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Imagine this. You're in the heart of Chicago

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mingling with the brightest minds in health IT.

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You've arrived at the 9th annual Health IT

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plus Digital Health plus RCM conference

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taking place October 1st through 4th at the

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luxurious Hyatt Regency Chicago.

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Picture the excitement as you collect countless business

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cards, forging invaluable connections with over 25 100

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executive level attendees.

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Feel the buzz of ideas flowing as you

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engage in meaningful conversations about the future of

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healthcare technology.

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Envision yourself attending sessions led by over 415

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elite speakers

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gaining insights that could transform your organization.

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From digital transformation and telehealth to clinician burnout

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and cybersecurity,

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each topic is designed to spark new ideas

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and provide actionable takeaways, but it doesn't stop

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there. Imagine sitting in a packed auditorium listening

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to motivating keynotes from some of the biggest

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names in sports.

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Four time Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski,

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WNBA champion and author Lisa Leslie, and NFL

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legend and ESPN analyst

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Eli Manning will be there sharing their stories

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and inspiring you to reach new heights.

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All around you, the future of Health IT

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unfolds, and you're not just a spectator,

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you're an active participant.

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Don't wait. You can find the event website

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and get

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by visiting beckershospitalreview.com

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and clicking on the events page. That's the

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beckershospitalreview.com

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events page.

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Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.

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I'm Mariah Mohammed, writer and moderator with Becker's

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Healthcare. And I'm thrilled to have with me

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today Alexander Eidenbinder,

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dentist at Caterpillar Dental. Alex, welcome to Becker's

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Healthcare podcast. We're very excited to have you

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join us today. To get us started, would

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you mind please introducing yourself and telling us

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a bit about your background?

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Yes. My name is Alex Einbinder.

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Happy to be on the podcast today,

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and I'm a dentist. I own offices here

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in New York,

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and I'm a primarily implant dentist at this

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point. I also do surgery

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and manage offices.

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I have 2 right now and looking to

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expand

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in the New York area as well as

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other areas, starting my own DSL, essentially.

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And one part of my philosophy is, you

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know, increasing accessibility to care, you know, affordable

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care

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at everyday prices, essentially.

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Wonderful. That absolutely sounds excellent. I'm actually in

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the New York area too. I'm in Brooklyn

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right now.

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So I think this is a perfect next

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question for me to ask you.

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New York is kind of, you know, the

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spot for a lot of news that's happening.

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What are some of the biggest issues you're

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following in dental, whether it is in New

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York City,

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or just in in in the nation?

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Yeah. So as I said, access to care,

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I think, is one of the biggest issues.

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You know, there's real health disparities. And it's

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not in, like, the big cities as much,

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but you see it in rural areas.

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There's just a lot of barriers. There's not

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enough dentists out there,

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but there's a lot of patients who probably

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need dentistry the most.

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So that's a big issue and it's not

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something with a simple solution.

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But if there's ways that we as providers

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could keep our costs down,

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we could pass that on to the patient

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and really get patients into the dentist more.

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I think

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a lot of that starts with education, but

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there's a lot of

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growth in dentistry right now and technology and

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everything, but I think we're starting to lose

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sight of what about basic bread and butter

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dentistry for the masses, for the people who

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need it most who may have an insurance

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that a lot of dentists have to drop

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and the dentists have to drop the insurance

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because

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you know, the truth is that

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the insurance companies are paying outdated

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fee schedules.

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So that's also another major problem in dentistry

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that I'm following because it's, you know to

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me, I think, in

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dentistry that I'm following because it's, you know

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to me, I think that's that's a big

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disparity is that the dentists aren't getting paid

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enough by the insurance company, so they're dropping

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the insurances, and the patients who have the

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insurance aren't getting the

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aren't getting the care they need. So something

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needs to be done there.

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Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Access to care is definitely

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something that needs to be a focus point

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for all of us, I would say. I

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love how you say bread and butter dentistry.

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I think that's a really great phrase that

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kinda highlights,

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you know, what you're following and what I

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think all of us kinda needs to go

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back to. Is there anything that is making

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you excited or nervous, whether it's in the

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news or anything that you're doing personally?

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So, yeah, personally as well as in the

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news, I think I'm most excited about, you

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know, just

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advancing digitally.

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A, I think artificial intelligence, as we all

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know at this point, we're all hearing about

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that. That's a big buzzword now. That's going

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to revolutionize dentistry. It is already. It's happening

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right now. And all the companies are starting

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to use artificial intelligence or all the relevant

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companies.

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And if you don't adapt with artificial intelligence

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and digital dentistry and digital scanning and 3

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d printing, you know, I think you're gonna

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if you're gonna lose you're not gonna you're

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gonna lose the race essentially,

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in the next 10, 20 years.

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And

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for me, I think the 3 d printing

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and digital technology that we have now is

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just so much more advanced than taking impressions.

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So that's something I'm really following. I see

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every single day, you know, new advances coming

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on and dentistry is really catching up, in

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terms of technology. I think in the past,

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15 years, dentistry was always kind of behind

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medicine, but I think it's really catching up

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now.

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And something even more in the future that

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I've been excited about is bio printing, which

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I don't hear as much about because it's

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so new, but this is actually using

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live tissue

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and printing it in a 3 d method,

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just like 3 d printing, but they're finding

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scaffolds of live tissue to put back into

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for a bone graft or for periodontal surgery

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or even for pulp. They're learning how to

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print, you know, new teeth actually.

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And I think that's a little bit further

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out there, you know, but

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that's something I'm definitely following because I think

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that's, you know, changing from, you know, patching

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up a filling to actually creating new tooth

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structure

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or an implant that's not titanium,

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that's actually biocompatible

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with the human body that can go into

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that socket,

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that's a big deal. That's definitely going to

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be revolutionary.

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I think on the flip side, as you

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say, what makes me nervous is that everything's

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going digital.

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So I think there's a big issue with

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data security, and we've seen that.

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We've seen big companies get hacked, and there's

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people out there who wanna hack companies, and

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this is sensitive information. So that's something if

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everything goes digital, you know, and it's all

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on the computer, it needs to be safeguarded,

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and that's, I think, something where that gets

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overlooked a lot. That's something that needs to

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grow, actually.

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Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really, really good

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insight. And, you know, data security is something

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that Becker's repeatedly reports on every single day.

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And I feel like every week, there is

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another new break about how, you know, hackers

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have hacked into some huge system.

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I think it was worrying a lot of

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at least the big health care systems,

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as it should.

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Alexander, before I let you go, the last

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thing I really want to ask you is,

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what would the most effective health care leaders

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need in order to be successful in the

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next 2 to 3 years, do you think?

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Yeah. So I think

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just to piggyback on what I've been saying,

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you need to be forward thinking. So

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today, you know, we have technology, but it's

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gonna change, and things are constantly changing.

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AI is improving. So you need to adapt

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to the change.

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You need to constantly be changing because people

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who stay stagnant,

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those businesses

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get eaten up by other businesses, let's just

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face it, because you need to

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be current, but also forward looking. I think

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the companies that are 5 years ahead of

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the curve or 3 years ahead of the

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curve are going to do better than the

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ones that are just

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embracing one technology,

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but not constantly staying curious and learning about

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what the future holds,

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because let's face it, technology is advancing pretty

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quick these days, especially

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now in 2024,

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faster than we've ever seen. So embracing technology,

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but also I think building the offices that

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you have, If you're a leader and you

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have a lot of dental offices or medical

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offices,

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you need to keep good staff. You need

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to retain

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your key players

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because without the top staff,

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the dental office or medical office, it's just

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a shell.

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So it's all about the team. You need

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to be, you know, supportive of your team.

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The team wants to grow. You know? The

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team just doesn't wanna just stay in a

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stagnant,

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you know, position and just do the same

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thing every day. They wanna feel like they

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could grow with the company

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and that there's movement for them upwards. So

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that's something definitely that I think leaders need

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to work on is, you know, keeping staff

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because a lot of these bigger dental companies

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I see them and it's just like constant

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turnover

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even at the office level too, which is

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difficult I think for the patients to keep

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seeing new faces and having to onboard new

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staff. If you could keep your key staff,

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that's that's really important,

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and that would help you grow your office.

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And it's not easy,

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but it takes, you know, like, you

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know, leading and and showing your face and

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being there and, you know, caring and throwing,

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you know, a a quarterly event or whatever

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it takes, but you gotta keep yourself.

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But having a a vision of your future,

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you know, you have to know where you

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wanna go and kind of work backwards and

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engineer it to get

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there. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I completely, completely agree.

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And thank you so much for those final

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thoughts, Alexander. It's definitely been an informative discussion.

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So, again, I wanna thank you so much

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for coming on Becker's HealthCare.

270
00:09:42,990 --> 00:09:44,429
I look forward to connecting with you again

271
00:09:44,429 --> 00:09:46,825
soon. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. It

272
00:09:46,825 --> 00:09:47,565
was a pleasure.

273
00:09:48,024 --> 00:09:48,764
Thank you.