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This is Ris Hatton with the
Becker's Dental Pasta. So podcast,

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I'm thrilled to be joined today by Leah
Siegler, president of the tele dentist.

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Leah, thank you so much
for being here today.

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Thanks for having me.
This is gonna be fun.

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So, just to start us off here,

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could you introduce yourself and
tell us a bit about your background?

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Sure. Um, my pleasure. Um, so
again, my name is Leah Siegler.

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I am from Kansas City,
so go chiefs and <laugh>.

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Gotta gotta plug in the Chiefs. And um,
I am the president of the tele dentist.

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So I've been in dental my
whole life. I've, you know,

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grown up in a family of dentists and I'm
actually a dental hygienist by trade.

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And after um, I finished my Peace
Corps service and everything,

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this beautiful opportunity came to work
with the tele dentist back in 2014,

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where I jumped on as quickly as I
could cuz I could see the trend in

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Teledentistry, um,
slowly making it upward.

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And here I am now as the president and
thrilled to be talking with you re about

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the concept of Teledentistry and how um,

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we can open access to dental care.

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Great. Well thank you so much.

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It really sounds like dentistry
in your DNA there. Um.

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Quite, quite, so. My quite, yes.

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<Laugh>. So my first
question for you here is,

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what are the biggest issues
you're following in dental today?

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Absolutely. Well, primarily
is access, access to care. Um,

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it doesn't matter, people always think
when I say access to care, they think,

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oh, remote or rural living.
But that's not true either.

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Even in urban living,

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if you are not sure where you should
go if you don't have dental insurance

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or the funds to access, have dental
insurance or dental coverage in general.

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Um,

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access to oral healthcare is truly
the hardest part of dentistry.

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Um, it's, there's nothing sexy
about dentistry, like, you know, um,

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right now mental health or behavioral
health is extremely popular,

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really growing. Um,

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but dental has been around for so
long and nobody kind of accepts or

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acknowledges the fact that oral health
is connected to the overall health.

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So, uh, access number one is
a huge issue. Then number two,

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just the awareness of
need of oral health, um,

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in communities and individuals. So, uh,

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that's one of the biggest issues and, uh,

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how technologies can be used to
even improve both of these issues is

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kind of what we're working
towards at the tele dentist.

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Interesting. And, and for those,
um, the listeners who may not know,

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when did tele dentistry sort of
begin to make its way into the

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dental space?

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Sure. Happy. Um, so the, our company,

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the tele dentist is actually
founded in 2014. Um, when we,

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we actually saw that
statistics show that annually

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2.9 billion are spent in
emergency rooms and urgent

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care on tooth eight codes.

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I think there's even a set that
says every 15 seconds, somebody,

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somebody goes to a hospital or
the wrong place for dental care.

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So we saw telehealth being used in
such an incredible way, you know,

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telem, telepsych, all of those, um,

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unique medical people
able to use telehealth.

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And as a dental focus, you can
remember my whole family being dental,

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we realized that's what we need to do.

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We need to put a dentist behind the
camera so that somebody can contact

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a tele dentist. Now,

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definitely has been a boulderer
being pushed uphill for a long time.

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The question is,

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how do you even do tell a dentist you
can't reach through the screen and extract

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a tooth? Well,

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in 2020 when Covid hit and all
the dental offices shut down,

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everybody suddenly realized, oh,

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tele dentistry can be used to educate
patients on what's happening in their

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mouth. You know,

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take them off that ledge of don't go to
the hospital or don't go to the urgent

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care. That's the wrong place for dental
treatment. Talk to your dentist on the,

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you know, your phone. Basically having
a video conversation with a dentist.

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We can also palliate making sure that
they get on some sort of antibiotics

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or prescription medication if indicated,

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so that when they do go into a dental
office, which is the third step triage,

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that they're able to
actually get the work done.

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And they don't have to
go quickly, you know,

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back to their pharmacy or two different
visits, one to the general dentist,

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then to the oral surgeon, then
back to the dentist. And, uh,

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it's basically eliminating all those
crazy steps that patients have had to take

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in the past. And unfortunately, we,
we have to attribute it to covid. Um,

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people being isolated, look
at it in the mirror thinking,

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I've got this too big problem and I
don't know, have anywhere else to go.

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It's what really accelerated
the concept of teledentistry.

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Very interesting. Uh, my
next question for you is,

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what are you most excited about
and what makes you nervous?

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Yeah, definitely. I, I think obviously,
as you can tell, I'm quite passionate,

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passionate about this subject. So for me,

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the excitement is the adaptation and the,

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the acceptance of teledentistry by
patients, by actual the general public.

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Um, three weeks into the Covid
shutdown, we had huge companies, uh,

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contact us saying, we
need help, we need help.

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And we were able to do
that in a turn of a button.

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And patients really enjoy
a tele dental consultation.

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That whole white coat phobia that's
related to dental visits in general,

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it's just taken away completely.

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And they've seen that in telehealth
or Telemental Health as well.

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That fear and that anxiety is
reduced because there's a screen,

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there's that barrier.

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And patients have just come to us with
any and all oral health questions and

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it's been delightful to be
able to help them. Um, in fact,

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one of the coolest stats I can tell
you is that 84% of patients who use

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our service have, don't
go to the emergency room.

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We've stopped 84% of people from going
to the wrong place for oral healthcare.

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So it, it's wonderful to see
that. What makes me nervous, um,

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is that the provider, uh, adaptation,

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the provider acceptance. Um,

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it's not the easiest to get
dentists to use new technology.

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In fact, one of my favorite
stories is our, our co-founder, Dr.

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Maria Kusto talks about when they
came out with the first high hand

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speed piece, um, the drill,

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what you hear when you go get a dental
filling or a crown done that was

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relatively new back in
the day in the eighties,

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and people were losing their minds,
oh, it's gonna destroy dentistry,

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it's gonna ruin patient care.

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And now can you imagine getting work
done without that? I mean, <laugh> that,

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that to me is, um,

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it's a perfect example of a new technology
that took a long time for dentists to

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accept and start using.

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So I know that that's still
going to be an upward battle,

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but I believe with the push
and the demand of the public,

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that that's what's going to help, um,

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providers be able to use this
brand new tool to be able to

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take care of their
patients with better care.

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Interesting. So do you think that
dentists have become more accepting of new

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technologies and, and, you know,
these new modes of dentistry, uh,

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as time has gone on.

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Slowly? Yes, I do. Um, I,
again, as a dental hygienist,

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I've seen a lot of new technology come
through the laser, for example, um,

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I was trained on how to use that
for my periodontal patients and, uh,

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there were only two or three offices that
I worked with that actually used that

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and encouraged dental hygienists to use
that. Um, the Sheret Crown for example,

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that was a brand new one that still
today many dental offices don't use and

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they're wasting a lot of
chair productivity time, um,

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by not having this device, this
cool new technology. So it,

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it is not easy to accept change.

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I understand that and I,
I acknowledge that. Um,

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but I think with the
encouragement of the team on

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the dead to office, you know,
the hygienist, the front staff,

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the everybody plus the demand, uh,

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it will definitely encourage
dentists and the owner,

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practice owners to move forward
eventually, but slowly but surely.

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Fantastic. Thank you.
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um,

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so what will the most effective healthcare
leaders need to be successful in the

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next two to three years?

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Absolutely. I think that this,

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that question basically summarizes
what we were just talking about,

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providing access and better
access through telehealth.

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Now by using teledentistry
in a dental office,

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they're opening up an additional chair
for revenue. It's a virtual chair,

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so we're not wasting ppe,

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we're not wasting assistant
chair time or dentist chair time,

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but they are opening up a brand
new spot for patients new or

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current patients to come through
and be able to access their dentists

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forward thinking leaders
who are, you know,

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their goal is to improve patients health
will start integrating teledentistry.

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Um, in fact, just last year,
I think it was, um, December,

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the World Health Organization
is now, you know,

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encouraging and mandating that oral
health be part of universal healthcare

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globally. So in order to
do that successfully in the
next two or three years,

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you have to use the new technology
that thankfully Covid has allowed us

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to push forward. And, and truthfully,

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if we're not using this new technology
to improve our patient's lives,

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then that's a big shame
on us. So, you know,

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integrating total health for patients by
using teledentistry and telehealth will

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improve the bottom line and it
will improve patient's outcomes.

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That's great. Well, Leah,

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thank you so much for your insights today
and I look forward to connecting with

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you again in the future.

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Yeah, thank you so much Rose. I appreciate
the opportunity. Always a pleasure.

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I love reading your articles, so I'm
excited to hear this podcast and, um,

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continue opening conversation and
access to care with tele dentistry.