Message Boards
Today's Active Topics Today's Active Cases Browse Forum Categories My Recent Activity My Messages Private Groups My Marked Threads My Subscriptions
Today's Active Images Today's Active Polls Most Active Topics Global Townie Map Advanced Message Board Search Message Board Terms of Use

Office Visit: Small Town Practice, Big Time Technology by Benjamin Lund, Dentaltown Magazine

View Comments (10) More by this author (119)

Small Town Practice, Big Time Technology
by Benjamin Lund, Dentaltown Magazine

Not every dentist gives his patients his personal cell phone number — but Dr. Darin O'Bryan definitely isn't every dentist. His dual practice commitments of advanced technology and customer service mean every one of his Coos Bay, Oregon, patients receives cutting-edge, personalized treatment. We visited with Dr. O'Bryan and he gave us a glimpse of the bigtime things he's doing in his small-town office.

Name: Darin O’Bryan, DDS
Graduate From:University of Minnesota Dental School, 1997
Practice Name: O’Bryan Advanced Dentistry
Practice Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Practice Size: Five Operatories
Staff: Seven; one office manager, two assistants, two hygienists and two front desk/treatment coordinators.
Website: www.onemorereasontosmile.com

Dr. O’Bryan, why did you choose dentistry as your profession?
O’Bryan: People ask that a lot, especially since there is no one in my family who was a dentist before me. I knew at an early age I wanted to go into a branch of medicine and shadowed a dentist my freshman year of high school and knew shortly after that it was what I wanted to do.

You went to dental school in Minnesota – what made you move all the way to Oregon?
O’Bryan: I lived all over the country as a kid and my family loved the Pacific Northwest. My parents ended up retiring there so we followed them. The natural beauty and mild climate make it a nice to escape from the freezing-cold winters of Minnesota.

Tell us a little about your practice philosophy.
O’Bryan: The core part of my philosophy is to change peoples’ perspective on dentistry within my practice, community and profession. I want to treat every patient and staff member with respect. This means if a patient has treatment that needs to be done, it is explained so the person knows exactly what he or she needs to keep healthy.

Describe a typical day in your office.
O’Bryan: My day is a nice mix of operative dentistry and surgical procedures. I see patients Monday through Wednesday 8 a.m.-6 p.m. I get to the office around 7:30 a.m. All of the staff gather in the conference room for a morning meeting, which lasts about 15 minutes. I have two hygienists seeing patients all day. I have two chairs of operative patients going. I do not refer out very many specialty procedures. The only procedure I don’t do is removable prosthodontics. The bulk of my practice is restorative dentistry that I utilize my CEREC machine to complete. I also do a fair amount of surgery between third molar extractions, implants and routine extractions that usually include site preservation or some form of grafting. I generally load the morning with the more complex procedures.

What is the dental competition like in your area?
O’Bryan: The demographics of my area have changed since I’ve been in Oregon. We have 25,000 people who make up Coos Bay/North Bend and we have a draw area of around 40,000 to 50,000 people. There are 16 dentists in town, but we find there are plenty of patients to go around.

What does your practice do to set itself apart from others in your area?
O’Bryan: Two big things: customer service and technology. We want every patient to feel like we are listening. So even though I have a busy schedule, I don’t book anything else when I have a consult. I also do free consultations for implant and aesthetic/rehab work. I call my patients after a procedure to see how they are doing. For any surgical/implant case, root canal case or large rehab case, I give them my cell phone number so they can contact me personally. I don’t want them see the dentist that is on call at the hospital. I want them to know they are taken care of if they have a problem. I even keep my cellphone number on my office answering machine so if a patient calls and we are out they can reach me.

We have the most advanced technology around. I was the first dentist in my area to have a CEREC machine, cone beam CT machine, and piezo unit, and one of the first to have digital radiography. I was the first general dentist in my area to place implants. This set me apart from the standard drill, fill and bill dentist.

How do you market to new patients? What is your biggest source of new patients?
O’Bryan: I only do two major forms of marketing – internal referrals and radio. In a small town, radio is pretty inexpensive. It also helps that my mother-in-law does voice work professionally so she records all of my ads. We only have a few stations in our town. Budget-wise, it takes about two new patients to cover all the possible airwaves.

For internal referrals, any time a patient makes a nice comment about the practice, I ask the person to refer friends and family.

What piece of technology has the biggest wow factor for your patients?
O’Bryan: My CEREC. I often sit next to the patient and the person watches me design the crown. This opens a dialog where I can discuss with the patient what I am doing. If I am doing an implant, then the combination of CEREC and its integration with the Galileo’s cone beam really wows them. Showing the patient how we can plan where we want the final crown to be, see where the implant will be in three dimensions, and then create a surgical guide to make their surgery less invasive, quicker and more predictable, is a huge benefit for the patient.

  Dr. O’Bryan’s Top Products
CEREC Galileos Compact Schick Digital Sensors A-dec Intra-oral Camera Isolite
When did you start using it?
2006 2009 2005 2012 2006
Why can’t you practice without it?
I do almost all of my crown and bridge with my CEREC machine. I can’t imagine going back to conventional methods. The amount of pathology that can be seen on a 3D scan compared to 2D film is amazing. It helps me see failing endodontic treatments. It also takes the pucker factor from implant surgery and third molar extractions because I can see exactly what I’m doing. Digital radiology is so quick. No developing time gives me more time with patients. Retakes when needed are faster, endo films are quicker and emergency diagnosis is faster. It is also less radiation for the patient. Being able to show patients what I see on a big computer screen helps get the patient involved in treatment and take ownership of their dental problems. It makes doing operative dentistry so much easier, safer and faster.
When do you use it?
I use it for crowns, veneers, bridges, custom abutments and to plan my implants. Most new patients, excluding children, get a 3D scan. All day, every day. Any patient with pathology that can be seen on visual inspection. Posterior operative procedures and third molar extractions.
How do you market this item to your patients?
The idea of single-visit dentistry sells itself. Patients talk to their friends about how they got a crown in one visit. Internal referrals help significantly. Most of it is internal marketing. I use it as a tool to educate my patients and this helps build trust with the patient and gives a wow factor. I really don’t except in discussion with my existing patients. This does translate into some internal marketing. It pretty much markets itself by getting patients to see their problems, which in turn, leads to them scheduling their treatment. It is more of a quality of life product as opposed to product that markets the practice.
If you could change anything about this item, what would it be?
I’d like to see a faster development cycle with the software. Since I take so many scans, I would love for the file sizes to be smaller. It takes up a lot of data storage. I’d like less bulky sensors. For the finger activated focus to work a little better. The wings will sometimes rub on the lingual of the lower incisors.

Tell us about the dynamic of working with your wife, Carrie (office manager), on a daily basis. What are the challenges? What are the benefits?
O’Bryan: It’s awesome – for 10 hours of the day she does what I tell her! All joking aside, I love working with Carrie – she goes by CC, mostly. I know she has my back in everything that happens with the practice. The only real drawback is when we are home or on a date, business does tend to get talked about a lot. For this reason, when we have a date night we have a rule that there is no talking about work or the kids. That way we can reconnect as a couple.

There are big tax benefits to working together. She handles all my travel for lecturing and takes care of invoices for speaking engagements. She has her bachelor’s degree in computer science so she does all the office’s IT. We’re a great team.

You’ve become one of the most prominent CEREC users/lecturers in the profession. What drew you to CEREC and how did you “work your way up”?
O’Bryan: I watch a demonstration of a CEREC. When I saw the kind of restoration that could be made in one visit it was a no-brainer for me, so I purchased a unit in 2006. I took basic training, then advanced training.

Fast forward a few years, the Patterson branch in Portland, Oregon, was setting up a training facility. They asked me to teach. Every other month I would drive up to Portland and teach a basic training course to a group of new owners. I also started doing some dinner meetings where I would go and talk to doctors who were interested in the technology. Around this time I was going down to the Scottsdale Center for even more training on how to use my CEREC machine. I bought a Galileos in 2009 and was working on the integration of CEREC and Galileos. The Scottsdale Center asked me to be a mentor there to help teach some of the classes that were going on. I was very active on the forum on CEREC doctors and started contributing to the magazine. I was also asked to be a beta tester for the software. All of this lead to being asked to be a faculty member for CERECdoctors.com and at the Spear Education CAD/ CAM department.

You’re very involved in the lecture circuit these days – how does that impact your practice?
O’Bryan: It has affected in both good and bad ways. I recently changed my hours (Monday through Wednesday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.). I was working Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The problem was I had so many Thursdays I had to travel to lectures so I condensed the schedule into three longer days.

My patients actually follow my travels on Facebook. They’re excited that their dentist, from a small Oregon town, is traveling all over the country.

What are your plans for the future? How much would you like your practice to grow?
O’Bryan: We all want to see our practices grow; however, with mine I can really only do that if I have an associate, which is the next step. Having someone I can trust to be there taking care of patients while I am traveling and lecturing would be both a boost for the practice and give me peace of mind. I am incorporating some new treatments that I think will grow the practice from a raw numbers stand point but there is only so much one person can do. And of course, we can always fine-tune our systems to be more efficient during the hours that we are in the clinic.

Tell us about how Dentaltown impacts your practice.
O’Bryan: I honestly don’t even remember how I learned about Dentaltown. It was almost a decade ago. I really started reading the forums once I bought my CEREC machine. I gained a ton of good information from the CEREC forum. I started branching out more into other areas. I never really posted much. I am more of the lurker-type with the occasional post.

I tend to follow posts by Sam Puri, Rich Rosenblatt and Todd Ehrlich. Dentaltown gives me a great place to find out what my colleagues have to say about various products and services. Any time I am looking at something new for the office, ranging from a composite to practice management software or consulting, I can go on Dentaltown.com and get a variety of perspectives on the topic. Since I joined, I’ve been introduced to a number of people who have become some of my closest friends.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
Dentaltown Magazine September 2025 Read Current Issue Read Archived Issues
Sponsors
Townie Perks
Townie® Poll
Who or what do you turn to for most financial advice regarding your practice?
  
Site Menu
Message Boards Magazine Continuing Education Podcasts Blogs Classifieds Dental News Events Townie® Poll Ebooks Townie Choice Awards
Company Info
Contact Us Advertise With Us Howard Farran DDS, MBA Policies and Agreements
Site Help
Sally Gross, Member Services Specialist
Phone: +1-480-445-9710
Email: sally@farranmedia.com
©2025 Dentaltown, a division of Farran Media • All Rights Reserved
9633 S. 48th Street Suite 200 • Phoenix, AZ 85044 • Phone:+1-480-598-0001 • Fax:+1-480-598-3450