The ZZZ Pack

You love him. You learned from him. He's one of the most revered figures in Dental Sleep Medicine. But do you really know him?   The ZZZ Pack dove deep with Kent Smith, DDS, D.ABDSM, a true DSM renaissance man. He shares his reasons for starting Brady Billing, details the traits the most prolific dental sleep practices have in common, talks us through his appliance selection process, and floors us with details about how he spent his COVID downtime.   But that's not all, folks.   Dr. Smith offers the secret sauce to a successful DSM practice (spoiler alert: there isn't one!), tells which DSM company's culture he tries to emulate in his own practice, makes us all feel inferior with his work attendance record, and provides some incredible feedback about an innovative, EVOlutionary new oral appliance from ProSomnus.   BONUS CONTENT: Dr. Elliott unmasks Dr. Smith's true identity! Cue dramatic cliffhanger music…

Everyone wants to belong somewhere — even the tongue. Dr. John Caulfield joined The ZZZ Pack to share his journey from treating teeth with neuromuscular dentistry to saving lives with sleep and airway.   Dr. Caulfield has more tools in his armamentarium than you have socks in your drawers, and one of these tools has eliminated patients' need for PAP or MAD. Pull up a chair as he drops knowledge on transpalatal expansion, nasal breathing, engaging consultations, and the benefits AND limitations of CBCT in airway analysis. Sleep tests, improving physiology and anatomy, and his own experience as a VIVOS patient. He created the time and space to discuss all this with the ZZZs.   Learn how to do more dentistry AND better dentistry by putting everything in the right place. Your restorations will last longer, your patients will live healthier lives, and you'll be on the path to creating a village of practitioners that stop building dams and start building bridges so everything downstream gets better.

Like most of TMD and DSM's foremost thinkers, Dr. Mayoor Patel's journey started in Zimbabwe, led to Arkansas, and eventually to finishing dental school at the age of 22. Oh, wait, that's a crazy, outlandish story - but truth is stranger than fiction.   Don't believe us? Then wait until you hear what Dr. Patel has to say about the ONE thing he's observed in all his courses that separates successful Dental Sleep Practices from those that fail to take flight. I'm just going to give you a hint - the initials are "RDH."    And there's more folks. COVID, depression, and parafunction - Is there any overlap?    What effect does perimenopause have on sleep? I'm asking for a friend, by the way...   Do bite splints really make apnea worse? What about UARS and headaches?   Orofacial pain, TMD, and sleep - Is there really a connection?    Get your listen and learn on with The ZZZ Pack and Dr. Mayoor Patel, the dentist that is in the process of LITERALLY writing the textbook on Dental Sleep Medicine.

Madan Kandula, MD, blew the ZZZ Pack away with his iconoclastic approach to the typical sleep workflow. His pragmatism when referring to his 10 ENT offices in the Wisconsin/Chicago area as an "upper airway breathing practice" had Dr. Elliott ready to pay his relocation costs to Idaho.   Dr. Kandula dropped gems on the ZZZs about the barrier between dentistry and medicine, anatomic nasal and sinus blockages, the importance of nasal breathing, and a bunch of other things that will make you a boring dinner party guest but a much better clinician.   Want to know how his practice, Advent, continued to scale top quality care as he grew from being a single practitioner to having nearly 200 employees across 10 offices in 2 states? Curious about the slow, painful, purposeful journey to master consumer marketing? It's all here…   "If you have sleep apnea and interact with the health system, you're screwed." That's the zeitgeist, and Dr. Kandula is doing something about it. Listen. Lots of takeaways in this episode. You need this. Your patients do, too.   DISCLAIMER: The ZZZ Pack is not responsible for any stagediving or moshing injuries resulting from Dr. Kandula's outro theme song.

Dr. Steve Carstensen wrote the book on Dental Sleep Medicine - literally. He and his co-author wrote the seminal The Clinician's Handbook for Dental Sleep Medicine.    He broke bread with the ZZZ Pack to discuss how he continues to educate, disrupt, push, pull, and cajole our sleep colleagues to do more to tackle airway issues. His excitement is palpable when he underscores dentistry's ability to look beyond the oral cavity and focus on medicine.   Dr. Carstensen's collaborative efforts with the ADA's pediatric airway task force has the potential to effect generational change. He provides interesting updates on their burgeoning pediatric airway screener; who it's being designed for; and what the American Academy of Orthodontics, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, and other professional organizations think about it. You'll be surprised.    What's preventing sleep from getting more time in the dental school curriculum?   Why isn't the needle moving on the percentage of the population getting proper OSA diagnosis? Who can do something about this?   Why is there a diagnostic bottleneck, and what role should dentists play?   If there is a shortage of sleep physicians, WHY is the AASM sending letters to state dental boards discouraging dentists' involvement with sleep testing? What'd Dr. Elliott do when this came up in her home state of Idaho?   And what about companies preying on dentists with get-rich-quick DSM "turnkey" solutions?    Dr. Carstensen is one of the foremost thinkers in DSM. You're likely to increase your DSM IQ by 3-4 points just by listening to this episode. Your patients and practice will thank you for it.

So many dental sleep leaders don't remember what it was like to implement, manage, and grow dental sleep medicine in a restorative practice. They lecture about it like it's easy peasy - no biggie. The struggle is real. You know it. So do our guests...   Dr. Michael McCormick and Dr. Marc Newman share their real world journeys to make sleep an integral, life-saving, profitable part of their respective practices. Whether starting in Virginia or Indiana, their DSM paths to success take some different twists and turns.    One has used telemedicine to streamline sleep testing processes. The other owns 5 HST units. One has encountered nearly every challenge a dentist can face, while the other said it's been pretty seamless. One started with a DSM consultant. The other one began using a consultant much later.   Which one are you?    How do you measure a successful case? Is it a 50% reduction in AHI or spooning with your spouse for the first time in 22 years?   Which ZZZ Pack host provided a "EUREKA!" moment for one of the guests?   Listen to the episode to get these questions answered. Then share it with a colleague & like today's guests - GET THE SLEEP BUG! 

Oral Appliance Therapy stalwart, Sonnie Bocala, ends the ZZZ Pack's hiatus to discuss his company's pandemic pivot and the Dental Sleep Medicine field's Covid comeback. You'll be stunned as he unmasks the collaborative project that brought many labs together for a truly admirable cause.    It wouldn't be a Sonnie day though if we didn't talk OAT specifics. You'll hear which appliance he thinks is best, what makes Apex more than just an appliance manufacturer, cause and effect of appliance breakage and repairs, and tons more.    NEWS FLASH: Sonnie shares THE BIGGEST ENEMY TO ORAL APPLIANCES! He dropped it on us just before he got thunderstruck in the bonkers new Lightning Round.    Listen now to boost your DSM IQ.

There are more than 150 FDA-cleared appliances for the treatment of OSA. Who needs another one, right?    WRONG!   Chris Gillette spent the afternoon with the ZZZ PACK sharing how his decades of experience as a sleep technician led him to realize the many benefits of Oral Appliance Therapy while also identifying many of the design flaws.    This compelled him to develop, patent, and produce a new device – Bfit. What is it? How does it work? How is it different from the myriad other available devices? And most importantly, did it pass ZZZ host, Lisa Moler's litmus test?    And what the heck does "clench and replace" mean?    Join Chris in the hot seat as he talks bruxing, auto-titrating devices, and tons more. Why are you reading this? Listen now...

Tiger Woods is a champion, record setting golf legend, and he still has a golf coach. Don't you think a DSM coach might be able to help coach you and your team to new heights? That's the question posed to Erin, Lisa, Toby Breeze, and our listeners by coach extraordinaire Michael Cowen, founder and CEO of Awaken2Sleep.   Michael has been living in the sleep world for more than 17 years and has observed many of the best and worst practices. He shares the one critical issue that prevents practices from reaching their dental sleep goals. I'll give you a hint – it isn't bite technique or device selection.   Think about this scenario. Your patient is there for a prophy. You start talking about airway health and sleep. Walls go up, and trust goes down. Michael downloads with the ZZZ Pack about how to communicate and connect with patients to overcome this cynicism while building trust, conveying your "WHY," and becoming the type of clinician that patients want to hug.  His "WHY," regarding his early years as a pediatric sleep technician and a serious sleep-related health scare with his daughter, will leave you near tears and motivated to be more.    You'll learn how doing the Dental Sleep Medicine Hokey Pokey will help you better understand your team, your WHY, and objectively set SMART goals. Who are you? Who do you want to be? What are your skills, and what are your limitations? Michael goes deep on all these topics plus servant leadership and more before being the first ZZZ guest to leave us with a personal playlist.   Are you making excuses for why your screening processes aren't bearing fruit or your production is below goal? Do you even know what your goal is? Does your team? If you answered "yes" or "no" to any of these questions, then you need to put down that glass of chocolate milk and listen to this episode now... like right now.

David helms the ship as CEO of Respire Medical where they've taken the oral appliance market to new heights with the launch of the innovative Respire Pink AT. David dishes on new advancements to the Herbst appliance, how listening to the voices of their customers led to the changes, why their BONKERS warranty matters, and how the dental sleep field would benefit by learning analogously from other business verticals. All of this with a British accent.    David also tells what he's learned from the Who's Who of physician specialty guests he's had on his own podcast, "Sleep Talking." You'll be stunned by his suggestion about what dentists should do to earn more physician referrals. It definitely reinforces the idea that there's more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.   David's past life as a denturist gives him unique perspectives into what dentists can do to improve the quality of the cases they receive, the future of digital impressions in DSM, and which anatomic curvature can make or break a case. He downloads some truly meaningful insights, teaches the ZZZs about spotted dick, and stuns with some of his lightning round questions.   New appliances, new perspectives, new episode. Listen, rate, comment, and tell a friend.