"Smart Move" - Integrating Ortho Into Your Practice (feat. Dr. Amanda Wilson)

In Episode 30 of "The Dental Domination Podcast," Dan Brian and Dr. Amanda Wilson, founder and CEO of StraightSmile Solutions, discuss the integration of orthodontics into general and pediatric dental practices. They explore the business benefits of offering orthodontic services, including increased revenue and patient retention. Dr. Wilson shares insights on how to get started with orthodontics, emphasizing the importance of wellness scans and the use of technology. The conversation also covers strategies for success, including understanding patient needs and avoiding a sales-y approach. If you're considering adding ortho to your practice, you won't want to miss this one! Check out the show notes for helpful resources from Dr. Wilson. 

Transcript

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All right, welcome back to the Dental Domination podcast. My name is Dan Brian I'm the co-founder of Dentalscapes. We're an online marketing agency specifically for dental practices. And this is episode 30, but I am not here, believe it or not, to talk about myself or talk about the company that I work for. I want to talk about orthodontics today. I want to talk about specifically how GPs and pediatric dentists can get started in offering ortho to their patients. One, the business case for it and also two, how easy in fact it can be to get started with the proper guidance. so to that point, joining me today is a special guest. I'm super excited to have her on today. This is Dr. Amanda Wilson. She is an orthodontist, also the founder and CEO of Straight Smile Solutions. They are an all online orthodontic consulting services company supporting GPs and pediatric dentists. Like I said. on adding ortho services to their practices and also consult on complex cases, pretty much everything and anything you would want under the sun when it comes to adding ortho to your practice. So welcome Dr. Wilson. Thank you so much for being on today. I have been really looking forward to this and I appreciate you making the virtual trip all the way from Hawaii. Sure. Aloha, Dan, and aloha to all your listeners. I'm super honored to be episode number 30. I just like that number. So, and welcome from... like brought a pork roast or something. We like that here in Hawaii. Sometimes when I do podcasts, I like to record it from all different places, just to shake it up a little bit. But sometimes I have like the beach in my background today, not so good. So I'm not going to show you guys the view. You know, it's just how it worked out today, but nice and quiet, good Wi-Fi. That's all we can ask for. So sorry. No, no aloha, beautiful background for everyone. But yeah, so I'm excited to tell all your listeners on how they can launch Scale Ortho and just want to make it clear. don't only work with general and pediatric dentists. I also actually work with orthodontists. There's a lot of new grad orthos that just don't get either the phase one training or the clear liner training that in residency, they only really learn braces and a lot of residency. So actually love them hiring me too. So as well as DSOs. So no, I didn't tell you that, but I didn't want any orthos that might be listening to get upset. I'm happy to work with anyone. And I also offer every orthodontist a complimentary consultation out there if they just have any questions because I want to help everyone do my goal. Honestly, the reason why I started this was because my husband's a general dentist and of course all my his friends and my classmates and they started asking me well over 10, 15, 20 years ago, can you help me with this aligner case? Then they started doing clear, correct and Invisalign and I just realized that. I actually am not bad at teaching people how to do things. Maybe that's my skill set. So it kind of slowly turned into a full-time gig. And once my husband and I had little kids, they were grade school age, we realized that having two of us in clinical practice was a nightmare. Every time someone got sick, it was like, okay, well, I have 90 patients and 7,000 on my schedule and he had two surgeries and who was least important? And for our sanity and our family, we just decided that maybe I would... do something a little different. And so I started just doing side hustles and consulting and product development on the side and it turned to a full-time gig. So if anyone has any questions about getting out of clinical practice, I know how to get into what I'm doing and I'll gladly help you with that. for your sanity, did you also move to Hawaii? Was that part of the deal? That actually was part of the deal. So Hawaii is not a great place to be an orthodontist, to be very honest. I just had no interest in getting my license here. I have an active one in California. I still can go back and do stuff there. But Hawaii has terrible overhead, terrible saturation and terrible insurance payments. It is a chunk place to be an orthodontist. To be honest, it's just not worth it to me. I'd rather do what I'm doing and I'm so happy. But anyways, yes, that is me. Now y'all know. Awesome, awesome. Well, so much. Thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Wilson. I'm really excited to get into this and we've been going, you know, back and forth offline. And, know, I know you've got so many valuable. I know you've got so many valuable insights to share and I should say upfront to Dr. Wilson is super active on social. So check out our YouTube page in particular. And if you are interested in that free consultation, we'll talk about it at the end also, but just go to straight smile solutions.com. I'm really excited about that opportunity, but let's really dig into it here. So first things first, I want to talk about, and today, you know, like you said, you offer consulting services to orthos as well specifically, but I want to talk specifically today about GPs and pediatric dentists who are considering maybe on the fence about offering ortho services to their clients. So let's just start with the business case. What is the biggest business benefit that Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money. No, not only money, money, money. Okay. So let's talk about it straight. What goes on? Okay. So how do patients make it from the GP or pediatric office to the ortho office? How were things 20 years ago? How are things now? It's totally changed. When I went into residency in 2004, the vast majority of cases were just referred out. It's no different than endo or oral surgery, although a lot more people are doing endo and oral surgery as well. It was just the GPs and the pedos didn't, sorry, pediatric dentists, I'm not supposed to say pedos anymore. Old school. They didn't want to deal with braces and they knew Invisalign, which was just launching, was not a great product. And to be honest, I can say this without saying it's slanner or libel, it was not a great product. Even the Invisalign people say that when it first came out. It was a niche product and it wasn't very efficient, but now it's an amazing product. So after 20, how many years, 27 years of development, it's much better. So everything with technology gets easier over time and the general and pediatric dentists just realize it's not that hard. There are some very, very hard cases. Don't get me wrong, but there's also way more, very, very easy cases that can be done. The skill is knowing how to sort it out. And remember you've got variables in kids and teens in terms of growth. So what looks easy might not be as easy as you think. We know what to look for. You guys do not. Same thing in adults though. If they've got myofunctional airway issues, it might not be as easy as you think, even if they're not growing. So that is the challenge. If you can pick and cherry pick the ones that aren't trouble, and it's not always what you think, you can bring in incredible revenue into your practice. on the flip side, mean, to be honest, a lot of times parents and patients aren't really excited about going to a different office. It's just a hassle. They don't like the hours. It's too busy. It's too loud. It's too crowded. And they might prefer to be treated in your office. They might be more likely to accept treatment if they're given options. So my goal is to make sure the patients get the treatment that they need. If they want to go to an ortho, send them. Don't force them to come to your office. It's always good to give two options. But the main thing we want is we want them to get treatment. Yeah. And I've got to imagine too, that in addition to, you know, being a reliable revenue source and, like you said, you know, expanding the, the service offerings of your practice and having something that you can promote in addition to what you're already doing. I would imagine, and you've probably got the quantitative data to back it up, you know, somewhere. I certainly see it anecdotally as a marketing agency for GPS and for pediatric tennis, but you know, I would also think that. Adding ortho helps with patient retention as well. 100%. I mean, I could talk, literally you and I could talk about this for probably the entire day. So I'm trying to stick as high level as possible, but let's talk about how else it benefits your patients. Whether it's your adult or your teen patients, if it's your little kid patients, treat them. Because if you treat them when they're early and they're not as busy and they're very compliant at six, seven and eight and get the huge problems like cross bites and little jaws and big jaws and everything out of the way, and we fix the bite problems, or the habit problems when they're little and compliant, it makes for a very easy phase two later. mean, blink and you missed it, throw a few aligners on there and you're done. So this actually makes patients, little kid patients, better, healthier, look better, feel better, sleep better, study better. I mean, I'm sorry, but there's a ton of positive, people think that's the gobbley gook, whoopty-doo, hippie-doopie stuff, but no, it's true, I'm sorry, I believe it. And the research is coming. Yeah. So that's for little kids, but for big kids, what do you like to do in your practice? Do you like to place implants? Do you like to do cool cosmetic work? Treatment begets treatment. If we can line up the teeth, set up the bite so that your restorative treatment's more successful, then you're just gonna have more restorative treatment, better restorative treatment, happier patients, and more production for your office. So it's a win, win, win, win, win. Yeah, absolutely. so, you know, better outcomes, better patient retention, patient loyalty, really building a more full service integrated practice is awesome. You know, and we've talked a lot about, you know, the financial benefits associated with implementing this new revenue stream as well for practices. But I also want to talk about the flip side and, you know, in your experience, Starting out for someone, know, a GP, a pediatric dentist that maybe doesn't know a whole lot about the ortho game originally, what are some of the biggest financial mistakes maybe that you can make when trying to incorporate ortho? Is there anything that you really need to watch out for or anything that you should be wary of? spend a lot of money getting started. You shouldn't have to spend a dime getting started, to be honest, because as long as you have a scanner in your office, obviously, if you have an iTero, you're going one direction. If you have a Medit or a ThreeShape or something else, you're going the other direction in terms of some of the products you can pick, because not all products are compatible with all the different scanners. So I recommend anyone who's even considering getting started or scaling to talk to an orthodontist a little bit more. There's a lot more people than just me doing this. Some people focus only on aligners. Some people focus only on early interceptives. Some people focus only on braces. I do it all as long as it's not a surgery case. I'm not gonna help you with surgery. Sorry, not happening. You gotta refer those out. But no, mean, not really. Just don't spend, I mean, people just go nuts. They take these weekend courses and that's okay if you want, but it's really not necessary. You can get started for nothing and just, you know. talk to an orthodontist, get some tips on what cases to take, not to take. And I can tell you more about that later. Cool. You know, there are so many benefits to talk about and I don't want to get hung up on the finance piece, but at the same time, you know, for a practice that's doing 1 million, 1.5, 2 million, what kind of difference can Ortho make in terms of the bottom line in your experience? Well, there you go. Yeah. office, bigger offices that you're talking about, I'm assuming that's a bigger office, a group practice. mean, everyone I've seen that actually goes all in and, by going all in, this is what I mean. I mean, every single booty in your chair is a wellness scan. It's a wellness scan. You know, you don't say, do you want an ortho consultation? No, you don't say that you integrate wellness scans into every single. I wouldn't say every six months, but every year is realistic. Every six months for a kid or someone who's growing and you're just going over their bite. I mean, there's, can, I've got, I don't even want to get into that because I've got so much content on how to do a wellness scan, how to use your ITero, how to use your Medit to do wellness scans and educate patients. And you don't push, you don't even really talk about in terms of ortho unless they're coming and asking for aesthetics and then you can, but you talk about function. hope folks are listening because you are just cutting up the clips right now. That's pretty great. I absolutely love that philosophy. So let's pivot though real quick. Obviously, you know, we could talk for hours about the benefits of adding ortho to your practice. But when it comes to the nuts and bolts of getting started, it can be intimidating for a lot of folks out there. How easy can it be to get started and what do you need to do to actually get there? My suggestion is that if you don't have a scanner, get a scanner. That's the only thing I need you to get. If you have a scanner, what scanner do you have? Like I said, there's an ITERO direction. That's one way we go at the fork in the road. And then there's everything else. So if you have a scanner, you start doing your wellness scans. Now I personally, and I do not work for Align, and a lot of people who are like me do, so I've never taken a scent from Align technology, don't care. But if you have that ITERO, it is a little more powerful. because of the iOS, which is the outcome simulation, which is just a great way to, it just does a really good job at explaining things visually in a matter of seconds. And you don't need to know ortho. The computer has AI and knows ortho. So let's kind of show what it looks like all straight in their face. And that's like, whoa, you know, that's me with straight teeth. And then you can go into a little bit more of the health benefits after that. But the other ones are gonna work too. You just need to understand ortho a little bit more and how it gets there. But yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it. that's betweening out to... Depending on the scanner you have, we have some older itero. So ours take three to four minutes. The Lumina takes one minute, 45 seconds. I mean, that's all you have to do. And then a few snap a few photos with an iPhone. You don't have to get an SLR camera. It shouldn't cost anything. We all have old iPhones and iPads in our home. You just delete all the apps except for taking photos. So that way we're not, you know, connected to the internet or anything like that. And that's all you do. That's all you need. It's not hard. then just start going over those cases and seeing what the opportunities are. Some you're going to refer out, some you're going to keep in, some maybe aren't good candidates, but just start learning. And in time, your brain, at least my brain, and it will happen to you in time, is kind of like a filing cabinet. I start to see a patient, I'm like, that's a this, this, this, this, files there. Because there's only so many iterations of bites and faces that are out there. And in time, you'll be fast, just like you probably are with your regular general stuff, but you'll know what to do. It's very rare that I get stumped unless it's a massive syndrome, jaw surgery, collecting phase. Otherwise, it's so easy to treatment plan. It's not hard. And what's the barrier to entry when it comes to the learning? So we talked a lot about the equipment and you mentioned, yeah, mean, familiarize yourself with it. Start doing cases. What's involved though, when it comes to positioning yourself to do just that? I mean, where do you start? mean, that's why I say I don't see how you can do this without working with an orthodontist at least initially, because we have so much, I mean, read so many journal articles, have so much knowledge in our brain just seeing things by visual memory. And, you know, can't just go off the AI. I mean, the AI makes it look nice when they do the clinch hacks and stuff, but That's just a computer. doesn't know what's best. It doesn't know if it's pushing teeth through the bone. It doesn't know if it's giving your patient an anterior open bite. It doesn't know if your patient's going to mouth breathe or they're going to have weird speech because you just put the teeth too far forward. An orthodontist knows that. So work with an orthodontist on your first 10, 20, 30, 40 cases and you'll be fine. And then if you have a challenge, you can always go back and work with them again. Yeah, now you talked about the wellness scan, which I love. And like I said, we're going to cut that one up and put it everywhere. I think that's just such a valuable tip for folks. But when you look back on your career consulting with folks, what are some of the indicators of success? What are some of the practices that you see that do the best with integrating Ortho? And what do they do differently from others? All they're doing is scanning every patient. mean, literally that is the key. Scanning and photos, that's it. Like I said, one minute, 50 seconds, plus a minute to take photos, it takes three minutes. Anyone can do it. Remember, none of this, has, have to have a license for. A scan is a series, separate in one or two states, and I'm not gonna mention the states, because I don't always keep up on all the dental practice acts, which change like that. There's one or two states in the nation where I think you might have to have some type of license in order to scan, but vast majority. And the only reason that was because it was because of the whole SDC thing and then they wanted to slow down that company. So I think it might even be gone now, but a scan is just a series of photos on a wand. That's all it is. There's nothing invasive about a scan. So anyone in your office can take a scan. I don't care if they're a high school student, a college student, the front desk, the TC, and everyone should be cross-strain to take a scan. Any booty in the chair should have a scan within six months to a year. And once you collect that data, you don't have to give them an answer. at that moment. And that is the key thing. You'll be way too busy unless you have a full-time orthodontist or a full-time orthodentist there to help them on the moment. Just collect the data and then whoever is going to be reviewing it, whether you're reviewing with orthodontist or you're doing it on your own, it can just sort through it at the end of the day and decide what cases they want to take. And then you just call the patient up and say, hey, we have your results from your wellness scan. And you let the patients know. Doctor likes to review his wellness scans and take some time to study your bite and study your gums and things outside the practice. We're going to give you a call on this day. Does this work for you? You can even schedule a follow-up soon or schedule a follow-up phone call. You want to make sure that you're giving them information so it's HIPAA compliance. You can't text them or anything or email them. So you need to make sure they get that information. But they don't have to come back at the office for it. We just want to make sure they get it and they get the treatment plan. Is there any difference that you see in the clients you work with in terms of mindset, either going in or moving through this journey that makes a difference in terms of how successful folks are? I like the secret shopping idea and this is my suggestion before you get started that you do a little secret shopping and there's nothing sleazy about doing secret shopping. Secret shopping is just, you can either just be asked the patients in your office if they've been to ortho before. A lot of times they're gonna come in with those packets and those folders and here's my treatment plan. They're gonna tell you what they liked and what they didn't like about the ortho you referred them to or that they went to. Just start listening, collecting data because if you start to hear a of grievances over and over again. You you referred me to see doctors so-and-so, maybe patients eight, and you're referring to lot of littles, and you're thinking they're going to start expansion or work with airway or grow jaws, and they're recalling, they're waiting, and they're waiting until they're 12 or 13. Well, there's your opportunity, because if you're referring them and you know probably they need this, but yet the ortho is holding them. And if they're holding them, they're more likely to be doing non-airway focused orthodontics, which is a concern. It's not that that's wrong. That's just very 1990s. And you know, that's an opportunity for you to start phase one or interceptive ortho in your treatment. On the flip side, if you're sending patients for Invisalign and they're all coming back with braces and for by extractions, or they're not happy about that treatment plan, well, there's your opportunity to grow a liner. So secret shopping, see where the deficiencies are in your area and where the orthos are missing the ball. And that's your opportunity. And then you don't have to feel guilty about starting it because They're not doing the way that maybe your philosophy is. It's not wrong. It's just one way of doing it. You have a slightly different philosophy based on the journal articles you've read. So we don't want to undermine anyone. It's just a different way of doing things. And do that. And also in terms of price point, I mean, get an idea of what the price points are. Look, is it too expensive? Is it too cheap? Are they not including retainers? Do they not have an aftercare program? And build something better. Yeah, and make sure you're looking at comparable markets as well. Any last tips in terms of presenting the treatment to patients? Is there anything that you've gathered in your experience? I'm sure there is. That would help folks in making the case and laying out the options. You do not want to be salesy. That's the worst thing you can do. mean, I know people say hire people who are old, use cars, salesman kind of people and that, no, that don't work. So maybe in a few markets, but for the vast majority, first of all, you have to understand your patient. Every patient is driven by one of, especially adult patients. I'm not talking about kids. mean, kids, most parents, if it's needed, the kids are going to get treatment. You just need to explain why it's needed. For adults, you got to find out if they're aesthetic focused. Are they health focused? Are they function focused? And then, I mean, you could even do like a smile screenings form. That's what a lot of orthodontists do. And then that's the direction you present the case. So if they're aesthetic focus, I'm going to be using the outcome simulator, showing what it looks like on their face, using maybe smile architect. If they're function focused, maybe they're an engineer. I'm going to talk about, you know, lifespan of a tooth breakdown, what happens when things break down, what are the risks are to the rest of your mouth, your function, your eating, your airway. things like that. And health focus is course gonna be more focused on airway breathing, health position and everything else like that. Absolutely. Now I think I know the answer to this question given what we've already talked about, but let's say someone listening here is interested in integrating Ortho into their practice. What is the number one first thing that they should do right now? Or buy a scanner? Yeah, make sure you bought the right scanner. There's too many times when people buy one and then they regret the one they bought. So make sure you understand what you can do with that scanner and how that will help you in ortho. So like I told doctors, we can always make it work if you already have one. It just might be slightly different than what you were thinking. Yeah, I love it. Buy the scanner, give Dr. Wilson a call. And to that end, Dr. Wilson, thank you so much for being here today. This has been so insightful. I love just the idea over and over again, the wellness scan. It really seems like that is key to unlocking the potential here. And so I love that takeaway. Is there anything else that you'd like to share before we wrap up here? And then I want to give you a chance to talk about your business and what you offer and how folks can get in touch. But is there anything that you'd like to leave folks with that's, you know, absolutely critical that they take away from this conversation? I think I'm going to give you guys some freebies, so I will mention that on the offer once we get to that part. Amazing. Sounds good. So what can you tell us about the services you offer, how folks can get in touch, the free consultation, how does it work, and what are some of the other program opportunities that you offer? Sure. So let's talk about what's free and what I can offer everyone specifically on your podcast. because for those of you listening to the Dental Domination Podcast, DDP, I always offer free gifts for everyone that listens to me on a podcast. You do have to email me and I'm sure you'll give my follow-up contact information, but it's really easy to find from my website, Straight Smile Solutions or any of my social media. If you email me and say, Hey, I listened to the DDP podcast, you mentioned the free handouts. If you go to my website, straight smash solutions, go to store. is a tab that says store for documents. I actually have way more documents than are in that store, but anyone that listens to the DDP podcast gets three documents of your choice value $60. So all you do is mention this. So. amazing. let me know. And there's a lot, lot more documents in my YouTube channel and you can pick any ones you want. I don't really care if you listen to my YouTube channel. Also in terms of free things, so much free things. Um, I got a little insane during COVID and I was bored because a lot of my doctors weren't really working. So I started making YouTube videos like a lot of people. And now I have today at recording over 2,400 YouTube videos. Um, it's divided into different buckets, like braces. Yeah. 2,400. It's insane. It's insane. I'm the biggest, I mean, it's literally, it's an entire orthodontic residency minus the jaw surgery cases. don't go into surgery cases. I go, you see the skin? You think it can go to the beach? My kids go to the beach. I am the beach Uber driver for a bunch of teenagers. That's my job on the weekends. Luckily, my daughter's hopefully getting her license next month and I don't know, she's not driving my car to the beach, but anyways, different topic. Okay, back to what's free. YouTube, 2,400 videos, literally it's an entire residency minus the surgery cases. No, we're not going to talk about TADS. No, we're not going to talk about orthognathic surgery. No, we're not going to talk about canine exposures, but you can go into braces, Invisalign, non-Invisalign aligners, phase one interceptive, CBCTs, and I have an entire playlist. Just have fun, watch it, and you're basically going learn the exact same thing I learned in residency. It's not that hard. All you have to do after you watch those videos is just get started. That's it. You're going to be super confident. So those are my freebies, as well as I have every podcast I've ever done, blogs, over 600 blogs. It's all archived, it's all free. You will learn all this or go for free. Then once you feel confident, yes, the content machine, it's a little insane. And it does pay for my coffee in the morning. So every time I have a coffee, the Google proceeds. That's it, just the coffee. Every time I have my coffee, I thank my subscribers. Thank you for this free Starbucks. But yeah, that's about it. I actually lose money on the YouTube videos, but occasionally someone likes me and then they decide to actually work with me. But I also have CE courses, other things. you're not paying to host all those videos. That is a lot. Yeah. lot. know I'm waiting for, think as long as I let them run ads on my channel, then I don't have to pay for it. So sorry, you guys, you get the ads. There you go, there you go. All right, well, Dr. Wilson, thank you so much for stopping by. It's been so great to have you here. I can already tell there's like two or three or four, 10 different topics that we could dig into further on a future episode. So I would love to drag you back at some point gently if you would, if you'd like to do that. There you go, there you go. Make us all jealous, but. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you dropping by. I will put all this information, Dr. Wilson's contact info, the freebies, the link to the website, all of that will go in the show notes. So check that out along with the transcript and yeah, stay tuned because I have a feeling that there is a lot more. Well, there's a lot more coming to that YouTube channel. can already tell that. But anyway. a little crazy. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Wilson. Take care. Aloha.