Just a Couple of Dentists

Free checklist from this episode: David's Theft Prevention Setup Checklist → https://go.startmilo.com/jacd-checklist This Week's Episode About two years after we caught our office manager stealing, a dentist friend called. He had just fired the same employee from his practice for allegedly doing the exact same thing. So we brought back David Harris, founder of Prosperident, to figure out how this keeps happening, what we missed, and what other dentists can do to protect themselves. In this episode: Why the employee who keeps telling you how honest they are should worry you Why the amount you think was stolen might be just a fraction of the actual loss The insurance claim most dentists don't realize they can make after employee theft Why police investigations often stall and how to present a case they can actually use The "super employee" red flags: first in, last out, and refusing to cross-train The simple financial control David says deters about 80% of would-be thieves Why DSOs might be more vulnerable to embezzlement than they realize About Our Guest David Harris is the founder of Prosperident, a company specializing in investigating dental embezzlement. If you suspect someone is stealing from your practice, learn more at https://prosperident.com Thanks to Our Sponsors! 💸Sequence – Making money and building wealth are two different things. Sequence helps you automate what happens to your money by connecting your financial accounts and setting up rules to move money toward savings, investments, or paying down debt. You can even allocate a percentage of incoming money automatically. Just a Couple of Dentists listeners get their first month free at getsequence.io with promo code coupleofdentists. 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Stay Connected Just 2 Minutes Newsletter Get Alex's thoughts on dentistry, practice ownership, and business without Eric interrupting her every two minutes. Subscribe at https://coupleofdentists.com Just a Couple of Dentists Website: https://coupleofdentists.com All podcast links: https://linktr.ee/jacd YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JustACoupleofDentists New episodes every Tuesday. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with another dentist. Especially one who thinks employee theft could never happen at their practice.

Free checklist from this episode: Stacy's New Patient Call Training Checklist, made with Mango Voice → https://go.startmilo.com/jacd-checklist This Week's Episode Stacy DiDonato from Mango Voice is back for round two, and we're putting her dental front desk skills to the test again. This time, Eric plays the difficult patient while Stacy has to figure out how to handle whatever he throws at her. A patient who thinks they were billed twice. Another who swears they never received fluoride treatment. Someone who shows up 20 minutes late and still expects a full cleaning. And, of course, the patient who keeps canceling their two-hour crown appointment. We get into how to handle these situations without making things worse, including: - When to stand your ground and when to just write off the $40. - How to explain insurance statements without confusing patients even more. - What to say when a patient shows up late but still wants everything done. - How to enforce cancellation policies without sounding like a jerk. - Why patients who repeatedly cancel might not be telling you the real reason. Along the way, we talk about why front desk training matters, how to avoid turning small disagreements into lost patients, and why having 30 years in dentistry doesn't necessarily mean you have 30 years of experience. Can Eric finally stump Stacy? You'll have to listen to find out. Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 💸Sequence – Making money and building wealth are two different things. Sequence helps you automate what happens to your money by connecting your financial accounts and setting up rules to move money toward savings, investments, or paying down debt. You can even allocate a percentage of incoming money automatically. Just a Couple of Dentists listeners get their first month free at getsequence.io with promo code coupleofdentists. 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!        

We were at AADOM last month and got to spend some time walking around the vendor booths, catching up with companies we've used in our own practices, and checking out some of the new technology they're working on. A couple of things caught our attention, so we decided to sit down with Flex Dental Solutions and Moolah to learn more. First, we talked with Jenny from Flex about their new payment processing system, patient financing through Affirm and Klarna, and some updates they're making to insurance verification. As longtime Flex users, it was pretty cool to see how much they've expanded since we first started using them. Then we sat down with Mark from Moolah, who showed us something I thought was pretty damn clever. They've figured out how to turn a regular credit card terminal into a device that can present treatment plans, collect signatures, set up payment plans, and process payments. Basically, a lot of the stuff we've been using separate iPads for all these years. We also got into payment reconciliation, why Alex insisted on accounting for every penny when we owned our practices, and whether Moolah stole its latest idea from Chili's. A quick bonus episode with some interesting technology that could make life a little easier for your front office.

Having systems in place is one thing... Making sure your team actually follows them is another. That's why Alex created Milo, an app that bridges the gap between having systems and actually getting things done. With checklists, recurring tasks, and built-in accountability, Milo helps turn your processes into action. Learn more HERE! This Week's Episode Dr. Gary Glassman is the Chief Dental Officer of Dentalcorp, a DSO with over 650 dental practices. And he's on a mission to change the way dentists think about oral health. He's calling it "Oral Fitness." The idea is pretty simple. What's happening in your mouth affects a lot more than just your teeth, and Gary believes dentistry needs to do a better job connecting oral health with overall health. We start off talking about a patient Eric had the day before recording who was adamant she'd rather have her tooth pulled than get a root canal. Gary breaks down some of the biggest misconceptions about root canals, including the claims that they cause cancer and other systemic diseases. Then we get into Oral Fitness, the relationship between oral inflammation and whole-body health, and some of the newer technology being developed to help dentists identify and monitor inflammation. Of course, we had to ask the practical questions. How do you actually implement this in a dental practice? Who's paying for it? And how do you convince patients to care about something that doesn't hurt? We also get into the differences between Canadian and American dental insurance, why dentists are terrible at letting patients finish a sentence, and whether a $10 inflammation test could eventually help with insurance approvals. Gary has spent his career saving teeth. Now he's trying to help dentists prevent the problems that lead to root canals and other major treatments in the first place. In this episode: Why patients still refuse root canals The myths connecting root canals to cancer and systemic disease What Gary means by Oral Fitness How oral inflammation relates to overall health New technology for measuring inflammation in the mouth Making preventive care work in a profitable dental practice Canadian vs. American dental insurance Why dentists need to get better at listening to patients Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

Having systems in place is one thing... Making sure your team actually follows them is another. That's why Alex created Milo, an app that bridges the gap between having systems and actually getting things done. With checklists, recurring tasks, and built-in accountability, Milo helps turn your processes into action. Learn more HERE! This Week's Episode How many times have you had a patient come in with a broken tooth, smoothed down a sharp edge, and billed out a limited exam? Turns out, you might have been billing that wrong for years. We sat down with Dr. Jim DiMarino from Practice Booster to talk about dental coding, and it didn't take long before Eric started questioning how he's been billing certain procedures for the last decade. We get into the difference between D9110 (palliative treatment) and D0140 (limited evaluation), why a coding change in 2023 matters, and how using the wrong code can affect both your reimbursement and your patient's insurance benefits. We also cover when to code out a D0180, a D4346, common mistakes with scaling and root planing, and why outdated codes could be costing your practice thousands of dollars. Oh, and apparently there have been 309 dental code changes since COVID. So that's fun. If you've ever thought, "I'm pretty sure we're billing that correctly," this episode might make you reconsider. Topics covered: D9110 vs. D0140: What's the difference? Why the 2023 palliative coding change matters How coding affects insurance frequencies and reimbursement When D0180 and D4346 are appropriate Common SRP documentation mistake Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!  

Every office slowly drifts. Checklists get skipped. Processes change. Before long, nobody remembers the "right" way to do things. That's exactly why Alex created Milo, an app that helps your team follow checklists, complete recurring tasks, and stay accountable. Learn more HERE! This Week's Episode What does it actually take to add sleep dentistry to a general dental practice? This week, we're joined by Dr. Marc Newman, who shares how he went from struggling to fill his schedule in his family's dental practice to building a successful dental sleep medicine program that now accounts for 25% of his production. Marc walks us through how he got started, the challenges of getting his team on board, building relationships with physicians, navigating medical insurance, and figuring out how to actually make the program profitable. We also get into the clinical side of treating sleep apnea, why some patients can't tolerate CPAP, and how oral appliances fit into the picture. In this episode: How Marc got started in dental sleep medicine Finding patients and building physician referral relationship Navigating medical insurance and sleep studies CPAP vs. oral appliance therapy The business side of sleep dentistry Balancing sleep medicine with general dentistry The challenges of working with family Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!  

Ask three team members how to complete the same task. If you get three different answers, you don't have a system...you have habits. That's why Alex created Milo...to help out dental offices standardize checklists, recurring tasks, and workflows so everyone is on the same page. Learn more at https://go.startmilo.com/jacd This Week's Episode What happens when you get three people together and start pitching half-baked dental business ideas? Reuben Kamp joins us to see what we can come up with. An AI schedule optimizer. “Game film” for dentists. Dentist-only vacations. An Apple Watch app that shocks you out of bad habits. Foot massagers built into dental chairs. Some are terrible. A few we might actually be onto something with. We also get into what Reuben has been doing with AI at Darkhorse. He’s built more than 100 AI-powered workflows and says he’s eliminated roughly $15,000/month in third-party software costs by building a lot of the tools himself. Which brings up an interesting question: If you can build your own version of a $2,000/month piece of software in a few days, what happens to all these software companies? We also talk about employees using AI without the doctor knowing, automatically grading every phone call, APIs, and just how quickly all of this is changing. In this episode: • Our best (and worst) dental business ideas • An AI schedule optimizer for building a $10,000 day • “Game film” for dentists • An app that literally shocks you out of bad habits • Dentist-only vacations • Reuben cutting ~$15K/month in software costs with AI • Using AI to automatically grade phone calls • Why some dental software companies should probably be nervous Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

Ask three team members how to complete the same task. If you get three different answers, you don't have a system...you have habits. That's why Alex created Milo...to help out dental offices standardize checklists, recurring tasks, and workflows so everyone is on the same page. Learn more at https://go.startmilo.com/jacd This Week's Episode   What if one weekend and $2,000 worth of free coffee could bring 30 new patients into your dental practice? Dr. Cody Boals joins us to talk about the grassroots marketing strategies he used to grow Kissing Camels Family Dentistry from a startup with zero patients. He breaks down exactly how his coffee giveaway worked, why some of his other marketing ideas completely failed, and how he thinks about deciding what’s actually worth trying. We also get into free athletic guards, community events, working with marketing companies, tracking ROI, and why dentists shouldn't completely outsource responsibility for growing their practice. Plus, we brainstorm a few increasingly questionable marketing ideas of our own. In this episode: 00:02:47 – The $2,000 coffee marketing idea 00:06:05 – How buying coffee led to 30 new patients 00:10:50 – What the coffee campaign actually cost 00:13:33 – Grassroots marketing ideas we tried at our startups 00:19:26 – When grassroots marketing is actually worth your time 00:22:21 – Cody’s marketing idea that completely flopped 00:24:03 – Getting new patients by giving away free athletic guards 00:26:13 – Why most dentists don’t follow through on marketing ideas 00:31:40 – Marketing ideas Cody still wants to try 00:45:16 – Why you sometimes just have to try the dumb idea Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!  

One of the easiest ways to find holes in your systems? Ask different team members how they complete the same task. If every answer is a little different, your systems are living in people's heads instead of your practice. That's why Alex created Milo...to standardize checklists, workflows, and recurring tasks across your entire practice. Learn more HERE. This Week's Episode How good is your team really at answering the phone? In this episode, we put Stacy DiDonato, a practice performance coach with more than 30 years of dental industry experience, to the test with real calls dental offices get every day. Eric plays the patients. Stacy has to get them scheduled. We role-play everything from the easy new patient looking for a cleaning to the price shopper asking, “How much is a crown?” Then we stop the calls along the way to break down exactly why Stacy says what she says. We get into how to take control of a call without sounding scripted, why you shouldn’t lead with insurance, the questions your front desk should be asking, how to handle out-of-network patients, and the small language changes that can completely change a conversation. We also talk about where AI receptionists fit into all of this, why complicated dental calls are still difficult for AI, and how AI can actually be used to train your team on phone skills. This was one of our favorite episodes to record and we hope you enjoy it! Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. 🌐 https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!

Every office slowly drifts. Checklists get skipped. Processes change. Before long, nobody remembers the "right" way to do things. That's exactly why Alex created Milo, an app that helps your team follow checklists, complete recurring tasks, and stay accountable. Learn more HERE! This Week's Episode Clear aligners can feel simple… until you’re halfway through a case wondering what the hell happened. Dr. Matt Standridge is back to break down one of the biggest reasons dentists get frustrated with aligners: case selection. We talk about why some cases are much more predictable than others and how understanding a few basic principles can keep you out of refinement hell. We discuss: Why aligners only work by pushing on teeth What attachments are actually doing The best clear aligner cases for dentists to start with Why crowding, deep bites, and narrow smiles are often “green light” cases How a hidden Class II can get you into trouble Why beginners should stay away from Class III cases When IPR makes sense—and when it might not Why some 20-tray cases turn into another 20+ trays of refinements How treating a deep bite can address more than simply giving someone a night guard A simple green light, yellow light, red light approach to case selection If you’ve wanted to do more clear aligners but aren’t always sure which cases you should actually take on, this episode gives you a much simpler way to look at them. Special Offer for Our Listeners Matt is offering our listeners $500 off his online Ortho course! Use coupon code JACD26 at https://orthodonticxp.com/ to save $500. Sponsor Shoutouts A big thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible! 🖥️ Darkhorse Tech – Dental IT done right. From managed IT and cybersecurity to HIPAA compliance and cloud solutions, Darkhorse helps practices keep their technology running smoothly. JACD listeners get their first month FREE. 🌐 https://www.darkhorsetech.com 💳 Nadapayments – Stop overpaying for credit card processing. JACD listeners get $25/month pricing, 1.5% processing, and $0.25 debit transactions. 🌐 https://www.nadapayments.com Check out their savings calculator to see how much money you are leaving on the table by not switching to nadapayments! https://nada-calculator-dentalpractice.netlify.app/ Connect with Us If you got something out of this episode, the best way to support the show is to share it with another dentist. Thanks for listening!