This is Ris Hatton with the Becker's Dental Pasta. So podcast,
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Leah Siegler, president of the tele dentist.
Leah, thank you so much for being here today.
Thanks for having me. This is gonna be fun.
So, just to start us off here,
could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?
Sure. Um, my pleasure. Um, so again, my name is Leah Siegler.
I am from Kansas City, so go chiefs and .
Gotta gotta plug in the Chiefs. And um, I am the president of the tele dentist.
So I've been in dental my whole life. I've, you know,
grown up in a family of dentists and I'm actually a dental hygienist by trade.
And after um, I finished my Peace Corps service and everything,
this beautiful opportunity came to work with the tele dentist back in 2014,
where I jumped on as quickly as I could cuz I could see the trend in
Teledentistry, um, slowly making it upward.
And here I am now as the president and thrilled to be talking with you re about
the concept of Teledentistry and how um,
we can open access to dental care.
Great. Well thank you so much.
It really sounds like dentistry in your DNA there. Um.
Quite, quite, so. My quite, yes.
. So my first question for you here is,
what are the biggest issues you're following in dental today?
Absolutely. Well, primarily is access, access to care. Um,
it doesn't matter, people always think when I say access to care, they think,
oh, remote or rural living. But that's not true either.
Even in urban living,
if you are not sure where you should go if you don't have dental insurance
or the funds to access, have dental insurance or dental coverage in general.
Um,
access to oral healthcare is truly the hardest part of dentistry.
Um, it's, there's nothing sexy about dentistry, like, you know, um,
right now mental health or behavioral health is extremely popular,
really growing. Um,
but dental has been around for so long and nobody kind of accepts or
acknowledges the fact that oral health is connected to the overall health.
So, uh, access number one is a huge issue. Then number two,
just the awareness of need of oral health, um,
in communities and individuals. So, uh,
that's one of the biggest issues and, uh,
how technologies can be used to even improve both of these issues is
kind of what we're working towards at the tele dentist.
Interesting. And, and for those, um, the listeners who may not know,
when did tele dentistry sort of begin to make its way into the
dental space?
Sure. Happy. Um, so the, our company,
the tele dentist is actually founded in 2014. Um, when we,
we actually saw that statistics show that annually
2.9 billion are spent in emergency rooms and urgent
care on tooth eight codes.
I think there's even a set that says every 15 seconds, somebody,
somebody goes to a hospital or the wrong place for dental care.
So we saw telehealth being used in such an incredible way, you know,
telem, telepsych, all of those, um,
unique medical people able to use telehealth.
And as a dental focus, you can remember my whole family being dental,
we realized that's what we need to do.
We need to put a dentist behind the camera so that somebody can contact
a tele dentist. Now,
definitely has been a boulderer being pushed uphill for a long time.
The question is,
how do you even do tell a dentist you can't reach through the screen and extract
a tooth? Well,
in 2020 when Covid hit and all the dental offices shut down,
everybody suddenly realized, oh,
tele dentistry can be used to educate patients on what's happening in their
mouth. You know,
take them off that ledge of don't go to the hospital or don't go to the urgent
care. That's the wrong place for dental treatment. Talk to your dentist on the,
you know, your phone. Basically having a video conversation with a dentist.
We can also palliate making sure that they get on some sort of antibiotics
or prescription medication if indicated,
so that when they do go into a dental office, which is the third step triage,
that they're able to actually get the work done.
And they don't have to go quickly, you know,
back to their pharmacy or two different visits, one to the general dentist,
then to the oral surgeon, then back to the dentist. And, uh,
it's basically eliminating all those crazy steps that patients have had to take
in the past. And unfortunately, we, we have to attribute it to covid. Um,
people being isolated, look at it in the mirror thinking,
I've got this too big problem and I don't know, have anywhere else to go.
It's what really accelerated the concept of teledentistry.
Very interesting. Uh, my next question for you is,
what are you most excited about and what makes you nervous?
Yeah, definitely. I, I think obviously, as you can tell, I'm quite passionate,
passionate about this subject. So for me,
the excitement is the adaptation and the,
the acceptance of teledentistry by patients, by actual the general public.
Um, three weeks into the Covid shutdown, we had huge companies, uh,
contact us saying, we need help, we need help.
And we were able to do that in a turn of a button.
And patients really enjoy a tele dental consultation.
That whole white coat phobia that's related to dental visits in general,
it's just taken away completely.
And they've seen that in telehealth or Telemental Health as well.
That fear and that anxiety is reduced because there's a screen,
there's that barrier.
And patients have just come to us with any and all oral health questions and
it's been delightful to be able to help them. Um, in fact,
one of the coolest stats I can tell you is that 84% of patients who use
our service have, don't go to the emergency room.
We've stopped 84% of people from going to the wrong place for oral healthcare.
So it, it's wonderful to see that. What makes me nervous, um,
is that the provider, uh, adaptation,
the provider acceptance. Um,
it's not the easiest to get dentists to use new technology.
In fact, one of my favorite stories is our, our co-founder, Dr.
Maria Kusto talks about when they came out with the first high hand
speed piece, um, the drill,
what you hear when you go get a dental filling or a crown done that was
relatively new back in the day in the eighties,
and people were losing their minds, oh, it's gonna destroy dentistry,
it's gonna ruin patient care.
And now can you imagine getting work done without that? I mean, that,
that to me is, um,
it's a perfect example of a new technology that took a long time for dentists to
accept and start using.
So I know that that's still going to be an upward battle,
but I believe with the push and the demand of the public,
that that's what's going to help, um,
providers be able to use this brand new tool to be able to
take care of their patients with better care.
Interesting. So do you think that dentists have become more accepting of new
technologies and, and, you know, these new modes of dentistry, uh,
as time has gone on.
Slowly? Yes, I do. Um, I, again, as a dental hygienist,
I've seen a lot of new technology come through the laser, for example, um,
I was trained on how to use that for my periodontal patients and, uh,
there were only two or three offices that I worked with that actually used that
and encouraged dental hygienists to use that. Um, the Sheret Crown for example,
that was a brand new one that still today many dental offices don't use and
they're wasting a lot of chair productivity time, um,
by not having this device, this cool new technology. So it,
it is not easy to accept change.
I understand that and I, I acknowledge that. Um,
but I think with the encouragement of the team on
the dead to office, you know, the hygienist, the front staff,
the everybody plus the demand, uh,
it will definitely encourage dentists and the owner,
practice owners to move forward eventually, but slowly but surely.
Fantastic. Thank you. Mm-hmm. . Um,
so what will the most effective healthcare leaders need to be successful in the
next two to three years?
Absolutely. I think that this,
that question basically summarizes what we were just talking about,
providing access and better access through telehealth.
Now by using teledentistry in a dental office,
they're opening up an additional chair for revenue. It's a virtual chair,
so we're not wasting ppe,
we're not wasting assistant chair time or dentist chair time,
but they are opening up a brand new spot for patients new or
current patients to come through and be able to access their dentists
forward thinking leaders who are, you know,
their goal is to improve patients health will start integrating teledentistry.
Um, in fact, just last year, I think it was, um, December,
the World Health Organization is now, you know,
encouraging and mandating that oral health be part of universal healthcare
globally. So in order to do that successfully in the next two or three years,
you have to use the new technology that thankfully Covid has allowed us
to push forward. And, and truthfully,
if we're not using this new technology to improve our patient's lives,
then that's a big shame on us. So, you know,
integrating total health for patients by using teledentistry and telehealth will
improve the bottom line and it will improve patient's outcomes.
That's great. Well, Leah,
thank you so much for your insights today and I look forward to connecting with
you again in the future.
Yeah, thank you so much Rose. I appreciate the opportunity. Always a pleasure.
I love reading your articles, so I'm excited to hear this podcast and, um,
continue opening conversation and access to care with tele dentistry.