Building a Prevention-Based Practice that Patients Trust

Gary Takacs: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice, one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, Thriving Dentist, podcast founder and co-host, of the Thriving Dentist Show. thanks for joining us for another episode. you’re gonna love this episode. the title is, building a Prevention Based Practice That Patients Trust. we’re gonna be, sharing all kinds of new information that I know you’re gonna find useful. obviously, trust is a very important part about how the public feels about your practice, and, you’re gonna get lots of useful information, that you can use right away. before I get to the podcast episode, though, two quick announcements coming up. we have a thriving, dentist Virtual Summit, coming up, a few weeks. It’s actually about six weeks after this episode is published. And this is a summit that’s titled, how Dental Practices Can Use AI to Increase Case Acceptance and Production in 2026 and Beyond.

Gary Takacs: So, if you’re curious about, how AI can help you, improve case acceptance, then you’re gonna love that. driving Dentist Virtual Summit. It’s May 28th. it’s from six to 9:00 PM Eastern Time. So go ahead and translate that time to your time zone. So six to 9:00 PM three hours in length. You’ll get three hours of ce. and here is some great news. There is no tuition, no tuition. we are gifting the tuition. we have panels, we have, there’ll be a keynote opening keynote. I’m doing a keynote, to open that, virtual event. we’ll have panels, we’ll have discussions, and, we’ll bring a whole handful of experts. They’re gonna help you with that. y although there’s no tuition, you do have to register. go to thrivingdentists.com/events and register for that again, May 28th, three hours of ce and I’ll look forward to seeing you there.

Gary Takacs: the next announcement I have is we have my podcast co-host, Naren Arulrajah, providing a Thriving Nest marketing tip, and this marketing tip he’s gonna ask, answer a question for, you. And the question is, why do patients who find your office via organic SEO spends six times more time on your website compared to patients that find you by Google Ads? So, why do patients who find you by way of organic SEO spend six times more time on your website compared to if they found you by Google Ads? No further ado. Here’s Naren Arulrajah answering that very important question.

Naren Arulrajah: Welcome to another marketing tip. This is Naren, the co-host of the Thriving Dentist Podcast. In today’s tip, I’m gonna be talking about why patients who come to through a CO spend 90 seconds on your website versus those who come through Google Ads, only give you 15 seconds. See, we as humans, live on autopilot. And one of the mindsets that’s kind of embedded in the subconscious mind is anything that’s linked to an ad is not trustworthy. So, because it’s not trustworthy, we are coming in with the mindset as soon as we click, what’s the catch? What’s wrong with this? So, the minute we see something that is not, you know, meets our expectation, we leave. So the average person who comes through Google Ads is only giving you 15 seconds, and they leave. Of course, that’s the average. Some might be longer, some might even be only five seconds, but the average is 50 seconds, 15 seconds, one five.

Naren Arulrajah: Now, when they click on a SEO result, which means it’s not an ad, it’s you showing up organically for something they typed in, let’s say dental implants near me or Invisalign, best Dental Chicago. You show up organically, it’s not an ad. Now, they immediately, the mindset is, because it’s not an ad, it’s trustworthy. Remember the other ones who went to Google and asked that question? Best dentist for Invisalign in Chicago. So you show up and they trust you immediately because they trust you. Now, they’re not looking for what’s the catch or what’s wrong. They’re rather trying to convince themselves that you are the right person. So they’re looking for evidence that you are the right person. So, for example, they’ll be looking for reviews, they’ll be looking for cases. Now they know that, yes, I was right, Google sent me to the right page, that I trusted because I trust Google.

Naren Arulrajah: That’s why I used Google, right? Remember, people trust Google 30 billion times a day. That’s how many times Google is used. So the average person coming from SEO is 90 seconds versus Google Ads 15. Typically, in our experience, you know, running ads, Google Ads versus a CO, if the average new patient costs you $60 through SEO, the same patient would cost you at least $360 through Google Ads. Why? Because of this trust issue, you need to have a lot more people who are kicking the tires before you get somebody who trusts you, even though they came through ads. So, why spend $360 or even $500 to get a new patient when you can get the same patient for $60 through SEO? So, my advice to practices is max out SEO and once SEO is maxed out. If you still want more new patient, then look at Google Ads. Now, if you want to learn more about how you’re doing with a CEO, how you’re doing with Google Ads, or how is, how is your website doing, book a marketing strategy meeting, the link for that is ekwa.com/td a thriving dentist, and you will see what’s working and what’s not. this is our gift to you. We spend six hours not only studying you but your competition. We’ll also give you a plan. Once again, the link is ekwa.com/td.

Naren Arulrajah: Hope you enjoyed that marketing tip that I shared with you. This is Naren Arulrajah, your co-host of the Thriving Dentist Podcast. And this is a fact. People who come through a CO spend six times more seconds or minutes than those who come through Google Ads. And if you listen to that tip and you have further questions on how you can improve your marketing, don’t hesitate to go to ekwa.com/td to book a marketing strategy meeting ekwa.com/td. Now this topic, building a prevention based practice that patients trust is a very important topic because, you know, most dental practices I have worked with over the last 19 years, and I know Gary would agree with me. the ones who are successful, they make prevention based dentistry as their cornerstone. That’s not the only model. But if you want a sustainable long-term practice that one day you can pass it on to your kids or sell, this prevention based model has been proven to be a very good model.

Naren Arulrajah: It works. It works for you as the owner. It works for your patients because they are healthy and they appreciate you, and they talk about you on Google Reviews. And it’s great for team members because they feel fulfilled, because they are helping people live a healthier, better life, especially after COVID. This has moved up to the top of our agenda for many of us. Even someone like me who didn’t really take health that seriously after COVID Health is my number one priority. Whether it’s eating right or, you know, taking care of my oral health over AIDS exercise. But Gary, dentistry is changing. in 2026 as we record this based on your 46 years of experience. I want your comments on this, and I want you to kind of talk about how are things evolving patients, in my opinion, especially after COVID, they want to be proactive.

Naren Arulrajah: They want, but at the same time, they also want conservative care. They don’t want, you know, risky, you know, at least that’s just my experience, and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll table that. So risky, unproven care, but rather proven care. They want to prevent problems, you know, and this, I think, resonates a lot with even the younger generation, like my daughters, who really care about their health as well as someone like me who is their parent, who’s I’m 50 right now. So this seems to cut across every generation. I think we all want to be proactive with our health, more so than at any time in history. so I want to talk about prevention based practices and how they, you know, succeed. So, my first question to you is, are most dentists diagnosing cavities or managing disease in 2026?

Gary Takacs: Naren, this is a really important topic, and it’s something I’m passionate about, and I know many of our listeners will be, also, but the interest, the concept of preventive based dentistry is not new. we go back to, you know, I think of someone that I’ve talked about a lot on this podcast. Bob Barkley, Dr. Bob Barkley, Bob Barkley, you know, practiced in the late 1950s or the 1960s, sadly passed away, in the mid seventies, in a plane crash. But he founded the American Society for Preventive Dentistry, a American Society for Preventative Dentistry, and there, and that was founded, in the 1950s. crazy, you know, so we think this stuff is new, but in fact it has a foundation, but it was kind of a very fringe foundation back then, and it’s becoming more mainstream today.

Gary Takacs: So the reality is that most dental practices in my experience, are still, it. It’s more reactive. They’re, they’re doing reactive. They’re, they’re, they’re identifying a problem and fixing it. What preventive dentistry is, exci is identifying a problem at its very earliest stage, maybe even pre-pro stage, and preventing something from becoming more complicated. And Aaron, think about what’s going on in healthcare these days. if you’re up on the latest things that are happening in healthcare, we can now have a full body scan, a full body scan, done, you know, obviously through, digital technology that’ll identify every genome in your body. Every single genome will be identified. and it’ll be digitized. And it’s either an X or no. It’s, it’s, that’s it. Every genome. And you can go in today and have your body scanned, and that represents a baseline. And then whatever your physician would recommend for the follow-up, the follow-up might be a year later.

Gary Takacs: And then if there’s any differences in the digital makeup of your, of your health, anything changes, then they’re gonna start to find out. It could be pre-cancer, pre heart disease. And now if it’s, you know, we know cancer is a great example. M when we catch cancer in early stage, I think of oral cancer, you know, ’cause in our audience, oral cancer, we catch oral, cancer, or we identify oral cancer. It’s very early stage. The results are very impressive. you know, cancer caught at say, stage one or even pre-stage one, the results are very good. But if we, the treatment results are very good, but if we catch it late and it’s stage four, it can be catastrophic. So that, I mean, on the medical side, that’s what the technology is about. Now, you think medical insurance is covering the stuff, Aaron?

Naren Arulrajah: No.

Gary Takacs: Why not? They should. Why not?

Naren Arulrajah: I mean, that’s a great question. Of course, they don’t want to pay claims because that’s, you know, directly coming out of their profits. You know, like it’s, just, it’s, it’s unfortunate. I really think the insurance is a, like, you don’t want to hear what I think about insurance, because it’s, and I don’t wanna lose our rating, but we,

Gary Takacs: We have to keep our rating up. We can’t really tell our audience what we think about it. But you can read between the lines. Yes. It’s why doesn’t insurance cover, conservative periodontal therapy? because you think if you cover per conservative period therapy, we can intervene and intervene on the loss of teeth that might have to be fixed through implants and other things. And there’s a simple reason why they don’t cover it. Because they know statistically, yeah. They know if they can help, you know, cure, not cure, but prevent more serious things from happening. But they’re rolling the dice and the rolling the dice, betting the patient isn’t gonna be a patient of their insurance company when they need the extractions and implants. Right? That’s why we don’t pay for it. Insurance companies don’t care one bit about the patient’s help. Okay?

Gary Takacs: We’ll get back to the theme of this topic now, but I, yes, I feel better about that now. But the reality is, most practices today, are still a reactive diagnosis model. you know, instead of, proactive disease management, being proactive about things, one resource I’d like to suggest here therein that many of our listeners will be familiar with, but many are not, the Canberra, you know, evidence-based framework. It comes outta U-C-S-F-U-C, San Francisco, Canberra, C-A-M-B-R-A. Carrie carries management by risk assessment. if you’re not already familiar with that, if many of you will be, of course, but that’s what we’re gonna talk more about today, things like that. And I wanna be a cheerleader, and I know you do too, Narin. We wanna be a cheerleader of offices moving towards prevention, because how do you think the concept of prevent prevention based practice, how does that resonate with the public today? I’m gonna suggest it resonates extremely well, extremely well. so we wanna dive into this, and there’s all kinds of different degrees of this, you know, that can be done and integrated into your practice. You can take baby steps or you can take bigger steps. but I wanna talk about some cool things that can be done that will lead you to be recognized by the public. And by the way, by Google, is it important to be recognized by Google Aaron?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Gary. So

Gary Takacs: You’ll be recognized by Google. You’re

Naren Arulrajah: Living in 2026. Yeah. And you don’t do well on Google. You are in trouble. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: And so there are, and really, we’re gonna stick to mainstream stuff, not woo for the, for the sake of this podcast. And, you know, the sake of, you know, information integrity, we’re gonna stick to things that are proven and, not some of the, you know, some of the science that’s out there that might not yet be, you know, proven mainstream. Mainstream. Yeah. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you so much, Gary. We’ll put that link to the Canberra Caries Management by Risk assessment, resource, in our podcast. If you go to this particular podcast and you find it’s titled, building a Prevention Based Practice that Patients Trust, it’s gonna come out in April. so go to that, you know, show notes, and you will find that resource. This is fascinating, Eddie. So I guess just a quick follow up question. Do you feel like patients are asking more for prevention based practices today versus, let’s say, 2015 or pre COVID? Like, in other words, is this something that’s easier to pitch and e are people asking for it?

Gary Takacs: I wish more people were asking for it. I think the public isn’t aware enough. The general public isn’t aware enough to ask for it. I see. Depending, are, I mean, if you’re, depends on your patient base, depends on the education level of your patient base, depends on the demographics of your patient base. But I would say we’re in the early stages of patients recognized. But you can create this in your practice by, if we, if we talk, you know, about, you know, early interception, and we talk about proactive, you know, dental, disease management, people understand that. They’ll understand that. But I would say, I think it’d be in incorrect for us to say the public is, the majority of the public is asking. They don’t know to ask for it yet. But we could change that at your practice level. And we don’t really care what everybody knows about this. All we care about is the patients that are either in your practice or would like to be in your practice. So we can, we can affect that. But I believe that if we were to redo this episode even a year later than now, it will see a much wider, adoption, for sure.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Now, let me switch gears and let me ask you, how confident is the average team in a dental practice, for example, in explaining early lesions or disease risk?

Gary Takacs: Well, again, it like so many like the answer to so many questions. It depends. It depends on how much education, you know, doctor you’ve had and the team has, in this. And I think what it comes down to is confidence there. you know, when you’re talking about something and you have complete command and confidence of something that you’re talking about, whether you be a doctor or team member, it sounds very different, than if your confidence is low. Does that make sense to you? Narin? Yes, Gary? Yes. Yeah. And so we’re talking about some things that probably weren’t taught in dental school. You know, it depends when you graduated, but we’re talking about things that are more progressive. and as a result of that, I think there’s varying degrees of confidence. But I would say to answer the question directly, how confident is the average team in explaining early lesions or disease risk?

Gary Takacs: Not so much, but that could quickly be changed. and, they understand about, we like to identify things at the ear, any issues at the earliest stage so we can avoid something more complicated later. Now, put that way, Narin, if I’m talking to you as a patient, you know, one of our goals here, in our practice is to identify areas of concerns at the very earliest stage before it becomes something more complicated. Do you think the public will understand that statement? I don’t think so, Gary. I disagree. I think the public understands that 100% because of cancer. Oh, cancer because of cancer, right? It directly relates to cancer and directly relates to, you know, heart disease, blood pressure, you know, those are all indicators of a, it’s not, that doesn’t mean they have a problem, but it’s an indicator that we need to know more about.

Gary Takacs: So I think the public is aware if we use that language, you know, one of our goals is to identify any concern that’s earliest stage before it becomes something more complicated. And there’s all kinds of cool technology a available today. so for example, let’s talk, let’s talk about some of those, and know, we talked a little bit about Canberra caries, management by risk assessment. But the a DA also has caries risk assessment tools. You know, what patients are more susceptible to, de developing, you know, higher incident of caries. so a DA, you know, has some information around that. Caries assessment. rela Christensen has done a lot of work in Carrie’s. And so Ella and the work she does at c Clinician research, many of you, all of you will likely know Dr. Gordon Christensen.

Gary Takacs: He’s been on the podcast many times, right? You may not know Rella is his wife, but she’s also a hygienist of practice for 45 years, founded three hygiene schools, has a PhD in microbiology and directs all the research. They do a clinician’s research cr. So if you’re not a subscriber to cr, there’s another resource. all the resources we’re, we’re talking about, we have no ties to, the resources we’re talking about. We’re simply sharing with you because we think they’re gonna be useful. So if you’re not a subscriber to, the newsletter, the non-commercial newsletter cr clinicians research, I would strongly encourage that. Great resource. you know, there’s also some standardized scoring systems for a classifying lesion severity, from a zero to six scale, gives teams a shared language by describing, early disease, very clearly and consistently.

Gary Takacs: So it’s consistent across the board. I-C-D-I-S and, ICC MS are two of those scoring systems. We also have specific technology, you know, for example, cavo, we’ll, we’ll use, again, we have no ties to any of this. that dag diagonal dent, they have a specific pen now using laser fluorescence. it’s a laser fluorescent device that detects early fial, fissures, and proximal caries. So pro between the tooth caries, it’s, it’s using a laser light to identify that it’s radiation free, it’s portable, showing patients a number on a device that’s, you know, one way to communicate them with what we’re seeing. you know, we also have, technology in terms of images, with identifying, caries, more than ever, if you’re, if you’re not scanning pa not doing a digital scan, even if you’re not doing any milling or cac, I love the idea of using a digital scan.

Gary Takacs: The digital scan is another way to identify things and help convey information. I’m a surprised, Naren, how much patients get out of a digital scan, how much information they get out of it. But let’s go back to technology that everyone understands. And I think it’s one of our coolest patient education technologies. It’s not usually considered patient education, but it should be. And that’s taking six photos, digital photos for patient education, six photos. why is that so important? Because the patient understands the photographic medium. They understand what they’re looking at. And those six photos, this is, this is, I learned from Dr. Frank Speer. I’m gonna give frank credit for this. Frank taught me this, and I’m teaching it to you. We take six digital photos. First photo is a head and shoulder, you know, portrait shot, smile for me, naturally ne near in the next photo is a closeup, retracted view.

Gary Takacs: The view is middle of nose, middle of the chin, middle of cheeks, patients holding the retractors. The next two we borrowed from our frenzy, orthodox, upper occlusal view, lower occlusal view. they’re not take pictures of the teeth, they’re pictures, the reflection of the teeth and the hourglass shaped mouth mirror that’s inserted, in their mouth. and then the last two are right buccal corridor, left buccal corridor. Takes less than three minutes to take those photos. We put ’em on a tablet, and now the patient can zoom into infinity. Those are powerful prevention based tools, because they will ask you questions that they had never seen their teeth like this before. so naren, you’re getting a little bit of idea how we can become more confident about this and some tools we can use to help our patients.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Ari, this is really, good stuff. And, I, we will include that resource, the a DA Carries Risk Assessment Tool Resource, and we’ll put that, again, in the show notes. So find the podcast. You’ll be able to get that resource directly. Gary, let me kind of start, you know, looking at this from the patient’s perspective, and I have a two part question. Do you think the average patient, wants, you know, looks at a practice as a preventive practice? I know you have, you know, several dozen clients, a lot of mutual clients we enjoy together. So let’s look at our pool of clients. Do you think the average patient looks at our clients as a preventive practice or a reactive practice? And, you know, and how would a practice go about, you know, perhaps changing this mindset if they want to become, join the reactive camp?

Gary Takacs: Well, I think as of the time of recording this episode, most of the public, the patients see dentistry as reactive. I have a cavity, you know, so they have the cavity because they didn’t know about early detection. They didn’t know what could have been done before it developed into a cavity. you know, so, for example, there is some technology. there’s a company called Vardas, with a product called, Roon, C-U-R-O-D-O-N-T, Swiss Company. And so a lot of the technology is coming out of Europe. A lot of the technology also comes out of Scandinavia. lots of research is being done, lots of funding is being done. But, radont, uses hydroxy appetite and fluoride to remin remineralize teeth. it’s drill free, it’s needle free solution for early tooth decay.

Gary Takacs: Now, imagine Naren if your daughters were younger, and, you know, they’re, they’re adults now, but if there were younger and there was, evidence of early tooth decay, and instead of waiting till it became a cavity, you know, we could use a drill free, needle free solution using hydroxyapatite and fluoride to remineralize the tooth. So it didn’t become a cavity that’s available, that’s available. Now, there’s, right, you know, talk about more conservative procedures. You know, we love cosmetic dentistry lab fabricated portions of veneers, direct composite veneers, different things we could do, even simple procedures like whitening, you know, incisal edge recontouring. But we now have, ena enamel plasty. It’s a less invasive than other cosmetic procedures. Now, it has to be used in the right situation, but we can use very simple enamel plasty. another one is, veneer.

Gary Takacs: Think about veneers. I love the way Dr. Hornbrook teaches veneers, because he teaches, generally a very conservative technique in terms of prep, very, now, sometimes it has to be prepped deeper because of the situation, but we now have a product called Dura Thin Veneers, dura Thin Veneers. They’re micro thin veneers, and in some cases they can be done prepless without any prep. So imagine that there we’re not damaging any teeth. We’re not removing any tooth structure, durra thin veneers. and now, in some cases, you’re just gonna feather in margins. So if you’re not aware of it already, put that in the notes. dura Fin Veneers. there’s some great courses, you know, that, brilliant instructors that teach that approach. So the concept of being minimally invasive, you know, I think minimally invasive is a term that maybe the public isn’t fully aware of now, but we could make them aware by content on your website.

Gary Takacs: So now, I’m sure your head is spinning right now about all the different ways that Qua could design websites to become the leading edge of this, with unique custom written content. Not duplicate, not AI generated, yes. But individual content that relates to the office’s adoption of these concepts. you know, and you’re not gonna put things on the website the office doesn’t do, but if they do some of these things, I believe that your website can be a tremendous educational tool. Darren, you spent a great, you did a great tip at the top of this podcast talking about how we can get people to spend more time on your website by using organic search engine optimization instead of paid ads. But now, what if we had content that what if they stayed on your website for four or five minutes?

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: You know, instead of 15 or 20 seconds. I, so I think we create the awareness through, you know, the content on the website. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Let me share a couple of comments on this. Gary, while you were talking, I just asked Google, what percentage of patients in the US have two or more hygiene visits in a year? And this is what Google told me, 58% of the patients have two or more visits. So those people care, believe oral health is important to them. Right? That’s why they’re keeping those hygiene visits than going to the dentist. That’s 58%.

Gary Takacs: This is an example, naren about the danger of ai.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah.

Gary Takacs: That information’s categorically wrong.

Naren Arulrajah: Oh, is it wrong? Okay.

Gary Takacs: Absolutely not. That’s, that is a very limited model of AI that’s only using one model. Yeah. Giving a very false sense of the data. That is in no way, sh they’re listeners saying there’s no way 58% of the pages are coming from more than two hygiene visits a year, that number is in maybe low 20% range. Wow. But AI says it, so it must be true. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: You

Gary Takacs: Fell for it. You fell for it. Yeah, I get it. I get it. But no way.

Naren Arulrajah: That is not true. Okay.

Gary Takacs: Not true. But however, I like

Naren Arulrajah: . I guess what I was thinking about this is if people are interested in oral health, we could go after, you know, things they worry about, like the link between oral systemic health and, you know, heart disease and dementia. And we could have articles. So that way, when they’re looking for those kinds of questions, perhaps like in my case, I had my father who had dementia, right? I’m curious, I’m concerned, and my dentist is talking about it. Now. My dentist shows up, my confidence in my dentist goes up. Of course, you have to not only talk about it on your website, but also at your practice. So if you only do it on your website, but your practice has no concept of what the website is doing, then that’s a problem. So there has to be a connection.

Gary Takacs: Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. So I’m thinking out loud here, but I think people are worried about all kinds of things based on their situation. Like the example I gave you with my father and dementia, and my mom had, you know, heart, you know, heart related issues. Again, there’s a connection between oral health, so

Gary Takacs: All bacteria in the mouth. Again, it’s not just in the mouth. Yeah. If you have an infection in your mouth, that infection isn’t just at that site. It isn’t just in your mouth. That infection is, circulating through your circulatory system. Exactly. And there’s where the issues are.

Naren Arulrajah: So we could really go after those, you know, even like the importance of not having gum disease and why you need to take care of your gum disease, why pocket depth is a big deal, and, you know, yeah. All kinds of con, you know, content can be leveraged both to attract patients who care about those. So people know you are a practice who’s here about, you know, who’s going to look at dentistry, not as like a place to fix problems when it hurts, but rather you are proactively working on things. Now, the way I would do it is I would use, Google Analytics and Google keyword tools to find out what people in your area are doing. And then of course, depending on which keywords are resonating with people, do content around it. And like you said, don’t trust ai. You know, it has to be human written content that is optimized, you know, optimized for, you know, every search engine. So that’s the way I would think about this. Gary, let me jump to the next question you have. And by the way, if anyone is interested in SEO or how do you get new patients who are interested in prevention, book a marketing strategy meeting, that would be a good use of your time? It’s 60 minutes. we’ll do a thorough research on how you are doing when it comes to preventive dentistry and every kind of dentistry you care about versus your competition. And then give you all those findings.

Gary Takacs: And before you, before we switch to the next question, just a quick comment about ai. I wanna show a really good application of ai mm-hmm . That I think all of our listeners need to know about. and that has to do with, you know, identifying carious lesions. and I’m gonna name two companies again, we’re, we’re, we’re not affiliated with these in any way. but one is Overjet and another is Pearl. both of those companies use AI tools very usefully, for, identifying, you know, things at the earliest stage that you now, scientifically based on the data, based on the imaging, you now know there’s a concern there. and what you do with it, you know, we will determine what the degree of the concern is. But if you’re not using Overjet, and I would like to make a comment about Overjet Aaron. We recently had the CEO of Overjet as a guest on the Thriving Gen, thrive Thriving Dentist show. Absolutely brilliant. interview Naren, would you, be kind enough to put that in the show notes that, the link to that podcast interview we did with the CEO of O Overjet?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Gary, actually, I, she was at an event that I was at. She’s a wonderful young lady and very impressive.

Gary Takacs: She is brilliant, absolutely brilliant, in terms of her, intellectual knowledge, but also her practical knowledge. really cool. So, and also Pearl, to be fair, you know, Pearl has a, has a great product. so if you’re not using O Overjet or Pearl for AI assisted diagnosis, I would encourage you, kind of reminds me of the early days our longtime listeners. Remember when we had a, diagonal dent, you know, the earliest stage of diagonal that could develop, identify caries at the earliest stage. This is now that, you know, turbocharged, in many way, I’m not doing it full justice to describe it that way, but that’s a simple way to think about describing, overjet what it can do. but it also takes the question mark out of it, is this something I need to do something about Overjet and Pearl has indicators on, well, here’s where we watch it and here’s where we do something about it. and you know, in my opinion, one of those belong in every one of our listeners practices.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you. Gary, I have two questions, so maybe spend three minutes on this question. It’s, what systems do you think a practice need to have if hygiene is going to help with prevention?

Gary Takacs: Well, hygiene is such an important part of every dental practice. I remain steadfast in my thoughts about hygiene’s the backbone of a successful practice. Doctors that are thinking about dropping hygiene, because the low reimbursement they get from insurance doesn’t even allow ’em to pay their hygiene wages. And I get multiple emails every day. Should I just drop hygiene? In my opinion, that would be the worst decision ever. because first of all, you

Naren Arulrajah: Drop the PPO plan, instead

Gary Takacs: Drop the PO plan instead of dropping hygiene. Yeah. but so hygiene’s more important than ever, some simple things we need to use our intraoral cameras. intraoral cameras in most cases are, in the hygiene room, gathering dust. We’re not using ’em anymore ’cause it’s not sexy and new technology, it’s been around for a long time. Intro or photos make sense? Digital photos, taking those digital photos, hygienists, I like to think of as our diagnostic partners. they can’t actually diagnose according to the practice act. They can’t say, Neen, you need a crown here. They can’t say that,

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: But they can say, Neen, I’m concerned about something. I see here. I’m concerned about something I see on your upper left. it may be nothing at all, but I’m gonna ask Doctor to take a look at it. When she comes in. Now, what have I done as a patient? What have I done there? Do I have you sort of alert now and paying attention? I’m concerned, of course, I’m concerned about something I see here.

Naren Arulrajah: I think the word concerned is a very good, powerful word. Yeah, I’m concerned because you have to be truly concerned. But if you are definitely, you know, you should use that word a lot,

Gary Takacs: Maybe nothing at all, but I’m gonna ask Doctor to take a look at it when she comes in. Yeah. So those are systems, those are systems to happen regularly. the images up on the screen, if the patient’s perfectly healthy, you could put two images up the photo of the back of the lower anteriors before you started the hygiene appointment, and right next to it, take a photo after you’ve done the prophylaxis to show the patient why it’s so important to come in every six months. and now we’re, we’re getting more preventive base. Maybe that patient thinks, eh, I could be six months, eight months, nine months, a year. It doesn’t matter. Now we let ’em know why it’s important to come in every six months. Marin, this is what the back of your lower teeth look like before I started today. Here’s what they look like now. And then the doctor can say when he or she sees that image up there. That’s why it’s so important for us to see you every six months. Very powerful.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Hedy. Let me ask you the last question I have. Question number five, could focusing on prevention actually increase long-term profitability?

Gary Takacs: Well, Naren, I think whenever we think about what is in the best interest of our patients, what anything, what is in the best interest of our patient? How would I want my family treated? How would I want a dear loved one treated if we make that the focus, the economics fault? Does that make sense? Yes. So if we literally frame it around, how would I want, my sister, to experience the things we’ve talked about today in the show? And the answer is absolutely. if I want my wife, who Theresa will be married 44 years this August, what I want my wife to experience that. And if the answer is yes, then that’s what we should be doing for our patients, and then the numbers will follow. And I believe that Naren with every ounce of my DNA, I may not be able to draw the math equation to prove that to you, but I believe that with every ounce of my DNA do what, do what’s what we truly believe is right for the patient.

Gary Takacs: and if we do that, the numbers will follow. for sure. Neen, as we kind of come to the finish line here, this has been fun. we provided a ton of resources. I wanna encourage our listeners to take advantage of those resources. I want to encourage you to put your arms around this stuff, and recognize there’s various degrees. you know, when you jump in the pool, naren, you could, you could dip your toe in. You can go in up to your ankle, you can go in, up to your knee, up to your waist, or you can dive right in. So you decide what level you’d like to adopt this based on where your knowledge and comfort zone is. but get on board. The preventive train is moving and you want to be on board.

Gary Takacs: That train prevention makes sense to everybody. so I wanna encourage you know, to get on board. And, as we wrap up, if you haven’t scheduled that marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa, I’d strongly encourage you to schedule that. qua can help you, with a brilliant website and a brilliant, marketing strategy to attract, the number of quality new patients you need every month. also invite you to schedule a coaching strategy meeting with me. If your goal is to develop your practice to full potential, would love to talk to you on a mark, on a coaching strategy meeting, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm sense for coaching strategy. Meeting that meeting’s with me. you’ll connect with my calendar. You’ll schedule one. We’ll spend an hour together talking about, your practice and talking about where you wanna take it and how, if it’s appropriate, how, what, how we might be able to help you, get, help you develop your ideal practice, thrivingdentist.com/csm. On that note, thank you all for the privilege of your time, Naren, and I look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.