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AUDIO - HSP #232 - Lisa Marie Spradley
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VIDEO - HSP #232 - Lisa Marie Spradley
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•Keeping patients as the #1 Focus of front office team members
•Retaining existing patients and in-office referrals
•Continuing education for the front office team member
Lisa Marie Spradley, FAADOM, the Front Desk Lady, has worked in the dental front office for nearly 20 years and understands the struggle to put the patient’s needs first while still taking care of the business of the front office. As a consultant and speaker, she trains the dental team to focus on the patient which leads to more production and increases in-office referrals.
Recognized as one of the Top 25 Women in Dentistry 2015 by Dental Products Report, Lisa is a published author having written articles for industry publications such as Dentistry IQ, The Dental Geek, AADOM Observer, and AGD Impact. She is an active, lifetime member and Fellow of the American Association of Dental Office Managers (AADOM). In 2014, Lisa Marie was chosen as the AADOM Office Manager of the Year.
www. FrontDeskLady.com
LisaMarie@FrontDeskLady.com
Howard: It is a huge, huge honor today, to be interviewing what everyone knows as "The Front Desk Lady," a fellow in the American Academy of Dental Office Managers. You worked in dental offices for 20 years, even though you look like you're 21.
Lisa: Thank you.
Howard: You understand the struggles to put the patient's needs first, while still taking care of the business of the front office, as a renowned consultant and speaker. She trains dental office teams to focus on patients, which leads to more production and increases in office referrals. You're recognized as one of the top 25 women in dentistry, on Dental Products Report. That's a huge honor. You're a published author. You've written articles for Dentistry IQ, the Dental Geek, AADOM Observer, and AGD Impact. She is an active lifetime member and fellow of the American Association of Dental Office Managers, and in 2014, you were the office manager of the year for the American Association of Dental Office Managers. Congratulations!
Lisa: Thank you. Thank you.
Howard: That is an elite group. I spoke for them. I think it was in San Diego.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Howard: A couple of years ago. Those were the most intelligent office manager collection I'd ever seen in my life, and you couldn't meet one woman in that building that couldn't run Heartland Dental or Pacific Dental. Really. They just knew their stuff backwards, frontwards. That was an amazing group.
My first question to you is, ... Sorry to jump right into this, but ... By the way, I'm your hugest fan. I really am. Follow you on Facebook. What is your Facebook page called?
Lisa: It's actually Front Desk Lady. Pretty much everything I do is Front Desk Lady.
Howard: Front Desk Lady. My question is this, I think this is the million dollar question, that, I don't know, sometimes, if I'm giving the right advice ... The brain, I see it as like a bag of ping pong balls, and everybody's, some of their ping pong balls are just made of gold, and smart, and some of their ping pong balls are missing, broken, or they just have no interest in it.
I don't like the term "this person's a musical genius," because you're sitting there at the ASU Gammage, watching this lady play violin, but hell, she's been playing the violin four hours a day from age five to 35, I assume you get good if you play four hours a day for your entire flipping life. I don't this she's a musical genius. I think she had a huge interest in playing the violin, and if you do something for ten, 20 years, you master it.
In fact, most research shows that if you just do it for ten years, you get damn good. That Malcolm Goldbridge book, Outliers, or one of his books, where he's talking about that most all experts took 10 years, or 10,000 hours, to achieve the top. You've been doing it for 20 years. I've been doing it for 30 years. You just get good.
My question is this, if you're a dentist, and you buy a dental office, and you're running your dental office, and you truly just want to do root canals and crowns, and if you go to a CE course, you just want to learn how to do implants and read CBCTs and all this, and you just really have no interest in running the business. Do you think they should just, they can delegate all that to an office manager, or do you think they have to learn all that stuff themselves too?
Lisa: That's a great question. I definitely think that it should be done by a professional, an office administrator, office manager, whatever they want to be called these days.
Howard: What do they want to be called?
Lisa: That's what's interesting, because [crosstalk 00:03:37].
Howard: You can call a man anything in the world. I always refer to dentists as she, because I've never got one complaint from a man saying, "You called dentist a she," but I've gotten a gazillion where, because I referred to a dentist as a he, so I just call them all she's.
Lisa: Yeah.
Howard: Cover all my bases.
Lisa: I get slack because I call myself "The Front Desk Lady," and someone once mentioned to me that it's not just women up front. I said, "If you read the Bible, and you believe in the American Constitution, where all men are created equal, then all front desk ladies are created equal too."
Back to your original question ...
Howard: What am I supposed to call them and not be offensive? Front desk, receptionist? I don't like to deal ... Insurance coordinator, treatment coordinator. What's the lump sum? You're not a hygienist. You're not an assistant. You're not a dentist. What are you?
Lisa: I am an office manager. I don't think you would offend anyone by calling them an office manager, but I heard this when I was at the [inaudible 00:04:31] meeting earlier in September, that they're getting away from that now. They're calling them practice administrators.
You know, it's ten of these, ten of those. I don't think it really matters. "Front Desk Lady" doesn't offend me. It offends a lot of other people. As a matter of fact, I took that name, because one of the doctors that I worked for a few years back was giving a tour of the facility, and she walked around the entire office, and when she got finished, she looked at me, and she said, "This is Lisa." She stopped and thought about it for a good minute, and finally said, "She's our front desk lady."
I just sat there, and I thought, "Well, you know, you have choices. It can make you bitter, or it can make you better," so you know what I did Howard? I went out and had business cards made, and I put, Lisa M. Spradley, FDL. I had the initials, and I wasn't in debt. I was happy. It really doesn't matter to me.
Howard: That is awesome. Should they hire an office manager, and just delegate all that, or do they need to learn it all to? Let me ask you a pointed question, what percent of dentist wouldn't even know how to check out a patient and send off the electronic claims to the insurance company?
Lisa: Oh, gosh, it's got to be at least 80%. At least 80. Most dentists don't want anything to do with that, but they need to know how to do it, because how do they know that you're not being ripped off, if you don't have some understanding what's supposed to happen up there? You can't rely on your accountant to tell you everything, because most dentists aren't even using an accountant that's familiar with the dental world.
They can't even tell them how to break down their outgoing money. How in the world are they going to know that something's being ripped off if they don't have an idea of what's happening? I think they definitely need to delegate it, because the dentist needs to keep their hands wet, but the office manager, or practice administrator, whatever you want to call them, needs to be reporting to the doctor and letting them know what's happening and the doctor need to actually follow up. Do you know how many office I go into and there's a very legitimate professional person up front? She'll tell me, "Lisa, I take my reports in there at the end of every day and I put them on his desk for him to read, and when I come in the next morning, they're exactly where I set them before. He doesn't even look at them." How sad is that? This is your business. Pay attention to what's going on.
Howard: All humans are only going to pay attention to anything they're interested in. The same guy that tells you, "I don't have the memory. I don't know how you remember all that stuff." Then they'll tell you every world series winner, loser going back 40 years. That's because you care about baseball and you don't care about physics. It's just what they're interested in.
Lisa: In that case, you just pray that you have someone that's really on your side up there. If you read the articles like I do, David Harris is always putting out some new report about someone who's been committing fraud at the front desk. It's kind of scary to not have some knowledge or pay a little bit of attention to what's happening, or they're in denial.
Howard: I don't even know why there is an American Association of Dental Office Managers. I don't find it necessary at all, because you just throw your spouse up there. Whoever you were making out with in the back of the car, that's ... What more qualifications do you need to run a dental office. Isn't there person just supposed to be whoever you're married to, running the front?
Lisa: I guess if you're happily married, maybe. You might be throwing that out the damn door too. Lets be honest. You have got to have someone up there who knows what the heck it is that's supposed to happen. One of the biggest things that bothers the stew out of me, is why it is we do want to throw someone up there that's gonna works for free, or we can pay really cheap. This is what you went to school for. This is your livelihood. Why are you not concerned with what's happening at your front desk. You know yourself, you could be the best dentist in the world, and if that person that's calling doesn't like me, they're not gonna see you.
Howard: Okay. So who's those two ladies that started the AADOM?
Lisa: Well Heather Colicchio started it.
Howard: Heather what? Colicchio?
Lisa: Colicchio.
Howard: Spell that.
Lisa: C, O, L, I, C, C, H, I, O.
Howard: Heather Colicchio. Is she related to Pinocchio? Is she Italian?
Lisa: Her husband might be.
Howard: Heather Colicchio, Colicchio. A.K.A. dental Pinocchio. She started with two ladies? Wasn't it two ladies?
Lisa: Heather started it, but Laurie came in about a year, Laurie [Streeter 00:09:07] came in about a year after.
Howard: Streeter.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Howard: Well you know what I always thought the ... My job is, I'm just trying to help dentists run their life faster, easier, higher quality, lower price, make more money. AT the end of the day, my only two goals for everybody on here is just to be happy and healthy. The hardest thing about life is just getting through it. If you can get through the whole damn thing, and the whole time be happy and healthy, then you're the luckiest person that every lived because we all come up to some great struggles in our life.
I always though, with 205,000 members on Dental Town, that Heather Colocchio and Laurie Streeter should do an online CE course on Dental Town about the front desk and the value of what, with the return investment, of what it would be if all those dentists on Dental Town went up to their front desk lady and said, "You know what, you're gonna join the AADOM and my goal is to get you a fellowship. They got this Dental Town package deal. I watched the course and you're gonna come back and watch it with me." How many years would it take them to get their fellowship in the American Association of Dental Office Managers?
Lisa: It takes a year.
Howard: One year.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative) One year.
Howard: Perfect.
Lisa: It takes a year.
Howard: What would the travel time, because a lot of these people are married, have kids, whatever? Can they do it all from their home on Parsons, Kansas? Or do they have to-
Lisa: Most of it you do at home. The only travel that I do through AADOM is when I go to the conference. That's, of course, when you get you're highest amount of CE, but they offer courses online that you can take. Most of them are during the lunch hour, so you don't even have to do it, a lot of your down time. Most of what you're doing is during the business day.
Howard: So how many hours is it? Tell them what you had to do to be FAADOM.
Lisa: When I got my FAADOM, it was, I like, 12 or 13 hours that I had to get. Plus, I had to have to have, of course, a letter of referral from my doctor, I had to-
Howard: 12 to 13 hours of CE?
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Which they offer to you. You get it form them. I also had to take a few courses through the Dale Foundation on just basic office management etiquette.
Howard: Thought the Dale Foundation?
Lisa: Dale Foundation. D, A, L, E.
Howard: D?
Lisa: D, A, L, E.
Howard: Is the the Dale Carnegie?
Lisa: No sir. No sir, It's associated with the DANB. DANB.
Howard: Educate me on that. Dental Association National Board? Dental Assistance National Board?
Lisa: Yes.
Howard: Okay.
Lisa: They have three courses on there that are geared towards office management, human resources, financial, the third one is not coming to me right now. Those are three courses that we have to take. You actually get credit for those, which can be now, applied towards your fellowship from, I thin, 2015 out. They're gonna start doing that.
Howard: To get your fellowship you need 13 hours?
Lisa: Well, it went up. When I took it, it was 13. I think now, it's 33, but that's because the-
Howard: Damn. That's a 300% jump.
Lisa: That's because the credits that you get from the Dale Foundation now go towards your ...
Howard: So if a dentist is listening to this and saying, "You know what. I hired my front desk lady and I'm in a town of 5,000 and she used to be the manager of Subway and now she's running dental. If I signed her up for this and said 'Okay, you cam do this. It'll be a year. You have to take 33 hours of education. You can do all of it online.'" Would she ever need to have to travel?
Lisa: I think so, Howard, because think, how many conferences do you go to as a dentist? It's not just about going to a class, it's about the networking. You yourself said it. When you went to the AADOM meeting, the energy that you had there. These women and men are phenomenal. They know their stuff. And there's nothing better. One of the biggest problems I had when I was starting to start, or trying to start a study group in my are. My dentist told me, "Lisa, nobody's gonna want to do it because they don't want their office managers to talk to each other." Now mind you, I was going to a meeting where all of the dentists in Southeast Mississippi get together and talk to each other. I said, "So what do you think we're gonna say that you wouldn't?" We're not gonna go out there and tell everybody else what we're making. It's just the networking-
Howard: Yeah you are. Of course you are.
Lisa: No, I'm not.
Howard: The bottom line is, that's an age old problem. Owners are always afraid of labor. Right now, United merged with US Air. They've been in court suing each other. GM Chrysler, Bowing, these companies are always on strike. So there's always gonna be the lion and the lamb-
Lisa: There may be one or two, but for the most part-
Howard: There's nothing wrong with all the office mangers talking out how much money they get. I mean, who cares?
Lisa: I see myself as a professional, and the only time I talk money, is when I'm talking to the patient. Money is not my goal. It's not my drive. What I'm doing is hopefully, trying to educate. I think that's the biggest part of where AADOM, the reason why Heather created AADOM was because there were no resources out there for dental office mangers. You can go to all kind of school to become a manager for a medical facility, but the dental office management, that's just recently becoming the "in" thing.
Howard: We also saw another company come out of nowhere. Jake [Ayers 00:14:41]. His scheduling institute where he saw that no one's even training the front desk how to answer a phone.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Howard: He built that into a huge organization just because, when he started, there was zero competition. Nobody had ever thought, maybe the person answering the phone should be educated.
Lisa: Yes.
Howard: Maybe if we spent a dollar educating her, you'd get two dollars back.
Lisa: Yeah. Well I like to think I have a slightly different approach than Jake, but okay.
Howard: We'll talk about that. What's your different approach from Jake?
Lisa: I think that when you're talking to the patient, you should truthfully answer any question that they ask. I don't think it should be just get them in the chair and we'll tell them about their insurance benefits when they get here. I just .. You know what I believe in Howard?
Howard: Jake is aggressive. He's an aggressive man form Atlanta, and you're probably a little more shy and humble from Mississippi. By there way, I just want to tell you one thing about Mississippi. I never did learn how to spell that word.
Lisa: Well you can just abbreviate it. MS works.
Howard: MS works?
Lisa: MS works, that's fine. I just thin that when patient calls, it's my job to see if that patient, to not only be friendly to them, but to see if they're a good fit for our practice. We don't have to get every singles person that calls on that phone, because they may not be a good for us, and maybe we're not a good fit for them. So I think you need to discern that when you're on that initial phone call.
Howard: Now, are you still an office manager in Hattiesburg, Mississippi?
Lisa: I am. I don't work as many days as I used to, but I love my doctor. I'm not going anywhere.
Howard: Where is Hattiesburg? I assume it's on the Mississippi River?
Lisa: No, no. We're actually 70 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. If you know the University of Southern Mississippi, which is where Brett Farve went to school, that's Hattiesburg Mississippi.
Howard: So that's where the University is?
Lisa: Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Howard: Wow. I love Mississippi. I love the fact that when you eat soup in Mississippi, you have no idea what's gonna be in there. They just throw everything in that soup. They're just, when you grow up in Kansas, there's only like, three ingredients in soup. There's like, carrots, potato chunks, and meat. You go down to Mississippi, you've got a bowl of-
Lisa: It's a little bit of everything. Yes sir.
Howard: It is a little bit of everything. I think you throw anything in there. Do you even have a recipe, or do you just throw stuff in the pot for half an hour.
Lisa: Just throw stuff in the pot. The most important ingredient down here of course, would be crawfish.
Howard: Yeah. Crawfish is a ... When I grew up in Kansas, it was bait. It was fishing bait.
Lisa: Well, I grew up in Ohio, so it was definitely something I had never heard of before I moved here.
Howard: I was lecturing with [Jerome Smith 00:17:23] and they brought out this stuff, and they're already cooked it. I literally though it was the fishing bait for tomorrow. [inaudible 00:17:30] bass fishing. They they steam, cook, broil all that stuff up, and I'm like, "really> You eat fishing bait?" They were all laughing at me and I thought "Okay. Maybe that's why they're all drinking so much. You've got to drink before you eat fishing bait." Man, it was tasty. Very tasty.
Lisa: I'm glad you liked it.
Howard: So continue.
Lisa: So anyway, going back to what the dentist should know. I just think that when they know what's happening, then they're more informed. AADOM is, I found it online. I was just looking, I had a specific question, I couldn't tell you what it was now, but this was about five or six years ago, and I saw it. I joined. At the time I joined, it was 99 dollars. I didn't even ask my dentist to pay. I'm willing to invest 99 dollars in myself. So I did that and I loved. I went to the first meeting which was in Las Vegas, I think, in 2008 or nine. Met some wonderful people that I'm still friends with today. Really, I'll never forget, [Melissa Merideth 00:18:29] won office manager of the year that year. I remember watching her go up there and thinking, "Oh my gosh. I'll never get there." Then last year, my doctor nominated me, and I was like, "Oh, wow."
It's very humbling, because those are some incredibly smart women.
Howard: I am so proud of you and I just think that's so damn cool. That's why I want you, when you're done, send me an email howard@dentaltown.com and CC Heather and Laurie and say "Do a podcast with Howard and make an online CE course." They need to market better to the dentist. They're probably doing a great job marketing to all the dental office managers, but they need to succinctly teach for an hour. Here's the low-hanging fruit of what a great office manager does and all that stuff. Lets get your front office, front desk lady energized and motivated. Let's set the goal. In one year, you're gonna take 33 hours, get your fellowship in the Academy of Dental Office, Dental Association of Office Managers. I just think that would make the whole office happier, and healthier, and more functional.
Talk about the things you learn. What would someone learn if they got their FAADOM like you?
Lisa: Well, you learn, gosh, a little bit of everything. As a member you're entitled to attend online courses once a month. It can be on anything from human resources, the latest tools to help us reactivate patients, patient activator, revenue well. There's just a plethora of them. Dealing with difficult patients, how to best treatment plan a patient. Just anything and everything that we do at the front is covered in that continuing education. As far as what I learned form it, number one, it keeps me up to date in the industry because we had over, I think we had 150 vendors at out last meeting. So there's everything. I saw product I never even heard of before. Dental warranty. I thought, "That's a cool thing to offer to you patients." Just all different types of vendors that way.
Then the speaker, oh my gosh, Fred [Goyles 00:20:45] is always there. Love Fred. Love listening to him talk. We had One Mind Health there presenting information.
Howard: Who?
Lisa: One Mind Health.
Howard: One Mind Health.
Lisa: Yes. They help you send claims electronically, and they do a lot more than that, but the claim submission verifying benefits and eligibility. They're a great tool to use for that. Just all different types of things that keep me current, and I can take back to my doctor and say. "Hey, I heard about this. We should look into it more." That's the biggest takeaway is bringing this information back to your doctor and your tea,. Of course, you've got narrow it down. You could go to these conferences and come home with 50 different thing, but picking your three and presenting it to the team and saying, "How can we implement this?" Or "Is this something that we would like to implement in our practice?"
Howard: My job is to guesstimate what these dentists are thinking. Unfortunately, Lisa, almost everybody listening is a dentist. I have no evidence that an office manger ever listens to my program. Back in the day ... You did?
Lisa: I did.
Howard: You listened to my show before I asked you to be on it? You're already a listener of the show?
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Howard: Back in the day when I got out of school in 28, there was a company called Trojan that help you verify patients insurances, and now-
Lisa: They're still around.
Howard: They're still around? Now three decades later, you're talking about One Mind Health. My question is to you, am I old school? I have [Colani 00:22:13]. Which is funny because she's Hispanic, but she's from Hawaii and her name, you'd think [Colani 00:22:19] you'd think that's a Hawaiian name. You think she's Hawaiian, she looks Hawaiian, but she's actually Spanish. She ended up in Hawaii, actually came back. Do you think, I have [Colani 00:22:30] call every single insurance case for every patient and manually go through and verify all the benefits for every single patient. Do I need to be doing that? Or do you think that could be automated, because we used Trojan back in the day, but it seems like a lit of people ... money's such a big issue. You don't want to mess that up. So we humanly call every single claim company and get run through of their benefits. Is that necessary, unnecessary? What do you think of that?
Lisa: Honestly, I think it's a high waste of your money. I thin of the other things that [Colani 00:23:06] could be doing for your practice. Now, will there be times when you may still have to call? Sure. There's always that case. For the most part, especially for a company like One Mind Health, the information that they can give you at the touch of a button, frees her up to be able to do other things with that patient, like scheduling them or arranging financial information. Yeah, the days of having to call every single insurance company, especially remembering how much time we spend on hold, and the disconnects, and the rude people on the other end of the phone, which unfortunately affects-
Howard: I asked her if she has to be on hold very long and she said she doesn't care. She just surfs Facebook while she's on hold.
Lisa: Okay. Well there's ... Howard, I want to come work for you.
Howard: You can. You have an open job. You ever want to move from Mississippi and move from the land of crawfish to scorpions, you have a job. So then talk about that specifically. What would ... How would you verify claim? What is the best practice of verifying claims faster, easier, more accurate, lower cost? Would you go with Trojan? Would go with One Mind Health? How would you do that these days?
Lisa: Well, I really like One Mind Health. One Mind Health, to me, is like the Cadillac of the companies that are out there.
Howard: Where are they out of?
Lisa: Okay, well I know the woman I speak with, Laura Edwards, is out of Virginia. I don't know if One Mind Health is out of Virginia or not.
Howard: Can you email Laura and me, howard@dental town, and Laura, and I want to see if that would work for my, today's dental?
Lisa: Okay. I will definitely.
Howard: Id she's any good, I'll podcast her.
Lisa: Okay. Yeah. Most definitely. She-
Howard: How-
Lisa: She's the one who spoke at AADOM. Their product it's just exceptional. It's not just, you instantly file a claim. I mean Howard, you touch a button, the claim is filed, and it'll tell you right then and there what you're gonna pay. So there's no more guesstimating how much a patient owes. You know right then and there what the patient owes you for that business.
Howard: I'm gonna have to send you money for letting me podcast. I should be hiring you right now. So is this a piece of software, or is it on the could like Google. Or is this something I install in my PC and does it network with Dentrix, Eaglesoft, SoftDent, Open Dental?
Lisa: My understand is that it does integrate with all of the larger software companies. So I know that Eaglesoft, Dentrix, what's the other one that's leaving me right now?
Howard: SoftDent, PracticeWorks, Open Dental.
Lisa: Yes, it works all of those. If it's could based, I'm not sure-
Howard: So you're saying when I get done interviewing you, I can drive to the office and fire [Colani 00:25:52].
Lisa: No. No.
Howard: This is great news. I can't wait. I'm going to fire [Colani 00:25:56]. My God.
Lisa: Don't you dare.
Howard: I like [Colani 00:26:01] 12,00 times more when she's at my house watching the Super Bowl, drinking beer with her husband than when she's on the phone trying to verify claims anyway. So maybe that's a good thing. Is this a monthly service fee?
Lisa: Yes.
Howard: Or do they charge per claim? Is it per claim? Is it a percentage of the claim? How s the fee work?
Lisa: There's a monthly service fee. They'll install it. It is something that has to be installed on your computer, and then there's a monthly service fee to do your claims, your eligibility. You can once again, click a button and find out what benefits they have left, what percentages they pay at, and then they also do, if you have other doctors in your area that have One Mid Health, you can share information between them as far as if you're a general dentist and there's a specialist. I believe they do statement too.
Howard: I'm gonna put you on hold right now, because I'm gonna call my office and fire [Colani 26:57] then come back on the call.
Lisa: If you fire [Colani 26:59] I'm gonna have tot seriously hurt you.
Howard: You're so smart. It is in Virginia. I just Googled it on my iPhone. It is in Virginia. One Mind Health. That is amazing. This is so fun. The funniest thing about my podcast, people just say, "Well why do you do it? It's for free. You don't make any money." and all that stuff. It's like, dude, I get to talk to the smartest people in dentistry every damn day for an hour. It's like I have the most rocking, hot, fun, lunch, formative, great people. You just turned me on to One Mind Health and I just already have emailed it to [Colani 27:39].
Lisa: Hope you didn't tell her you're fired.
Howard: I said [Colani 27:43], I should say, please install this now and then fire yourself so I don't have to do it myself. That's great. So how accurately, everybody listening to this is thinking, "Oh come one. If you don't call them up, Lisa." It's junk it, junk out, the date is never right. If you don't get a human on the phone it's never going to be right. What do you say to that?
Lisa: I haven't found that to be true at all. Of course everything, if they're always gonna tell you it's an estimate, doesn't count any claims that are still in process. No matter how accurate the information is, by the time we file a claim, who knows what's gonna changed that information. I've found that in the office that I work with, that it is realty true to what it says. Even using, what is it, EagleSoft and the information that I can get through their electronic eligibility. Even using that is fairly accurate.
The only thing about a company or a service like what EagleSoft offers, is that they do not have all of the insurance under their belt that One Mind Health does. One Mind Health has people that are just dedicated to getting insurance companies on board to giving you the information. You know what best about it, Howard? We did even talk about this. It's consistently the same information for each insurance company. So many times, when you electronically verify information, they may just tell you, yes, they have benefits of 1,200 dollars. They don break it down. One Mind Health consistently gives you the same information and it's detailed. That's because they asked us, the office managers at one of the meeting several years ago, what do you want? What is it that you need to have when you're verifying eligibility? That's how they used our information to build this program that's, to me, one of the best out there.
Howard: Okay. So let me answer your own question. What do you need? I'm sure there's kids out there that are so young in their learning curve that they're thinking, "What do you need to verify? If they brought in the form and they work for a company and they have dental insurance, what do I need to know? Remember the biggest consumer of these podcasts here are kids.
Lisa: Okay. What they need to know is ... It's perfectly wonderful that they have dental benefits. Is there a waiting period? Did they just get the benefits? Implant. Everybody wants to have an implant these days. Unfortunately, a lot of insurance companies still think that insurance is a cosmetic procedure and they don't cover it. So are there implant benefits? At what percentage? Is there a missing tooth clause?
So let's say you want to do a bridge and that tooth's bee missing for the past 20 years. Is the dental benefit carrier gonna cover it? That's something I'd like to bring up real quick. I would love to revolutionize your young people that are listening. It's not insurance, Howard. It's dental benefits. We don't have an annual maximum. Your credit card has a a maximum. We have annual benefits that can be `exhausted, and that's it, because when you start referring to it as insurance, and that's how the patient refers to it, they automatically assume that it's going to cover everything. So it's our job, and I don't care if you're a participating provider or not, if you file a patients dental benefits for them, then you have a moral obligation, in my opinion, to let them know what those benefits are, and how they're covered.
Howard: I love it, because you're absolutely right. Just from a ... I got an MBA from ASU. There's no such thing as health insurance or dental insurance. Insurance is a actuarial risk analysis versus moral hazard. 100 people have car insurance. Only one person wrecks it. So everybody pays a little for the one guy that wrecks. Everybody has fire insurance on their house. Everybody has it just in case there's that one drunk Irish hygienist smoking in bed that burns their house down. We all chip in a little. How do you have health insurance when 100% of the world is gonna end put dead?
Lisa: Yeah.
Howard: Everyone's gonna die. Every tooth in your head. People say "How could that tooth die?" Dude, every tooth in your heads gonna die and you're gonna die, and we're all gonna die. Someday, the sun's gonna engulf the earth. There's no spreading around. Who would we spread the risk on? If you insure 100 people, they all have a cleaning, they all have an x-ray, they all drink Dr. Pepper, none of them own floss. There's no spreading risk. You're right. It is a benefit. Why your government or your employer should be subsidizing you to drink Mountain Dew and not floss is beyond me. I think the biggest stupidity of health insurance around the world is no co-payments. If you go to grandma and you say "Grandma, your artificial knees are gonna cost 25,000 each and Medicare covers 100 percent." She says, "Well what does the doctor think?" "Well the doctor says you should do it." "Well okay, he's the doctor."
If you said "Oh, that's 50,000 and every country runs a ten percent co-payment. Of that 50,000, ten percent I your portion, 5,000. She'd say "5,000? I think I'm gonna start walking. I think I'm gonna join the YMCA. I think I'm gonna join a gym. I think I'm gonna lose 50 pounds." If they don't have ... What does Obama and your boss have to do with you not taking care of you teeth. I haven't had a cavity since I took microbiology and learned that the only two germs that eat teeth and gums, they can't live in oxygen. They live in between your teeth, under your gums. You floss every morning and you floss every night, brush two minutes day and night. I'm as fat as they come. When I hear a dentist bad-mouthing Coke, I think, well what the hell else do you mix Jack Daniels with? I don't know-
Lisa: Or [inaudible 00:33:26] rum.
Howard: In fact, if you read the bottle, on the back of Jack Daniels, it even says how to mix it with Coke. If it doesn't say how to mix it with Coke, then on that bottle, you're just supposed to drink it straight. Just to clarify that.
Lisa: It's the same thing as when people come in. One of the tings that I love when people tell me is, well I get two free cleanings a year. I have to tell them, no actually, they're not free. You're paying for your dental benefits and they're gonna pay us. That's what insurance companies come in and tell these employees. You sing up for this policy and we're gonna give you two free cleanings a year. It's not free. Why do yo lie?
Howard: Yeah. When people talk, half the time I don't know whether I should laugh or cry. I just start laughing. Everything you said is wrong on eight different levels. How do I even approach this? Unless it's a family member. The I just leave the room or go find a football game and not even try.
Lisa: Find a football game.
Howard: I'm gonna get you in trouble right now. This is dentistry uncensored. This is the most politically incorrect question I could ask Lisa. There's no way you can answer that without pissing off a bunch of people. I got a dentist out there. She's 25, she's staring her own practice, and she's gotta pick a practice management information system. Would you tell her go to Henry [Shinks 00:34:54] Dentrix, Patterson's EagleSoft. Carestream owns PracticeWorks and SoftDent. There's Open Dental, there's probably 40 or 50 software vendors at the American Dental Association. Who would be you top pick? Give them your top three in order, or four or five, or do you just have a favorite? I can get you off the hook by saying, well, most of the FAADOM's like this one. Throw Heather off a cliff. Say Heather-
Lisa: I can't speak for most of the FAADOM's. But I can speak for myself. I can tell you what I like because it's what I use every day, and most of the offices I go into have it, and that is Patterson's EagleSoft.
Howard: Really?
Lisa: I absolutely love their software. I think that, for me anyways, it pulls up everything that I need. Now, I realize there's always gonna be somebody who doesn't like something about it, but that's my favorite. My close second-
Howard: Can I tell you the funniest EagleSoft story?
Lisa: Okay.
Howard: They're from Effingham, Illinois where Rick Workman Heartland Dental's up the street. Rick didn't use EagleSoft. I don think he still does to this day. It was kind of an awkward deal with the largest dental office chain and the largest practice management software in dentistry are in the same town of 10,000 and they're not customers to each pother. Why do you like EagleSoft?
Lisa: I have actually used Easy Dental. I don't know if they're even still-
Howard: That was the Henry [Shine 00:336:25]. Henry [Shine 00:36:27] bought that and it was a disaster, so they actually turned around and bought Dentrix and part of the deal when they bought Dentrix was, you gotta clean up all of our Easy dental problems.
Lisa: Okay. Many years ago, my doctor, I actually worked for a periodontist, he used easy Dental, then the doctor that I went to that I'm with now, we was first using SoftDent. For me, that was the most confusing.
Howard: I know. That's what I've been on for 28 years.
Lisa: Oh, bless you heart.
Howard: I know.
Lisa: I don't like it.
Howard: That's the problem when you've had staff for 28 years. The good thing is everybody, I went to the grocery store and they don't even say "Hi doctor Farran." They go "Oh, Howard. How's Jan?" My assistant. So the trade off with having a bunch of women that have been with me of almost 30 years, is that they started on EagleSoft because it recommended to the by Fred and Barney, Fred Flinstone and his buddy, Barney, and Wilma. Trying to get them to change. You'd think I was asking them to-
Lisa: Dentists are like Lutherans. We don't like change. [inaudible 00:37:33] trouble.
Howard: Are you a Lutheran?
Lisa: I am.
Howard: I grew up Catholic and that was my favorite Catholic priest of all time> Martin Luther. He was the only guy who stood up to the bureaucracy of the church. He put his 99 thesis. They tried to kill him. The woman who protected him that eventually married him is the same type of nun as my older sister, a Cloistered Carmelite Nun, and she hid him in a wine barrel and took him to England because the king of England didn't like the Pope either. Now, everything he said was ... eventually, the Catholics said, 'Oh yeah, you're right." It's my favorite guy in ... Sorry.
All humans hate change. I remember reading that book "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Howard: That's a classic. You can read that on your lunch hour. It takes you more than an hour to read that book . You're swallowing the Listerine wrong. Great book just because monkeys don't like change. No animal likes change. Giraffes, rhinoceros, elephants, we all hate change.
Lisa: Yup, it's very true.
Howard: Do you think you like EagleSoft because that's, you were just born into Mississippi or born in to Lutherism, and you're born into EagleSoft?
Lisa: I've been using it for the past ten years, and I really like it. I've gone into other offices that have. Maybe it's just because I don know the software, but EagleSoft, for me, when I go into an office that has it's easy. I know where to go. I know what I'm looking for. I'm not just saying that because my Patterson rep might watch this.
Howard: When you go to FAADOM, do you hear any other practice management systems that other people like? Do you hear anything that people say stay away from? It sounds like out hear bad things about SoftDent.
Lisa: NO, I personally had a bad experience with SoftDent.
Howard: So do I. I've had 28 years of bad experiences with SoftDent.
Lisa: What I hear really the most about is Dentrix. I realize that they're the other big one out there, but I don't hear a lot of people that love Dentrix. They're using it and they don't care for it too much. I've never used it, so I'm not saying it's goo do or bad, but I'm just saying that would probably be the one that I hear the "Oh gosh, stay away from." the most.
Howard: I always feel like, I have my pulse on dentistry as well as anybody,. I think there's only one guy I know that has their pulse on dentistry better than I do, and that's Howard Goldstein because he's on the Dental Town message boards 12 hours a day, seven days a week since like, 1998. Finally, after begging him for ten years to sell his damn office and just work for mew full time, and he finally did it. On the Dental Town message boars, if they're talking about Dentrix, EagleSoft, SoftDent, all it is is a bitching moan. If you want to read the thread, just bring your crochet and just start stitching and bitching, stitching and bitching, stitching and bitching, through 100 pages. The only software that everybody a raving fan of on Dental Town is Open Dental.
Lisa: Yes. I was gonna say, that would be my number two.
Howard: My god. Everybody that ever talks about it, oh my god, I love it. It's not just people, it's like some really smart people out there.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Howard: Most of my role models have Open Dental and I've been trying to get my staff to change. First, they want to get rid of the square wheels on our trailer. [inaudible 00:40:53] That's the only one I've hear raving. So is this One Mind Health, it obviously synchronizes with the major practice management systems?
Lisa: Yes. Yes sir.
Howard: So goon back. I still think all you're talking to is thousands of dentists right now. You may be the only office manager on the program. So talk more about what an office manager should be doing. I will say this. I firmly believe in the bottom of my heart when you do a survey, do you have an office manager or not, of the ones who say I have an office manager, 90 % of them just gave a front desk lady a glorified manager. You still go stand behind them all day and all there is is answering the phone, checking patients in, checking out, doing financials arrangements. I'm just standing there like, where's the office manager? They say "She is." I'm pretty sure she's answering the phone doing insurance. So what is an office manager?
Lisa: You raise a really valid point. Unfortunately, it's true. We see a lot of people that don't ... It's title only. On office manger should, in reality, be someone who is making sure that everyone else in the practice is doing what needs to be done to keep the practice productive and to make sure that everyone who walks through that door, every patient, every future patient, is treated with the respect that they deserve.
I kind of thin of it like a choreographer. We're directing everyone to what they need to do and helping them, giving them too tools to be leaders. That's the biggest thing. We should be the biggest cheerleader for our team. We're empowering them and we're helping them to learn and grow. If I could change one thing in our dental world, and I hope that you can get Heather and Laurie to work this out with you, because on e of my biggest causes, is to make it mandatory for front office team members to have to have CE.
Before you think, oh we don't see patients. What good would it do? I beg to differ. We see patients every single day. We talk to patients. We may see patients when you're not in the office. We're the only ones who can because we answer that phone. We should be just as educated, if not more so, because of the fact, everything we do is a reflection of you. Why would you not want us to be at our best?
Mind you, it's not gonna work for everyone. I'm well aware that there are people that are hired that are simply there for the paycheck. I also know that there are people there like your front office lady, and myself, who really care and want the best. We're doing everything we can to learn and it would be really nice if we could get the acknowledgment that we are out there learning.
When I got my FAADOM and I won office manager of the year, and they year before that I had own office manager of distinction, the first thing I did when I got back to the office was put them on the front counter. So all of my plaques are across from the wall where all Dr [Gilders 00:43:55] awards are. When patients walk up, of course they're looking at his, and then, "OH, Lisa. What did you do?" I think it's great to let them know that I care so much about taking care of them, that I'm going the extra mile.
Howard: The only plaque I have is on my teeth. What you just said, that it should be mandatory continuing education, I think the states are the most ridiculous. If you go to the dental office and say "What is the number one barrier to treatment?" Some naïve people say, "Was it fear?" No it's price, it's money. They don't have the money to get what's done. Then you o to every state, they're begging for federal dollars fro Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, Obamacare, and then the state, then you say at your state dental convention, "You should be 20 percent on practice mangement so that this office can be faster, more efficient, and collection, and money, and lower, faster, easier, higher quality, lower cost." They say "We don't want any practice management, It has to be on root canal and crowns. We don't even give credit for practice management." Dude, practice management, money, financing. Money is the answer, what's the question?
The number one problem with health care around the world is money. They don't have the money to treat everyone. They don't have the money for the premiums, the co-payments. The what you talked, which is so intelligent, that every front desk lady should have continuing education. If this software, One Mind Health, filed the claim without and employee. Now your overhead's lower. Now you're doing dentistry faster, easier, higher quality. Every government rates ... IN heath care, health care and government are the only two industries who don't want to talk about money, faster, easier each year because the government, they don have an customers. They just tax you or you go to jail. You know what I mean? Health care, they don't care if you have to wait three hours in the waiting room.
I just went to the hospital for the third time in my life, four months ago, or a couple months ago, for a kidney stone. I go there at 2am Thursday morning, to the emergency room. You know when they saw me? \
Lisa: When?
Howard: 6pm Friday. From Thursday at 2am to Friday at 2am, 24 hours, and I still hadn't seen a doctor. Every two hours, here I am in a gurney and wristband, every two hours someone would walk in there and say, "And what is your name?" And I'd tell them. "what is your age?" I'm like, how many people do I have to tell in one hospital my name and my ... Shit I'm naked in a garb, I've got a band on my wrist and I have another moron asking me what my name is. I just love, when life hands you lemons, I just sat there just blissfully taking in the overall stupidity of the entire operation of Banner Healthcare-
Lisa: Just another good story.
Howard: Which is the largest hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. It could've have been more batshit crazy, completely insane. I was just waiting for midget and a juggler to walk in the room and bring me a beer. They couldn't have surprised me any more. I don't know what level of incompetency they could have reached. I was just like, "Wow" We spend 17 cents of every dollar on health care in the United States bad it doesn't even cover 50 million people. I could probably make it seven cents of every dollar and make it cover everybody without eve trying.
So dentists, what they want to do, they just want to go and do root canals all day. Is it safe to say, this is how I look at it. The office manger shoudfl be owking on the business, The front desk lady is working in the business maing hamburgerm fries, and Cokes, taking orders, taking money, seating patients. The front desk person, I mean the office manager, ahs to have a room where they can pull an employee, shut the door, mae a phone call and demo One Mind Health, or Trojan, or Patient Activaotr, Reveunue Well, or looking at working on the business. NO workin gin the business.
It's kind of like dentoists say, I go into every denatl office and I say, "Where's your emergency room?" Every dentist that ahs an emergency room usually nets about 50,000 and I go, "Where's your emergency room?" They go "We can squeeze them in room four between one." That's not an emergency room, thata an opening in your [inaudible 00:48:18]. An enmergency room is a roomm that's never scheduled ebver. Every Endodontist has one, every oral surgeon has one, evrybody who makes a lot of money, every hospital has an emerghency room. If you're front desk lady can't sit there and someones ont he phone with an emergency and just know. In my office I got eight ops in room four, no ones scheule that. That's the emergency room. Without even looking at the schedule, they can say "Well yeah. Just come one down." It's an emergency. It's an emergency room.
I like those because mt avewrage emergency actually randomly caticly offsets the average no-show cancelling. Almost half. I'd say 80% of the time that I waslk into an overflow and just an emergency walk in over the phone, they threw someone in there. As they're working up, taking the PA< the Biwing, figuring out what's going on, they'll tell me "Well this works out perfectly, because your 10:00 just cancelled, no-showed, whatever."
Lisa: Right.
Howard: So what else should an office manager do?
Lisa: Well-
Howard: You say they should be the number one cheerleader.
Lisa: Yes. They should. They need to be encouraging the team. Whrn you have theose emergencies that you're working, you said it oyursefl, you have a bunch opf ladies that work with you, sometimes when they squeeze inthat emerghency, we're not the pmosty popular perons in the dental offoce. So we need to be encourangeing, we need to be able to have osme knoeledge of what's happening in theback so that we can heplmake sure that everythig flows soothly. We need to order the supploies. We shouidl be oh gosh, this is aa tough one. We are resposible for making sure that everyone gets along in a dental practice. When you work with a bunch of women, I have a friend who's an office manager for an oral surgery clinic. There are 21 women in that clinice and I tell her al the time, she's ym hero because I have eight. I'm at my limit.
Howard: You walked into that so I'm gonna hold your feet to the fire. I've only got you for nine more nimutes so we're 51 down, nuine to go. If I said that, I'd be a sexist pig and I'd get all this complaint mail. I can badically only make fun of fat people, bald people, Catholocs, Irish, and drunks. That's about the only people I can go after. Is managing women doifferent that managing men?
Lisa: Okay. I'm gonna say yes. I'm gonna say yes based upon my experience because ... I might put myself in trouble here, but one of the main reasons why I would never vote for Hailary Clinton, is because she's a woman. We are emotional. Okay?
Howard: Oh my god. That's the best quote of the year. "The ony reaosn I'm not voitngof rhIlary is because she's a woma." Who said it? A woman.
Lisa: [inaudible 00:51:06] I've just lost so many clients. No. I just thihk that women tend to me very emotionl. I'm not saying anything that we diont know. It's not that that doesn't make us good at what we do, but smetimes it can really be heards when you're trying to deal with someone. Men have a much easier job of walking through that door and putting it to the shelf. We talk about this imaginary box. When youwalk through that back door, you need to be able to put your personal life in that box. When you get ready to leave, you want to puick it back up? That's up to you. When yourein this practice, we're a team now. I know that some things are harder to dso than others, believe me. I get it. Havign said thatm whe jI have ogne into pracrtices and there that, not always, but there's that one person that just walsk in a dn she's got that attitude and she just doesn't, and I say she because it's always been a she when I'm seeing. I'm not saying we're all that way, that-
Howard: I got a good friend that has a construction comnpany. Does like 300 million dollars a year and he's got like, 1,00 employees and they're all men out in the field. Construictoin, all that studd. Then he's at got the headquarters office, mostly men but he's got six ladies in there doing reception work. These six women have been 99 percent of all his HR problems for 30 years. 30 years, justy six people.
So my questions is getting right to the point. A dentist, he may love the hygienist, he may love the assissatant, he may think his receptionist is great, but two of them hat eeach other. Lets just say, one of them has that attitude, whatever. She's hot or cold. She's moody, wehatver. What are crossing that lines? Where's tha line cross when you can say "maybe I can work with her, maybe I can talk to her, maybe I can get involcved." Where dows the line cross when you say "Shes toxic" and to save your teacm, you've gott a let her go. Maybe she's your favorite assistant. Maybe she's your favorite hygienist. Myabe she's really good at what she does, but as far as team dymanics go. Where does the line cross where you just fire them?
Lisa: For me anywa, what I do, I pull them in and talk to them just one on one. What's going on? Can I help you with anything? Give them the opportunity to let me know if there's something bothering them. If that ... Then I'll let them jnow, we've noticed som ebehovior, it's not condusive to the office environemtn that we're looking for. If it contimnues, I might have to write you up, or whatever your course of action might be. Give them every opportunity to change and give them a time period to change in. If it doesn't work, don't do this, though. I'm a memebr of a grieveing parents club.
Howard: I know, and I'm sorry-
Lisa: No-
Howard: No-
Lisa: There was a woman in this club that told be that her boss pulled her into his poffice and said, "I'm gonna need you to shape up by January 31st or we're just gonna have to let you go." Now, there are different types of problems in this world that we all have to be coinsiderate of, but evem havign said that, Haward, I understand that he has an office and he has to prtect it, but there are ways to go about doing these things. So I like to goive evryone the benefit of the doubt. Myabe something crappy has happened in your life. How can I help you make it better? If you're not actuvely trying to make it better, then I have no chioce. Ultimately, this is a business, It's like the dirty word in dentistry, but it is a business. Our business is to take care of patients. So if you're not hekping us do that, then you're against us and throuigh trhe course of time, yes. I definitely think you have to get rid of toxic people and the sooner you start the process, the sooner you can get rid of them.
Howard: I think, what I do if one of my staff is completely out of line, I try to stay at least ten feet away, and then just toss pieces of chocolate at them.
Lisa: That works.
Howard: I know. Choxcoclate work. If you can get a slingshot and fire an M&M in her mouth, that might settle her down. In all seriousness, I've said this a million times. What I thought would be that hardest thing in life, qwhich I thought would be the learning the calculus, and the physics, and geomety, and truig, all turned out to be the least important stupidest ... I look at mmy nine years of college, and I could condense that program down to two. 80% of everything I learned in the library is useless information and everything I learnedin the sandbox in kinderharten tuned out to be most impptant.
I gotta credit my mom for that. My mom, she's one of them Catjolics what is way too Catholic. You know what I mean? My sisters that are nuns, they're eway tp nun-y, they're way too Cathloic and all this stuff. At the bottom of their funnewl of all their crazienss, it's just people. It's just treat other epopel how you want to be treated.
Lisa: It's thoselife lessons.
Howard: What you siad is, so many people are self-centerd and narcissistic. They'll go to a couner abnd the person will make eye contact and they'll stare at them an go "What's wrong with that person. What did I do? I didn't do anything." Dude, you don't know what's going on in their life. Their mother might have cancer. Their dog might have ran away. Their husaband may be, ran off with the postman. You have no ide ahwta peolpl are going thourgh. You just have no idea. To sirt there and and make it all about you. I always put tthat hat on. It seems like every other day or, every third day or somehitng, you've got a patient that's just like ... I just relax. It doesn't bother me at all. They can go crazy, they can talk and all this stuff, anf I just listen. I alwsy try to, when they're talking, tap their hand, like eyah, just listen. Shut up and listen.
Here's the one things I've learned with patients. When they start farting and saying all these crazy things and all that stuff like that. Never interrupt them. That just refules them. Let them compleyetly, I don't say a damn word. What I've noticed is that when they finally get the last shit out, thewy must relase dopamine or seratoning, becasuse then they're just like, "I ripped you a nrew on. I feel better now. I feel all better." I'm just sitting there like, "Good moneky, goodm oneky. Good talking monkey." You want to pat them on the head? Then you just sort of start pickin gup the pieces. "Well I'm sorry your root cancl fro the last dentits. I'm sorry your mom gave you a soft [inaudible 00:57:48]." You've got to repeat their tradgedy because if you don trepeat it, they fdont think you listend to them. Even though you remembered everything they said, you gottsa repeat it. That's what I just wil say til the day I die that it's just the people skills. If you just learn all the soft stuff.
Lisa: Communication, When somneone asks me ewhat I do, it's kind of funny. I work with temas on how to engage in meaningful communication. That's what it's all about. It's about that cibnversiotn.
Howard: So are you doing in office consultinog?
Lisa: Yes.
Howard: Are you going into offices? How do my listeners get a hold of you? They go to frontdesklady.com?
Lisa: Yes. They can go there.
Howard: They can email you?
Lisa: They can email me at lisamarie@frontdesklady.com
Howard: That's lisamariepredley@frontdesklady.com
Lisa: No. Heres the funny story, Howard, is that I was named after her. My afther is a huge Elvis fan.
Howard: Really?
Lisa: Yes. I was born two months after Lisa Marie.
Howard: Oh my god, that's so cool.
Lisa: I tell everybody that I am Lisa Maire, but I never married Michael Jackson, and I don't have her money. Other than that, I'm Lisa Marie.
Howard: What's your favorite Elvis song?
Lisa: Oh gosh, there are so many, but pribabyl my favorite is Suspicious Minds.
Howard: I'm so damn old I actually go to see him in Henry Levitt Arena in Wichitaw, Kansas at Wichitaw State University.
Lisa: Do you know he died, I was 11 years old and I remember crying. We were in the car and we heard it on the radio and I started crying because I was never going to get to see Elvis Presley.
Howard: Aw, I'm sorry, I share the sam ebirthday with the only guy that sings better than Elvis Presley. I share the same birthdat with him, August 29th.
Lisa: I don't know who that is.
Howard: Who's the only guy who's a greater dancer, singer? Michael Jackson.
Lisa: Oh. Not a Michael Jackson fan.
Howard: You know how I can prove it, because my mom thinks it's Frank Sinatra? I've been in every continent, I've been to every one of them. The only artist you'll see form the hills pf Brazil to Chine, so ShinJin, to India, the whole world, god, Ethiopia, is Michael Jackson. I've seen a kid with a boombox doing the moomwalk in every continent. That's is the only unoiversal singer that I'm aware of. I don think I can think of a single other singer that I've hear din every single country that iove been to.
Lisa: Wow. He's definiteyl pooualr, but I, you know.
Howard: So how muc hdoes your consulting cost? Does it depend on the situation?
Lisa: It really does because one of the things that I think sets me apart from the big consultin ggroups out there, is I am strictly front office. So I'm a niche dental consultant. I don tgo in and try to fix the whole practice because I don't know what's wrong with the whole practoice and I don't want to know. I help you rfront office team. If it's a start up practice, I'll help them create forms and come up with guidelines for scripts, because I'm not a scripts fan. I thnk that they're too impersonal. I've done a little bit of everything.
Howard: Well you know, the best marketing you could do is create an online CE course called Front Desk Lady and market it. When someone put a course out, I can digitally put it out in front of 300,000 dentists form every country on earth, and then these denttsist, 80% of my audience is U.S., and it should be somethin gaimed at the whole office. For an hour, the whole office watch you for an hour, and then a lot of dentists will look at that. If they know the way you think and they trust you and they like what you're saying and they like what you're gonna do, then they think, "Hell, I want to write you a check so you can just come in and get it done." I thnk it's very counterintuitive. I think most of your consultants at FAADOM, if they do an online CE course and give away all the ansers of what you shouold, then they think no ones gonna hire their business and ti's exactly the opposite. Wshen the dentist ssees what you're gonna do, then they don't have any fear.
It's just like when you go to a restaurant and order a steak. I could go out in the back yard and make asteak. I've done that a miilino times, but you want to pay someone a check to cook it for you, That's why you go to arestaurant. I think if you didi a program, whwthwe it be one hour, or a three part series, or whatever. I think if you spelled out everyhing you know and everything you would to for a team, I think thousands of dentists would look at that and say, "Damn. I want to write her a check and have her come to Shaawnee, Kansas and get that going on in my office." Becasye they know what they ... If you explain to them, the denstts say "I know what I need." Then, they'll look at the man in the mirror, my fovorite3 Michael Jackson song, and they'll look at the man in the mirror and say "I just ain't gonna get it done.
Lisa: Right.
Howard: So am I looking at you when I said that? Do you have sus[picoious minds?
Lisa: That's a great idea.
Howard: Yeah, do it. I thnk it would be great