Tips on how to stay healthy this year

how toWhile your basic health advice never really changes from year to year, in 2014, many might do well to take some preventative measures to ensure that they’ll avoid any prolonged illnesses. Many popular health related questions include things such as How to lose weight, how to stop smoking, how to get stronger, etc. In short, if you take the following notions into consideration, a visit to the doctor shouldn’t be merited.

Arguably, the most important thing to keep in mind is that the body needs fuel in order to maintain its proper functions.  In other words, with the right vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and plenty of protein, you’ll be better equipped to ward off disease (and fatigue).  Naturally, this implies that you change over to a diet filled with plenty of organic fruits and vegetables, if you haven’t done so already.  In fact, green leafy veggies, tomatoes, onions, garlic and of course broccoli should definitely be on the menu, as they say.   With most of the world seemingly moving toward economic decline, it’s vital that you avoid trying to take financially-motivated shortcuts with your diet – like opting for cheap fast food in lieu of a fulfilling home-cooked meal.

Similarly, with more people’s budgets being squeezed, it’s very likely that we’ll see an increase in your run-of-the-mill infectious diseases.  This implies that you should probably make a more conscious effort to avoid exposing yourself to colds, the flue, etc.  For most people this means carrying some hand sanitizer in their daily bag or perhaps even avoiding opening doors with one’s hand, utilizing your feet and/or elbows to do the job.  Sure, it might seem like a chore, but this type of forward-thinking approach to personal interaction with foreign objects might very well prevent you from calling in sick to work.

Additionally, exercise is vitally important, not just to maintain a healthy, functioning physique, but also to boost one’s immune system.  There have been countless studies carried out which demonstrate the effectiveness of exercise in preventing a person from contracting disease, so do the right thing and don’t forget about your weekly workout.  Speaking of immunity, a lot of dieticians and health experts still tout the benefits of the regular consumption of vitamin C tablets.  Whether or not such a supplement will actually help you is still up for debate, but it should be noted that there are plenty of people ready to sing its praises.  Another tip is to read up on the various health tips and research, this will help you stay ahead of the game.

Lastly, a person that’s interested in staying healthy should pay attention to their mental state / health.  As stress increases, it’s said that chemicals within the body begin to cause harmful side effects over time.  In fact, many physicians agree that things like cardiopulmonary events and even cognitive decline can be attributed to intense, long-term mental strain.  So, in order to combat this threat you need to learn to either let go or perhaps become at planning / scheduling (doing both wouldn’t hurt, to tell you the truth).  In this way, you can avoid having to deal with an onslaught of problems all at once or perhaps even avoid them altogether.  Good luck and good health!

High Capacity (Quality) Dentistry P8

A lot of my clients are not even able to completely do a program like that anyway.  So, we just have multiple touches.  We’ll hit a patient several times trying to get them to refer a patient to us in just very soft touches. We tell them how much we appreciate them.  We actually have a script the assistant says.  We’ve got a script that the front office says, and we have cards to give them.

We actually have an offer if you want, free exam, free x-ray card that we give folks to give out.  We say, if someone is like you in our practice, then, we definitely want them here, too.  Now, be careful.  Anything you do like this and I believe somewhere in Canada that is not culture, but this is a very specific template that we follow.  It just seems to work out overtime, and overtime it has gotten better and better.  Like I said, our direct referral numbers have never been better, and that has caused me to spend less and less on external marketing.

If you’re getting the same amount or better production out of fewer patients and you’re not having to spend extra marketing money, then, that’s just extra money in your pocket, right?  That’s just money you did not have to spend.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Yup.  Now, what about your staff?  Obviously, this system probably works very well.  If your staff promoted?  What are you doing to promote your staff?  Do you have some type of bonus system, or what are you doing to be effective?

 

Dr. Griffin:

You know, we’ve had a lot of promotion systems over the years.  I’ve tried them all and failed at most of them and settled in on a few.  A few years ago, we did a complete team bonus, and that was great at first.  I mean we got huge bumps. We were getting $50,000 a month, and then, when we bumped up to $80,000 or $90,000, everybody was so happy.  As we crossed over $100,000 and got up to the hundreds per month, the people in that bonus got to be making a lot of money.  It wasn’t that I hated to pay them, but the truth of the matter was it was not equitable because when I would hire new people, there was no extra money to pay them anywhere where the original people were making.  It just wasn’t fair.

So, then, we went to a different bonus system, and people rebelled on that.  Now, unfortunately, Lorne, to tell you the truth, I have a different bonus system for every single person in the practice.  We try to attach a statistic to each person that keeps them engaged in the practice.  It keeps them focused on their particular area.  I wish there was just a magic formula for that.  Unfortunately, the truth is actually have to manage each person individually to get the best out of them. That’s probably not what everybody wanted to hear, but that’s just the way it is these days.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Okay.  Yeah, I agree. That’s the reality of the situation.  I just want to make sure we get to a couple more questions before we have to wrap things up here.  For someone that wants to know a little bit more about lean management, is there a specific one book that they should check out that helped you in your practice?

 

Dr. Griffin:

I don’t think there’s one book, but just go to Amazon and type in “lean management”.  There’s a couple that were written that are really good on lean management applications to health care, and it really is not dentistry.  It is application into how the hospitals or big medical groups use lean management.  So, I was reading that, and I was like, “Well, certainly, if you can figure out how to make a car manufacturer work in the industry.  It’s a lot easier to figure out how it’s applied to a hospital or a medical group and apply that directly do dentistry.”

So, absolutely go to that.  Just go on Amazon and type it in.  Buy a couple of those if you want to, and there’s another concept about value string mapping.  You should get a good book on that, and you know what’s better?  You can go to Wikipedia, my gracious, and you could probably read all you want to on Wikipedia about this.  Go to Wikipedia and read about value string mapping and lean management.  That’ll take you a while.

I actually blew up my account.  Do you have an Evernote account Lorne?

 

Dr. Lavine:

Of course.

 

Dr. Griffin:

Yeah.  So, gee, I was on a frenzy left and right.  I was just taking stuff off the internet left and right, throwing it on Evernote and about maxed out my iPhone doing that.  So, yeah, I think you can find on the internet however much you want to mess with.  Then, if you want to go further, yeah, get those books off Amazon.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Okay.  Can we keep you on for a couple more minutes?  There’s a couple more questions I want to try to get to.

 

Dr. Griffin:

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Than you.  We appreciate it.  What if I told you I really had a small practice, two chairs, one hygienist.  I’ve got one assistant, one front office person that basically does everything.  One of those rooms is for the hygienist, and the other is for the doctor.  Can they overbook?  Can they do what you recommend, doing that third column, or is that not going to work for a practice that small?

 

Dr. Griffin:

That is not going to work for a practice that small with two chairs and one hygienist.  Please don’t try this at home.  Don’t do it. You need at least three chairs to make it work, and three is pushing it.  Four for sure would work good, but no.  I wouldn’t do it with two.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Okay.  So, you’re only working three days a week.  You have no associates. You’re not available for four days.  What happens if someone needs to be seen?

 

Dr. Griffin:

You know, that goes back to the defect slide.  It’s against my nature to think about bragging, but I just think you need to take your trade seriously enough that you can go in and do that there doesn’t have to be mishaps on the weekend.  Things should be coming off, and teeth shouldn’t be breaking off.  Of course, people are going to get a toothache on the weekend.

Occasionally, we have a protocol for this.  Do we have a standard operating procedure protocol?  Absolutely.  We have a chain of command that a call goes to an answering service.  The answering service goes to a full time manager here at the practice.  They, then, sort through the call, and once or twice a month, I get a call, and I need to come up to the office.  I will either call in a prescription or come into the office, and then, that’s the way it works.

I have a lot of clients who have a problem.  They have stuff that goes wrong on the weekends, and I just tell them, “Try to think ahead.  I mean, if you’ve got a necrotic tooth, if the last day that you work on a week is a Thursday, let’s try not to put a filling on a necrotic tooth on a Thursday afternoon.”  How about that?  That’s not thinking.  I mean, you’ve got to use your head.  Think again, guys.  If you’ve a tooth that if you prep that thing, that’s going to have a resident adhesive cement to hold on there.  If you prep it before you go into town, the temporary’s obviously going to fall off.  Use your head when you’re [01:32:14].

This is simple stuff, but I mean, you just need to be thinking ahead.  Don’t do crazy stuff the last day you’re in the office in the week.  I’m all about same day dentistry, but there’s smart ways to go about it that you’re not going to have all these problems blow up on you during the weekend.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Yeah.  Okay.  So, last question.  I’m going to wrap it up as well.  What would you recommend if someone has a high volume practice, and there are a lot of cancellations? Is there one or two things that you would say to the person right off the bat like, “Here’s the case. You really need to focus on this concept to take care of this issue”?

 

Dr. Griffin:

Okay.  Two things.  Doctor’s side cancellations, I solved that problem.  How did I solve that Lorne?  Before a patient gets an appointment, they have [01:32:57].  Either they have a deposit, they need to pay for their treatment.  They have a deposit pay. They need to pay for their treatment, or they have a first payment of some kind of pay.  They have financial arrangements.  They already have their money or credit.  Whatever it is, they have something in the game, absolutely.

So, that solves the problem.  That’s why we don’t have doctor’s side cancellations anymore.  So, if it’s on the book, they’re coming.  Why?  Because they already paid something.  On the hygiene side, we didn’t feel that we could do that because of my terrible experience when I was trying to devote a practice, we tried something like that and lost a lot, a ton of patients.  So, no, I’m not doing that.  I’m not doing that again.  That’s how we came up with the book and the extra column more than the amount of hygienists that you have and have a system.

If you have four columns booked, three hygienists, if that person shows up, either have your assistants take the x-ray to start the flow up and then have somebody in there, or like I said, once every two months, I will actually have to do the hard tissue probing and scaling myself.  Big whoop. I’m not too good to do that every now and then.  So, that’s the solution we came up with, and we just rarely have a day when we don’t have much to do.

Dr. Lavine:

Chris, I want to thank you so much for tonight’s presentation.  We had a great turnout.  I’m hoping that you’re not going to be talking about doing something in a few months because this was just great material.  We had some people that were commenting that they looked at other types of systems to be more efficient where they’re looking at $50,000 bills in order to implement those systems.  The fact that you came on to the webinar and gave all this great information for an unbelievably low price of $397 that you have found effective.

So, speaking to individuals like you and learning from your expertise and going to the BB13 event and bring their staff and really get up to speed on this, really, I think that’s so generous.  I just want to thank you again for taking time out of what is very obviously a very busy schedule to be with us.

 

Dr. Griffin:

Well, Lorne. I did. I have to be honest with you. I did give up half a practice with my kids 13 and younger.  I coach a little league 13 and under baseball and I did have to give up half a practice. It hurts because I love coaching that team, but it was such an honor just to be with you tonight.  I can’t thank you enough for inviting me, man, and anything I can do for you in the future, I’m there for you.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Well, I hope the team doesn’t lose because of their lack of coach, but I thank you again. I encourage people on the call, please feel free to go to chrisgriffindds.com.  You can sign up for this excellent package, 60 day money back guarantee.  We know people who work with Chris that have raved about him, and that’s why we brought him on.  I don’t know anybody who would ever think of returning the product, but you certainly have that there.

For those of you who do want information about the recording, that will be sent out sometime tomorrow.  We’ll also resend the link that Chris had on his presentation, the Digital Dentist link, so you can go and get those screen shots as well.

Most of you know that we do these webinars on a regular basis.  We’re going to be switching gears tomorrow evening and talk about class II composite restorations.  We’ve already got 600 people signed up for that.  I think it’s going to be a great presentation as well.

I want to thank all of you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us this evening.  Thank you, Chris, again, and we look forward to seeing everyone on future webinars.  Good night, everyone.

 

Dr. Griffin:

Good night.

What To Do About A Chipped Tooth (Infographic)

The Truth About Chiropractors

Chiropractors

Chiropractors offer complementary and alternative medicine in the health care industry. They use a different approach to healing using diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disorders of the neuro-skeletal system. Chiropractors are concerned about the disorders of the spine that affect others. They use manual therapy that consists of joint adjustment and manipulation with the focus on joints. There are chiropractors in over 100 countries all over the world; however they are more prevalent in North America, parts of Europe and Australia. People seek these services for low back pain. They adjust the spine and this is called a spinal adjustment. This is the most common practice in the field. They use thrusts at high velocity that has to adjust the spinal column. Spinal manipulative therapy consists of massage, mobilizing, adjusting, stimulate, apply traction to correct issues related to the spine and tissue.

One third of patients of licensed Canadian Chiropractors in a recent survey said that patients were treated with many techniques to help them cope with lower back pack. Full spinal manipulations, exercise, daily living activities, changing unhealthy behaviors, nutrition, relaxation, ice and screening for disease prevention early. There are many diseases of the spine that can begin as early as birth and chiropractors caution people to have a screening. A screening could save years of pain issues. Chronic back pain usually has several diagnoses on a patient at once. These include lumbago, degenerative disc disease, scoliosis, spondylitis, cervical degeneration and arthritis. This is a very painful disease and surgery is an option. Many doctors discourage surgery unless it’s a neurological issue of the spine that prevents one from walking.

Practice guidelines have been established by the professional community that specify which treatments are legitimate so they are covered by insurance companies. There have been some critical reviews about chiropractic services a 2010 survey stated that manual therapies were used commonly as treatment for neck, low back and joint pain. A 2011 systematic review of the survey failed to show effectiveness for any condition. Most research is focused on spinal manipulation rather than on manipulation. There is no way to measure it’s effectiveness on people. There is no way to conduct a placebo trail.

The care in general is safe when used appropriately. Manipulation is regarded as safe but as with anything, complications can arise. Chiropractic care has been known to have adverse reactions and risks. Chiropractors like any other primary care providers sometimes use X-rays, CT scans and that rely on radiation.

Chiropractors have been referred as medical quacks for medical doctors for many years. In the last few years they have been recognized as an alternative way to treat spinal and joint issues. Medical doctors now approve of them but each state has different guidelines and the problem now is physical therapists. Physical Therapy (PT) is now butting heads with chiropractic treatment. PT is determining what treatment defines chiropractic and what treatment defines physical therapy. Research all the information before deciding on choosing chiropractic treatment.

High Capacity (Quality) Dentistry P7

Now, if you want to read his testimonial it says, “I really love Dr. Griffin’s ideas and concepts. They have helped me organize my practice to a high level of efficiency that I could have never done alone.  The first day we implemented his system, we saw an immediate great improvement in our effectiveness. Thanks Dr. Griffin. I am now excited about dentistry again and cannot wait to see what tomorrow might bring.”  Now, this guy has a great story because he was on the brink of disaster a couple of times, and he has really bumped his practice up to the next level.  He just bought a space next to his old, crunched-in workspace.  Now, he’s got this beautiful standalone building.  He’s got a great story. I hope get to hear this.

I hope you come, and I hope you get to hear his story there.  Here it is.  So, just go.  If you want to be a part of this, go to chrisgriffindds.com, order the practice productivity package, and if you have further questions, you can get a hold of me at chrisgriffin@thecapacityacademy.com or you can call 662-837-8143. Okay?

Alright.  So, Lorne, are you still around, man?  Do you want to do some Q & A?

 

Dr. Lavine:

I certainly do.  The presentation almost makes me want to go back to full time practice and emphasis on the almost, but this is just great content. I can’t believe you were able to squeeze that much into about an hour.  So, I just want also thank you for being so generous with the offer that you and I discussed.  Maybe putting together a couple of the systems or pooling them together or 50% off, but you really went well above and beyond the call of duty.  So, thank you very much for that. I think it’s truly a generous offer.

 

Dr. Griffin:

Well, hey.  Thank you for letting me be a part of your group, man.  I’ve really watched you afar for many years and I’ve respected you.  I really appreciate you inviting me in.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Thank you.  So, one of the things that I notice whenever I do a webinar is there’s two criteria that I use to figure out if the webinar was a success.  Number one is do we have a lot of questions, and we have no questions, which means that everyone was probably listening intently and taking a lot of notes down.  I would certainly encourage it.  We have another space in the call for about another 15 to 20 minutes.  So, if you have any questions that he’s talked about or maybe just practice management, in general, or anything that you want to pick his brain about, we’ve got him on the line now. Please feel free to ask your questions.

Secondarily, I look at the number of people that are on the call.  I actually looked at this before we started.  Normally, if I get 10%, 15% drop off during the webinar, I consider that to be successful.  We have 100 more people on the call now than we had at the beginning of the hour.  So, obviously a number of people have come on the call and have stayed on.

So, we have a couple of questions coming in now.  So, what are practice management software are you using, and is there a specific reason why you’re using it as far as efficiency systems in your practice?

 

Dr. Griffin:

No.  Well, look, I’ve used Dentrix since my inception in 1999.  So, of course, Dentrix has some cool things.  I think one of the coolest things I’ve seen lately is the bridge that they’ve got with this new marketing software that you can use called InfusionSoft, but I mean, it’s okay.  I don’t think it’s perfect, but the big three or the big four are all fine.

Whatever it is you have, once you start building your database, you’re not going to go and swap software.  It’s going to be very painful if you do.  Just make sure that you write down good standard operating procedures and make sure that you have proper training for the folks that are running that software.  It took me a long time to be able to maximize what Dentrix could do.  I’m sure all the big ones are similar.

It’s like your brain.  You’re using a percentage of your brain to just get in there, there are all these cool tools.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Yeah. I would back it up.  Our experience is we usually about 5% to 10% usage of people’s software.  So, you hit the nail on the head here.  Another great question here, Chris.  A lot of us have been inundated and we go to these shows.  We see all these companies really focused on dental practice marketing, whether it’s newsletters or flyers or social media.  I mean, that seems to be the big bugaboo right now.  How do you market your practice?  You didn’t talk about marketing once.  Why is that?

 

Dr. Griffin:

Okay, 2008 to about 2010, I average about 150 new patients a month, working three days a week, and that’s a lot of work.  I decided strategically that if I wanted to be a happier dentist, I cut my extra market budgeting to about, I started spending about $12000 to $15000 a month.  I went down to about $2000 a month.  So, now, most of my patients come from direct referrals.

We talked about that.  I shared that on that DVD, The-Fly-On-The-Wall, they film me doing it, but I think it’s really important because those patients have such a high value to the practice.  When you have 150 patients and most of them are coming from extra marketing, you have to spend so much time figuring out if this person who is actually going to stick to your practice.  That’s a lot of wasted effort, and I’m all about not wasting effort.

Now, I like marketing.  I’ve got like 1200 Facebook fans.  Go look up Griffin Dental Group on Facebook.  We’ve get 1200 fans.  I’ve yet to make 1200 fans translate into a lot of money.  Yeah, it’s cool to occasionally punch a button and make an offer, but truthfully, social media has not been the boom that I thought it would be.  The 60 referrals every month, those guys come into the practice. They’re there to believe that you say, and they’re here because a friend or a loved one told them that you were okay and a good guy.  They’re there to spend money.  They’re not there to be a [01:17:16].

So, that’s the way I do marketing.  I will do it.  I do do it. I have a whole program every month.  My clients get another marketing piece I’ve one in my practice successfully.  I’ve done some good ones, but I’ve just come to believe overtime that the real bounty in the practice lies in your hygiene department and your patient base and the right referrals.  That’s why we didn’t talk a lot about marketing.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Great.  We just got an e-mail here coming in.  So, someone just want to know how they could go about getting the special offer.  Do they just go to your chrisgriffindds.com website?

 

Dr. Griffin:

Absolutely, chrisgriffindds.com, and if there’s something there that you can’t get to work right, you always send an e-mail, or that phone number is just on the bottom of the page right now, the 662-837-8143.  You have chrisgriffindds.com.  That’s got the special.  It bypasses all the regular channels that we’re working through, and it just goes to the special channel.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Great. I see it now.  The Fly-On-The Wall, is that a DVD or is that a book?  It looks like it’s one of the Dummy books.

 

Dr. Griffin:

Well, yeah, it actually kind of looks like that.  I actually like those books, Lorne.  Hey, I can tell you.  Every time I start to use a new software, I go buy the Dummy book for that software at Barnes and Noble, but yeah. It’s a DVD.

We took the DVD, and we transcribed it because some people like to watch DVD and pause it and underline and make notes in the manual.  So, it’s just a manual to go with the DVD.

 

Dr. Lavine:

So, I’ve got a couple of questions here about your practice as far as how many staff you have.  Is there another dentist in there?  What’s the makeup of your individual practice?

 

Dr. Griffin:

There is not another dentist here.  A long time ago, I thought that I would have this dental empire where I would have multiple practices, but then I decided against multiple practices.  I said, “Hey, that’s too much work.”  Then, I thought I’d just have one gigantic practice so I built on until I had 14 ops.  Then, I decided I’m not going to get an associate because that’s too much work, and I’m pretty darn happy working three days a week and making a nice living in Ripley, Mississippi.

So, we turned several of those options into work stations for when we have visiting dentists. Now, we use those for fun.  I work out in the office with three hygienists. So that’s the setup of my practice now.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Is there a minimum number that you need?  We have one of our listeners saying they’re a four chair, single doctor practice with one assistant, one hygienist, one front desk, one sterilization room assistant.  Are they going to need more than that to implement your system?

 

Dr. Griffin:

No.  Four ops is good.  We used to have one hygienist.  You have three chairs.  Absolutely, you can use these systems.  You would be surprised how much more capacity you have out of a four chair practice with one hygienist.  You said you have a sterilization assistant.  So, you really have two assistants.  It’s just you put one in sterilization.  Sterilization assistant can absolutely run one of those color-coded setup rooms.

Our setup room, one half is sterilization.  The other half is setup for the next procedure, and a person that’s dedicated to that room can make a world of difference in the amount of production you can get out of that practice.

Four chairs is great.  I mean, the more chairs, the more people you’re going to need to man those chairs.  I often think, netwise, you’re ahead.  I mean, I might theoretically make more money working nine chairs net, but if you consider how much harder I’m working to keep the nine chairs, I like the four chair practice.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  You can absolutely do with four chairs.

 

Dr. Lavine:

You talked about the importance of limiting or reducing your no-shows.  How do you feel about some of the confirmation systems out there?  Demand is my favorite, the Red Lighthouse, Solution One, like those. Do you ever use those in your practice?

 

Dr. Griffin:

Absolutely.  We do it all, Lorne.  I love those.  We do the e-mail confirmation.  We do text confirmation.  I’m not kidding, we do Facebook confirmation.  We do every kind of confirmation that you can do, and all of it is automated, pretty much, except for the Facebook.  It’s like my office manager goes in and private messages people just to give them a general reminder.  That works pretty good, by the way.

Bottom line is even with all of that, we only cut our no-show rate a small percentage, and so, that’s why I started booking that extra column, one more column that I have a hygienist.  That’s what really saved the day and solved all the production problems in hygiene forming.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Okay.  The DVDs.  How long are those?

 

Dr. Griffin:

“Fly-On-The-Wall” is an hour and 15 minutes.  The “Efficient Doctor” is more.  It’s like, I could be wrong about this.  I want to say it’s two DVDs, and it totals up to about 2 hours, 3 hours.  That actually comes with a couple of manuals and bonus materials.   You’re probably looking at 4, 5 hours worth of materials in the efficient doctor system.

 

Dr. Lavine:

Okay, and we’ve got some nice comments coming in already.  People are already buying it, and I certainly encourage people that this is a great special.  You’ve only got a few slots for the conference.  I would highly recommend that you get on the website and buy.  How long is the conference by the way?

 

Dr. Griffin:

It’s a three-day conference.  It’s a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and I believe a couple of people who are on this program are going to be there as well.  Dr. Erin Elliot.  She’s going to be speaking.  Dr. Brady Frank.  He’s going to be speaking.  Of course, I’m going to do my multiple session song and dance to get more people to be efficient and an easier workflow.  Yeah, I think we’ve got a good show.

These conferences are a lot of work, and so I would love for you to come.  We’re going to try to put on the best show we possibly can, and one night we’re going to have a band.  We’re in Nashville, right?  So, we’re going to do it right in the country music capital of the world.  So, come on down, guys. I would love to meet you.

Dr. Lavine:

Very generous.   You talked about the referral system for your patients.  What exactly do you do?  You probably don’t have to time to go into details, but what do you do to encourage your patients to refer other people?

 

Dr. Griffin:

Well, as you probably know, a lot people, a lot of states, a lot of countries, have great difficulty in doing referral program.  If you give any kind of amount of money or anything of value to someone, in some of the state boards, you’re going to construe that as being against the regulation.  So, I just decided at some people that we’re going to play a completely straight.

Paper Age Healthcare

Every time I go to a new doctor I get about an inch thick pile of paper forms to fill. Naturally they ask for for my driver’s and insurance identification card yet I need to repeat what on these documents like five or more times on the various forms. Some of these papers have been photocopied so many times that not only the image has been bent on the corners but also the image and text print quality is often at the edge of ability to read it.

I’m not a doctor, any other health care professional, not an administration workforce member of any healthcare facility but even as a software developer I can clearly see how much the system could be improved. Having the most expensive health care system in the world I refuse to believe this paper based, ninetieth century, information handling is obsolete due to lack of funds for improvement. Even if the large sums set aside for healthcare go to suing for medical malpractice settlement schemes there still should be enough left to reduce paper load. Especially since it’s everyone’s best interest.

Let’s actually speak in more accurate terms, the end result is in everyone’s best interest. Here is the holy grail the way I see it. I come to a medical facility, they ask me for driver’s license and insurance id badge, the receptionist scans both documents and hands me a tablet device where I confirm that the scanned data is accurate, enter any information that is missing, accept any disclosure, terms and conditions etc. Period. Not a single sheet of paper wasted. Information gets stored in the system, no need for manual data entry, storing tons of paper, scanning. Simple and easy.

Why this is not happening then? I’ll give you my idea from system architecture and project management perspective.There a 2 main reasons this has not happened and will be a bumpy ride when it happens.

1. Software running such system would have to be universal, meaning the same for all health care providers in the country so that information can be stored in a standard format, encryption and could be transferred on demand. This means a project would have to be handled by a large software vendor which makes it very hard to manage consistently during the project life. You could see on Microsoft product examples how buggy the software could be that it’s not even cross platform yet. Also what was witnessed during Obamacare implementation from the IT perspective gives an idea what kind of challenge such project could be. No chance for change then? Not necessarily; I could see this happening from a garage startup perspective where a very solid piece of software is developed, gets attention and the snowballs down the hill. With well coded and architected core a system could become modular enough to accommodate the health care system needs. Still, this would need very talented people, substantial funding, industry lobbying and quite a bit of luck.

2. Industry inertia. Do you sometimes get a feeling that people tend to spend extra energy to perform a task that could be executed in a much simpler and efficient way? I do a lot and almost everyday. It’s an article about health care industry and not me so let’s focus on that. Those paper load you get on your first doctor visit, they’re all photocopies. It would be much easier, more efficient and end result would look nicer if the forms were printed instead of copied. Seriously, smudges eat up toner and look sloppy on the form. Why is it this way then? I think because nobody forced hard enough to make a change happen. We’re running low on form XYZ, where I can get more? just take the last one and copy it … That’s how it goes. I’ve seen once id cards made on photocopier with photo attached using paperclip in one dental office.

ID cards

I think the change is imminent though, just because the world that surrounds us is changing too much and island of paper ruled industry can’t hold alone. I get some of this in my gig. We make id badges , also for health care industry. We try to make the process as simple as possible but it still involves a learning curve but since we’re very cost competitive health care staff keeps ordering from us.

Water Filters That Remove Fluoride

If you are trying to find water filters that remove fluoride, remember that it is also important for the filters to get rid of many other toxins as well. You should know how to successfully remove them all and protect yourself and your family.

As you may understand, fluoride was presented in the United States in the fifties to battle the nation’s supposed bad dental health. The problem is, it’s not natural but synthetic and a result of the aluminium industry (makes it inexpensive to use and harmful to your health).

water filtersIt consists of lead, arsenic, uranium and cadmium. These extremely harmful compounds that can bring about cancer cells, decreased IQ in children, kidney damage, thyroid troubles, chromosome damage, brain disorders and even bone illness.

This indicates it is in reality dangerous to your health, and specifically young children where it can trigger finding out conditions. Now that toothpaste and the advances in dental medication are with us, there is actually is no need to add this harmful element to the water any more.

So water filters that get rid of fluoride are a truly great idea. You ought to know that even the very best ones can just eliminate around 95 %, but this brings the fluoride levels to well within the safe limitations as it is difficult to eliminate it entirely.

You also desire the home filtration system to be able to eliminate all the chlorine, lead, pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, herbicides and many even more besides. These in fact position a much greater threat to your family’s health than the fluoride and a lot of filters are not able to eliminate them successfully.

The only one that can eliminate 95+ % of all the primary pollutants is a ProOne Filter. They retain the important trace minerals like calcium and potassium which lots of other systems like reverse osmosis eliminate.

These minerals are good for your long term health and must be left in the water to keep you healthy. As you can see, water filters that get rid of fluoride are essential as long as they can also get rid of 99 % of all the other recorded toxins in the supply today, to leave you with safe, pure and healthy water.

Visit my site below if you wish to discover even more about the kinds of water filtering systems that I personally recommend and use.

Discover how to get the healthiest and purest water readily available today.

There are unbelievable benefits of safe, pure and healthy filtered water. Visit his website now at http://HowtoRemoveFluoridefromWater.com  and discover some wonderful options. Start protecting your family today!

High Capacity (Quality) Dentistry P6

So, phase II, I come back into the room.  The assistant’s already gather data.  Now, I’ll do a pretty in depth tooth examination.  I go from tooth 1 to tooth 32 and very thorough.  I’m always talking about what I think I would like to do on the patient, but I’m never putting pressure on them to pick the treatment that I want them to pick. I just let them know what I think is the best plan for treatment.

I’ll be very laid back, and you can tell I talk slow.  I’m laid back and joking around, and the whole time I’ll be slipping in diagnosis as we go along.  The assistant is over there feverishly writing things, jotting them down.  Once I’m through, I’ll take a few seconds to talk to the patient again, tell them what I’m thinking.  By the time I’m through with that, the assistant should have all the stuff organized that I know what I want to do next.  So, hopefully, by then, the patient has agreed for me to get a [59:58] on what I think should be done next.

Then, I’m out of the room again, doing whatever, and the assistant take over.  That’s when they carry, we have an orange card.  It’s called the treatment organizer card.  We call it as the “orange card” as a slang word.  They actually divide up all the treatments into one, two, three, and so on.  They’ll take it to the financial department or the financial coordinator.  They take it from them.  They take over from there.

Phase III is actually when that person goes back in the room to present the finances. If the person, for some reason, have a question, now, they have a chance to get me back in the room to ask some questions.  That’s really the third phase of the diagnosis.  By this third phase, like I said, by this time, we have 75% of the patients accept the treatment that we’d like to do.  Sometimes, I will downgrade and do a filling instead of a crown occasionally, but not that much.  They’re doing what’s best, and we work hard to get finances that work for them.

So, a quick review of the three phase exam.  You’ve got phase I, quick exam and listen to the patient, make that connection.  Phase II, give the patient a couple of options, but always give your opinion about what’s best.  Now, I say this all day long.  “So, what are you thinking?  Pull that or fix that?  Would you like to pull that or fix that?”  It’s very simple around here.  Maybe it’s needs to be more complicated, but I doubt it.  Put it into your terminology, but this is a very simple way to do it and to get a patient on your side because they know you’re not force anything down their throat, right?

Phase III is to let the treatment coordinator, financial coordinator, and/or me doctor review the treatment plan once it’s done just to give you a third shot at getting them to do what you need them to do.  Once the green light is given, hey, it’s off to the races, Jack, because then, you can put all these efficiencies together that make you be able to do this high capacity quality dentistry that we’re talking about.

So, this is way in depth, like I said.  It’s on that website.  This is the website if you want to go one more time.  It’s www.thecapacityacademy.com/digital-dentist, and it will give you an idea of exactly what happens to a new patient when they come in to our practice for the first time.

The seventh thing and the thing I think you really need to consider doing to stay relevant is look, guys, dentistry’s taken a beating the last few years.  The public just does not like us the way they used to, but if you want to be the guy in your that they still love, find a way to do some charity.  Dentistry from the heart is a good way to do it. It’s a great organization.  You don’t have to be a part of an organization.  You can just do things like this on your own, find ways.

We’ve done stuff for lots of local charities.  This is me with one of my sons at the bottom of the page.  We had TV stations come out to the last one I was a part of this interview people all day long.  It’s such good press for your practice, but anything you can do for charity to help the patient and let them know you’re not just out there for a bunch of money and you want to just help them, that’s good.

After a while, in 2010, I actually got this award for being humanitarian of the year by the Visiting Dental Association, amazing honor.  I’m so proud of that, and when you get something like that, all the papers.  It just changes the public’s perception.  So, find a way to work charity into your practice, and that will be the icing on the cake.

So, hey, Lorne and I talked before the thing was over, and he said, “Look you have all these system.”  I have put together a lot of systems, and occasionally, there’s trainings for dentists.  They buy these things from me, and it helps their practice.  Lorne said, “Could you put together something special for my folks?”  So, we sat down, and we looked at the different things in my training.  We came up with what I think would be a really amazing basic.

If you were really interested in doing some of the systems the way we teach them, I think this is absolutely what you need.  This will take you step-by-step into doing things in your practice.  Let me describe what we got here.  This is my practice productivity package.  I have two products that we’ve sold individually, and they’re both my biggest sellers.

One is my “Fly-On-The-Wall”.  We have days where dentists come into the practice, and they observe for a day.  We do a lot of the stations in the afternoon.  One time I had a couple of cameramen from the Discovery Channel come in, and they filmed one of those days.  They put it into an hour and fifteen minute DVD.  So, we took that DVD, and we created our “Fly-On-The-Wall” product, which really is just really what would happen if you were a fly on the wall in Dr. Chris Griffin’s practice.

Then, we have another system we call the “Efficient Doctor System”, and this is really three complete systems in one.  This takes you step-by-step if you’re interested in doing that route board system the way that I do it.  This is your book.  This is your manual.  This is the cook book that takes you step-by-step through how to put this route board into your practice.

If you’re interested in the templates and the checklists, we have the perfect procedures protocol system.  This takes you step-by-step on how to do these templates, how to do the checklists, how to do all that, and I don’t know if anyone’s put this together. We put together the staff communication guide because we actually have radio communication in our office, and a lot of dentists are interested in that.  So, is you’re interested in that, this is the “Efficient Doctor System, this is how to incorporate radios into your practice without them being annoying or how use them properly and blend in efficiently especially with the route board.

The “Fly-On-The-Wall”, like I said, that is six books.  The Discovery Channel filmed six different trainings that day.  We’ve got our new patient experience, which is what I talked about, a little bit more in depth, the worksheet.  We have a color coding system, something that we didn’t talk about.  It’s actually the slide where we talked about the just in time production.  We have a color-coded setup room area that actually is a part of our flow and allows us to get those rooms set up as fast as humanly possible.

We got the presentation of fees process. This is the phase III of the diagnosis.  They come in, and they present the fees.  This is how we are able to get our pretty high case acceptance rate.  My endo buildup PFM technique is on this video.  It’s something that everyone’s always interested when they come here. We talked a little bit about the handle, but we’ll go start to finish the endo on the premolar we did that day.  It’s pretty cool if you’ve never seen it.

The super secret orang card we talked about that you saw the assistant hand off to the financial coordinator.  This is on this DVD, and the end of the appointment referral experience is really important because this is why we have 50 to 60 direct referrals each month.  Basically, that’s how we get them because I have so many of those.  I have intentionally stopped direct marketing pretty much.

Now, the “Efficient Doctor System” is $397.  If you go to my website right now, it’s $397.  The “Fly-On-The-Wall” is $397.  If you’re one of the first 10 people to go ahead and get this product, me or my number one will give up a day, and we’ll get out on the phone and just hammer out any questions that you’re going to have because people are going to have questions.  If you’re trying to put this kind of stuff into your practice, you’re going to have questions.  Usually, we charge a la carte, if you just want to call up and spend a half hour on the phone, $500.  We’re just going to throw that in.

What I think is even a bigger deal is if you want to get a bigger hands on training with these things, you can come up to our biggest, baddest dental event of 2013 we’re having in Nashville.  We’ve saved seats for seven dental offices to take us on this incredible offer to come up because they have hands on staff training for these things at this event, not to mention the lectures that I’m going to have.  We have six other lecturers that are going to come up and share ways on how they bumped up their practices to six figures or better doing these unique, specially typed procedures.

If you’re interested in that, you can go to the website and look at that, but the bottom line is if you get the practice productivity package, the first seven to get that, we’re going to throw in tickets to this event.  You’ll actually be able to come to Nashville and get some practice training and see with your own eyes besides just getting this product.

So, that’s it.  You’ve got the Efficient Doctor Syste, $397, the Fly-On-The-Wall’s is $397.  The 30 minute phone call is $500.  The event’s $1497.  You get 15 CE hours for that.  So, I think it’s a tremendous value, and if you add it up, it’s $2797.  We’re not going to charge that much because Lorne said he wants his folks to get the best deal possible.

So, if you want this practice productivity package right now, you can get the whole thing for just $397, and that would just be normally the price for one of the trainings.  You’re going to get both trainings, the phone call, and the live event to even further your training.  The website to get that right now is chrisgriffindds.com.

If you get it and you don’t like it, you got 60 days to tell us.  You get a complete money back guarantee to send it back.  We’ll give you your money back.  So, I don’t know how you can beat that.  Chrisgriffindds.com, and if you get this, you come to Nashville, this guy right here is going to get up on stage and share his experience of how he implemented all this stuff that we did and what it did for his practice.