The difference in price, if you know,
42:47
I was talking to a doctor the other day and she was under the impression
42:52
she'd save a bunch of money if she printed her own. But the difference
42:54
is the material, a little bit of labor, and the shipping. Yeah,
43:00
that's what you save. So it's like thirty five bucks what you say
43:04
by printing in office. So economically does it make sense? It's iffy.
43:09
It's yeah, you can go either way, and you could argue it or
43:13
argue it both ways. But if you're really into three D printing, then
43:15
yeah, that's true, you'd have to have a build out of that.
43:20
In our business, we've found that most doctors prefer the simplicity of ordering it
43:27
through our labs or through our partner labs, and with our turnaround time so
43:30
fast, you kind of wonder, well, do I need to print an
43:34
office and do I want that headache? And so today as we sit here
43:38
right around eighty percent of our clients print through a third party lab. Yeah.
43:45
Well, and if you think about it, you're going to have turnaround
43:49
time regardless. Like you said, maybe there's a small percentage that you may
43:52
save, But it always comes to scalability. The bigger you get, the
43:58
harder it is to scale, and the more expensive it gets. So would
44:01
you mind just kind of walking us through, So let's say a dock ones
44:07
to get started? Are they and this kind of goes back to do we
44:10
have to have extra things on hand? Do they have to buy extra brackets
44:15
that they send to you guys and you guys are holding them and now they're
44:20
having to manage how many brackets do they have? Or that component of it.
44:24
Because I think these are the questions that I get a lot like,
44:27
well what does this mean because going back to first Gin and some of the
44:30
things that used to go on to where you guys are at now, can
44:34
you talk to that a little bit as well? Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
44:37
So we do offer for free we will insert your brackets for you and
44:43
your trades and send them to you pre loaded. That's a free service we
44:46
do. And yeah, it's something like it's a very high percentage, just
44:51
maybe in the seventy five eighty percent range of doctors take advantage of that,
44:55
and I would do. That's a no brainer in my mind. How that
45:00
works is you literally just authorize your bracket rep and say, hey, I'm
45:05
buying fifty cases. We divert twenty of those or thirty of those to Ortho
45:09
Select and they'll just ship them to us directly. That's the easiest way.
45:14
That way, you're not having to repackage anything and all that stuff. You
45:16
just skip all that. And most bracket reps know who we are and they
45:22
know what to send us, and they send us exactly what we need.
45:25
Has your name on, it has the brackets, and it has the part
45:28
numbers, and that's exactly what we need. So we get that right the
45:31
inventory we manage it is yours, right, it's the doctor's brackets. We
45:37
keep it in our lab. We're based in Utah, so it's here in
45:38
Utah, and we track that inventory. And in our system you can the
45:44
same place you log in to submit a case, we can show you what
45:49
your inventory is there, so it's all right there on the screen. And
45:52
we set reorder points so if you dip below twenty cases or ten cases that
45:57
we have on hand, and email notification goes to whoever on your staff or
46:01
the doctor or even the bracket rep or everybody to let you know, hey,
46:06
we're you know, getting low on your lower sixes or whatever, your
46:08
alternate molar tubes or whatever, and we can communicate that. So that's that's
46:14
how we manage all of that. I love that. I mean, you're
46:16
probably less likely to run out of brackets that way than we are the old
46:20
school way of doing it. When all of a sudden you're like, what
46:22
do you mean we don't have any cospit brackets. Yeah, yeah, we
46:28
try because we get in trouble if you if the doctor runs out of brackets.
46:31
That's that's how life works. And so we've learned a school of hard
46:37
knocks. It's best to communicate. If you get really low or you're literally
46:42
we have no none left and you haven't replenished your stock, then in the
46:45
case we send little notes and in the case and say, hey, you're
46:50
probably wondering why you don't have all your brackets in here. What's because we
46:52
don't have any more brackets. Yeah, here's the love note. So if
46:58
you were to kind of guess, we're a is going and it is going
47:00
to take our industry in the next five to ten years, where do you
47:04
think we're going. Well, I think we are obviously at the very beginning
47:07
of this, and I think AI is going to get smarter as we go,
47:14
and specifically to orthodonics, it's going to solve very specific problems for us.
47:20
Right, we are under immense pressure as business people to do more with
47:24
less, and AI is going to allow us to do more with less.
47:29
I mean, that's why we use chat GPT, right, we want to
47:32
communicate more, faster with less effort. Right, that's really the problem at
47:37
solving. We can do that with orthodonics. So we really envision that dibbs
47:43
AI, specifically using that AI technology, will be able to automate and simplify
47:46
even further so that your doctor submits a case and by the time they walk
47:52
back to their desk, it's ready for their approval. And we believe that
47:58
the AI will be able to start personalizing that setup for the doctor. Like
48:04
right now, that's really hard to do at scale, right if I had
48:08
if I had one client, I could personalize the heck out of that client,
48:13
right, But we don't. We have thousands, and so with thousands
48:16
of clients, that's very hard to scale. But our software development, our
48:22
investment in software development in AI right now is all targeted to moving us in
48:27
that direction so that we know, based on the profile of that doctor that
48:31
hey, they like to cheat their lower threes, more mesial right to get
48:36
the rotation and things like personalized references like that. We believe the AI will
48:43
will take us in that direction. Cool. So there's that sort of stuff,
48:45
but there's also the AI could be smarter in diagnosis, right and they
48:51
can learn, hey, this is this is a proper diagnosis, and they
48:53
can help the doctor visualize and be warned of issues there. Right. So
48:59
all of that means the doctor spends less digital time, has better treatment outcomes.
49:05
Better patient experience, all of that stuff. I think the I is
49:07
just going to make us smarter and smarter and more efficient at all of those
49:13
Yeah, that's great. Well, I look forward to the future. It's
49:16
fun to see where it's at now, and I can't wait to see where
49:20
we're going. Yeah. I think it's important that we understand the AI is
49:23
probably never going to replace a doctor. I can't envision that it becomes a
49:29
much better tool for the doctor. Like right now, Gibsei as is,
49:34
we consider it to be like a nail gun. Right, You've got a
49:37
hammer and you can do a lot with a hammer, or you could use
49:40
a nail gun and wow, but you can use a nail gun the same
49:44
way you use the hammer. No, you're not right, and we'll move
49:49
beyond the nail gun stage right, and it'll be something else that's even cooler
49:52
and even faster and more efficient. And yeah, that's that's where AI is
49:58
definitely taking us. Yeah, that's great, that's great. Well, as
50:01
we wrap up, I mean, this has been wonderful, and I know
50:05
I had a lot of docs that are like, Okay, I like this.
50:07
I think I can do this, and it totally makes sense to start
50:10
up this way right from the beginning. It's all about efficiencies. Docs.
50:14
It's you know, get those efficiencies in place in the beginning so that you
50:17
don't have to fuss with it mid practice. But if somebody wants to get
50:22
a hold of you, maybe wants to learn a little bit more about ortho
50:24
select or DIBBSAI, what's going to be the best way that they can do
50:29
that. Yeah. Well, actually, most of your bracket reps are very
50:35
aware of who we are and work with us, so that's an easy one
50:37
too. But just our website dibsi dot com. Come to that website,
50:43
you can you can book an appointment there with with myself or one of our
50:47
other awesome staff. Here, you can send me an email to Ryan Williams
50:52
at my orthoselect dot com. You can actually see a video demo on our
50:57
website as well, which I'll apologize and event has me on the demo video
51:00
scene. So just realize that going in you'll you'll come out okay, I
51:06
think, And so yeah, we were try and make that easy to do.
51:10
But yeah, those are awesome ways to reach out to us, perfect
51:15
alrighty, Well, the way I like to finish a paydocs is with the
51:19
Speed Round. So, Ryan, are you ready for the speed round challenge?
51:22
Yeah, I've seen the Speed Round. I'm pretty nervous about this.
51:24
Oh no, oh no, it's going to be easy. It's going to
51:28
be easy. All right. What's your go to productivity tool? My iPhone
51:34
and other smart people? I like that one early bird or night owl.
51:38
Well, I think I'm most productive as an early bird, but I really
51:43
hate waking up that early. So it's that's a dilemma. I'm the same
51:47
way. I don't like getting up, but I do a lot of really
51:51
good things in the morning once I do get up. Yeah. Yeah.
51:53
It's one of those things in life that you hate it when you when you
51:57
first out, but then you appreciate it, you know, a few minutes
51:59
into it, you're like, Okay, that that was a good move.
52:01
Yep, yep. What was your first job? The first job that I
52:05
actually got a you know, a formal paycheck from was working for my dad
52:10
in an inventory room, back inventory room for a telephone company back in the
52:16
day before you know we all got cell phones. Yeah. I had to
52:21
memorize all the parts. Oh wow, wow, that's I can only imagine
52:25
what that was like. All right, what would you say has had the
52:30
most impact on your professional life? The most impact on my professional life?
52:35
I would say my family, because, in all honesty, right, the
52:42
reason I do what I do is for their support and happiness, and that
52:46
is a big, big motivation. And then the other side, too,
52:51
is I couldn't do what I do without my wife, for example, taking
52:57
care of the home and and other things that I'm not there to do.
53:00
I travel quite a bit, and I volunteer a lot in my community and
53:07
my faith, and so I just couldn't. I couldn't do all that without
53:10
her taking equal or probably more of the burden. Oh, that's wonderful.
53:15
And then to finish us up, what's one business skill you think everyone should
53:20
have? Well, I guess can I do too? Yeah? Too,
53:23
it's great. Somebody once said ninety percent of the battle is showing up right,
53:29
and I've learned that in life that showing up's a big deal. But
53:32
in orthodonics, we're really good at showing up right. Orthodonyx live and die
53:37
by their schedule, and it's actually one of the things I love about orthodonics
53:43
is orthodonists are always on time, and it's super impressive. So maybe that's
53:46
not relevant to orthodonists. So I would say communication. Somebody who was saying
53:52
the other day, as in this interesting conversation where somebody was saying, you
53:57
know, a successful orthodonte, honest, are the ones that people get along
54:01
with and they talk to them, right, And it's harder for an orthodonist
54:07
who can't communicate, can't be friendly with the clients. There may be a
54:12
little stiffer or whatever, can't engage with their patients. It's harder for them
54:16
in this business. And so I think that's interesting. I've been thinking about
54:20
that, and I believe that there's probably some truth in there. So yeah,
54:23
communication, Yeah, that's great. Well, this has been absolute joy
54:30
having you on the show give me some great information. It's kind of fun
54:32
to take a walk down memory lane with you to talk about you first jin
54:37
to where we're at now. So thanks so much for being on Haydocks and
54:40
for just giving us some really good information about where our industry is going.
54:45
Well, thank you, Jill. This has been amazing. I appreciate the
54:47
invitation to hop on here with you. And I got to say that Orthodonyx
54:52
is the coolest, right it is my background, I come from technology and
54:55
sales, so I've only been in Orthodonox for about four years, and I
55:00
love it because the industry is very professional. The people are amazing. They
55:07
show up on time right, and they're smart, They're wicked smart, and
55:13
it's a quality of person right in orthodonics that I really really enjoy. So
55:17
it's great to be here, and again I appreciate the invitation, Jill.
55:22
Great to be with you. Absolutely well until next time. Thank you,
55:24
thank you, take care, bye bye. Are you ready to start a
55:30
practice of your own, need a new fresh set of eyes or some advice
55:34
on your existing practice. If so, reach out to me Jill Allen at
55:38
www dot practice results dot com. If you like what we're doing here on
55:44
Haydocks and want to hear more of this awesome content, be sure and give
55:47
us a five star rating on your preferred listening platform and subscribe to our show
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so you never miss an episode. Remember, new episodes drop every Thursday. Next week