Latest / Orthodontic Products Podcast / Dynamic Scheduling with DentalMonitoring

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Dynamic Scheduling with DentalMonitoring · Orthodontic Products Podcast

• 0:05
  Alison Werner: Hello and welcome to the Orthodontic Products
• 0:07
  podcast. I'm your host Alison Werner. On today's episode
• 0:10
  sponsored by DentalMonitoring. We have Dr. Alyssa Emory Carter,
• 0:13
  an orthodontist and private practice in Texas. We actually
• 0:16
  profiled Dr. Carter last year in our March issue, but she's back
• 0:19
  with us today to talk about DentalMonitoring and how it
• 0:22
  allows for dynamic scheduling in your practice. Dr. Carter,
• 0:25
  thanks for joining me.
• 0:27
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Thank you for having me today. It's an
• 0:28
  honor to be here and I'm excited to to help share the word with
• 0:33
  the orthodontic profession.
• 0:35
  Alison Werner: Great. Okay, so let's get started by can you
• 0:37
  tell our listeners a little bit about your practice?
• 0:41
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Absolutely. I am the owner of Dr. Alyssa
• 0:45
  Orthodontics. And we have three locations, one locations very
• 0:49
  small. But we have three locations. And we have an
• 0:54
  amazing team. And I kind of float back and forth based on
• 0:58
  the needs per month at each office. The premier practice in
• 1:03
  the town I was born and raised in, our little bigger town
• 1:06
  outside of the town I was raised in and just right down the road,
• 1:10
  I bought another practice. And so our practices are kind of
• 1:15
  unity of practices from other doctors that we've brought
• 1:20
  together.
• 1:21
  Alison Werner: So can you talk about how long you've been using
• 1:25
  DentalMonitoring, and what actually prompted you to
• 1:27
  incorporate this type of remote monitoring platform into your
• 1:30
  practice?
• 1:32
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Absolutely, we started using
• 1:33
  DentalMonitoring in 2018. So it was pre-COVID. And it was solely
• 1:39
  for the purpose of trying to monitor our aligner patients in
• 1:45
  a more predictable way. So we were having the same issues that
• 1:48
  any practice has where patients come in for an aligner check,
• 1:51
  and they're not tracking. So you can't really do as planned and
• 1:54
  they're having extra appointments. And we're like how
• 1:56
  can we make sure that they track but not have to come in every
• 1:59
  single week for those aligner checks. And that's really just
• 2:02
  where it started. And then it's morphed into a whole new thing
• 2:06
  since then.
• 2:07
  Alison Werner: Okay, so I knew from kind of talking to you
• 2:11
  before this, that you've actually gone about
• 2:15
  incorporating this, you talk there about incorporating with
• 2:17
  the aligner patients, but you actually kind of did that
• 2:19
  staggered approach, but then in an all in approach at this with
• 2:23
  a different office, can you talk about that approach.
• 2:26
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: So in the practice that they kind of
• 2:30
  the original part of their practice, it was aligners first,
• 2:33
  and then after we started seeing what the software had to offer,
• 2:38
  the reporting that you can get from it, etc, we said, "Man,
• 2:42
  this could be very, very useful for our braces patients," or I
• 2:45
  did and and once my mind starts thinking about something, it's
• 2:50
  hard to de-focus it from that. So I just kind meet with DM
• 2:56
  asked what all it could do. And try to understand that to a
• 3:00
  higher level. And then we added the braces part. And to be
• 3:04
  completely honest, at first, I wasn't fully aware of what the
• 3:07
  braces side had to offer at that time. When I bought the third
• 3:12
  location a little over a year, almost a year and a half ago,
• 3:16
  they had zero exposure to DM, and I just said, Hey, every
• 3:20
  single patient no matter what's going into it, because in our
• 3:23
  primary practice, we were doing that and we wanted to make sure
• 3:29
  that we just kind of got caught up and understood and we had
• 3:32
  systems in place already. So looking back, that probably
• 3:37
  would have been the better way to do it had I known what I know
• 3:40
  now and and the braces side of that technology. I mean, 2019
• 3:44
  It's been four years. So it's they have just totally expanded
• 3:49
  everything it has to offer on that side. And so now it's so
• 3:52
  much easier to just jump in for braces and aligners, and we
• 3:56
  found that the adaptation in the practice for that we started
• 4:03
  aligners and braces right off the bat didn't back down. Got
• 4:08
  through any little hiccups and hurdles much smoother and easier
• 4:12
  and less in size. The compliance with a patient's there, because
• 4:19
  the team understands it so much better. They learned it more
• 4:22
  rapidly. It's just been a totally different experience
• 4:27
  than when we tried to tiptoe into it. In addition to that, it
• 4:30
  also changed our practice and our schedule. So much quicker.
• 4:36
  So saw results almost instantly versus taking six, 9, 12 months
• 4:43
  to notice anything.
• 4:44
  Alison Werner: Okay. So can you talk a little bit about you
• 4:47
  know, I think people are very, somewhat familiar more or more
• 4:50
  familiar with kind of the aligner usage with
• 4:53
  DentalMonitoring. What are the tools when it comes to the
• 4:55
  braces or what do what how does it really help you with the
• 4:58
  braces patients that maybe you were weren't expecting or that
• 5:01
  it's made you have a better handle on those cases now than
• 5:05
  maybe you did with just traditional appointments.
• 5:08
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: So there's the braces side to me is
• 5:10
  very, very exciting. And I wouldn't do aligners without it.
• 5:14
  That's just out of respect for the patient and wasting their
• 5:18
  time if they're not tracking and not understanding. So I wouldn't
• 5:20
  even practice aligners without it. The braces side is so
• 5:23
  exciting because there's always just been this way of practicing
• 5:28
  traditional orthodontics. And, you know, there's different
• 5:31
  types of brackets, and we're all going to diagnose and treatment
• 5:33
  plan slightly differently. But the braces side, you are taking
• 5:39
  out so many things that used to be retroactive or in nature, so
• 5:47
  or reactive in nature. So, for instance, the patient scans
• 5:52
  every week, and then the AI looks at that scan and sends us
• 5:55
  a report. And what we do is we put human eyes on that report,
• 5:59
  and we say, okay, is everything in this report accurate quickly.
• 6:03
  So if there's a broken bracket or missing power chain, or an
• 6:07
  interference or something, we can see that and then we are
• 6:11
  addressing issues or things as they arise. But what it also
• 6:15
  does allow us to say, hey, this patient only would have been
• 6:17
  scheduled in this many weeks, we have an alert now to check their
• 6:22
  wire, and they may be ready, they may not be ready, etc. So
• 6:24
  we just let the AI continue to detect the tooth movement to a
• 6:29
  much higher degree than a human can. I'm not measuring a 10th of
• 6:34
  a millimeter of every single tooth movement at every
• 6:36
  appointment. Right? So. So that is completely changing the way
• 6:42
  that we treat our patients and the sequencing that we treat
• 6:46
  them etc. I there's so much more I can add here. Because I don't
• 6:52
  know what other questions you have. But there's a lot more I
• 6:54
  want to make sure that we go over. So yeah, we'll understand
• 6:59
  that.
• 7:00
  Alison Werner: We'll get there. We'll get there. And if I don't
• 7:02
  I'll ask you a question that lets you kind of add anything
• 7:05
  that we didn't touch. So let's actually talk about how your
• 7:10
  scheduling has changed, because you kind of started getting
• 7:12
  there. So since incorporated DentalMonitoring you from what I
• 7:17
  understand patients that don't necessarily get scheduled get
• 7:20
  that they get scheduled when they are ready for a purposeful
• 7:23
  visit. Can you talk about that.
• 7:26
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Yes, so this is something really
• 7:27
  exciting. And we've had to educate our patients about it,
• 7:31
  but because it's just so different than anything their
• 7:35
  parents experienced, or how they had their other kids treated.
• 7:39
  But when it comes to scheduling, we used to see our patients
• 7:44
  depending on which wires, they're in every 4, 6, 8, 10, 12
• 7:48
  weeks, right. And it's pretty much the same coming out of your
• 7:51
  mouth, for every single patient. So you put in this wire, you
• 7:55
  know, you're going to say see them in eight to 10 weeks or see
• 7:58
  them in six to eight weeks. And we were treating every patient
• 8:02
  in the middle average of this bell curve. So if you think
• 8:05
  about a bell curve, and there's the percentiles, right, and so
• 8:09
  we're treating everybody as is as if they were going to fall in
• 8:13
  the majority percentile. And that's just not the way human
• 8:15
  biology works. Yeah. And so what happens is patients come in and
• 8:19
  everyone outside of that percentile, you don't do what
• 8:23
  you expected to do on that patient that day. Or even the
• 8:27
  ones in that percentile have something kind of go off track
• 8:30
  that you didn't expect or something that broke or you
• 8:33
  know, something happens. Yeah, for those who don't stay on
• 8:37
  track. So like up to 50% of appointments every single day,
• 8:41
  you're not doing exactly what you had hoped you were doing in
• 8:44
  the order that you were doing it. And it can really affect
• 8:47
  your schedule. So it's not only less appointments and more
• 8:51
  purposeful appointments for the patient, it's actually a better
• 8:55
  patient experience because our schedule like every patient is
• 8:59
  scheduled the right way we know when they're coming in for we
• 9:01
  know what we're going to see we already know if there's a
• 9:03
  bracket we need to fix when we already know if we need to make
• 9:07
  more space for a canines and we're activating the coil before
• 9:11
  the patient ever walks in. And so it's it's affecting the
• 9:18
  probably the internal happiness and culture of our practice
• 9:20
  because it takes so many unnecessary stresses out of our
• 9:24
  day.
• 9:25
  Alison Werner: Yeah. Well, that's what I was gonna ask. It
• 9:27
  does seem like it removes the unknown for both you and your
• 9:32
  staff. So how was that transition for your staff? And
• 9:37
  you? How did you wrap your head around that idea of moving away
• 9:41
  from the traditional way of scheduling and doing this? What
• 9:44
  was that first transition like?
• 9:46
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: So two different practices. So let me
• 9:49
  start with the earlier adventure. The earlier adventure
• 9:52
  was much harder for the team to buy into. So some resistance
• 9:57
  some pushback with some, two members that are no longer with
• 10:01
  us. And I'm trying to express what my vision was and what I
• 10:09
  understood about what I was seeing it could do for us was
• 10:12
  probably where I failed the most. So I already knew in my
• 10:16
  head, oh my goodness, like, I can see that if we knew about
• 10:20
  all these things, it would be amazing, right? So at first I
• 10:24
  started telling the team about it. And what I'm trying to tell
• 10:26
  them is, it would show us if there's a broken bracket, show
• 10:29
  us this and I think in in the most, the best way they can say
• 10:36
  it is that maybe they took it as I wanted to call them out every
• 10:39
  time there was a broken bracket or something. Okay, fully done
• 10:43
  correctly. And really what I wanted was it to train us to be
• 10:47
  the absolute best team that we can be for our patients, and
• 10:51
  also not waste our patients time anymore, and help our day in our
• 10:55
  experience and their days, be better off. So when they get
• 10:59
  home to their families, they still have energy left to give.
• 11:02
  And so I think I felt, at first trying to put this vision of
• 11:07
  what I saw could be possible. I had a few people, you know, that
• 11:11
  just they trust, and they bought in and they were trying really
• 11:14
  hard to make it all happen. And then really, we just took off
• 11:18
  and excelled. And one day when we're like, it's going to be
• 11:20
  this way no matter what. And, and so that was kind of the
• 11:25
  story behind when the second office that we went into the
• 11:28
  first office was already all in and had seen some changes that
• 11:34
  had already benefited us. So they almost had that example and
• 11:40
  that positivity behind them, encouraging them to get it going
• 11:45
  as soon as possible, get as many patients involved, to help our
• 11:49
  schedule and help our team together. And so that was a
• 11:54
  totally different experience. Yeah.
• 11:57
  Alison Werner: So how was how would you say, did it change
• 12:00
  like the, the feeling in the office, because you talked a
• 12:03
  little bit there about how it kind of removes the stress of
• 12:06
  not knowing what a patient's coming in for or having to adapt
• 12:10
  to where they are? Does it change the energy level with the
• 12:13
  staff and also you throughout the day? Have you kind of have a
• 12:17
  better idea, like how your day is gonna flow? And it's not,
• 12:21
  maybe just a little stress? That's what I'm kind of
• 12:23
  wondering.
• 12:24
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Yes, so the stress level has gone down a
• 12:27
  lot, because to be completely honest with you, we were blessed
• 12:32
  and we were growing. And we got to the point where the growth
• 12:37
  was affecting our patient experience. So still trying to
• 12:42
  provide the best care but because of that running behind
• 12:49
  on appointments, having to have patients have extra appointments
• 12:53
  because we couldn't fix something right there that
• 12:54
  needed to be fixed without delaying their treatment, and no
• 12:56
  one wants braces longer than they have to right. And then in
• 13:01
  result obviously that affects your your team experience, you
• 13:03
  don't want them missing lunch, you don't want them working till
• 13:05
  six, 6:30 at night, by the time they get everything done and
• 13:08
  ready for the next day. So it was affecting everything, and to
• 13:13
  the point that you're excited that you're growing, but you're
• 13:18
  less happy and thrilled to be at the workplace, which is not a
• 13:23
  good place to be. And so that's where we really were. And that
• 13:29
  was a it wasn't just one day here and there patient care,
• 13:32
  you're always going to have a couple days a month where it's
• 13:34
  just crazy, right? You have that morning or that afternoon, we
• 13:37
  work with humans. So we're individuals, we're different.
• 13:40
  But in when it's every single lunch, every single afternoon
• 13:45
  for a few years in a row, it just takes a toll on the team,
• 13:49
  and it took a toll on me. And I was trying to do everything I
• 13:54
  could to do the best for the patient, and try to do
• 13:56
  everything I could to keep the team as taken care of as
• 14:01
  possible, and I felt like there was no there was just no balance
• 14:04
  or balance was just 20% here, 20% here, 20% here, so no one
• 14:08
  was feeling like they were 100% fulfilled. And just not a good
• 14:16
  place to be. So anyways, we started doing it. We went all
• 14:22
  in. And fear of the unknown is like the number one fear in the
• 14:27
  world. So whether it's a kid going to the doctor, even if
• 14:31
  they're not getting a shot that day, right, or a kid coming into
• 14:35
  our practices, not knowing what we're going to make happen that
• 14:38
  day. And so just sometimes just a little bit of knowing what's
• 14:42
  going to happen ahead of time we're explaining those things
• 14:45
  like takes the stress way down. And that's essentially what
• 14:47
  we're doing is we're taking out the fear of the unknown. And so
• 14:52
  for the most part that 50% of the day that was reactive or I
• 14:56
  had to go to the chair more than once and then that slows down
• 14:59
  how The doctor was supposed to be scheduled and I don't know
• 15:04
  what to do, or this happened and we're trying to achieve a plan
• 15:06
  on this chairside. It all can happen when the patients aren't
• 15:09
  there. And so when the patients are there, that appointment is
• 15:13
  already pre planned for probably getting better care, because
• 15:16
  your mind is no so clear and fresh, you've already planned it
• 15:19
  when there's not anything else around you. And then that allows
• 15:23
  for the team to also be like more focused and better able to
• 15:29
  take care of the patient, because when the patient shows
• 15:30
  up, everything they need is on the tray. And everything that
• 15:35
  they they knew, like, Oh, if this bracket broke, do you think
• 15:40
  we're still able to get that wire back in or the next wire
• 15:42
  and, and I can tell from the scan, "Like, yes, I think we
• 15:44
  can. Go ahead and get that on the tray," or etc. So I can't
• 15:49
  under stress that it's not just oh, when they're ready for an
• 15:55
  appointment, they're going to come in, which is a huge part of
• 15:57
  patient's biology and a huge service to our patients to not
• 16:01
  need anything but a appointment that's purposeful. Yeah, we have
• 16:06
  completely eliminated any type of check appointment in our
• 16:10
  office. So very, very rarely do we see a check appointment. And
• 16:17
  if a parent is taking off three hours of their day, to bring a
• 16:21
  patient in for a check appointment, and let's say they
• 16:24
  make $20 an hour. That's $60. It's three hours out of their
• 16:28
  day, it's stressful, it's getting the kid back to school
• 16:30
  is trying to make sure they don't miss more than one period
• 16:33
  a year for their appointments. It just it's that way of
• 16:38
  traditional orthodontics at some point is going to disappear.
• 16:41
  Alison Werner: Yeah. So talk to me about how you communicate
• 16:44
  talk to the patient about this idea and the parents about this
• 16:47
  idea of dynamic scheduling.
• 16:52
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Something else we failed miserably at
• 16:53
  first. The team didn't understand it. So how could they
• 16:57
  they didn't see the same vision I did. So how could they believe
• 17:00
  that right? Now that it's they're just they can talk about
• 17:03
  it all day. At first, it's hard because you have parents that
• 17:07
  question things, or they only know how their other kids were
• 17:10
  treated, or they only know how they were treated as a child.
• 17:15
  And so you have to explain to them that like we actually are
• 17:18
  taking, we have more eyes on you and taking better care of you.
• 17:22
  We tell them upfront that there's artificial intelligence
• 17:25
  involved. Used to, didn't really mention anything about it, and
• 17:29
  now we tell them up front. Artificial intelligence is
• 17:32
  involved. It can, you know, read your scan at a higher level than
• 17:38
  the human eye. And it gives us a report. And then from that
• 17:43
  report is what we decide we are going to do or not do with your
• 17:48
  child based on what we see. And so it kind of has like an
• 17:52
  artificial touch that sees things better than the human.
• 17:55
  And then we have the human eye put on it to just verify and
• 18:00
  make sure that like what I would say needs to happen from this
• 18:04
  alert happens. And then obviously, we have human touch
• 18:08
  when they come into the office and whatnot. So it's definitely
• 18:12
  a higher level of care. And we pull up examples, we show them
• 18:16
  what we're seeing, we show them what our dashboard looks like.
• 18:19
  So we have some of our team members that have been in
• 18:21
  treatment will pull up their cases, we say, Hey, this is what
• 18:23
  Dr. Alyssa is evaluating. Yeah. Which has been really
• 18:26
  beneficial. The few parents that were very confused or like,
• 18:29
  haven't had an appointment in three months, my dentist said I
• 18:31
  should have an appointment or my other kid had an appointment
• 18:34
  every four weeks, whatever it is, right? And I'm like, Hey,
• 18:37
  don't worry, like when you, why don't you come in and stop by
• 18:39
  and we'll show you everything that we're looking at. We show
• 18:41
  them we're like, hey, we noticed plaque on this tooth. We are
• 18:44
  looking at your wire here. Here's all the notes about your
• 18:48
  child's treatment on every scan. Here's the pictures from their
• 18:51
  scan. And once you show them that their mind I think soaks in
• 18:55
  everything is like, oh, okay, this is way better than me
• 19:01
  disappearing from the office for eight weeks and no one knowing
• 19:04
  what's going on with these active appliances in my mouth
• 19:06
  and then coming back in.
• 19:08
  Alison Werner: Yeah. And you are doing they're doing weekly check
• 19:12
  ins for both aligner and braces patients.
• 19:14
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Yes.
• 19:15
  Alison Werner: Okay, talk to me about how dynamic scheduling
• 19:20
  contributes to practice growth. Have you seen something there?
• 19:25
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: I'm really really bad at marketing.
• 19:30
  Alison Werner: I appreciate your honesty.
• 19:32
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: What I could definitely be better at is
• 19:33
  actually is definitely be more proactive about educating the
• 19:41
  community and trying to market and trying to do things but I
• 19:45
  will say I think there's a lot of internal growth from it. You
• 19:49
  always have a few patients that don't like it or get upset about
• 19:52
  it or whatever. But for the most part, things have been very,
• 19:55
  very positive. And I think that will only continue to increase
• 20:00
  as both, it's just the way we do practice now. And the longer you
• 20:04
  do, or the more your team sees the results of the patients, how
• 20:10
  quickly things are moving along how well they move along. The
• 20:16
  waste that used to be built in, you can waste four months if
• 20:20
  someone's bracket breaks, and you don't know, and you not only
• 20:23
  can't go to your next wire, you had to drop down in wire. So
• 20:28
  it's it's exciting. And I think there's a lot of marketing and
• 20:32
  practice growth that can happen from it. And we have, we have
• 20:36
  seen the practice growth. Last year, we had a phenomenal year.
• 20:41
  And this year, we're having a great start. Yeah, and, and so
• 20:46
  that's been amazing. And I feel like if we actually tried to be
• 20:52
  better about promoting it it would help even more.
• 20:56
  Alison Werner: Well, I love your honesty, because I think it
• 20:57
  keeps it real. It's hard. It's hard to do everything.
• 21:02
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: But I do think a lot of people reflect
• 21:04
  their experience with the technology, not only the
• 21:08
  technology we're offering, but with the personal touch that
• 21:12
  we're offering through using DentalMonitoring, as fearful as
• 21:17
  it sounds like, oh, I might not be in person as much anymore.
• 21:22
  But you actually are receiving better care and better touch
• 21:26
  because we're essentially in your pocket. And so I do think
• 21:30
  there's been a lot of practice growth from that, because we are
• 21:33
  very timely in our responses. And we are communicating with
• 21:36
  our patients very well through the app.
• 21:38
  Alison Werner: That's great. Yeah. How do you ensure that
• 21:40
  patients don't fall through the cracks? How do you track
• 21:44
  patients?
• 21:45
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: You learn from the ones that have.
• 21:47
  No.
• 21:49
  Alison Werner: True.
• 21:51
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: There's actually a lot of different ways
• 21:52
  to do this. And we've gone through different phases of
• 21:55
  systems. And we're, I am incredibly blessed that my team
• 21:59
  feels very open to communicate with each other well, and bring
• 22:04
  ideas to the table. So if they see something that seems kind of
• 22:07
  cumbersome, they'll say, Hey, this is how we're doing it. Like
• 22:11
  do we think we could do this there, we have like little chat
• 22:13
  apps that we talked about these things in and, and so
• 22:17
  essentially, what we have been doing for the majority of the
• 22:20
  time that they've had labels, is using labels and putting ready
• 22:24
  to schedule. And then when they're scheduled, we change it
• 22:27
  to the day they're scheduled. And so we can run that report
• 22:29
  every day and see who still needs to be scheduled. We, we
• 22:33
  also have a Google Sheets, where it allows the offices to
• 22:38
  communicate with each other that has like patient's name, what
• 22:41
  date I said that they are ready for their appointment, what
• 22:44
  appointment code they need. And then it says like first attempt,
• 22:48
  second attempt, third attempt and a little note section. So
• 22:52
  first attempt is you got to you need to be calling them pretty
• 22:55
  much the day that that name goes on the Google Sheets, it's a
• 22:59
  call. If they don't answer you send a text. Next attempt is
• 23:03
  usually next day trying to same thing, third attempt, same
• 23:06
  thing, if you're still not getting through, then we need to
• 23:08
  like start sending emails, letters, etc. So that's how we
• 23:15
  have kept up with the right now it seems to be working well.
• 23:18
  Essentially, we have 12 to 1500 patients in DM at any given
• 23:23
  time. And that list only gets about 20 patients added per day.
• 23:29
  Maybe if you're doing it four days a week, it might be 30
• 23:34
  patients per day. But there's not a ton of patients being
• 23:38
  added every single day to that. So it's very manageable for the
• 23:41
  front. We use to message them in the app and say great news,
• 23:47
  you're ready for your next appointment, call our office,
• 23:49
  the next available time. And so each day when we're reviewing, I
• 23:52
  get my little list of patients right. And if if they're ready
• 23:56
  for an appointment, I kind of would like blast that list to my
• 24:01
  DMC and, which was my dental monitoring coordinator, and then
• 24:05
  she would blast those to each patient. And then all of a
• 24:09
  sudden our phones were ringing ringing ringing.
• 24:11
  Alison Werner: Oh, yeah.
• 24:12
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: We were missing some of those calls. So
• 24:14
  we created a system instead where here's the patients that
• 24:16
  need to be called today. So that way, patients are like, Well,
• 24:20
  you told me to call on now they're not answering. And so we
• 24:22
  go through phases, and this is how we're doing it now. And we
• 24:25
  might do it different in six months. You can also use the
• 24:28
  recall ready in your practice management system. So you can
• 24:32
  put labels, we use dolphin right now and you can put a label in
• 24:34
  there and it's like DM patient, non DM patient, you can print a
• 24:37
  recall ready report for the patients that are ready for an
• 24:40
  appointment haven't been scheduled. I feel that we will
• 24:42
  probably move to that a little more effectively sooner than
• 24:47
  later. But there's so many ways you just have to make sure that
• 24:51
  you're the day that you start, you have a system to track who's
• 24:56
  ready and Google Sheets is so easy for us that just just kind
• 25:01
  of where we landed and rolled with it.
• 25:03
  Alison Werner: Okay, so for someone who wants to get started
• 25:07
  with transitioning to dynamic scheduling, and they're using
• 25:10
  dental monitoring, what's your what's your, what are your tips
• 25:14
  for getting started? Those that first transition?
• 25:19
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Okay, if somebody is about to get
• 25:22
  started, I would just say just do it. I know there's a lot of
• 25:26
  questions about how do you manage it? Or where do you find
• 25:29
  the time to monitor it, etc. Anything that you do that's
• 25:31
  better for somebody else is going to have hurdles, it's not
• 25:35
  if it was easy, like, it wouldn't be a thing. So it's,
• 25:39
  you're going to have little hiccups, you're going to have a
• 25:41
  few frustrations, you'll be like, Oh, I can't believe that
• 25:42
  happened. The reality is, a lot of that's happening anyway, just
• 25:46
  in a different way in our practices, like accepted it as
• 25:49
  normal, we've accepted that patients get letters and
• 25:52
  disappear for 90 days, and then you have to dismiss them, we've
• 25:54
  accepted that patients come in broken brackets, you didn't know
• 25:57
  and you just are going to add time to their treatment because
• 26:01
  you had you couldn't go up a wire but it's a different way of
• 26:04
  accepting it, knowing that the end result is better for the
• 26:06
  patient and the team. So just do it. And if you have questions,
• 26:11
  utilize the webinars that are being new that DM is using to
• 26:15
  teach people utilize doctors, you know, that are using it. You
• 26:20
  know, there's groups out there, Facebook groups that are there's
• 26:23
  1000s, of orthodontist, you can ask questions to attend meetings
• 26:27
  that you have and using it. And then really, one thing that I
• 26:31
  think is very important, especially at the beginning, is
• 26:35
  the doctor has to be involved. So this isn't like a 3d printer,
• 26:39
  where as long as you get your team trained on it, you might
• 26:42
  not ever even know how to turn it on if you're the doctor.
• 26:45
  Yeah, the X-ray machine, right? Like, I could go ahead take an
• 26:48
  x-ray by myself tomorrow, I'm going to be like taking way
• 26:52
  longer than my main sterilization specialist and
• 26:55
  records specialist because they do it every morning. And so it's
• 27:00
  a little different than that, like at first, the doctor needs
• 27:02
  to be very heavily involved because it's not one person
• 27:06
  you're training to be a specialist that it is everyone
• 27:07
  in your office that you need to understand how it's going to
• 27:10
  work.
• 27:11
  Alison Werner: Okay, so even if you have a DentalMonitoring
• 27:14
  coordinator for your office, your advice is, everyone does
• 27:18
  have to have a familiarity with this.
• 27:20
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Everybody has to have a familiar already with it. Your DMC needs to know how to go hear messages. And now they even have other services to tack on to DentalMonitoring like remote response or something where they can help you with that part at first until you train it. Or if you really like them, you can keep it that way. But everybody in the office has to understand it. Because chairside, there's things you have to put into DentalMonitoring for each patient. So when the patient's in the chair, there's certain things you put into the system. So we know exactly what we're checking, what we're looking at every week, between this time and the next time you're in the office. And so our team is very good at that. And it takes training, but you get a quick system. And I would say it's probably now the easiest thing that my chairside assistants do is open the dashboard and put the information in it takes some very little time.
• 28:14
  Alison Werner: So before we wrap up, I want to ask you is because
• 28:17
  we had talked earlier about like there's so many things you want
• 28:19
  to make sure we covered. Is there anything I missed or that
• 28:22
  I didn't ask you about that you really want to make sure our
• 28:24
  listeners know about.
• 28:26
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: I think something that's kind of fun to
• 28:29
  throw in there is a little bit about our new schedule. So
• 28:32
  previous to DentalMonitoring, when half of the patients on
• 28:37
  your schedule are a check, the doctor can move very quick, they
• 28:41
  can move here here here, you might have to go back, but those
• 28:45
  little appointments that the assistant already knows exactly
• 28:49
  what's happening, happen very quickly, and then you can
• 28:53
  squeeze in kind of these bondings and these other chairs,
• 28:57
  right. But if even if you're running six or eight chairs at
• 29:01
  once, you are not scheduling six to eight bondings at once,
• 29:05
  right. But what happens is now patients only come in for
• 29:09
  purposeful visits. So they have a couple like remote columns or
• 29:14
  the means have already done remote checks. These are the
• 29:18
  wires that are going in. Essentially, if everything is on
• 29:22
  track, I probably am not needed. And you have all these other
• 29:26
  chairs left for something I'm needed for which usually means
• 29:30
  we're putting brackets on. Most of it's bonding right like
• 29:34
  polishing a patient doing enamelplasty, anything that
• 29:38
  requires like, legally me to be there. So what happened at first
• 29:42
  is we just were like, Okay, so this day just got built in
• 29:46
  there's like 35 bondings in a six hour period on my schedule,
• 29:51
  and it just collapsed. Like I couldn't be at all these chairs
• 29:55
  and it'd be and see the exams and we got very, very behind. So
• 29:59
  it took us a little bit of time to redo our, our template and
• 30:03
  our schedule and kind of figure out, Okay, how many realistic
• 30:08
  like debonds and bondings, you know, you can't have eight hours
• 30:12
  with debondings and bondings is in a one hour period and expect
• 30:16
  the doctor to take care of all that. So we had some hiccups
• 30:21
  there and worked through those. And now we have a great
• 30:24
  template, it took team effort, it took a lot of brainstorming,
• 30:29
  I'm sure a consultant could have done it faster, but my team is
• 30:33
  amazing. And so now we have like a certain number of what we call
• 30:38
  like, bonding/debonding chairs each day, and they're allowed to
• 30:42
  do however many bonding and debonding appointments in those
• 30:46
  chairs that they want, they can be back to back to back to back.
• 30:51
  But these need to stay without that. And so this these chairs
• 30:55
  do not require as much effort, or, I shouldn't say effort, as
• 30:59
  much time for the doctor. Maybe more mental energy, but less
• 31:03
  physical. Yes. So that's kind of been like a little obstacle that
• 31:08
  we worked through, and we're continuing to work through it.
• 31:12
  And so I don't ever really see like eight clinical chairs
• 31:16
  across anymore, because the patients in the chair need me.
• 31:20
  Like, they fully they're there for a reason. And unless it's
• 31:24
  just an archwire change, I'm needed. So little bit different
• 31:28
  and exciting and fun. And yeah, but we've also gone from three
• 31:33
  doctors total, down to one doctor, okay, um, the three
• 31:36
  doctors kind of if you took our total doctor days, we're working
• 31:41
  in between, like 30 to 40 doctor days a month. Okay. And right
• 31:45
  now we're seeing patients on average, like 12 to 14 days a
• 31:49
  month with one doctor. So it's really the efficiencies that can
• 31:54
  happen. Yeah, in your scheduling. You know, we've
• 31:57
  really just cut our doctor days by by two thirds, we're doing
• 32:01
  about 38 to 40% doctor days as we used to. And then each doctor
• 32:06
  day instead of seeing 100 patients, 120 patients we're
• 32:10
  down to was about 60, now we're down to about on average, 50, 53
• 32:14
  patients a day. So that's exciting.
• 32:17
  Alison Werner: That's a big change.
• 32:19
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: It just shows you though the amount of
• 32:21
  and I'm not saying it's wrong, like that's how I got braces,
• 32:25
  and I have a smile. I have confidence and a smile because
• 32:27
  of it. It just shows you what, how our minds have been taught
• 32:33
  to take the best care of our patients, which was at the time,
• 32:36
  the only way it was the best way. Yeah. And technology is
• 32:40
  enabling us to take care of them at a higher level. And respect
• 32:44
  the most valuable thing we all have, which is our time and more
• 32:48
  effective treatment, less round tripping things like that is is
• 32:53
  always a win for everybody.
• 32:55
  Alison Werner: Yeah, absolutely. I think you've really
• 32:57
  demonstrated that. With that, you know, with your last, just
• 33:01
  going to talk about your schedule and how that has
• 33:03
  changed and everything. Well, Dr. Carter, thank you so much
• 33:05
  for taking the time to talk to me and our listeners, and I
• 33:08
  really appreciate your honesty. And really explaining your
• 33:13
  experience because I think it's really valuable. And I think it
• 33:16
  kind of demystifies it for people. So thank you so much for
• 33:19
  that.
• 33:19
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Thank you for having me. And if anyone
• 33:22
  has questions or needs anything, you know, bump into me at a
• 33:26
  meeting, ask questions. Just reach out and we're happy to
• 33:31
  help it's we went through before the braces system was really up
• 33:36
  and running in DM and they've implemented so much to help us
• 33:40
  and they continue to do so. So it's an exciting future for for
• 33:44
  us and our teams and in everything.
• 33:48
  Alison Werner: Great. Well, thank you so much.
• 33:50
  Dr Alyssa Emory Carter: Thank you.
• 33:51
  Alison Werner: As always thank you for joining us. Be sure to
• 33:53
  subscribe to the Orthodontic Products podcast to keep up with
• 33:56
  the latest episodes. And be sure to check out Orthodontic
• 33:58
  Products online.com to keep up with the latest industry news.
• 34:01
  Until next time, take care.