Office Visit: Like Father, Like Son Marie Leland, Assistant Editor, Dentaltown Magazine

by Marie Leland, Assistant Editor, Dentaltown Magazine

Welcome to the newest installment of Office Visit, where we visit a Townie’s office and profile his or her equipment, design or unique practice philosophy. If you would like to participate or nominate a colleague, please e-mail ben@dentaltown.com.

This month, we spent some time at Roca Dental in Arlington, Virginia to get to know Dr. Adam Roca a little better. He shares the many factors that led him to dentistry, his rewarding experiences volunteering at the free dental clinic and how practicing with his father has lead to unique ways of doing dentistry.


Names: Adam J. Roca, DDS
Graduate from: University of Maryland
Year graduated: 2007
Practice Name: Roca Dental
Practice Location: Arlington, Virginia
Office opened: 1990
Practice Size: 1,500 square feet
Staff: Adam Roca, DDS; Aurelio Roca, DDS; Beverly Roca (office manager);
and Brenda Marsh (assistant)

Web site: www.rocadental.com

Office Highlights
Bonding Agents
Optibond plus (enamel)
Simplicity (dentin)

Cements
Anchor
Fuji-plus

Implants
3i and MDI minis

Impression Materials
Alginate replacement:
3M Position Penta
VPS: 3M Dimension Penta

Miscellaneous Items
Eye-Fi SD card for my SLR digital Nikon. (This card is amazing; it automatically takes the photos off my camera as soon as I shoot them and puts them on my computer without any cables at all.)

Patient Financing
Capital One Healthcare Finance
CareCredit
Chase HealthAdvance Financing

Restoratives
DENTSPLY Caulk Esthet-X
GC America Gradia Direct

Technology
Caesy patient education software
DentalSenders.com
Invisalign
Kodak 1000 intraoral camera
Kodak 6100 sensors
Nikon DSLR with ring flash
NTI Chair side
Placement of 3i and MDI implants
Softdent clinical (paperless office)
Vident EasyShade
Click Here To View Adam’s Top Five



Why did you choose dentistry as your career path?
Roca: As a child I can remember playing with the Bunsen burner and melting wax all over my dad’s dental lab on early Saturday mornings during his emergency patients. At an early age I really enjoyed the gadgets and gizmos scattered around the dental office. As a teen, I attended college at Virginia Tech with the intent to become a mechanical engineer. Several courses later I realized that biology and medicine intrigued me also. With the seed planted early in life I realized it was a no-brainer, dentistry was for me!

What is your practice philosophy? How do you cultivate this philosophy in your practice?
Roca: Any practice management course will tell you about the marketing triangle; 1. Customer service, 2. Price and 3. Quality. You can have two of them, but you can never have all three. When I joined the practice, I continually tried to advance the “quality” aspect of dentistry by attending as much CE as possible. Customer service was a little more difficult for me to learn. In dental school running a business is a three-hour course which grossly under prepares you for day-today customer interaction. By continually reading practice management books and evaluating feedback from patients by the means of surveys I continually try to improve “customer service.”

What is it like practicing with your father? What advice can you give other dentists who are considering practicing with family?
Roca: Working side by side with my father is equivalent to the best dental school one could ever attend. By blending his 30 years of clinical knowledge and my large technology background we have created unique ways of doing dentistry. I would tell dental students to work as much as they can in their parent’s office prior to graduation. Doing this gave me a better perspective in day-to-day business operations and allowed me to appreciate the job positions of all team members.

What sets your practice apart from other dental practices in your area?
Roca: I routinely send out patient surveys to get a feel for what patients think about our practice. The biggest compliment that I hear patients say about us, is that they feel like they are part of the family and that they are not just a number. It all starts with the warm friendly reception at the front desk, which is carried through by everyone else on our team.

How important is continuing education to you?
Roca: Continuing education is extremely important to me. One professor of mine said it best, “Dental technology is like an exploding star, ever growing in all radii.” My dental school friends would make fun of me in dental school for ditching a class to attend CE. For me sitting for hours learning about zinc phosphate cement and amalgam wasn’t as appealing as learning about LVI, or CEREC.

What piece of technology has the biggest “wow” factor for your patients?
Roca: The CEREC is definitely the biggest wow factor. I love doing CEREC crowns on new patients and as the crown is being milled, showing them the “David Letterman clip on” temporary crowns and how they pop off (YouTube it if you haven’t seen it!).

A close second is my intraoral camera combined with the 37 inch Plasma TV, when patients see their tooth blown up on the TV they really “own” their disease.

What is your biggest source of new patients? How do you market to new patients?
Roca: Half a dozen online marketing books and several marketing seminars later, I started doing my own online marketing campaign. After using Ziro Marketing to create my Web site, I learned how to do my own SEO (search engine optimization) and Google Adword Campaigns. One month later my new patients per month had tripled. Online is the way of the future. We dumped our ad in the yellow pages and now I am concentrating on my online campaign.

What is your favorite procedure to perform? Why?
Roca: Endodontics would have to be my most favorite procedure. One of the things that lured me into dentistry was that every day was different. In endodontics every time I open a tooth up it’s like a treasure hunt, due to the different anatomy of every canal.

What is the most rewarding experience you’ve had as a dentist?
Roca: Bi-weekly I volunteer at the free dental clinic near my office. I love seeing the smiles on people’s faces after they receive their dental work. One patient in particular stands out in my mind; I did a simple buccal composite on 7-10 and the lady shook my hand about 20 times because she barely spoke English and was so overjoyed because she could smile again.

How has Dentaltown affected the way you practice?
Roca: Dentaltown is amazing! What better way to bounce ideas off each other than an online community! Many times both my father and I have been stuck in a corner and have found the answers on Dentaltown by a simple search. The other neat aspect of Dentaltown is that the different advertisers are all grouped in one convenient place for you to browse.

Tell me who your favorite Townies are on Dentaltown.com, and why?
Roca: “Miguel” (Dr. Michael Melkers) is great. His contribution with NTI/Bruxism has really helped my practice and patients in their parafunctional habits. He’s also a great guy offline.

When you’re not in the office, what do you like to do in your free time?
Roca: Right now it’s spending time with my one-year-old daughter. When my wife and daughter let me out of the house, I love to go sailing. My retirement plan is to sell everything and buy a 42-foot yacht to travel the Caribbean doing pro bono dental work on the various islands.

Tell me something that people would be surprised to know about you.
Roca: When I was 16 years old I traveled Spain for three months as a clown, we went to poverty stricken areas and entertained the kids by doing shows and parades.

If you weren’t a dentist, what do you think you’d be doing right now?
Roca:
Living like a bum in Key West on an old sailboat, and dreaming about being a dentist.
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