1 00:00:00,180 --> 00:00:03,980 Hello everyone. I'm Ryan Mohamed with Becker's Hospital Review. 2 00:00:03,980 --> 00:00:07,300 Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Becker's Healthcare podcast 3 00:00:07,300 --> 00:00:10,900 series. Today I'm excited to be joined by Dan Fahe, 4 00:00:10,900 --> 00:00:12,460 head of marketing at Next Health, 5 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:16,660 who spoke with more than 500 dentists and the survey to get a sense of how 6 00:00:16,660 --> 00:00:18,260 they're feeling about 2023. 7 00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:22,820 The conversation is full of a lot of insights on how dentists can grow their 8 00:00:23,020 --> 00:00:27,100 practices, even when facing a lot of uncertainty in the economy. Dame, 9 00:00:27,100 --> 00:00:29,100 thank you so much for joining us today. How are you? 10 00:00:29,570 --> 00:00:31,420 I am doing great. Yeah. Excited to be here. 11 00:00:31,800 --> 00:00:34,660 Yes, I am. So excited to talk to you today. Um, 12 00:00:34,660 --> 00:00:36,820 and with that we can dive right into our discussion. 13 00:00:37,110 --> 00:00:40,700 So to kind of get a good basis, the first thing I wanted to ask you is, 14 00:00:40,810 --> 00:00:42,940 what is the state of Dental report? 15 00:00:43,450 --> 00:00:47,060 It's actually, uh, it's a good question and kind of an interesting story. So, 16 00:00:47,060 --> 00:00:50,420 you know, two years ago we were searching for some data. We figured, 17 00:00:50,420 --> 00:00:52,900 so must be looking at what dentists are doing, 18 00:00:52,970 --> 00:00:56,980 asking 'em questions and trying to map trends. Uh, and we kept hitting blanks. 19 00:00:56,980 --> 00:00:58,220 We couldn't find any, uh, 20 00:00:58,220 --> 00:01:03,020 really good current data on what is happening in the dental healthcare industry. 21 00:01:03,190 --> 00:01:06,260 Uh, so we decided to do our survey ourselves. So we actually went out, 22 00:01:06,310 --> 00:01:08,340 we spoke with more than 500 dentists, 23 00:01:08,340 --> 00:01:12,060 and last year we really focused the report on what are they doing to improve the 24 00:01:12,060 --> 00:01:14,380 experience of the patient. We called it the year of the patient. 25 00:01:14,610 --> 00:01:17,860 This year we wanted to take a little bit of a different tact, uh, 26 00:01:17,860 --> 00:01:22,380 and we wanted to focus on elite revenue growth practices. So we went out, again, 27 00:01:22,380 --> 00:01:25,060 surveyed more than 500, uh, dentists, 28 00:01:25,060 --> 00:01:28,980 and we looked at what are the best of the best the elite practices doing to keep 29 00:01:28,980 --> 00:01:30,980 growing the revenue every single year. 30 00:01:30,980 --> 00:01:35,380 So the state of Dental 2023 is all about elite practices and how they keep 31 00:01:35,380 --> 00:01:35,830 growing. 32 00:01:35,830 --> 00:01:37,580 Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing. 33 00:01:37,580 --> 00:01:40,260 And in the report you study elite practices. 34 00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:42,860 How are you defining elite practice? 35 00:01:43,050 --> 00:01:47,020 Yeah, so we broke out the report into a few different audiences. We looked at, 36 00:01:47,070 --> 00:01:48,940 uh, practices that saw, uh, 37 00:01:49,260 --> 00:01:53,740 negative revenue growth in 2022 practices that saw average revenue growth. 38 00:01:53,740 --> 00:01:58,620 So zero to 20% and in the elite group are practices that grew more than 20% 39 00:01:58,620 --> 00:02:03,540 last year, and only 6% of the total practices grew more than 20%. 40 00:02:03,670 --> 00:02:07,780 So we wanted to study what are those 6% of practices doing to kind of keep 41 00:02:07,940 --> 00:02:12,260 hitting that benchmark. And a few things jump out. One, they hate cancellations. 42 00:02:12,260 --> 00:02:14,660 They are at war against cancellations. 43 00:02:14,660 --> 00:02:17,860 They do everything they can to minimize cancellations. Uh, 44 00:02:17,860 --> 00:02:20,140 if you think about it, right, you have your office manager, 45 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:22,540 you have your hygienist, you have your dentist in there, 46 00:02:22,740 --> 00:02:27,020 and if you have an empty chair, no one is making any revenue. We actually had a, 47 00:02:27,020 --> 00:02:31,420 a practice Nobo dental, uh, that uses nexel as weightless feature. Uh, 48 00:02:31,420 --> 00:02:34,260 and basically they, what they do is if they ever get a cancellation, 49 00:02:34,260 --> 00:02:37,900 they ping out all apostle people that might have an appointment coming up to 50 00:02:37,900 --> 00:02:39,940 fill that chair, and they see $3,000, 51 00:02:39,940 --> 00:02:44,900 $3,000 in new revenue every week just from using nextels wait list feature 52 00:02:45,230 --> 00:02:47,660 to go war against cancellations. Uh, 53 00:02:47,660 --> 00:02:51,620 the second thing that elite practices do is they really have adopted Silicon 54 00:02:51,620 --> 00:02:55,180 Valley style metrics, so kind of unusual metrics to measure their business. 55 00:02:55,270 --> 00:02:57,620 An example of that would be return rate. Uh, 56 00:02:57,620 --> 00:03:01,600 so the best practices return 85% of patients. What that means, 57 00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:04,840 if you come in for once there's a, uh, 85% chance or more, 58 00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:06,840 you will come back for a second appointment. 59 00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:09,120 So that's really important is how do they get appoint, uh, 60 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:10,280 patients to keep coming back. 61 00:03:10,330 --> 00:03:14,600 Another example is optimizing the number of patients. Each provider, uh, 62 00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:15,330 sees you to stay. 63 00:03:15,330 --> 00:03:19,680 So the best practices we find the providers are seeing more than 11 patients per 64 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:23,520 day. Uh, the third thing that lead practices do is they really kind of automate 65 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:26,880 everything. They automate the reminders online, booking their forms, 66 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:27,480 their payments. 67 00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:31,320 They've really adopted technology and that really helps improve the lives of 68 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:32,400 their staff, uh, 69 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:35,560 and makes it easier for their staff to really spend their time focusing on the 70 00:03:35,560 --> 00:03:36,393 patient experience. 71 00:03:36,830 --> 00:03:39,320 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing those. 72 00:03:39,420 --> 00:03:44,240 And what are some of the 2023 predictions from the report if you could share? 73 00:03:44,390 --> 00:03:48,360 Yeah, so we in the report had a whole prediction section on 2023. 74 00:03:48,620 --> 00:03:51,400 One really interesting thing is that dentists, 75 00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:54,080 like many of us are not very optimistic about the economy. 76 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:57,240 Only 20% of dentists believe, uh, 77 00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:00,440 that the economy is gonna be in a good shape in 2023. 78 00:04:00,580 --> 00:04:04,560 But what was kind of crazy is that 63% are, uh, 79 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:07,320 63% dentists are optimistic about their business. 80 00:04:07,530 --> 00:04:10,080 So even though they don't really think the economy's in great shape, 81 00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:11,800 they feel really good about their business. 82 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:15,320 Even the ones that actually had negative revenue growth in 2022, 83 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:18,160 most of them think they're gonna actually see revenue growth in 2023. 84 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:21,800 So dentists are very optimistic about growing their practices. 85 00:04:22,030 --> 00:04:25,760 A second prediction we saw is that patient loyalty is up. Uh, 86 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:28,840 patient loyalty has actually increased since pre pandemic. 87 00:04:28,840 --> 00:04:32,640 Dentists are seeing patients stick with them and be more loyal. Uh, 88 00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:36,400 and really a lot of the metrics that dentists are focusing on is not acquiring 89 00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:37,720 new patients. That's always important, 90 00:04:37,820 --> 00:04:41,560 but how do they increase the number of appointments out of existing patients? 91 00:04:41,850 --> 00:04:45,280 Uh, the third prediction, uh, that we saw and more of a negative note, 92 00:04:45,410 --> 00:04:49,320 is that this is gonna be a really difficult year for practices to retain their 93 00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:49,640 staff. 94 00:04:49,640 --> 00:04:53,440 That is the number one challenge that we heard from dentists is how do they keep 95 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:56,360 their staff and retain their, their great staff. Um, 96 00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:59,840 you've seen this with a very hot labor market, even with the down economy, 97 00:05:00,190 --> 00:05:02,120 that people have a lot of options today, 98 00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:04,920 particularly highly called staff and dentists office. 99 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:09,040 So retaining staff and the report talks a lot about techniques that those elite 100 00:05:09,280 --> 00:05:12,720 practices are doing to invest in their staff to make sure they don't lose that, 101 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:15,480 that really important office manager and the receptionist. 102 00:05:16,010 --> 00:05:19,800 Oh, yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for that insight. And you know, 103 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:24,480 we're all patients to someone and I'm curious to hear what dentists are doing 104 00:05:24,850 --> 00:05:27,080 to improve the patient experience. 105 00:05:27,790 --> 00:05:29,520 Well, I I, I'm curious, Mariah, 106 00:05:29,690 --> 00:05:32,200 if I had to kind of throw this question back at you, like what, 107 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:33,880 what's the thing that you're a patient, right? What, 108 00:05:33,880 --> 00:05:36,840 what do you get most frustrated at or what do you wish your dentist would do for 109 00:05:36,840 --> 00:05:37,230 you? 110 00:05:37,230 --> 00:05:39,440 Yeah, you know, that's a really good question. 111 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:41,480 Something that you mentioned earlier, 112 00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:45,640 trying to decrease the number of no-shows is those text messages are, you know, 113 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:49,400 people's lives. So also always sending those text messages. Yep. 114 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:51,360 Like a week before the appointment, 115 00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:55,080 two days before the appointment is really key for me, um, 116 00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:58,520 to make sure I have it written down a line planner and making sure I actually 117 00:05:58,520 --> 00:06:02,160 have the time if I do need to, you know, reschedule or something like that. 118 00:06:02,350 --> 00:06:06,480 Yeah, you know, it, it's, I love that answer. Uh, we, we asked in the, 119 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:10,480 the survey, what is the number one complaint that you hear from patients? 120 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:13,840 And actually top complaint was hard to reschedule, and it makes a lot of sense, 121 00:06:13,840 --> 00:06:17,240 right? You go to the dentist, uh, you finish your appointment often, you're, 122 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:21,240 you're filling out some sort of, uh, card that postcard that's gonna be, uh, 123 00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:23,080 sent to you six months later, you know, Hey, 124 00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:25,400 you have an appointment in February. It's like, sure, you know, 125 00:06:25,400 --> 00:06:26,240 I'm free in August. 126 00:06:26,310 --> 00:06:30,400 August comes around and suddenly that Tuesday in the middle of August is booked 127 00:06:30,420 --> 00:06:33,440 and you need to reschedule. And it's really difficult. Uh, 128 00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:36,160 so hard reschedule is, is a top complaint. And patients, 129 00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:37,520 like you mentioned with the messaging, 130 00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:40,800 they want a consumer experience in healthcare and that, 131 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:43,520 and that's what we see where a lot of people that are working with Nexel is 132 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:45,600 saying, Hey, we wanna digitize our practice. 133 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:46,960 We wanna make it easy to reschedule. 134 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:50,000 And we actually launched a new feature called OneClick Booking that allows 135 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:53,160 patients to click once on a calendar and reschedule. And, 136 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:56,800 and patients really love that. Uh, a couple other complaints that jumped out. 137 00:06:56,970 --> 00:07:00,800 Uh, too much paperwork and missing reminders. Uh, so patients again, 138 00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:02,440 wanna make everything easy. 139 00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:05,080 So they want to fill out the paperwork before they come into the office. 140 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:08,280 They want those reminders through text. They don't wanna have to get a, 141 00:07:08,280 --> 00:07:10,200 a call or a voicemail through a reminder, 142 00:07:10,300 --> 00:07:13,400 and they want everything to be automated. Uh, one, one, uh, 143 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,560 practice we're working with Pinecrest Dental, uh, automate the reviews. 144 00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:18,720 So whenever a patient has a positive experience, 145 00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:23,000 they send 'em a review and they actually got more than 250 reviews on Google, 146 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,800 which really helps grow their practice. As, you know, 147 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:27,040 when you're looking at a practice, 148 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:28,800 you wanna make sure they have a lot of reviews. 149 00:07:28,850 --> 00:07:32,520 So even automating that level makes it much easier for the patients. 150 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:36,320 And reducing all the friction is what kind of those elite practices are doing 151 00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:37,520 for their, their patients. 152 00:07:37,670 --> 00:07:41,320 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that. And for you, 153 00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:43,200 what was the biggest surprise from the. 154 00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:44,320 Report? You know, 155 00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:49,040 one question we asked in 2023 that we didn't ask in 2022 was looking at social 156 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:52,520 media usage. Um, and I was actually really surprised by this. You know, 157 00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:55,480 dentists in general are, are very good at adopting social media, 158 00:07:55,730 --> 00:08:00,400 or 80% of respondents report that they're using social media to 159 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:03,240 promote their, their practices. And it makes a lot of sense. 160 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:07,120 Social media is actually one of the places that patient first looked to book an 161 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:11,520 appointment. 41%. This kind of blew me away. 41% of new, uh, 162 00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:12,840 appointments booked, um, 163 00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:16,640 come through seeing some sort of social media experience, uh, 164 00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:20,200 and of course the most popular forms of social media in order where, 165 00:08:20,200 --> 00:08:25,040 where Facebook as as number one, uh, Instagram and LinkedIn. Uh, again, 166 00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:29,360 what was surprising though was a very low adoption in TikTok. Uh, 167 00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:32,640 if you kind of look at TikTok, that's the fastest growing, uh, 168 00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:33,640 social media platform. 169 00:08:33,640 --> 00:08:36,720 It's the largest social media platform for basically everyone under 40, 170 00:08:36,940 --> 00:08:41,880 and only 8% of dentists are on TikTok. So this's a huge opportunity. It, 171 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:45,800 it could be feel a little bit foreign, uh, it can feel very, uh, different, 172 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:49,160 but if you're a dentist and you're trying to capture a really untapped audience, 173 00:08:49,410 --> 00:08:50,800 uh, TikTok would be a, 174 00:08:50,800 --> 00:08:54,320 a really great way to get a high return and really acquire a bunch of new 175 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:56,640 patients through that, that that channel. And we actually are, 176 00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:58,080 are coming out with a new, uh, 177 00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:02,960 guide@nexel.com on how dentists can really build out a TikTok 178 00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:03,400 strategy, 179 00:09:03,400 --> 00:09:07,520 I think will be really helpful for people as they start spinning up TikTok, uh, 180 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:08,720 based social campaigns. 181 00:09:08,990 --> 00:09:12,360 Yeah, that's very smart. Yeah. That's a, that's a good thing to, 182 00:09:12,380 --> 00:09:14,320 for them to be doing right now. 183 00:09:14,380 --> 00:09:18,680 And if you had to summarize the state of dental in 2023, 184 00:09:18,900 --> 00:09:21,320 how would you do that in a couple sentences? 185 00:09:21,900 --> 00:09:24,400 You know, it, it's a, it's a very media report, 186 00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:27,080 so it's hard to summarize in a few sentences, but, um, I, 187 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:30,960 I guess maybe I can share a few observations that kind of jumped out. Um, one, 188 00:09:31,090 --> 00:09:34,360 um, you should seek revenue growth next year. Most dentists are optimistic. 189 00:09:34,610 --> 00:09:36,520 We talked a little bit about that earlier. Uh, 190 00:09:36,520 --> 00:09:40,400 if you're not growing 20% or not expecting to grow 20%, uh, reader a report, 191 00:09:40,400 --> 00:09:44,800 we have a lot of ideas, a lot of learning from those elite practices, uh, 192 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:47,120 on what to do to grow more than 20% next year. 193 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:50,120 And that should be your benchmark as as a practice. Uh, 194 00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:54,640 the second big observation is that the best practices are obsessed 195 00:09:54,840 --> 00:09:58,880 with technology. They're focused on making sure their patients are coming back, 196 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:02,440 and they're doing that by really automating and reducing, uh, friction. 197 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:04,680 They're making it easy for patients to book. Uh, 198 00:10:04,680 --> 00:10:07,760 we saw one practice who was in that lead category, grand Streete Dental. 199 00:10:07,950 --> 00:10:12,440 They embed their online booking on their website, social email, even handout, 200 00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:16,600 physical cards, QR card. But they make it, uh, easy as possible book. 201 00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:20,040 They avoid cancellations and they also keep their patients engaged. 202 00:10:20,040 --> 00:10:21,560 It's not just those every six months, 203 00:10:21,560 --> 00:10:24,360 they're constantly sending an email posting on their social media. 204 00:10:24,530 --> 00:10:26,280 So patients are building relationships, 205 00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:30,280 and that's one of the reasons why we're seeing more loyalty from patients is 206 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:33,560 that they actually have a relationship with their dentists outside just going in 207 00:10:33,560 --> 00:10:36,880 and out of the office every six months. Uh, 208 00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:41,320 and then the third big observation is hold onto your staff for dear life. 209 00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:44,640 These people are so important, uh, to your practice. And again, 210 00:10:44,700 --> 00:10:48,200 the more you can automate your reminders, your scheduling, your booking, 211 00:10:48,380 --> 00:10:51,960 and not having your staff have to spend all day on their phones all day doing 212 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:56,440 double data entry, uh, into their, uh, uh, practice management system, 213 00:10:56,640 --> 00:10:59,600 allow your staff to focus on the patient experience. 214 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:01,080 That's what we've seen from staff. 215 00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:04,480 That gives 'em a lot of energy and we have a lot of tips on their board on what 216 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:07,080 you can do to, to really make sure your staff is invested, 217 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:10,440 but holding onto your staff and make sure retaining your staff should be one of 218 00:11:10,440 --> 00:11:12,880 your top priorities for any practice in 2023. 219 00:11:13,070 --> 00:11:17,000 Absolutely. I definitely agree. And before I let you go, um, 220 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:19,480 if someone like me wants to read the full report, where, 221 00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:20,520 where could they find it? 222 00:11:20,990 --> 00:11:25,760 Yeah, uh, just head over to xcel.com. It's nx uh, health uh, 223 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:29,080 dot com. Uh, you'll see a banner, uh, on top of our website. 224 00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:33,240 You can get the report. It is free. Uh, you need to download it from there. Uh, 225 00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:36,160 and we suggest, uh, checking out. We'd love to hear from you, uh, 226 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:37,640 things that you liked about the report, 227 00:11:37,640 --> 00:11:40,640 things you would love for us to see in the next state of dental report. 228 00:11:40,700 --> 00:11:44,360 But if you were trying to grow 20%, you wanna hit that leap practice strategy, 229 00:11:44,730 --> 00:11:47,520 uh, for next year, um, really encourage you reading the report. 230 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:48,800 I think you'll find it really valuable. 231 00:11:49,260 --> 00:11:52,250 Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Dane. 232 00:11:52,250 --> 00:11:54,520 It has been a pleasure speaking with you. 233 00:11:54,700 --> 00:11:59,080 And I'd also like to thank our podcast sponsor Next Health listeners. 234 00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:02,320 You can tune. It's a more podcast from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our 235 00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:06,720 podcastPage@beckerpodcast.com. Thank you again, Dave. 236 00:12:07,100 --> 00:12:08,720 All right, thanks. Yeah, it was fun being here.