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AUDIO - DUwHF #288 - Josh Walker
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VIDEO - DUwHF #288 - Josh Walker
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Stay tuned until the end for a sample of Dr. Walker’s funny dental videos!
Josh Walker, DDS:
-Graduated in 2002 from UMKC School of Dentistry
-Practicing in Manhattan, Kansas
-Office has been voted #1 Dental Office in Manhattan
-Actively use social media, specifically Facebook to appeal to patients
-Writes, films, edits all Facebook videos for office
-Office Facebook is close to 2000 likes as of August 2015
Dr. Walker was raised in Arlington, Texas, and moved to Overland Park, Kansas, where he graduated from high school. He received his bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University and went on to obtain his DDS degree from the University of Missouri – Kansas City in 2002. He maintains membership in the American Dental Association, Kansas Dental Association, American Academy of Craniofacial Pain, and the Northwest Golden Belt Dental Society. He has also pursued further education in the field of cosmetic dentistry and occlusion. He also is a graduate of Leadership Manhattan (Class of 2003). Dr. Walker focuses on helping patients feel comfortable while they receive the quality dental care they need for lasting oral health.
Dr. Walker and his wife, Jennifer, have two sons: Jackson and Carson. In his free time, Dr. Walker enjoys fishing, pencil drawing, and attending the sporting events of his kids and K-State.
www.fidks.com
Howard Farran: It is a huge honor today to be interviewing a very fun dentist. I'm a huge fan of your videos, Josh Walker, who graduated from the same dental school I did. You graduated from UMKC in 2002, and you've been doing dentistry 14 years. Your website is fidks.com, for Family Implant Dentistry Kansas dot com, fidks. How did you get into making funny Facebook videos? Tell us about that journey.
Josh Walker: Really it was kind of a fluke deal that we really hadn't put much thought into. We'd been maintaining a Facebook page for awhile, and we just kind of had the idea one time when that song, I Can't Feel My Face, came out. We're sitting around, "This sounds like a dental office." We just had some spare time, went out there and got the husband of one of the dentists there that practices, and she did her thing and we videoed it and put it to that song, and once we put it out there, people just latched onto it, and so we thought, "Okay. Well, maybe we got something here." Then from that point on, every time we'd have an idea ... It's one of our more important things that we do on our page is trying to get a video up about once every 2 weeks.
Howard Farran: Once every 2 weeks? How many have you put up?
Josh Walker: Oh, I think we're up to about 9 or 10 so far, just in the last ...
Howard Farran: Would you care ... How long is the average one? The average one's about a song, right? 3 minutes?
Josh Walker: The song deal was just its own thing. We've done the song on some other ones, but we've gone to spoofing different things. Really it's just whatever we've come up with. We've had one that was kind of goofy about Cotton-Eyed Joe, where we're playing the floss in somebody's mouth and the people in the office just start dancing. Just random stuff just to ... We try to keep it under about a minute and a half at the most, just so people don't have to sit there and watch a lot.
Howard Farran: Ryan, can we put these on the podcast? Would you care if we put these on the podcast?
Josh Walker: Go for it. That'd be great.
Howard Farran: I mean, there's only 10. He says there's only 10. Let's just put them all up there. I think they're amazing. I've posted several on Dentaltown. I'm sure some on my Facebook. What is your Facebook page?
Josh Walker: What is our Facebook? Like, what's the address?
Howard Farran: Yeah, so the homies listening to this can find you on Facebook and like your page and see your videos.
Josh Walker: It's under Family and Implant Dentistry, Manhattan, Kansas.
Howard Farran: Okay. It's facebook.com/fidks for Family Implant Dentistry Kansas, so facebook.com/fidks. I swear they're just awesome. I know when they watch these, they're going to be entertained. They're going to love them, but did they change your bottom line? Have you tracked more patients coming into your office in Manhattan, Kansas, from doing these marketing videos?
Josh Walker: Oh, for sure. We can see a huge response. Our likes on Facebook page is one thing. We were up to almost 3,000 likes on our page up from about ... Oh, since before the videos, maybe 1,000, and we see patients all around town and people that aren't patients that come up to us and say, "Oh, I love your videos." We've had, I would say quite a few patients that have come in, and not just because of the videos. It's just, I think it makes them feel comfortable coming into our office knowing that we're normal people and we can have fun. They see our staff's having a good time. I think that's what people are a little bit afraid of. Yeah, I could say that it's helped the bottom line.
Howard Farran: That's amazing, because my dental office Facebook page is facebook.com/todaysdental, and I only have 1,861 likes, so that 3,000 likes, and I'm in big old Phoenix. You're in little bitty Manhattan.
Josh Walker: That's right.
Howard Farran: You know, it's probably a fun ... When I watch those videos, it's probably a fun team exercise for your staff. I mean, the most important thing in your office is managing the team, and it looks like it's kind of a great team experience, and the team's having fun, and bonding together.
Josh Walker: That's right. You see a lot, after we put it out on Facebook, that through their individual Facebook pages, they're sharing it talking about how much I love my job. We've had people respond, "That'd be a great place to work. It looks like they have a great time." From a standpoint of trying to get new employees, we haven't really lost too many lately, but I would think that it might help us if we put something out on Facebook in the future that someone might want to work there, seeing that we have a good time.
Howard Farran: Yeah. I think it's amazing. That's why I wanted to interview you. I just think that's really cool. How do you come up with ideas for your videos?
Josh Walker: You know what? Usually they come into my head at about 11:00 at night. I'm laying in bed, something stupid, you know? Just see something, I think, "Man, that could be modified to use at the office," just like the video, the I Can't Feel My Face. There's really no rhyme or reason. We've got some other ones that we're kind of working on, thinking about maybe doing a spoof of Ferris Bueller, like Dr. Walker's Day Off kind of deal, or we had one with Dr. Snowden in the office.
It was just ... He doesn't have any hair on his head, so we acted like he had a mid-life crisis and he retired, but then we hired Dr. Flowden, and it was actually Dr. Snowden wearing this crazy wig. Just dumb stuff, you know? Just dumb stuff that ... We just really want to convey to people that I'm not a robot with skin in here doing dentistry. We do the dentistry but when you come in we're normal people, we like to have fun, and so the ideas are all just really based on that.
Howard Farran: Fear is still a big part. I know, I hear all these dentists talking about the patients all want same day crowns, and I just stand back and say, "Okay, I've been doing dentistry 20 years, and I've heard that like twice." What I hear, if I tell you, Josh Walker, you need a crown, half the questions are, "How much does it cost?" "Will my insurance pay?" "When is my portion due?" "Can I pay half today and the other half next Friday when I get paid?" CareCredit, financing, I mean that's half the questions.
Then it switches to fear. "Am I going to get a shot?" "Is this going to hurt?" "Can you knock me out?" "Do you have laughing gas?" Then it switches to, especially with women, "What is it going to look like?" "Let me see a mirror." "Which tooth is it?" "What is it going to look like?" Same day crown might be the last of the list. I'm just not seeing that, but back to fear, when people say ... This probably reduces people's fear. They probably think, "That fun office, dancing and singing in that silly video, are probably more likely that if I raise my hand they'll stop. That guy looks like he'll hurt me less."
Josh Walker: That's right. I think there's kind of that barrier. I think dentists sometimes ... They may be a little bit self-conscious that they're not a physician, so sometimes they try to put this wall up that you can't be a normal person. You've got to act like maybe times 10 that I'm a doctor, and don't disrespect me. You know what? I don't care. I'm a dentist. I went to dental school. I'm happy being a dentist. Come in. We'll take care of you. If we have a good time, that's great.
That doesn't mean that you think less of me as a dentist. That doesn't mean that I can't put a crown in there right because we laugh the whole time. I think that helps a lot. It really does. People come up to us in public and say it all the time, so that's a huge deal. Same day crown, we have that capability as well, but I don't believe that ... That's not driving the bus. That's just something ... A mere suggestion and people will go for it sometimes, sometimes they won't, but I think the great majority of it is just fear, and cost also, but fear is huge.
Howard Farran: Yeah, I have CEREC, too, and we do a couple every single day, every day, for a decade or more, but you're right. It's not what's driving the bus. I think what's driving the bus is cost, money, and fear. I also think that when you put up that eminence front, that "I'm a doctor," and you're not, then people don't ask questions. That's why when the dentist leaves the room, they always turn to the dental assistant and say, "Well, what do you think? Talk to me. You seem like a normal human." We need to go in there and be a normal human and lower those barriers to entry.
I always noticed that in Catholic mass, letting you know, my mom took us to mass every single morning, every single day, my entire life from birth to 17, and I never saw one person raise their hand and ask the priest a question. It was just like, it was a one-way street. We're up on stage, you're sitting below us. We're talking down to you. When dentists have that deal, people don't ask questions to priests, rabbis, dentists, physicians, doctors. Then as soon as they get out of the room, everybody starts getting human and asking the old dental assistant, which is why I think that it's mandatory that you take all staff with you to CE, because they're far more likely to be getting asked all the questions than the doctor.
Josh Walker: They need to be as educated as we are. That's for sure.
Howard Farran: When they say, "What is a sinus lift?" And your assistant doesn't know or your receptionist doesn't know, or your hygienist, that's horrible.
Josh Walker: See, I think sometimes dentists, they want that. They want it to be, them only to be the only knowledgeable one in there, and they reestablish and reaffirm that, that top down type hierarchy and that's not [crosstalk 00:09:36].
Howard Farran: That's so yesterday.
Josh Walker: That's correct.
Howard Farran: It's so yesterday.
Josh Walker: From our growth in this office, we're growing at a pretty good rate for a town that's only 50,000 people. I think it speaks volumes of how people feel. They don't have trouble referring us to their friends because they're not afraid if their friend comes in that they're going to have a bad experience and then it's going to reflect badly on that referral.
Howard Farran: Manhattan, Kansas is 50,000 people. It's home of K State, and Lawrence, Kansas, closer to Kansas City is home of KU, and were you born in Manhattan? Is that why you're there?
Josh Walker: No. I was raised in Dallas, born and raised in Dallas and then we moved to Kansas City when I went to high school, and then I went to K State for under-grad, and really had no intention of ever coming back to Manhattan once I graduated. Bill Snyder was winning football games when I was in dental school and we were coming back to watch these games, and started looking at the community as something other than just a college town, and we love it. It's great. It's a great town. Now that things have grown, Manhattan's got an airport that we've got 5 flights a day to Dallas and 2 or 3 to Chicago ...
Howard Farran: So Dallas would be American Airlines and Chicago would be for United?
Josh Walker: No, it's just both American, just American.
Howard Farran: Oh, they're both American?
Josh Walker: It goes to O'Hare and the ones goes to DFW.
Howard Farran: So 5 flights a day with American Airlines, little commuter props. Let's go back 14 years and look at the people in your class who decided to stay in the big city, Kansas City, where they have a dental school dumping out 100 dentists a year, versus you deciding, "I'm going to go rural, and I'm going to go small-town America, Manhattan, 50,000." Do you think there was less supply and demand? Do you think there was more need for a dentist in Manhattan than Kansas City?
Josh Walker: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, my classmates that went to cities much larger, they'd have to work at multiple practices to fill their schedule. When I came to Manhattan ... I was fortunate to come at a time that we were really starting to grow, and so there was plenty ... The office that I joined, there was 2 existing dentists, and when I came in my schedule was full. It was more than I could really handle coming out of school, going from 2 patients a day to 10 or 20, but that's a good problem to have.
Howard Farran: What would you say to these kids? Because, you know, half of America lives in the urban, half lives in the rural. The dental schools are all in these big urban centers. They fall in love with the Kansas City Royals, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Plaza, West ... What is it Westcourt?
Josh Walker: Westport.
Howard Farran: Westport. You know, they fall in love with the museums, the culture, the rest ... They all want to stay there, and dentistry's about supply and demand. Starbucks doesn't do that. They evenly spread out. McDonald's doesn't do that. They evenly spread out. But dentists just, I mean, God, you find medical/dental buildings in the 100 largest cities that got 10 dentists in one building and they don't get it. Sell rural. Are you married? Children? Any of that?
Josh Walker: I'm married. I was married before I was in dental school, and my wife's from north of here. She's from a smaller town, so it wasn't a hard sell for her to come back to Manhattan. But as far as what I got out of coming here versus what someone got out of going to a larger city, I think you're going to get to the same point at some point if you're a good practitioner and you give a good product. It's just you get there much quicker in a rural setting. I feel like for the first 5 to 10 years, if you ever see your classmates, you're in a much better position than they are. You're able to buy the tickets to go to those Royals games. You just have to drive 2 hours to get there. That's fine.
But from a financial standpoint, they talk about money doubling every what, 4 to 6? Whatever the interest rate would be, you can start your retirement plan much earlier in a rural community because you've got more money than, really starting out than you know that you need, so you can invest and you can start that plan much sooner. That's another thing to look at it, but there's plenty of patients, plenty of money. You got a lot of these people, they'll come in and you don't think that they've got money, because you look at them, and they always talk about, "Don't diagnose a pocketbook." Some of these people have more money than anybody, these farmers that come out and they pay cash, so you don't have to worry about insurance. You don't have to worry about some of these other things that you would have to in a city.
Howard Farran: Well, you know, I've always thought, growing up in Kansas, that when you live out in a small town, where are you going to spend your money? There's not a lot of great ... When you're in Phoenix, Arizona, you can go to a great restaurant any night of the week, have any genre of food, shops, malls, but when you're in a small town where do you even spend your money? It just seems like the rural people, they don't look like they can spend a lot of money, and that's why they have a lot of money. They just have more money because there's less substitutes in the marketplace trying to take their money away from them.
Josh Walker: That's probably true. That's probably true. We've got, with the university here and with our town growing, we've got a lot of amenities now that we didn't have, a lot of retail stores. They're projecting that the town's going to grow closer to 100,000 over the next 5 to 10 years because we have a facility that the federal government had put here, the Homeland Security, that's bringing a lot of jobs, a lot of opportunity, that companies are relocating to Manhattan. Manhattan's just kind of a unique town. To call it rural, it's somewhat rural, but now with the speed limit change in Kansas, you can get to Kansas City in an hour and a half. There's probably a lot of places in Arizona, or a lot of people that might even commute that far down there. You're not that far from doing things, or spending your money.
Howard Farran: What's really crazy is there's dentists that live in the suburbs of Kansas City. They get up every day and commute an hour into town, and when they wake up, they're probably at about a dentist for every 2,000 people. They commute an hour into town, where now there's a dentist for every 500, and if they'd wake up in the morning and commute an hour out of town, to some community of 5,000, they'd be the only show out there. They wouldn't have to take insurance. Their whole life would be completely different if they would just commute the opposite way.
Josh Walker: I agree. I agree completely. You know what my commute is to work every day? 3 minutes.
Howard Farran: 3 minutes?
Josh Walker: Don't have to deal with traffic. I go visit my parents in Dallas, and life is too short to sit in that traffic. I can visit that, but that's it.
Howard Farran: Are you a Cowboys fan or a Kansas City Chiefs fan?
Josh Walker: Oh, I'm cursed as a Cowboys fan. I like the Cowboys. I like the Chiefs if they're not playing the Cowboys. I've kind of grown to like them. Yeah, that's kind of a curse to be a Cowboys fan.
Howard Farran: Yeah, growing up in Kansas, I was always a Chiefs fan, and then I moved out to Phoenix and the St. Louis Cardinals moved out here. Now they're the Arizona Cardinals. But what advice would your ... I've been out 28 years, you've been out 14 years, so you've been out half as much time as I have, so you're closer to the graduating class. They devour these podcasts. They're huge fans of the show. What advice would you give to seniors? Looking back, do you think they should do a residency? What about corporate chains? In Manhattan do you see Heartland Dentals, Pacific Dentals, Aspens? Do you see corporate dentistry? What advice would you give to seniors?
Josh Walker: You know, in Kansas it's not legal to have corporate dentistry yet, so I think they're ...
Howard Farran: Explain that.
Josh Walker: Oh, I think the way that they've got it is if you have multiple locations, you have to spend a minimum amount of time at each, so at that point you can maybe have 2 or 3 locations and so that keeps these franchise dentals out of the state. I think the Kellogg Foundation for some reason has a vested interest in trying to get that changed. They're putting a lot of money into trying to get this franchise dental approved in the state. I can't speak from that. I can speak from coming out of dental school, you don't know what you're going to be ...
When you get out I think you're a pretty good dentist for the 50s. You come out and you can maybe do a crown, you can do an amalgam. When I was in school, we didn't do a whole lot of posterior composites, so a lot of this stuff's on the job training. Whether you do a residency or not, I just say get out and start doing your life, getting control of your life, and get out there and do what you want to do, because that's just another year to sit in school and have somebody else that probably went out and didn't do so well themselves tell you how to run dentistry.
That'd be another thing I'd tell them. Most of my teachers in dental school ... Not all of them, so I'll make that disclaimer, but a lot of them went out and they didn't do too well, and they came back to teach, and so they had a warped view on what private practice was. They tended to talk down, like you're not going to succeed. It's really hard to succeed. It's not hard to succeed. If you got the tools, and the drive and the desire to do it, this is such a rewarding profession. I really, I just totally lucked into it.
Howard Farran: What percent of the teachers, when you were in dental school at UMKC, would you say those who can't teach, and those who do go out and build a great practice?
Josh Walker: 75% or more are the ones that went out and struck out or ... A few of them were in the military, and came back, and they were able to double dip and get their pension and get paid, but military dentistry's not real world dentistry either, so you've got another input of somebody that really doesn't understand what real world dentistry is. But the great majority of them, they're there for a reason.
Howard Farran: You're saying 3 out of 4 are those who can't teach and those who can do. I think most dentists would agree with that. I mean, you have to wonder why one person's working in a prison, and one person has their own practice. Not that prison is less dentistry or this and that, but in a prison industry you're working for someone. Someone else is the boss. Someone else is the man, and having your own destiny ... What I like about dentistry, and I didn't want to deal with the medicine ... My physician friends were telling me they could just psychologically not handle the politics of the hospitals, just all that crap going on.
It's the same thing in dental schools. Most of my good friends who teach in dental schools just say the number one reason they want to quit is just the politics in the dental school. What I love the most about having your own dental office is no politics. I'm the boss, it's just me. I never got a partner because I didn't want to deal with that, and you just go in there and it's just Howieland, and you just get to do what you want. You're in charge of your own destiny, and you set your own hours. If you don't want to treat a patient you don't have to. If you don't want to do a ... I just love it.
Josh Walker: Right. You just have to surround yourself with good people once you get out, for sure, because I don't know how you are. I'm not a numbers person. I'm the goofball that makes the videos, so I'm not the guy that's sitting there crunching numbers and counting beans. In our case, where we've got partners, the other partners kind of keep me in check and I kind of keep them in check with our personalities. It's not adversarial. It's just a difference in ...j
Howard Farran: So you're in group practice with partners.
Josh Walker: Correct.
Howard Farran: How many dentists are there?
Josh Walker: There's 5 of us.
Howard Farran: Are they all different ages? Does the practice add one every 5 years so it goes from like 60 to 50, to 40 to 30? How are they spread out on age?
Josh Walker: Our oldest doctor is probably going to be retiring here within a year. He's in his 60s. The next one's in his 50s. I'm in my 40s and then ... The one right behind me, he's about 3 years younger than I am. Then our latest associate, she's right at 30.
Howard Farran: Talk about that. What advice would you give ... How do you deal with the one partner who wants to buy a $100,000 CAD-CAM and the other doesn't, or one wants to buy a $100,000 CBCT and the other one ... How do you deal with conflict? What advice would you give to getting along and having healthy, functional relationships in a group practice?
Josh Walker: I think we're just ... The only thing I could say is we're all pretty good at seeing the bigger picture. We all appreciate technology. We all appreciate wanting to have the newest and latest, so as far as equipment purchases, sometimes when it comes to having to buy a new computer or new computers, in a big practice you have to buy 30 computers every 4 years, so that's a pretty good expenditure, but most of us, we see the bigger picture. To spend $30,000 to make however many hundreds of thousands off that equipment, we understand the investment. I can't really speak to ... Other than we're pretty fortunate with our group, and we all have to kind of an understanding and not get caught up in little minutiae that doesn't matter.
Howard Farran: Is one doctor the 4,000 pound gorilla, or is that an office manager, that kind of range on it? What happens when 3 doctors want to go left and 2 want to go right? Who's the alpha ... Is there like an alpha, bull male dynamic? Or do you pawn that off on a strong office manager?
Josh Walker: We've had office managers and I don't know. It just doesn't seem to work. I don't know ... In our situation, if we sense something's going wrong, it's not out of the question that we'll meet on a Sunday night down at the office and, "Let's talk." We're not going to hole up and just sit there and lob bombs at each other. We're pretty good, and we've had ... It seems like now, with such a large practice, every year you've got to reinforce the policies that you've got in place, because you do have some turnover.
People forget these different policies, people interpret them different ways, just to get everybody on the same page and that's doctors included. On an annual basis we try to regroup, get focused back on what our mission statement, or what our mission is at the office. Don't ask me what our mission statement is, but you know, basically we want to do the best dentistry and take care of the patients in a comfortable environment with the latest technology.
Howard Farran: Do you do things outside of the office with your partners? Do you have bonding things, like do you guys all get together and golf or go skiing or anything for camaraderie, bonding building, or do you not find that necessary?
Josh Walker: Not necessarily for us. When you've got, say 30 females working together, sometimes there can be issues that arise. I am sure that's with anybody, but sometimes I feel like a junior high school principal. They tend to get a little nit-picky with each other over things that really don't matter, so we try to make a concentrated effort every quarter to have an outing outside of the office, where we go out to eat or we've gone out to play golf, or we've done with the whole office, just so they can see each other as people and not just robot dental assistants, so everybody can see that everybody's got problems. Everybody's got a family. That includes the doctors, so in those social settings, we'll sit and talk and it helps us as well.
Howard Farran: What advice ... Because those are all the things they never taught us in dental school, like how to get 30 people, how to get 30 staff members all to get along, play nicely, be happy in the sandbox together, play together, work together. What things have you done in the last 14 years that you think made you a better ringleader to get all these 30 staff members to play nicely and get along? Is there books you read? Courses you took? Or just the school of hard knocks for 14 years?
Josh Walker: A lot of it's trial and error. A lot of it's negative experiences, doing it one way and, "Ooh, that didn't work." You know, don't do that again. I've found ... I'm not a person that likes to tell people what they don't want to hear. I'm kind of like the touchy-feely, nice guy. I'm not a real hard-ass. The thing that's helped me the most is just having a good policy manual that I can put the blame on something other than myself. If we've got pretty hard, fast policies ... They're flexible to a degree, but if somebody comes and wants to ask me a question that they probably know is bending a policy, I can always fall back on the policy manual. That's probably the best thing that's ever happened for me, so I can take the stress off of myself having to make that decision.
Howard Farran: Where did you get the policy manual?
Josh Walker: We've had some consultants over the years that have come in and then kind of pieced things together. Our established dentist, Dr. Hungerford, he had been in this practice ... He had started the practice, so he had some framework and there's some policies in there that, they always seem to apply to certain situations that your practice is in, given what your staff is and what they would try to accomplish that might be against it. We've taken what he had and then just added certain things as we have come across it, so we've got some weird policies in there that just apply to certain situations. But in our situation it works.
Howard Farran: Over the years, does he talk fondly about any particular consultant that really came in and helped his office grow that he would recommend today?
Josh Walker: He used to some stuff back in the day, like Quest and all that.
Howard Farran: That was way back in the day.
Josh Walker: He talks about that. I don't understand it necessarily, but a lot of their ideas aren't too bad. I think it was kind of quirky. I think it was a little bit ... From what I understand pretty cultish. I don't know if you want to call it that, but it just ... It took up a lot of their time and they really had to be knee deep in it all the time. We've taken some of those things, those philosophies and added, but as far as ... It seems like any time we've ever got a consultant and they tell you something, it's really a lot of stuff that you've always been doing. They just tend to package it and sell it to you like they've got some new idea, so no. I might make a lot of consultants mad by saying that, but they tend to be just facilitators. They come in and kind of make the stuff that you already were trying to do a little easier to do.
Howard Farran: My summary of Quest, because this goes back to the '80s. They were at the zenith about when I was in dental school, '84 to '87. I think the main take away they did is got dentists to add more operatories. Back in those days it was so common for a dental office to have 2 chairs, one for the dentist, one for the hygienist, and there was just no way ... Before them, it was actually ... I'll give you an example. Did you know that ... I was at a human rights museum in Canada, in Winnipeg, and one of the things that ... You think of human rights as like slavery and the Holocaust, and American Indians. You don't think of the fact that in 1971 women couldn't run in the Boston Marathon. There was this girl, then, she'd always keep trying to run it and they'd chase her down, arrest her. It was crazy. She had to fight for that right.
In dentistry what's crazy is the dentists didn't understand that, the logistics of having more operatories where you could numb this person. While it's soaking in you could go to another room and see the crown, and a third chair, they could be cleaning it up and setting up the next patient. Dentists didn't know their costs. When I started lecturing, the first time I went down to Australia, they were laughing at me. They were saying, "So, so, so ..." This guy stood up and he asked a question, and he's pretending he's got his hand out with an endo file in each hand and I'm doing root canals, and 2 chairs at the same time. They just didn't even grasp operational logistics of like, "No, I'm not filing on 2 patients at the same time."
Yeah, I say Quest, the best thing they did is they got people to start looking at the numbers, but they mostly got people to add more chairs and I still can ... At least half the offices I go into, they're net income would increase if they added more operatories. There's just no overflow. They can't get emergencies to come down. They say they can't bring an emergency down because they don't have a chair. Then the dentist says, "Well, I'm busy. I can't have an emergency." Yeah, but you don't know.
That emergency might come down and all you have to do is just write a 'script for antibiotics. But there's that 50/50 chance when that patient comes down, another one of your patients didn't show up. Now you're working the variance of walk-in emergencies, toothaches, come down now, versus no-shows and cancellations, and then sometimes I'd rather do a root canal. I'm fat. I'm 50 pounds overweight, so I'd rather just do a root canal at lunch, get this person out of pain, make 1000 bucks and then go over to Nero's Gyros and eat another hero sandwich, which I need like a hole in my head. Yeah. That was a good [crosstalk 00:31:08].
Josh Walker: Yeah. That same mentality, I totally agree. We've got plenty of chairs and we've always made time for emergencies, and it seems like with the dental patients now, other than ... What'll overcome the fears, if they're in pain, and they want to get in now, and if you can't get them in within an hour or two, they're going to go to the next list on the phone-book or Facebook, wherever. It's a real opportunity to gain patients. If you can get them in that day and get them out of pain, they're your best friend.
Howard Farran: Absolutely. With 5, you have 5 dentists and 30 staff, right? With 5 dentists, do you cover a lot more hours, or with 5 dentists are you still just Monday through Friday, 8 to 5?
Josh Walker: Monday through Friday, 7 to 6.
Howard Farran: Nice, nice. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Josh Walker: Correct, and that was done because we were about 8 to 4, 8 to 5, and we were having some issues finding time in the schedule. We just thought we'll add an hour in the morning, an hour at the end of the day. You're not adding operatory, you're not building anything, so you're not really incurring a whole lot of expense, and it really ... I can't remember the amount, but it was a significant increase in what our revenue was just by adding those hours.
Honestly, to work until 6:00 ... It seems like 7:00 appointments and 6:00 appointments or 5:00 appointments until 6, those are probably our most popular appointments because people want to come before work, come after work, before school, after school, and we just stagger our schedules. I only work 4 days a week, but we've got it staggered that there's really never more than 3 of us practicing at once, so it's not like we're stumbling all over each other.
Howard Farran: How many operatories does your office have?
Josh Walker: We've got 4 hygiene operatories that 2 hygienists work out of with an assistant each, and then we've got a surgical operatory that ... Dr. Hungerford does a lot of implants and wisdom teeth extractions. He likes surgery, and then we've got 7 operatories for operative. We're actually thinking about expanding in the next year to maybe add another 1 or 2 operatories.
Howard Farran: Well, so you've got 12 ... But dentistry's a variable cost business, labor, lab and supplies. Usually the average overhead of a dental office is 64%, so you're looking at 36% for the doctors. You're looking at about 28% on average for the staff, so that's 53%. Lab bills 10%, lab bills being variable, meaning if you see twice as many people you're going to have twice as many labs. Sundry's 6%, you're going to have twice as many supplies. But when dentists start trying to save a penny on fixed costs, whether it be rent, mortgage, chairs, utilities, operatories, they actually ... It makes their variable costs, labor, more inefficient.
If dentists would always focus on their variable costs of labor, lab and supplies, and take their eye off fixed costs, and if they need more operatories, every time they spend money on fixed costs, it makes their labor costs more efficient. You never do anything, you never muck up your variable costs, labor, to try to fit into your fixed costs, because once labor starts going inefficient, your overhead skyrockets. If you build a facility where ... I go into several offices and everyone's standing around waiting for a chair, and I'm like, "These chairs aren't 1% of cost."
I'm looking at a doctor, 35% of costs, standing in his operatory, waiting for a chair, at like a 28% labor cost, and it is 28%. A lot of dentists think their labor's 20%, but you take the FICA matching and the health insurance, and the 401K, and everything that goes into this human, it's closer to 28 on average, and when I go into most dental offices, I see most of the time, labor, 53 cents of every dollar, standing around trying to wait for an operatory that doesn't even cost 1% of their cost, and it's just crazy.
Josh Walker: You just don't have the operatory available for them to work out of?
Howard Farran: Yeah, and whenever I go into a dental office that they can say, "Oh, yeah. That operatory over there, yesterday we didn't even use it," they always have the lowest overhead. That office usually has 40 to 50% overhead, and then I go up to a front office, and everybody's paging through calendars, looking for a chair. They usually have 65% overhead. I cannot find a dental office at 40% overhead that doesn't say, "Oh, yeah. That operatory, every other day, no one even sits in it."
Josh Walker: That's right. That's where we fall, under that category.
Howard Farran: In fact, I've been in dental offices where an operatory breaks down and they have to start canceling patients. It's like, "Are you kidding me? Now you're canceling patients over a chair?" I wish ... I can say this. Probably the best decision any dentist can ever do is add another operatory. I say you add operatories until finally you sit there and say, "Well, you know what? We don't hardly ever even use that extra operatory." That's perfect.
Josh Walker: That's right.
Howard Farran: Until you're there, keep adding them, because it's the flow. One breaks down. One we're just going to throw emergency in there and Doc Josh is just going to go in there and say, "You know what? You need to be on antibiotics for 3 days, because that's when I have my next opening," and catch the fish. You can bring it back, cook, clean and eat it later, but just catch the fish. But yeah, add operatories. Your dentist, what's the oldest guy's name that's retiring this year?
Josh Walker: Dr. Hungerford.
Howard Farran: Hunger ...
Josh Walker: Hungerford. Hunger ford.
Howard Farran: Hungerford.
Josh Walker: Yes.
Howard Farran: Is that German or German?
Josh Walker: Yeah. I think it's German.
Howard Farran: How old's Dr. Hungerford? You said 65?
Josh Walker: He's in his 60s, mid-60s.
Howard Farran: You know what? I think you should bring him back another day and do a podcast with him. Getting him, building this big group practice, practicing for 40 years in Manhattan. It'd be awesome to get his insight. Think he'd ever do that?
Josh Walker: Oh, I think he'd go for it for sure. I think when I talk about people that know numbers, and I'm the fun guy that does the videos, he's the guy that if you want to talk about overhead and percentages, he's got a brain like a computer. I think you could speak to him about that. Really what he's ... He's been through some transitions as he built this practice, of philosophies and to get where we're at, sometimes people scoff at the way we do it, but you know, when it comes down to it, we've got plenty of operatories. We don't own our assistants. The assistants stay in each room, and then the doctors move between rooms.
Then we've got somebody that's centrally located that when the next patient comes, to get that patient back in a timely manner, that's the person that goes into the next operatory, as the person's finished or they're opened up. There's not that waiting, there's not the feeling that I own this patient. If these patients want to see us, they can see us, but most people ... I think dentists think they're more valuable than what they are. I think that patients ... They really just want to get in there and get out and they're not there to make friends. They want to get their teeth cleaned. If they have a good experience, that's great, but I think sometimes dentists don't want to give up that grip on these patients, and I think that's where Dr. Hungerford, luckily with his philosophy, when we add an associate, my patients can see that person.
It's fine with me. That just means that if that patient goes out of town, or I go out of town, and they have a problem, my associate could go see them. They could go in and see them for a toothache. I'm not married to a patient as much as that ... I mean, that patient may be married to me and they may feel that way, and that's fine. But I'd bet you 75% of the patients, when they come in to get their teeth cleaned and we give them the option of whatever dentists are there to choose from, or first available, they're going to choose first available to do their exam. Far as doing work, they may be a little more partial, maybe 50/50, but beyond that, they just want to get it done in a timely manner.
Howard Farran: You're saying that 50% of this large, 5 doctor group practice, 50% of the patients really just, it's all about the patient. They just want first available.
Josh Walker: That's correct.
Howard Farran: They trust the operation, and I've also thought that when you look down ... When someone says, "Oh, yeah. I love that doctor." But when you start talking to them, it sounds like they love the receptionist or the assistant or the hygienist. I think the doctor really has an over-inflated sense of who the relationship is. Most people only think about themselves, so if the best time for me to go to the dentist is this time, and you're out of town or that's not ... Who cares? They want to go ... It's like when you fly an airplane, you don't pick the pilot. You pick when I want to fly, and you're saying half the patients just want ... Their convenience, first available.
Josh Walker: Then they pick the level of service, just like an airline. You're not going there for that pilot. You've got to have trust in that organization or that practice that whoever's going to sit down is going to get you from point A to point B, whether that's a flight or getting a crown put on your tooth. It seems that a lot of the older patients, and they always talk about older people are kind of set in their ways, they're probably the ones that are more prone to being stuck, like married to a certain doctor. They don't want to change but that's the minority for sure.
Howard Farran: I would say in my practice, the most people that have, insist on seeing one person, is old grandpas that want to see my 50 year old, hot little Jan. They've loved her for 28 years. They just want to come in and see Jan. They just light up like a Christmas tree when they see her, and they don't really care when a short, fat, bald dentist comes in.
Josh Walker: They come in and they get awkward about it. It seems like the old guys are the ones that are awkwardly hugging all the assistants, but they just kind of giggle about it though, the assistants, and I think once you get to be 80 years old, I guess they just let you do certain things. But it seems like those are the guys that are really awkward.
Howard Farran: Well said. Something about being a grandpa gets us a big pass. I think Jan gets a marriage proposal about every 3 months. She just had one Monday.
Josh Walker: Oh no.
Howard Farran: I pulled these 4 wisdom teeth on this lady, and it was so fun because they were literally the hardest wisdom teeth I'd pulled in 5, 10 years, and I came out of there and Jan's just laughing and she got another marriage proposal. What technology is your office using?
Josh Walker: Just, we have a CEREC.
Howard Farran: You have a CEREC?
Josh Walker: We have the cone beam, the GALILEOS. We have DEXIS, we have SoftDent, which I don't know, if you're listening to me SoftDent, you're falling behind.
Howard Farran: Yeah. I've been on SoftDent since '87, and I'm like this close to switching to Open Dental.
Josh Walker: That's where I'm at. In the past it's always been, it's more of an issue to shift to something than just sit there and deal with it, and now it's starting that, those are starting to change to where staying with it is starting to become more of an issue than switching, you know with a big staff. But SoftDent, I don't know where they've kind of fallen behind. It just seems like they follow in the world of innovation, and it's not like working with AT&T. It's just hard to get anything done. You don't have any reps in your ... We don't have a rep really to speak of, other than somebody that wants to sell us something, but if you have trouble, you're stuck on a helpline, calling the SoftDent helpline, and then you're ... Whether it gets fixed or not, a lot of times you just give up.
Howard Farran: If you were going to switch, or you were going to start over today, what dental office software would you go with?
Josh Walker: I'm not sure. I've heard good things about EagleSoft. I've heard good things about, what's the one that [shine 00:43:01]? Dentrix?
Howard Farran: Dentrix? Yeah?
Josh Walker: I like technology, but each of our cone beams scans, I think it's like a Gigabyte of data, so to try to do something off-site, I just would be a little bit worried about some sort of lag of getting information over an internet connection. As far as those off-site or online practice software, I'm not sure. I think they're going to be there, but I don't know enough about them.
Howard Farran: Yeah, CBCT was a game changer for doing dentistry in the Cloud, because you would definitely still need to have a hybrid system, and you wouldn't want to be storing all those CBCTs on the Cloud. It's just too much. It'd be a hybrid system. You guys have a CEREC machine, do all 5 doctors use it? What percent of your crowns are CEREC same days?
Josh Walker: Oh, we don't use it as much as we should. It's just a matter of diagnosing it. We all can do the CEREC, and we have ... The majority of our assistants are trained to do those as well. Since we got the ... Oh, what's the latest type of CEREC called? The one that's [crosstalk 00:44:13]?
Howard Farran: Omnicam?
Josh Walker: Omnicam. That's really, that's changed it a lot, because the powder seemed to be the real variable, and one assistant would powder more than the other. We just don't use it as much. I tend to use more like a CEREC Connect, and it just seems like if you're going to have to schedule somebody for 2 hours of time, to do a same day crown, the way we do our schedule is the block scheduling, where you've got productive time in the morning up to a certain point and then you've got your least productive stuff right before lunch, right before the end of the day.
You're using up 2 hours of your productive time that you could prepare that tooth, send it off, they could make their temporary and then you can get them back in a quick turnaround and there would still be a benefit, and you're not using up that second hour where in theory you should be generating a higher amount of production than just someone sitting there waiting for their crown to be stuck on.
Howard Farran: I know. I know. I get it. I think Monday we did 12 crowns, 2 of them were CEREC, but man, it's just so much faster, easier, lower cost, just prep it and press, temp, send it to the lab. It's like dentists are paying $150,000 to be a lab tech for 2 hours. Dude, they closed down all the lab schools. I'm pretty sure you went to dental school because that was a better gig than going to lab school. Now you've paid $150,000 to be a lab man. Is that really a good idea? I just ask the patients.
I just say to each one of them, I say, "Here's the deal. You can sit in this chair for 2 hours, we'll do a start to finish. You'll be done, or I can finish you up in an hour, come back in 2 weeks for a half an hour." It's 2 hours right now or an hour now, 2 weeks, 30 minutes, and 9 out of 10 people on that day, they're looking at their cellphone, their Smarty, and saying, "Oh my God, I so would love to get out of here in an hour. My day's crazy. I need to do this. I need to get back to work." I only have about maybe 2 out of 12, like I say, that's about the average. Maybe 2 a day that say, "You know what? I've got the day off. I'd like to just stay here and get her done."
But, I think the problem with dentists is they're extremists. The business is 50 shades of grey and they buy a CEREC machine and then they're no longer going to use a lab. It's like that's just not going to be a great idea. Then what's also crazy is when they buy a piece of technology, and instead of being patient-focused, they're like, "Oh, well, I can't do the same day crown today, so I'm going to reschedule you." It's like, you're rescheduling a patient to fit your technology? That's completely backwards.
Josh Walker: Backwards. Yeah. I've never really done it that way. If someone wanted it, that's great. I just have found if you can send in a digital scan, say the Glidewell for a BruxZir and they charge you $79 instead of $99 if you send in an impression, you think about the cost. We use [infer gum 00:47:06], cost for impression's pretty high.
Howard Farran: What do you think it is?
Josh Walker: I think it's probably $10 or more per impression.
Howard Farran: Yeah, I think it's 15.
Josh Walker: Is that what it is?
Howard Farran: That's what I think. You're using your CEREC Omnicam to take optical video impression, and then you're sending it to Glidewell?
Josh Walker: Exactly, and it fits like a champ.
Howard Farran: Yeah, and that's what I do too, and Glidewell's telling me, when Mike DiTolla was still there, he was telling me that Glidewell has about a 6% remake when people are sending them impressions, and they're having a 1% remake when people are sending them these Omnicam optical impressions.
Josh Walker: Unbelievable.
Howard Farran: Yeah, it's a better impression. Then you don't have a human pouring up the model, trimming the dye. It takes that human error out of there.
Josh Walker: Well, and it takes out the variable of who the artist is there that's making your crown. I think when it's a computer that's generating anatomy from the teeth around it, you're not at the mercy of some dude that went to a dental technician school and sometimes you get a good one, sometimes you get a bad one. But I think with the digital side of it, it's pretty consistent between machines.
Their parameters are all the same, so I feel like a product coming back, between whether it be an E-max or a BruxZir, I don't think I've ever had to send one back. I remember one time when I first started doing it, they turned it around in 48 hours. The turnaround was quick. It's gotten a lot longer but even if you're typically making somebody wait 2 to 3 weeks for a traditional crown or you can get them back in a week and a half to 2 weeks, that's a benefit to them.
Howard Farran: What makes you pick BruxZir over E-max? When are you sending in and saying, "I want a BruxZir," and when are you saying, "I want an E-max?"
Josh Walker: I think the E-max, I mean just if it's for the 4 pre-molars, I'd probably put E-max on there, just because the BruxZir's just a little more opaque. I like the translucency of E-max. I find myself ... Any posteriors anymore, I just do BruxZirs. I don't feel like redoing stuff due to fracture, and if that thing fractures, then that person's got a vise lock for a bite. We need to submit them to some dental journal because they've exceeded some crazy maximum that ... For that crown to break, it's like breaking a gold crown. It's just not going to happen.
Howard Farran: What do you cement your BruxZirs with?
Josh Walker: Sometimes just use FujiCEM, Unicem, you know, it just depends. Really it doesn't matter. If there's good retention, which we try to, you can just stick it on with Fuji. I'm fine with putting it on with just some FujiCEM and just tell them to stay easy on it an hour, or Unicem and then ... I kind of like to cure things before they leave so they can eat on them right away, so there's less inconvenience, but that's usually the two, one of those two.
Howard Farran: You know there's only 1,000 prosthodontists, but you know what? The older prosthodontists that are my age, they're still using zinc phosphate. They still think that was the gold standard, and they're not impressed with any of these new-fangled cements. They're like, "Yeah, they're fancy. They're quicker to mix, blah, blah, blah." But they like the zinc phosphate better.
Josh Walker: Is that right? Was there a lot of sensitivity with that?
Howard Farran: I don't know. All I know is that it was the best cement for if there was any moisture contamination. It was the most anti-bacterial cement if you thought their subgingival or like a mandibular second molar, I used to be confused because they'd say, "Now, if it was a mandibular second molar I'd do zinc phosphate because there might be moisture, sub-g. It might be harder to brush or clean." They go through a whole list of why the mandibular second molar should still use zinc phosphate. I think well then why the hell would you cement everything with that?
Josh Walker: Yeah.
Howard Farran: I never understood that way of thinking. Is just Dr. Hungerford doing the implants? Do you 5 doctors, do you see yourself splitting stuff up? Does one do Invisalign, one do implants, one do perio? Do you diversify?
Josh Walker: Dr. Philpott, who just joined in the last 5 years, she went to the Carl Misch training to be trained for implants. She's kind of taken on that role once Dr. Hungerford's going to step out, and start doing more implants, and they've been kind of transitioning since he's still there to help her out, and work with patients to maybe give them a little discount to have her do it, but he'll be there with her.
As far as all the other bread and butter dentistry, in our office there's plenty of that to go around. I don't like to see kids, but ... I don't dislike them. Most times I'm okay with them. I can goof around with them, get them to get the stuff done. It seems like whoever's the last one in the door, the latest associate, they're the kidodontist. It's your turn.
Howard Farran: I know. It's true. I feel so bad about it.
Josh Walker: But I'm the goofball they like, so if I go over there and goof around with them, well then all of a sudden I'm their favorite. Not that that happens a lot, but as far as anything, the root canals, 3 of us pretty much do the majority of the root canals. Dr. Philpott, she doesn't do a lot of the posterior endo, so there's enough with what we've got that we're not fighting over whatever specialty ... We did Invisalign for awhile, Dr. Snowden and I, but that's better off in the hands of the orthodontist, because I just can't ... It was okay, but the way our practice is set up, it was not efficient. It was not efficient at all the way ...
Howard Farran: Well, the bottom line with ortho is say a $5,000 ortho case. I could do 5 crowns in the morning, get 5 crowns and be done. But a $5,000 ortho case, I'm married for 2 years, and if you want to know where your [writ 00:52:51] is, your orthodontist's overhead is under 50% and they're seeing everyone in 15 minute increments. Then you go into the dental office and they're scheduling half hour increments. It's like, okay well there's your first red flag of this ... You're not doing this at 50% overhead.
Josh Walker: No.
Howard Farran: I mean, so if you're benchmarking, there's 10 ...
Josh Walker: [crosstalk 00:53:11] are expensive. The cost of the impression material was expensive, and then they would lead you, when you would get your little computer generated deal back, and it would say, "Okay, it's going to be done in 9 months and so many trays." I don't recall it ever being done in 9 months or whatever they said. You always had to do a refinement or two. Each step got you 95% closer and it just seemed like you couldn't finish a case the way that you could probably do it if you just stuck brackets on there. But by that time you had already seen the patient how many times? During productive times of the day? If anything you broke even.
Howard Farran: It looks like all those patents are expiring with Invisalign, and it looks like the original founder has started game 2, which is ClearChoice out of Dallas, where you're from. It looks like he started ClearChoice, and I think that's going to be 30% cheaper, so that might throw some more life into that, but the bottom line is if you got an orthodontist buddy that you're throwing all your hard stuff to, your class 2s, your class 3s, all that stuff, ask him, "How much chair time are you scheduling for an Invisalign check or a class 1 ortho, adult case where you're needing a [inaudible 00:54:21] to check where this 12-year old's going to be when she's 18?" But look at your times that you're appointing for your ortho and if it's not the same as your orthodontist then give it to the orthodontist, because you're doing it for free.
Josh Walker: I came to that conclusion and I will not, no matter how cheap they make it, I will not be doing orthodontics. It's just ... He's got to eat too. Orthodontist has got to eat, so send him some cases. He'll send you new patients when they come to own. There's some reciprocity there that, I'll let him do his thing. That's his little niche. I'm not out trying to be an electrician or whatever. I consider orthodontics, and forgive me, but I always tell him that he's not a real dentist, just joking around with him.
Howard Farran: Does he think it's funny?
Josh Walker: Oh, yeah. Well, he's laughing all the way to bank.
Howard Farran: Yeah.
Josh Walker: There's no ...
Howard Farran: It's true. They don't do shots, drilling, sutures, implants, blood, antibiotics, pain meds, Vicodin, they don't do any of that stuff. It's more like a mani/pedi place. It's glue and rubber bands, but it's a game of volume. Just like getting mani/pedis. Those girls are in and out, in and out, in and out. It's a game of volume. You need a lot of chairs. You need a lot of ortho techs that can turn these chairs, and you're going to see them 25 times over the next 2 years, and if you're not getting them in and out in 15 minute increments, you're probably not making any money.
Josh Walker: That's right, and then you have to be a finance company on top of that. You have to maintain people making payments and all that. I'd rather turn that over to CareCredit or whatever. I don't want to be a finance company.
Howard Farran: Well, I don't want to go into that story, because I'm completely against that. I don't know what they're financing ... I think Orthodontic Centers of America showed everyone, they built a billion dollar company by ... If you came in and got your mani/pedi done and say it's $100, and say you get one done every month and the lady said to you, "Well, you know what? I'll sell you a 2-year package of mani/pedis at $100 a month. That's $1200 a year, $2400, and I need $600 down. Then I'm going to finance the remaining $1400 at 10%." It's like what are you talking about? You don't incur any costs until I come in for a mani/pedi.
The ortho brackets only cost 100 bucks. The [inaudible 00:56:32] another couple bucks. The fact that orthodontists finances that, well if they paid in full are they going to pay their dental assistant for the time she's going to work for the next 2 years, 15 minutes every month for this? Is he going to give the landlord money? They're financing a fantasy. It's not like General Motors where I got to buy 30,000 parts to assemble this car, so when I sell Josh Walker this car, I need some money, because I bought 30,000 parts, we assembled it, and you owe me some big money. That's a product.
Ortho, mani/pedi, haircuts, getting your beard trimmed, that's a service. It's just completely insane that orthodontists say, "Oh, I'm going to have a huge economic barrier to entry to free trade. I need a $1500 down payment, and then I'm going to finance the next $3500." Orthodontic Centers of America just said, "You know what? It's 249 a month, 0% interest, 0% financing, no credit checks, everyone's approved," and a million Americans flocked to Orthodontic Centers of America.
Their evaluation went to a billion dollars on the New York Stock Exchange, and then it completely imploded because getting dentists to work for a corporation is like herding cats. Everyone of them had a different idea and the whole thing imploded, but the business model that made them a billionaire was completely lost among the orthodontists. They're still raising huge economic barriers to entries. I still think the Orthodontic Centers of America business model is the only one that's time tested, amazing. But hey, so are you going to email my son, Ryan, the 10 links? Are they all on YouTube?
Josh Walker: I can put them on ... Well, you know what? Sometimes when you've got the copyright with some songs, they will pull them off, so I probably can just send him direct links to the videos on our Facebook page which is open. It's a public link, so it's not ...
Howard Farran: Well, we can do that, and but it'd be fun to put them on end of this podcast so people listen in the car, right when it's over they could hear all 10 of them. Because I think they're genius. I think you've got a lot of talent. I think you're a hell of a guy. Hey, Josh, thank you so much for spending an hour with me. I think Dr. Hungerford would be a great interview, because he's not asking for one. He's 65. He's built this huge, successful group practice in Manhattan for all these years. If you email my son back, Ryan, ever find the time or you can get him to come in and say, "Hey, tell us what you learned over 40 years of running a big group practice in rural America for 40 years." That'd be a great interview.
Josh Walker: Will do. I'll send his information, and maybe they can connect and get something set up. He's got a lot of time available now, so ... He's only working 2 or 3 half days a week, so he's got plenty of time to sit down with you right now.
Howard Farran: I would love it, man. That's the whole deal of the podcast, just transferring information for free to dentists. I love it.
Josh Walker: Sure.
Howard Farran: All right, buddy, well thanks for all you do. I can't wait to see your next video on Facebook.
Josh Walker: I appreciate it. Thank you.
Howard Farran: All right. Bye-bye, Josh.
(Video 1)
Josh Walker: Historically, Family & Implant Dentistry likes to think outside the box.
Grant Witcher: We are always trying to be ahead of the curve with regard to patient care.
Curtis Snowden: But sometimes getting ourselves excited to do certain procedures can be difficult.
Rawley Philpott: That is why we're taking a page out of baseball's book and bringing something to dentistry that no one has ever done before.
Curtis Snowden: Walk-up music.
Grant Witcher: Walk-up music.
Rawley Philpott: Walk-up music.
Josh Walker: Walk-up music.
Mark Hungerford: Walk-up music has re-energized my career. I wish I would have found out about it 10 years ago.
Speaker 7: Dr. Hungerford, we're ready for you.
(music)
(Video 2 - music)
(Video 3)
Mark Hungerford: Before we start this meeting I have some bad news. Dr. Snowden, for some unknown reason, has apparently developed a mid-life crisis and he has taken and just left, and has gone to Mexico to retire. But I have some good news, because we've hired a new dentist and he's going to start right away. I'd like you guys to meet Dr. Bert Flowden.
Speaker 8: Dr. Flowden, can you let me know, does this person need to check out today?
Dr. Flowden: Margaret, how are you feeling?
Margaret: I'm as snug as a bug in a ... I'm comfortable.
Dr. Flowden: Mary could you dry that area there?
Curtis Snowden: They said it'll make you a better dentist. They said everybody's doing it. They said people will like you better if you do it. They said just try it. They said it'll make you feel awesome. They said it's no big deal. Bad rugs can ruin lives. Don't do rugs.
(Video 4)
Speaker 10: Hi. I'm Wyatt Thompson. Welcome to another FID football season. All of the main players are returning from a year ago. With a complete look at this new season, let's turn it over to my colleague, Wosh Jalker.
Wosh Jalker: Thanks, Wyatt. We're more than excited about the skill that this team brings. We have plenty of youthful talent and veteran leadership on the team that was voted number 1 in the latest Manhattan Mercury poll. Without further ado, let's meet our captains.
Mark Hungerford: Mark Hungerford, University of Nebraska, national champions, 1970 to 1971. Go Huskers.
Josh Walker: Josh Walker, Kansas State University, [inaudible 01:04:51].
Rawley Philpott: Rawley Philpott, the University of Nebraska. Throw the bones.
Curtis Snowden: Curtis Snowden, Kansas State University.
Grant Witcher: Football?
(Video 5)
Rawley Philpott: I'll be honest with you. People just need cheerleaders.
Speaker 13: Hi, Mr. [Chancey 01:05:29]. How are you?
Speaker 14: Great.
Speaker 13: [inaudible 01:05:33]
Speaker 14: Nope. [inaudible 01:05:36]
Speaker 13: All right. Beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 14: Thank you very much.
Rawley Philpott: Someone that just brings out the best in you.
Cheerleaders: K, S, U, Wildcats. K, S, U, Wildcats.
Rawley Philpott: To brush a little longer or just not to gag.
Speaker 16: I'm going to put this slide in your mouth and we'll keep it in there for 60 seconds okay?
Cheerleaders: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ...
Rawley Philpott: We live by the mantra: pork chop, pork chop, greasy, greasy, we can fix you super easy.
Speaker 17: So, I noticed here you're a little bit nervous about dental treatment. Let me play some music and maybe that'll help.
(trumpet music)
(Video 6)
Curtis Snowden: ... To putt. Is this video ...
Speaker 18: Are you ready for the [inaudible 01:06:56]
Speaker 19: Go high.
Josh Walker: We have plenty of youthful talent ...
Speaker 19: Okay, go ... Okay go.
Josh Walker: We have plenty of youthful talent and veteran leader ... Shut up.
Margaret: Was that action? Oh. Was that action?
Speaker 20: Yep. Go.
Dr. Flowden: Margaret, how are you doing?
Margaret: Oh, I'm as comfortable as a ... Dang it.
Speaker 20: Action.
Dr. Flowden: Margaret, how are you doing?
Margaret: Oh, yes, Dr. Flowden. I'm as comfortable ... Oh my ...
Speaker 20: Okay, whenever ... Okay, count to 3.
Rawley Philpott: I have to get the smile off my face [inaudible 01:08:22]. Okay. We live by the mantra: pork chop ... No, I just ...
(Video 7)
Speaker 21: I like to touch my mustache. Don't you like to touch my mustache? (no sound)