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Hello. This is Ariana Porto Latin with the

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Becker's Dental and DSU Review podcast. I'm thrilled

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to be joined today by doctor Julian Osorio,

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the owner of South Boston Dental Group. Doctor

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Osorio, thank you so much for being here

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today. Start us off, can you introduce yourself

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and tell our listeners a little bit about

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your background?

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Yes. I'm a prosthodontist.

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Originally

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went to dental school in Columbus, South America.

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Came to The US in 1981

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to go to graduate school at Boston University

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where I got my master's in prosthodontics,

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in 1984.

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I immediately

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after that, I went

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and I taught full time at university,

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undergrad and postgraduate departments

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until '92

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where I went into private practice. I started

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in private practice kind of part time ish

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in '88,

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but I went full time into private practice

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in '2 '20 in 1992.

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But I did a state teaching part time,

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and I did that for the next thirty

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years.

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Several dental practices

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for a while.

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Did some,

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DSO

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or, like,

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startup in nineteen ninety six, ninety seven.

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Unfortunately,

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the

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group that I was working with,

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their

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structure wasn't suitable

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for a successful company, which went on there

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after a while.

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But then I practice clinical dentistry. I

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love doing what I do, but I also

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understand I like the business of dentistry.

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Thank you so much for for sharing that

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background for us.

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My first question here for you, what are

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some of the biggest issues that you're following

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in the dental industry right now?

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Well, this is quite a a changing environment

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from what I started

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and, basically, from my training.

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Basically, I trained way before

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a lot of the new technologies how to

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make dentistry better and simpler.

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So the the the the

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the the professionals evolve

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drastically.

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But

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it's a changing world, and,

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I would say that COVID really changed everything.

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Like most small businesses in urban metropolitan areas,

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The structure of the workplace changed, so they

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they changed the way that we practice too.

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There are there are definitely

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many challenges,

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hiring,

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retaining,

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raising

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cost on all that space,

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decreased reimbursement by insurance,

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payers

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is definitely a challenge. I think it's still

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exciting to be doing the industry. Technology has

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made it much easier

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to do a lot of procedures, especially for

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people who are more highly skilled. The technology

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allows them

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to,

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like,

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go over so much just shortcomings.

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So,

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yeah, that's more or less where where we

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are.

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That's more or less where we are.

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Great. Thank you so much. That kinda goes

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into, my next question for you here. What

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are you most excited about when it comes

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to dentistry right now, and is there anything

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about the industry right now that

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makes you nervous?

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Excited.

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I definitely would love all we and and

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we embrace all the technologies. We are totally

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digitally

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on board with every all the technologies from

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scanning to

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diagnosing

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to ITI, AI

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diagnosing.

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All that stuff just makes it actually very

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nice. I'm very good. I'm very easy

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to do a lot of the procedures.

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I would say the biggest challenge is,

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and I as I see owning a large

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dental practice with, multiple

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providers and employees

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is the human resource part of the profession.

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It's definitely getting harder than harder every day.

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We, We however, we have noticed in the

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last few months that it's starting to get

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easier and better.

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During the pandemic, if we put an ad

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to recruit an assistant or a hygienist or

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a dentist,

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We get no responses. Or the people who

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respond will make an appointment to come for

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an for

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a interview and never showed up.

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We are lately having a lot of more

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people coming in

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and looking for jobs.

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So that is seems to be easing a

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little bit,

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but it's still a challenge. And especially the

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cost of the human resources

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is really

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increasing

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drastically. I would say that,

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in my hygiene division, I have

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around 12 hygienists that work in different shifts.

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I overall, it's like an eight a full

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time equivalency.

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And the

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increase

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in salaries has really affected the bottom line,

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but we don't have any choice,

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especially when

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we are also confronted with the temporary

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staffing services

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who

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recruit a lot of people

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and work for them, and they charge

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excessive fees to us. But it makes it

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attractive for the people who are out there

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to work with them because they make eventually

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more money. We have

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tried to over the last two years to

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stay away from that in as much as

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possible.

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And we are overhiring

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just to make sure that we are overstocked,

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not understaffed.

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From the provider point of view, the dentist

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is actually easy.

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I definitely find a deficit on the quality

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or the education and the training that the

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dentists are getting.

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I guess, has a lot of to do

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with economics where

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by when I was in dental school and

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when I was teaching in the early years

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in the eighties and nineties,

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we had an abundant

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resource and amount of patients coming into the

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into the clinic so our students

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have the opportunity to get a good training,

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a good experience.

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This day is these days is very, very

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limited.

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And I find myself

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even though, unfortunately, I've been an educator, so

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I know how to do it, but I

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find myself retraining

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the trained dentist, which is wasn't the the

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case

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in the earlier days. Pretty much anybody I

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hired back then will

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hit the ground running. Now

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it's it's it's a little bit more complicated

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because of the lack of clinical experience there,

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the the the clinical providers.

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Oh, I don't know. Maybe that answered your

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question.

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Yeah. Definitely. Definitely some interesting points that you

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mentioned there.

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So thank you so much for for sharing

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those.

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And next question here, what will the most

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effective health care leaders need to be successful

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in the next two to three years?

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Well, I think that

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I know that a lot of people put

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emphasis on the quality of dentistry.

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I think that's a given. If I go

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and to buy an iPhone, I expect the

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phone to receive phone calls, to my phone

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calls, to get email, to send email.

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So the quality of the procedures shouldn't be

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couldn't be it's it's it's a given.

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The

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but

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the

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ability to understand the business

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to

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even though

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I'm not

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I would love to see different

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reimbursement systems,

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but it's not gonna happen. It happened already

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in medicine

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where most of the medical providers became employees

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of the large hospital corporations.

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We have to learn how to

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work

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within the pay ins in within the payer

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system of the industry and

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drive that payer system to

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that benefits everybody. Benefits the patient, benefits benefits

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the payers, and benefits benefits the providers.

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That is a challenge. It's, I'm trying to

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get them to understand.

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Unfortunately,

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I've been in a metropolitan area with a

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large

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dent dental. I have, I consolidated my two

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big practices in Boston into one big one

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in,

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at the Seaport 4 Point Channel, which is

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a big metropolitan area,

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where I have 18 operating rooms with,

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another seven dentists, and as I said before,

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with the a good number of hygienists.

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And I understand that

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we have

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it's it's the challenge is to manage. We

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we become businesses. We become business more than

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just a a a practice

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that you came to work and

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and, collected whatever you did, and you did

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did well. You got a paycheck, and you

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went home. Now we have to understand

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every single minutia of the business going on.

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We have to understand

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what are we paying for supplies, what are

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we paying for

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staffing, what are we paying for dental laboratory

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fees, what are we paying for,

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all the other ex all the other

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payables, you know, from legal to

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real estate to

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all all that? You have to become

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it's more it's more a business than anything

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else. We have to understand that. If the

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people don't understand that, they are not going

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to succeed.

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Great. Thank you so much for for sharing

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that insight there. Well, that is all I

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have for you today. Those are all my

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questions, doctor Zuriya. So thank you so much

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for joining us today on our podcast.

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It's been a pleasure speaking with you, and

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I look forward to connecting with you again

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in the future. Sure.