Is AI Taking Over?

So, what is all the buzz about AI? Dr. Kuba wants to know and puts Bethany on the spot for her take on AI. Together, they discuss what this new trend is and if it is truly something new and exciting. Bethany shares some of her client’s experiences with how they have incorporated AI into their practices and addresses the highlights and possibilities of implementation as well as her own personal reservations. She gives advice to listeners on how to begin implementing new technology into daily practice life. If you’ve been wondering about the AI buzz, then this episode is for you! 

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Transcript

Are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real dental drama? If so, then

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9 seconds

you've come to the right place. Join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr. Reena Kuba as we dive into the solutions we've

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17 seconds

created and the mistakes we've made while managing dental drama. Let's get started.

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Happy day, friend. Happy happy day to you.

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What day it is? It's been spring break here. We went out of town for a little bit. We've been busting it at the office. The server crashed on the last

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day of spring break. Like it has been a newsy. But you're here. I'm here. Yes.

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Makes me think of the song I'm still standing. Never mind. Okay. Well,

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no. No. I know what song you're talking about, but for all I know, I could be dreaming that we're in this car right now. I could be asleep. You could be deluded right now.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Um, okay. So, I have a topic for you that I um I don't know if anybody else is going

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to find this interesting or not, but I know it's a question I've had now for a little while. So, I finally was like,

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"Okay, I need to remember next time we meet up together to ask you this." Um,

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so I feel like every, you know, like so starting in January, December, I'm kind of looking at what conferences are coming out and y'all know me by now,

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like I I love going to CE classes and then taking my team and it's like what where should we go? What should we do?

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Um, and so looking at like AAPD and ADA,

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TDA, TAPD, all of these, right? and everything. Even I think I love reading Dental Town.

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That's full of it. Dental economics is full of it. Dentistry today is full of it. It's like AI AI AI. It's like the buzz word now.

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Like that's all I can read about. Yeah.

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And so I'm like, okay, the non- techy me is like right. Like Okay.

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So, but I also don't want to fall behind. That's always been one of my fears for myself is like, am I at the

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forefront of things or am I catching up on the back end? And so I think where my confusion is coming from now is when I

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read things like, oh, you need AI to automate your workflows and make it easier for your front desk. Because if the front desk has like things automated

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for them, then they can spend more time like talking to patients and having those better conversations. And so I mean it sounds amazing

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but then I stop and I go okay well are we already like who who is this

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targeting people that are still like on regular x-rays and not digital is that who this is talking about or is like for

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example online scheduling we've been doing that for a couple of years I think before most people were doing it we we

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had online scheduling um so is that what it's like AI is online scheduling, so it's not really going to help me because

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we're already doing it. Or is it some new angle? So, all of that to say, I'm not I don't want to spend this uh podcast talking about how AI works cuz I

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don't frankly care. Like really, like it's it's beyond me, right? I'm not a techie person. But what

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what do you feel like what is your thoughts on all of this? Is it worth investing in? Is it not? Is it truly a gamecher? Is it not? Are we already

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doing things that are automated? And do you see where I'm kind of like, is

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this a topic we really need to be digging into and and discovering and spending all our dollars going to

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these seminars and digging into these systems and signing on with the company

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to be like, "Okay, yes, we we need your automated features." Are people still like only doing phone call reminders and

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snail mail and you know now we have like weave I think that we use to send our

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text reminders. Is that what this is talking about or is that not or this is I'm just kind of confused on what exactly they're they're talking about

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like automating what systems and is it worth the money the changes in systems.

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Yeah.

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I'm just kind of clueless on all of that. I it's a absolutely a worthwhile topic to talk about because it's kind of

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a hot topic like everywhere you go the conferences that you're looking at the uh vendors that you talk to when you go

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to these conferences AI is most definitely the buzzword and I feel like that makes it new or or at least makes

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people that have always been kind of cutting edge you or at least trying to be cutting edge like yourself going oh shoot am I missing something

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well and in the light of Like I think you said it recently in one of the podcasts um I think it was your your

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podcast that you did where it's like yeah if we truly are short staffed for whatever reason

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you know like every other industry are people going to lose their jobs cuz computers are going to start doing their jobs like does that apply to us here too

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which I don't think it does we're a you know a industry that is people facing so there's only so much like or if a bot is

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going to start answering all our phones Yeah.

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Is that a good thing? Like, is everybody else doing it so people are not going to mind it so much? Or is it going to be like, oh, we're not calling her office cuz we don't get to talk to a real person?

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I'm just kind of like, and everything I seem to read about it is, oh, automate your workflows. Automate your workflows.

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What does that mean? What what are we talking about exactly? Um, I mean, I get like from a uh AI helping you detect

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decay on an X-ray. Okay, that makes sense,

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but I'm not following all of it. And I don't know if it's me just not following it because I don't like it. Like, I don't like tech stuff. So, I'm just kind of like, what is this?

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So, I'm finally like, I need to just ask you like, what are you seeing other offices are using or doing? Would it benefit me in my office? If so,

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how? If so, which one? What am I doing?

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So what are your thoughts based off what you're seeing going in and out of office?

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I am definitely seeing new things. So I think your question of is this have we just repackaged this idea of going

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digital? You know having a digital workflow that is yes that that's my question.

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Have we just repackaged it and making it seem like or is this different?

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No, I definitely think there's new involved in this new technology. I don't understand the technology behind it. I just look at does it produce something

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that is helpful for dental offices and I'm definitely seeing things that are helpful. Um I am still cautious with

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this whole category because it's it is new. It's not repackaging the old. We

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most people have moved away from paper charts and they've moved on to a digital workflow. they are. So, it's like we've

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already arrived there and this to me is kind of like the next phase of where do we go from here and I think all of these

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new AI tools at least tools that I'm seeing are uh you already mentioned one of them the AI interpretation on X-rays.

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I'm seeing a lot of my clients dive in on that and depending upon the platform that they're choosing, there's things

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like uh not only the AI interpretation of the X-ray, but the the AI representation of the X-ray to the

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patients. So they color the X-rays differently so that the patient rather than looking at this gray scale, the

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patient is actually able to see an X-ray that's kind of colored on by AI so that they it's more evident what they're

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looking at. Uh I see a lot of my clients utilizing that for um your general dental clients,

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pediatric. I'm seeing it mostly in general uh for the AI X-ray

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interpretation but even beyond that some of the platforms will take it a step further and they'll help chart prep.

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So they'll pre they know who who's they I don't know the software it the bot it

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why do I say they as if it's a person sweet Sally 2.0 29.0 would be more like it. But so it

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looks at the who's on the schedule for the next day and it prepares pending treatment that still is there based on

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the x-rays or um potential watch areas that they that it highlighted last time as areas of concern.

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It will interpret those X-rays and then put that into a chart prep platform for the next morning, which I think is very

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interesting and I think useful in some ways. Does it totally remove the human element? Absolutely not in my opinion.

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And I don't know if that's the ultimate goal with some of these softwares to get to a point where we really do need to rely on humans less. I don't know if

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that's the goal. I haven't talked to the the X-ray interpreter software people to see what their goals are. I don't think

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at this point that the human element could be removed. Is it reduced?

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Absolutely. I mean, if we're not having to go back and look at the treatment that was listed last time, if we aren't

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having to go back and relook at the X-rays on our own, but we can look at a quick summary that AI gave us, is that helpful? And does that make us more efficient? I think it could for sure.

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Um,

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so all that to say, I think there's new things that are exceedingly interesting with AI.

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Um, but I'm very cautious with relying on it too much because we're to me, and

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there may be techy people out there that could totally correct me on this, but to me it still feels like we're still ironing out kinks. Like it's it's absolutely

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helpful in some situations, but is it foolproof? No.

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Um, it almost makes me think of like templates.

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Yeah. and how I'm like every single template like I don't think I've ever had a template that works 100% of the time like we're always tweaking

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something in that template to apply to that clinical note but has it made it a lot easier for me to get that clinical note in? Sure. Um,

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I think the other question I had for you in that regard, like when you're talking about X-ray interpretation, are you talking about a separate? So,

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like if I'm a regular Dentric user, I don't have Dentrix Ascend, I just have old school Dentrics. So then I might sign up with company AI, whatever.

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But if I have a if I was on Dentric Ascend,

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then it comes with some That's a great question. Some do very few of the what I would call the

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newer cloud-based platforms which by the way I think even that carries some confusion because um years ago with

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there was a big push for open dental open dental was kind of like the new software 10 years ago and it wasn't new

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it had been around but one of the big I remember people telling me oh we chose So, some of my startups will say, "Oh,

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we chose open dental because it's cloud-based."

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And I don't know where that misinterpretation got out. It is not

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cloud-based. Uh there are softwares now absolutely that are cloud-based, but I think some people may even think,

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especially if you're an open dental user, you may have somehow heard that open dental is cloud-based and it and it's not a traditional. Does it does it

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could it have been at the time whatever the cloud was it was cloud-based and then the cloud has changed

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like we've moved on to a new cloud now you I I was like oh somebody in open

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dentl must have called their server a cloud because that's it it is a serverbased software anyway all that

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there's even confusion over what is a cloud-based software um and So, I am seeing lots of really awesome

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cloud-based softwares and I am as old school as you are. I love my Dentrics. I love my Eaglesoft. I just there's

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comfort in those platforms. I know them like the back of my hand and so to even think about new softwares is

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overwhelming to me and I know it can be overwhelming to a practice to actually make a huge change like that. But what I'm seeing with the cloud-based

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softwares out there is like, okay, we can't we can't stay old school for long without missing a ton of these features

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because some of them actually have amazing AI features built into that such as please, please give me what what does that mean?

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So, a lot of them have uh verification built in to the software, insurance verification.

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So eligibility, they're checking patients in advance and showing whether they're eligible or not through the software. Now, there's levels of that.

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Is it breaking down what all is covered and the percentages and all of that?

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Maybe some have that, but not many have that level of eligibility. Or you may have to actually pay a little extra for your cloud-based software to get that

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feature. Um, so that can be very helpful. um they have a lot of them have built into their software the messaging.

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So like you you have DRIS and you have added weave to have all this accessibility to text messages and email

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campaigns and phones and all of that. Um and a lot of these cloud-based softwares have that messaging all built in. Um,

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some of them even have, you know, in medical, uh, when I, when we go to medical visits, we normally have like a

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patient portal where we can then go and access our chart and all of that. And a lot of these new dental cloud-based

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platforms have that patient portal type capability, which mirrors more medical what patients are used to. So, they can

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access their account at any time. They could access their records or any kind of doctor's instructions or things like

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that. Um, so it I like that feature in that first of all it mimics medical, but

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also it holds us more accountable. You know, for the longest time, our documentation has kind of been ours and

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it's our little secret u home where we can absorb all of our patient details. And this is why you and

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I have had that resounding drum for forever is like it's documentation is so important. But when you're held accountable to that in a way that your

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ledger needs to be accurate because the patient can log in at any point.

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So the whole time you're saying this I'm like, "Oh god, that sounds awful." That means we can't make mistakes.

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Yeah. Yeah. It it it raises the bar for our expectations. I will never have a patient problem. I don't want it.

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I don't like it. Um, so it has built-in communication features. Uh, a lot of them do. Most of them do.

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So, so from the communication features perspective, because I have regular old

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dentrics and weave, I've I don't need AI for that. Correct. Correct.

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And then I do not have anything that helps me interpret X-rays. So, I could use AI for that.

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Correct. I think my hesitation and but it's been I don't know two years since I've looked into it but I think my

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hesitation was has the AI plat have the platforms caught up to pediatrics do they have enough pediatric

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data to be able to so I think that for me was my excuse previously to go well I don't think pedo ready and maybe they are

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um so I could use that that could be a feature that is useful u and helpful uh and again Not all of the

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cloud-based platforms have that feature in it, the X-ray interpretation. So, it depends on the cloud-based platform that

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you're choosing. The one that I looked at, you could pay more for that. Um, and I looked at because when we started the satellite office,

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we wanted to go cloud-based in that. Yeah.

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Um, and so I know that was one of the features that we could have paid more for.

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Exactly. That's how a lot of the cloud-based platforms work is you sign up for their program and you sign up at

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this level and it means you get all of these features unlocked or you can pay more to get all of these features unlocked. And so um so yes, that is an

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AI component that is often available in those AI platform. I mean in those uh cloud-based platforms, I'm also seeing

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some AI influence into the patient billing side of it, meaning depending

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upon the cloud-based platform or a feature that you could add to your existing platform that there's now these billing

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platforms is the best way to explain it where they've got their own AI method of contacting patients regarding

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bills. They've got a system of texts and emails and phone calls. They've they've incorporated this really intelligent

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wording on how to get patients to react to those bills. And so some cloud-based platforms have that feature built in. Uh

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I know that there's companies out there that are adding to our, you know, the Dentrics and Eaglesoft and you're you're contracting with them to get them to take over your patient billing. Um,

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which is I would say out of all the AI that I've seen, that's probably my favorite feature that I've Okay, so I was gonna say that makes me

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nervous because I feel like that's where I like the human touch of going, okay,

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you know, we wanted to potentially write this off or we know this mom is going to react like this. So, I mean, I guess it should be black and white and if you

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input your data properly, but I think like we'll leave flags all over the place like um you know, Kuba wanted to

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just do the sealants for if they're not covered, go ahead and just write them off. Or I don't know. I maybe I'm making too much of a big maybe it's not that common

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that we have that issue but I feel like I feel like if you send a bill that is

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inaccurate for whatever reason for example okay I have a better example um intraoral photos

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so I think we don't charge the patient but we do bill it to insurance

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only so that what you we've always been in dentistry is you should bill out everything you do so that insurance can

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see that this is a code that people actually use, right?

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Um and so if is that something that now the patient's

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getting a $100 bill for an intraoral photo, right?

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That my a AR person would have caught that and gone, "Wait, we don't um I mean we had that recently, didn't we?" like it was a mom that went crazy,

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but it was something like we normally if it's not, you know, we're we're out of network, so we have the the right to

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um bill. Yeah.

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And but normally if it's not a covered whatever, we normally drop it to whatever. And in this case, she missed

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it. She forgot to do that. That's what I worry about with So then are we going to end up with a board complaint over a billing issue because the automated system?

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Yeah.

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And so maybe it's an unfounded fear or a you know like a 2% chance that I'm making it seem like it's a 50% chance. I don't know

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exactly. But here's the thing though with that exact example is all of these

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changes. So going from paper charts to digital, think about the impact on workflow. It changed everything.

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Everything was different. And I think we're in the process of experiencing the

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same type of transition again where even if we aren't switching to a cloud-based platform, we're we're keeping our

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dendrics and we're just adding all of the features that we need from a third party, we're still at a point where it's

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pushing the envelope on this automation side of things. In my mind, AI almost is

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equivalent to automation. like there's there's a system that automatically kicks on when there's a balance on that

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patient account and there was no human factor that turns that on. It just we have the feature that now automatically

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puts this patient into the rotation for accounts or for billing which I can absolutely see the benefit of. However,

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it changes it sounds simple it changes everything and I think that's the key. I think if we think about AI like if we

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can reflect back and think about how drastic it was to go from paper charts to digital and how that changed literally everything. We're in that same

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in between right now. We're we're not fully there, but we're headed in the direction of there's so many features

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that we can add to our serverbased software or if we're switching over to cloud, there's so many features that

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they will continue to add that we're we're going to reach a point where we can't ignore those and we need to utilize those to the best of our

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ability, but it's going to change everything. The trickle down is going to force us to do things differently. So whereas we may have had, let's go with

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the account example, we may have had this built-in buffer of time, right? So sweet Sally is the one that enters the

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insurance checks and then Suzy, our AR person, is the one that audits all of the accounts before she sends out the

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bills. Well, now that's gone because we are using this new feature. Now,

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Sally may need to learn how to enter that check and also audit the account at the same time because she knows that if

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there's an account, there's if there's a balance registering on that account,

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it's going to trip over AI and AI is going to start billing that patient. So,

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we won't have that buffer space of getting it over to Susie and letting her look at it. Sally's got to be proficient enough to get that account looking good.

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Um, which is the same for charting, I guess,

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is what you're saying. Like the charting right now, we might have like, "Okay, I'm gonna come back over the weekend." Like we had the server crash on Friday.

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Now, like the hygienists all went home with like route slips shoved in their pockets going, "Okay, well, we don't have time to fix this today, but Monday we'll be

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slow and kids will be back in school and we'll come back.

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We don't we're not going to have that anymore. You've got to get it right the first time." Which I don't think is a bad thing.

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It's just a lot to think about though.

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Yeah, it's new. It's uncomfortable and it completely changes our workflow. Uh and again, I I would say we're we're in

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the in between to me. I mean, we're not 100% there. I feel like, you know, if you think about it now, the amount of

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offices that still have paper charts and are functioning primarily off paper charts, very small percentage, right?

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They still exist. I'm sure they do, but that's a very very small percentage of the dental practices. And if we now go

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over and we're like, okay, now we're most of us are digital. 98% of us are digital and now we're starting to veer

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over into a lot more of this AI. Right now, I feel like it's a small percentage of those offices that are actually veering over into the AI. So, I think

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we've got a runway to kind of get caught up, but I do think there's going to be a point that we reach where it's like,

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okay, now you're the dinosaur if you're not utilizing all of these tools that are

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out there. I don't know that we'll ever reach a point where Sally doesn't need to exist, you know,

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25 minutes, 12 seconds

where there's where we submit our insurance checks to the robot and the robot calculate, puts it into the ledger

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25 minutes, 20 seconds

and makes sure that the ledger is accurate and then the robot sends it over to the AI biller. And I don't think there's ever going to be a point where Sally's irrelevant.

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25 minutes, 29 seconds

I just think there's going to be a point where Sally's got to be very proficient and get her job done quickly and then there's a lot that she'll be able to turn over to an outside source to to do.

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25 minutes, 41 seconds

So, for example, right now with with what you know about our systems in our office again, regular dentrics, weave

25:49

25 minutes, 49 seconds

um so we and I think there's even like in regular dentrics they have their I think it's called eligibility pro and I'm always getting these emails like hey

25:58

25 minutes, 58 seconds

you know you you do you know we have this feature you haven't signed up for this feature and my AR person is like well I don't

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26 minutes, 6 seconds

really think it's going to be that helpful because of XYZ. So then I'm sitting there going, are you being the dinosaur because you've done this for

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26 minutes, 13 seconds

the last 30 years or are you protecting your job because you know that this is going to take over your job or is it truly you've tried it and you're like h

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26 minutes, 21 seconds

it got me, you know, 40% there but I still had to do 60 which then to me I'm like well maybe the 40% it's worth it if it's going to do some things.

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26 minutes, 30 seconds

So I I don't know. So based on that like now you're saying there's insurance verification to

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26 minutes, 37 seconds

whatever extent. So then how do I decide if that's something I need to do or not do or am I waiting for

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26 minutes, 46 seconds

AR person to retire and then I do it like what is our I to me it's worthwhile to begin first and foremost identify

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26 minutes, 55 seconds

what you feel like you could use help with because I don't at this point I do not recommend

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27 minutes, 2 seconds

diving into every AI add-on that you can bad because I do feel like there's it's still being ironed out honestly.

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27 minutes, 14 seconds

That's not to say it's not helpful.

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27 minutes, 16 seconds

There's plenty of things that are helpful, but to me we start with our point of pain or our

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27 minutes, 23 seconds

where we're spending too much time and energy and we go, "Oh man, I wish there was a solution for this." Well, there probably is and you should start looking

27:30

27 minutes, 30 seconds

into it. So, I think we've got to be strategic with how we add things, unless

27:37

27 minutes, 37 seconds

that is a part of your brand, your identity, what fuels you. I've got a client that I'm thinking of right now

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27 minutes, 44 seconds

that is just next level on everything techie. Like, he he he thrives in that

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27 minutes, 52 seconds

world and he's tested so many different add-ons and features and things that I didn't even know exist until he was like, "Hey, have you heard about this?"

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28 minutes, 1 second

I'm like, "No, I haven't heard about it.

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28 minutes, 2 seconds

Look it up." And I'm like, "Oh, sure enough that exists." And so I think that's just a part of who he is is he he he thinks like that. And so I'm like,

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28 minutes, 10 seconds

"Yes, be be that first adopter. Go out and test all these things." And and we need those first adopters that are doing

28:19

28 minutes, 19 seconds

that. But for the majority of us, that's not us. And so go, okay, sweet Sally is saying she's out of time, that she

28:28

28 minutes, 28 seconds

either needs an us to hire an additional person or she needs help in some way or another. Well, we don't really have the budget for an additional person yet. So,

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28 minutes, 38 seconds

what can I do to help get things off Sally's plate? Guess what? There's AI available. There's insurance verification. There's insurance filing.

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28 minutes, 46 seconds

There's patient AR platforms. There are phone answering support services. I know

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28 minutes, 55 seconds

that's a big push for Weave right now as they're trying to reach a point where they could actually do a good job of answering your phones.

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29 minutes, 3 seconds

And so there's support. If you're in that in between, there's things that you should look into. Now, are you going to

29:11

29 minutes, 11 seconds

strike gold the first time? No. I I think from what I've seen of the options that

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29 minutes, 18 seconds

are out there, there are usually multiple options for each problem. So,

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29 minutes, 23 seconds

insurance verification, there are lots of companies that say that they're helping with this. Test a few of them out, figure out what works best for you,

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29 minutes, 32 seconds

what gives you the most consistent results. Um, you know, the the patient billing, there's plenty of platforms out there. Now, are they all AI driven? No.

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29 minutes, 44 seconds

So when I say there's plenty of patient AR platforms out there, a lot of those are human le still. So you may be looking at a company that you think, oh,

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29 minutes, 54 seconds

this is going to be outsourcing it, but you're outsourcing it to another human.

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29 minutes, 57 seconds

And that's fine. That I'm not knocking that, but that's not you jumping into the AI world if that's your goal, you

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30 minutes, 5 seconds

know, to do that. So, I would just say start with your point of pain and look at the options that are available to

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30 minutes, 13 seconds

you. Don't just dive into we're going to live in an AI world now. Unless unless you are deciding to switch softwares.

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30 minutes, 21 seconds

Unless you're like, hey, I'm done with Eaglesoft. I'm going cloud-based. Then I'm like, go all in. like take advantage

30:29

30 minutes, 29 seconds

of this really uncomfortable time that you're about to go through and go all in on it so that you don't go through this

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30 minutes, 36 seconds

major transition, settle in, everybody's feeling happy and healthy and stable again and then you're like and AI and then you add and people are like no not

30:45

30 minutes, 45 seconds

again cuz there's this fatigue that can start to develop if you're constantly adding something new or changing. Uh people can only sustain that so much.

30:54

30 minutes, 54 seconds

We're creatures of habit. So I would say if you're switching softwares, go all in.

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30 minutes, 59 seconds

So I think one I love what you just said about yes, pick find your pain point and then pick from there. I think that helps

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31 minutes, 6 seconds

me a lot because I think I am again I tend to be a all or none. Oh my god, I got to change all these things. Um I

31:13

31 minutes, 13 seconds

think the next onion layer for me is the because we've lived it last summer and

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31 minutes, 20 seconds

it was awful. Um the thought of and I don't know. Maybe maybe I'm let me

31:28

31 minutes, 28 seconds

just speak for myself here. Yeah. Maybe I've done this for so long of over two decades of being with one system

31:38

31 minutes, 38 seconds

that switching to cloud-based was not as easy as everyone made it sound. Yeah. But is that because it's a me issue?

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31 minutes, 47 seconds

Because I have I don't like change. So it's a personality problem. I don't like change. I don't like tech stuff anyway.

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31 minutes, 55 seconds

Um, so it was it a me problem, but it it's either way it's still most of us are going to have some of Mi's on their

32:03

32 minutes, 3 seconds

team. Unless you've got a really young team. Um,

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32 minutes, 8 seconds

the problem though, if you have a really young team, they don't know what they don't know.

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32 minutes, 12 seconds

Yeah. or if you've got an older team like mine, we can get in our own way of over overanalyzing and overthinking some

32:21

32 minutes, 21 seconds

of these things. The transition was a beating and ultimately we didn't proceed. We stopped with the transition.

32:28

32 minutes, 28 seconds

Um, and I think that that's a big part of it too. like anything we decide to

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32 minutes, 36 seconds

try something new on whether it's a dental laser whether it's a new scanner

32:42

32 minutes, 42 seconds

whether it's a new we're integrating SDF into our offices or we are now adding AI

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32 minutes, 50 seconds

insurance automation I think the challenge for that once you've made the decision

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32 minutes, 57 seconds

I think for many of us we're it I'm it I've got to pioneer this I've got to champion I've got to push the team

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33 minutes, 5 seconds

through and cheer along and do all of that. And I think for me where I am at this point in my career, not even

33:13

33 minutes, 13 seconds

career, in my life, because I have a lot of things outside of the office that are pulling at my brain that I'm problem solving constantly that

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33 minutes, 23 seconds

the office being my autopilot area is what I need at this point in my

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33 minutes, 30 seconds

life. And I guess that's my concern is that if I'm not changing because I'm like, "Oh my god." Like we've already tried that and it was awful and I did

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33 minutes, 40 seconds

not have the team whether it was an attitude, whether it was a literal ceiling on things, it was all going to fall to me.

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33 minutes, 51 seconds

Yeah.

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33 minutes, 52 seconds

And I finally just was like, "Nope, not doing it." Yeah.

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33 minutes, 55 seconds

I actually ended up spending thousands more to not do it.

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33 minutes, 59 seconds

Yeah. But I was just like, I I can't have this all on me to have to problem solve every little bit of it. I need an easier,

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34 minutes, 8 seconds

you know, workday. Um, so and hence now here we are where I'm like, what are all these AI features that I'm missing

34:16

34 minutes, 16 seconds

because I'm standing in my own way? But I do think it's the reality of who on the team is

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34 minutes, 24 seconds

capable Mhm.

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34 minutes, 26 seconds

of um understanding all of the how do the features work?

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34 minutes, 35 seconds

How are we going to implement them?

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34 minutes, 37 seconds

What are we changing in our office? It really does take somebody who really understands all of that.

34:44

34 minutes, 44 seconds

Yeah. And I feel like that is a challenge to find in a lot of offices.

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34 minutes, 48 seconds

It's definitely a challenge. And I would say, you know, the idea that it ends up being falling all on the practice owner

34:56

34 minutes, 56 seconds

is what would to me should give somebody caution. If you don't have somebody on

35:04

35 minutes, 4 seconds

your team, even if they're not the brightest bulb in the batch, but they're like, "Yeah, we got this." type

35:11

35 minutes, 11 seconds

personality that can keep the team rallied through a change. That's very helpful because any change if we're just

35:20

35 minutes, 20 seconds

adding an AI feature that's relatively manageable. It's it may be impacting one aspect of the practice and that's we can power through that with relative ease.

35:32

35 minutes, 32 seconds

when we are changing our software like if we are going like you were mentioning when you tried it out this past summer

35:41

35 minutes, 41 seconds

that I equate that to if anybody's ever moved you'll know exactly what I'm about to talk about here but when you we we

35:48

35 minutes, 48 seconds

lived in the same house for 12 years I knew where every light switch was where every plug was knew the random little

35:56

35 minutes, 56 seconds

thing like the where was the scotch tape I could tell you exactly not only what drawer but what side of the drawer that

36:04

36 minutes, 4 seconds

the Scotch tape was in. So, there's there was such a familiarity with our house and the quirks of our house that I just knew it. It was my my comfort zone.

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36 minutes, 15 seconds

And then we moved uh several times actually to to get to where we are now.

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36 minutes, 20 seconds

And that feeling of being in a place all of your stuff is in boxes.

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36 minutes, 26 seconds

You you need something. You need the scotch tape. And I'm like, I can't even remember which box I put the scotch tape

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36 minutes, 34 seconds

in. And then there's this feeling of like craziness. You're like, am I I'm losing it. I I I just need my stuff. I

36:42

36 minutes, 42 seconds

need to know where everything is. And I need to just be able to live in my house and know where stuff is. That to me is software change.

36:52

36 minutes, 52 seconds

It's it's unbearable quite honestly because everything has every surrounding has changed.

37:01

37 minutes, 1 second

Every drawer is different. The contents are different. You may not even have drawers anymore.

37:06

37 minutes, 6 seconds

It's new. So I think my personality type though where I finally was like this is going to be a

37:16

37 minutes, 16 seconds

it's one thing if it only impacts me but at this point it is it is impacting my productivity and people relying on a paycheck and

37:25

37 minutes, 25 seconds

patients still expecting the same. They don't know that I've moved.

37:29

37 minutes, 29 seconds

They're still expecting me to deliver that scotch tape that package very quickly that I need the scotch tape for.

37:34

37 minutes, 34 seconds

and I that I'm afraid I'm not gonna be delivering. I don't know what's going to end up in their box that they get that

37:42

37 minutes, 42 seconds

I'm taping shut with something and it was that was too much pressure for me. Yeah.

37:47

37 minutes, 47 seconds

Um anyway, I know this is not a conversation about switching to cloud-based. It was just I think that's where I was and I and I love I love the

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37 minutes, 54 seconds

the two main things that you said that I found particularly helpful for me in specific is one look at the features. I don't have to jump all in.

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38 minutes, 4 seconds

Correct. And two, um, what was the other big thing you said? Oh, that were kind of at the forefront.

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38 minutes, 11 seconds

And you're right, like you know, was I by sheer nature of me starting a practice, I had to go

38:20

38 minutes, 20 seconds

uh digital charts, paper charts were were not an option. Um, digital x-rays were not an option.

38:28

38 minutes, 28 seconds

You know, like that for me was when I was starting my practice, I would say it was probably at a time where 50% of

38:34

38 minutes, 34 seconds

offices had digital and 50% were still film film. And so I'm like, well, I I could do either. Yeah,

38:43

38 minutes, 43 seconds

film seems really comfortable and a lot cheaper, but let me not be a dinosaur.

38:47

38 minutes, 47 seconds

Let me move forward with digital. Um, so I think that, you know, now kind of going, okay, I'm not behind.

38:56

38 minutes, 56 seconds

Yeah. But I need to not not look into this stuff either. Yeah.

39:00

39 minutes

I need to start looking into at least what options are so that when the pain points do present themselves. For example, like this summer, we're going to lose one of our rockstar front desks.

39:09

39 minutes, 9 seconds

She's having a baby and she's not coming back. Yeah. So now I'm like, do I hire a new person?

39:14

39 minutes, 14 seconds

I really don't want to. How much of this can I automate? Yeah.

39:17

39 minutes, 17 seconds

And so now I can start looking at those features because the situation has presented itself.

39:23

39 minutes, 23 seconds

Exactly. But to your point, I'm glad you said this because realistic expectations is a lot of times where I misjudge things. And you're right, it is a

39:32

39 minutes, 32 seconds

realistic expectation would be I'm not going to,

39:35

39 minutes, 35 seconds

you know, it's going to take some sampling of Yes.

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39 minutes, 38 seconds

things to figure out which one is going to work for us.

39:42

39 minutes, 42 seconds

Exactly. Yeah. And and that's okay.

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39 minutes, 43 seconds

And be patient with that process. It'll be worth looking through it and finding the right tool for your tool belt. So, don't don't tire out and be like, "Oh,

39:52

39 minutes, 52 seconds

all AI is is trash cuz look at how terrible this was." Nope. There's probably two or three other options that you should most definitely look into.

40:01

40 minutes, 1 second

This client that's a techie, could I hire him? Yeah. Do you listen, friend? Cuz if you do,

40:07

40 minutes, 7 seconds

I'll pay you. Can you come tell me what AI features I need? And can you come can you come implement and make it happen? And yeah,

40:16

40 minutes, 16 seconds

it's true. Yeah, he he could make a living off of that for sure. So So yeah,

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40 minutes, 21 seconds

I would say don't be afraid of the AI world. It's definitely not, you know,

40:25

40 minutes, 25 seconds

the scary thing is, oh, it's going to overtake everything and we aren't going to have a job. I do not see that happening. I see some really helpful

40:31

40 minutes, 31 seconds

features that are new. They're, you know, baby giraffes at this point, but they are helpful. And so I think it's

40:39

40 minutes, 39 seconds

worth starting to dabble in looking into things, but start with maybe one. Unless you're going software change, start with

40:47

40 minutes, 47 seconds

just one thing, test that out, implement that, and then go, "Oh, wow. That went so well. Now we're going to look into

40:55

40 minutes, 55 seconds

something else." And so just take it a step at a time. Love it. Thank you. You're welcome.

41:01

41 minutes, 1 second

Thanks for joining the conversation today. We hope that you are comforted in knowing that you are not alone, but we also hope that you're walking away with

41:09

41 minutes, 9 seconds

some really great tips and tricks to try in your practice.

41:14

41 minutes, 14 seconds

We value your feedback, so please take a few moments to rate and review the podcast. Finally, we want to make sure

41:22

41 minutes, 22 seconds

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41 minutes, 29 seconds

let us know what topics you want us to cover. As always, please know that we are rooting for you today as you manage your dental drama.