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Hello. This is Arianna Portolatin with the Becker's
Dental and DSO Review podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by doctor
Alexander Einbinder, owner of Grace Dental Smiles and
Caterpillar Dental. Doctor Einbinder, thank you so much
for being here today. To start us off,
can you introduce yourself and tell us a
little bit about about your background?
Yes. So my name is doctor Alex Ironbinder.
I'm a dentist in New York focusing on
implants, and I'm an entrepreneurial dentist. And I
have 2 offices right now in New York,
so working on managing those as well as
going back and forth and practicing clinically.
Okay. Great. Thank you so much for that.
What are some of the biggest issues that
you're following in the dental industry right now?
Yes. I think one big issue is
access to care because there's just not enough
dentists in certain areas
in the country
as well as a lot of people can't
afford the dentistry that they really need. And
then there's the insurance problem
where it's kind of a battle between the
dentist and the insurance.
The cost of insurance
is going up, and they're not paying as
much money back to the dentist. So,
you know, there's kind of that battle going
on. Going into I I know you mentioned
dental care accessibility. I know a big issue
in the industry right now. What do you
think has what are some of the things
that you think have led up to,
this kind of large shortage of of dentists
that we've had, recently?
I think a lot of dentists, you know,
they wanna work in they wanna live and
work in certain areas of the country.
So there's like geographic disparity, there's a lot
of rural areas that are just very underserved
where there's patients who need it,
but not enough dentist who want to actually
be there.
And then there's obviously like the cost barriers
that prevent patients from getting the proper care.
And so the provider shortages plus patients can't
afford to have dental insurance.
So they're stuck with other insurances like Medicaid,
which really doesn't have the best coverage as
we know.
So that's another big barrier of entry to
get proper care.
Yeah. Definitely.
And I know you mentioned,
issues with insurance challenges
also. What are some of the,
the challenges that you're seeing there with providers
or with payers? Excuse me.
From insurance carriers,
I think the big problem is that a
lot of their
fee schedules are pretty outdated.
So the reimbursement rate is very low compared
to the cost of running a dental office,
which has been going up because of inflation.
We see that across the board, but especially
in dental, I think buying the necessary supplies
to offer the best care for our patients.
But then if you're also taking insurance, you're
not getting paid
as much as it costs. And another big
problem is that
salaries of assistant hygienists,
front desk managers,
they all want more money.
And
the problem with that is that we're getting
the same insurance reimbursement, but we're paying out
more money for supplies,
for good staff,
for
rent, for everything.
So that's a big barrier and issue that
we have right now that has to be
tackled.
I think there's also just to add on
that, there's also all the patients that always
come in and they're just frustrated and they
don't understand, well, I pay for insurance, why
isn't this covered
Or how come I have to pay out
of pocket?
So that's another issue.
Or
they need a necessary treatment, but it's not
covered by the insurance, but they're paying for
the insurance.
So that's a big struggle right now,
kind of educating the patients on why they
need the treatment and educating them about how
insurance works. You know? It doesn't it's not
a perfect world.
Right. Okay. And next question here. What are
you most excited about when it comes to
dentistry right now? And is there anything that
makes you nervous about the industry?
Yeah. I would say I'm most excited about
a lot of these new technologies that are
coming out. There's a lot of
new exciting technologies such as, artificial intelligence.
And that's from like the clinical perspective as
well as running a front desk effectively.
It's saving us a lot of time and
becoming more efficient.
And there's also a lot of 3 d
printing going on
and we're actually being able to print crowns
and dentures as well.
So I think that's awesome. At the same
time, technology costs more money and I think
a lot of dental offices,
if we're taking insurance or Medicaid offices, they're
not going to have enough available money to
buy the technology. And then there's also
technology fails sometimes and you have to call
support and something breaks and somebody has to
come in and fix it and these are
all, you know, extra
costs to the dentist. But at the same
time, I think the technology is making a
lot of treatment much better as well at
the same time. So there's a lot of
cool things coming out right now.
Yeah. And I'm sure technology plays a big
factor in your role as a dental implant
specialist as well.
Regarding your 2 practices that you have, have
you found it challenging to add new technology
there?
I think the challenge for me is that,
you know, you have to learn it. So
there's a little bit of barrier in the
beginning. You have to train your staff on
how to use it. It's like coming up
with, an effective and efficient method of, like,
if you're gonna print crowns in the office,
like, the assistants have to know how to
do some of the work or else you're
stuck doing all the work. You know, they
have to help out with, you know, pouring
the resin and all that thing, cleaning
and setting up for new prints and all
that stuff. So
there's also
digital scanning. You have to train your systems
how to scan.
So while it is better, there also is
like a little bit of barrier in the
beginning. And then I've also had a lot
of issues with,
like I said, technology, things break
or a wire breaks or the Internet goes
out for a little while or something's just
not working properly. You have to call support.
It all takes energy and time. So
that's one thing is that you always have
you could always take an impression that's not
going to get That's not gonna get messed
up. But if you're taking a scan and
there's something wrong with the scanner,
you know, you're offline for a week or
whatnot.
Right. Okay.
And was there anything in particular that makes
you nervous about the industry right now?
I would say what makes me nervous is,
you know, the insurance problem, lack of care,
and I would say just adapting to the
new technology,
you know, because like I said, not all
practices are, like, ready to be equipped with
the new technology, but some people I think
you get ahead of yourself, you want the
newest technology, but at the same time, you
just don't have like the space in your
office to do it. And it starts to
just lead to like you just invested all
this money, but you can't really use it
effectively.
So you're back to, like, the traditional way.
So I think it's, you know, having every
having the workflow down first and, you know,
you have to study some of the stuff
to be able to use it.
Okay.
Yeah. That makes sense.
Last question here. What will the most effective
health care leaders need to be successful within
the next 2 to 3 years?
Yeah. I think, you know, adapting to all
the change that's going on with the workflows,
you know, onboarding
good marketing companies because people have to know
about you and then having the right staff
that stays and knows how to run the
office effectively
as well
as embracing new technologies such as
in office keeping things in office such as
like the 3 d scanner,
your in house using digital scans
and 3 d printing
and as well as just having good systems
in place.
And
one issue would be like the
staffing issues going on. But if you get
the right staff in place, I think that's
very important.
And just
using data
to make decisions. I think there's a lot
of different companies out there that you could
use that track all the metrics and just
staying up to date on like how many
new patients, how many cancellations,
all your appointments, just knowing
what's your treatment
percentage that you're selling your treatment, what is
your closing rate all that, just
effectively
seeing that data and adjusting to the times
because we're constantly
going up and down with dental treatment and
staying staying abreast the numbers and and being
able to run an effective office is critical.
Mhmm. Definitely.
Well, thank you for joining us today, doctor
Einbinder. It's nice speaking with you, and I
look forward to connecting with you again in
the future.
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.