Dental Unscripted

Welcome to Dental Unscripted,

where Mike D'Inzio and

Paula Quinn break down the

practice ownership journey,

one episode at a time.

Starting up, buying,

and running a successful dental practice.

all right all right guys

welcome back to another

episode dental unscripted

you guys know who I am

michael dincio one of the

crazy people that run this

show and uh we've got some

really fun uh folks on here

if you guys have not been

uh paying attention I've

got a new co-host and her

name's paul quinn hi paula what's up hey

So Paula helps me run.

And what's that?

So I'm just knocking things over.

Oh, boy.

She's out of control again, folks.

I don't know.

But no, Paula Quinn is on.

And now we are tandem this

program and tandem here and

having fun doing it.

And then we also have Michael Clark,

which who is one of our

newest coaches on the team.

Michael Clark,

an executive coach based out of Seattle,

Washington.

Hey, Michael, what's going on, brother?

How you doing, Michael?

I'm doing well.

Hi, Paula.

Hi.

We had Michael join us today

because of his unique background.

But today is kind of all

things kind of patient finance,

patient acceptance,

trying to get the most out

of every opportunity that

comes to the practice.

And the last time I had an

episode on this topic was

in twenty twenty.

I looked it up and it was

with Care Credit.

Michael Clark's former employee,

hence why he's on the show today.

Employer, sorry.

And yeah, it was a good conversation.

I thought we should bring it back up.

But before we do, a little housekeeping.

So if you guys are paying attention,

Dental Unscripted is a new

brand and new program for us.

We're trying to get

everybody consolidated to this.

If you follow us on Startup

Unscripted and you're

listening to Startup Unscripted, guys,

this channel is going to be

a no more soon.

So please get over to Dental

Unscripted and subscribe to

that one because we're

still going to have startup

topics for you on Dental Unscripted.

Same with Acquisition Unscripted.

Same thing if you're

listening on that channel.

Get over to Dental Unscripted.

It's just simply Dental Unscripted.

It's navy blue,

turquoise with a big tooth.

So...

That's that.

And then as you guys can see behind me,

if you're hanging out on

YouTube and participating

online through all of our socials,

you will see behind me,

I've got all this gear behind me.

And today we are proudly

sponsoring or being

sponsored by Candid Pro.

And so before we get started,

I just wanted to give you a

quick shout out.

On that announcement,

if you guys aren't aware,

Candid Pro is a clear liner

system built for general dentists.

That's what I said, general.

General dentists.

And it's kind of a cool program.

We actually had an episode

like two or three episodes back.

So you should definitely

check that one out.

But they've designed this

program specifically for

general dentists.

And you'll understand why

once you watch that episode.

But their whole thing is

about driving predictable

outcomes with more work efficiency.

So more efficient process around that.

And ultimately that's

supposed to drive more profit.

So, and it does, I think it does.

And so if you check out the

link below in the

description and all that good stuff,

you'll see a link and

they're giving you guys a

really incredible deal just

by listening to the program.

So click on that link, get a demo,

figure it out.

I think you'll like it.

And yeah, we'll go from there.

So let's jump right into it.

Paula and Michael,

all things patient finance

and getting patients to say

yes to treatment.

This is a simple question.

Michael, I'm going to tee it up to you,

my friend.

Why even have patient financing?

Why is that a thing?

Why should it be a thing?

Why do I always see it on the counter,

but yet nobody uses it?

It has a bunch of dust all over it.

But why?

Why use patient financing?

What's your take?

You're not wrong, Michael.

Years ago,

when I had my own consulting

business in Phoenix,

one of the things that I

ran into all the time was

the fact that almost every

office had a massive

unscheduled treatment list, just massive.

So if they were producing a

million and collecting a million,

they had, you know,

one point two to one point

five million in outstanding treatment.

So so what's happening is

by not giving the patient

options that work for them,

patients are just opting to

say no or I'll schedule later, right?

And unfortunately too,

what a lot of doctors don't

consider is that the

treatments they're saying

no to are typically the

more expensive treatments.

So-

What's bigger treatment plans?

What do you think a big quote-unquote,

to the average patient, right?

What's big?

What's big?

Well, big is subjective, right?

To one patient,

big might be having to do a

crown instead of a three-surface filling,

right?

It could be a dental implant.

It might be like a clear aligner case.

Doctors are

start to do all on all in

four cases you know those

can be what twenty five

thirty grand an arch so so

big is relative right right

I mean when you ran your

practice paula did you

offer patient financing I

think you did I did and did

you offer it to everyone or

just to the quote unquote

big what did you I guess

every demographic's

different your demographic

in the city big was

probably a thousand bucks yeah absolutely

I was probably a little guilty,

as Michael Clark's going to uncover today,

of picking and choosing.

You know, it's hard.

You know,

some companies are different than

others when the ones that

require you to have a

promotion and you're hit

with a bigger financing issue.

And we can bust through

those myths today with Michael Clark,

but there's other options

out there where you don't

have to do that and you can

pass that more on to the patient.

And that's probably a little

bit more comfortable for an

owner to know that.

they might only be paying

three percent interest

instead of fifteen percent

interest um yeah so we

should probably talk about

that a little bit more so

yes I offered financing um

was I guilty of picking and

choosing absolutely um yeah

Well,

I think that's a perfect segue to

kind of like statistics around,

if I spelled that right,

statistics around payment methods.

I hope I didn't.

You did.

Every time I do that, like someone chats,

like you just butchered that.

I'm like, well, okay.

Just abbreviate stats.

Stats.

Okay.

Let's do some stats.

I love stats, and I'm a numbers guy,

and I think numbers speak.

I will transition this to Michael,

but I will say the last

time that Paul and I coached a client,

I'll never forget, it was a one point six,

seven million dollar practice.

And we did a care credit

analysis on how many times they did

Forget CareCredit,

they're not sponsoring us today.

Candid is sponsoring us today,

but it was CareCredit and

they did like this analysis

and they used it like one

time in twelve months.

And I was like a one point

six million dollar practice

offered it one stinking time.

Before you get into statistics,

the thing that I hear

because I do case acceptance,

patient enrollment all the time.

What I always hear is the

team thinks they know

what's holding the patient back.

Yeah.

They don't know.

they'll, they'll make up something.

No, they don't, they don't want that.

They don't need that.

They just need time to think, or, you know,

it's, it's, you just don't know.

So what I learned, you know,

through Michael Clark

before he coached with us

is you should just always lead with it.

You know,

you pretty much should always

lead with your options, but he's more,

a little bit more of an expert on that.

So I'll let him talk about that.

Um,

And if you want to go straight into stats,

we can right now,

but I think it's important

for teams to know that.

No one's following up on

that one point five million

unscheduled treatment.

And the ones that are, right.

I'm sorry to interrupt,

but the ones that are,

I used to ask because they

would have a team member

have to sit on the phone.

and start calling all these people, right?

And that's fun, right?

So I would ask them like, okay,

out of a hundred calls,

how many people actually schedule?

Or even answer these days.

Or even answer, right.

And the most common response

I got was out of a hundred

phone calls that they had

to make that they didn't

really want to make,

maybe three people would schedule.

Maybe three.

They need Paula.

They do need Paula, but that's terrible.

Exactly.

Well,

and so and so so so statistically

speaking,

we can easily say that that this

service is underutilized.

And to Paula's point,

it's probably very subjective.

There's probably some

limiting beliefs behind the

front office people with Paula.

with their financial situation, right?

And so they're not doing that.

But from a statistic,

you were sharing before the program,

please share.

When a patient comes in, how do they pay?

You were just sharing that.

Please share with the audience.

Yeah, the revenue stream for a practice.

Historically,

about fifty percent of the

revenue coming in is coming

from insurance.

It makes sense, right?

Crown's twelve hundred.

They cover half.

Patient's got to pay the other half.

Yes.

Thirty,

thirty five percent typically is

coming from your

traditional payment method.

So Visa, MasterCard, Discover, cash, check,

whatever.

But every.

Which is why merchant

services is so important.

And we can have that.

Got a good plug there.

But every office.

And what's interesting is it

doesn't matter if you're in

Beverly Hills or if you're in Ajo,

Arizona or wherever you are.

it's fifteen to twenty

percent of your patients

are just not prepared for

the cost of dentistry.

They're just not there.

Fifteen to twenty percent.

Fifteen to twenty percent.

So if you have two thousand patients.

Right.

That adds up.

Yeah.

So so a hundred patients

walk through our practice today.

Twenty of them had no idea

how they were going to pay

for whatever you just dropped on them.

Right.

Two out of ten people come

into your practice today

are not prepared to pay.

period.

Okay.

And, and that's why, again,

you go back to what I said earlier about,

you know,

if they're doing like your

practice example, doing one point six,

they're unscheduled.

It's probably two point four.

Mm hmm.

Guessing.

Mm hmm.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Because high case acceptance is forty,

you know, forty one, forty low forties.

Medium is in the mid

thirties and, you know,

so if they're getting even

thirty five percent case acceptance.

Mm hmm.

I you just reminded me of

something years ago,

I had heard a statistic

that the case acceptance

rate for crowns in this

country was was around forty two.

But this was years ago.

I think it was an ADA statistic.

I was working with a large TSO client

a couple of years ago and

speaking with their CFO.

And we got to talking about this.

And I said, I said, just out of curiosity,

you know, what is,

cause he's a numbers guy.

I'm like,

what is the case acceptance rate

for your group?

And he said, it's abysmal.

He says it's

Hmm.

That's bad.

And just so,

and just so everybody's just

so everybody is on,

on point for all of the

doctors that are driving to

work right now and saying, and thinking,

and thinking, and thinking, and thinking,

and thinking, and thinking, and thinking,

not high.

We're talking about dollars accepted,

not people.

So if ten people walk in your practice,

you might get eight of them to say, yes,

that's not eighty percent

case acceptance.

If those ten people each had

a thousand dollar case,

then what we're talking

about is dollars accepted.

So the eight people may have said yes,

but only four thousand of

the ten thousand was accepted.

So, again,

dollars accepted is the actual

case acceptance that we us

consultants talk about.

So anybody,

any anybody can get one hundred

dollars out of someone,

but it's a little harder to

get a thousand, two thousand,

ten thousand out of somebody.

So.

Yeah,

I think the stat is like if it's the

size of a car payment or smaller,

they're more likely to say yes today,

right?

Yeah.

And you're not wrong.

Yes, patients are scheduling,

but I'm a patient that

needs two crowns and two fillings,

and I'm scheduling the

fillings because my

insurance will pay for it.

I'm not scheduling the crowns yet.

Yeah.

Well,

let's let's get to kind of like what

option?

I think there's a lot of options like.

Why?

I don't know.

How about this one?

Why?

Why don't practices take

advantage of this?

I guess we kind of covered that already.

I guess it's the belief.

We covered on that.

The belief?

Why else?

Paula, you own a practice.

Paula, speak to it.

Why do you think?

Is it all down to the belief?

I'm assuming that they know

better or just talking

about money is icky or what?

I think it's just habit too.

It's forgetting about it.

It's not being fully educated in it.

You don't want to

feel stupid.

They think it's time consuming.

So it's more on their plate

to have to help a patient

fill out an application or I don't know.

Mike, you went around.

What were the objectives or

what did you see?

I mean, it.

Yeah, it was to Mike's earlier point, too.

It was very common for them to say, well,

I present it all the time.

Yes, I present it all the time.

Really?

Do you?

How do you present it?

When is it presented?

You know,

do you wait until the patient is

squirming in the chair

because they've got a five

thousand dollar treatment

plan in front of them and

the insurance is only going

to pay fifteen hundred of it?

You know, when do you bring it up?

So I think really there's a

lot of reasons why they

don't take advantage.

Number one,

the staff is not comfortable

with talking about money, essentially.

Two,

doctors or owners don't necessarily

like financing because

Paula made the point earlier.

They in their mind,

they're thinking that

they're paying fifteen

percent interest in my offer.

OK,

and it's what what they're missing out

on is it's not interest.

It's just a merchant fee.

It's no different than your

visa or MasterCard.

OK,

most of these lenders are going to

deposit the entire

treatment amount minus the merchant fee.

And that's it.

OK,

so they think that that and if the

merchant fees, fifteen percent,

Mathematically, they're thinking, well,

wait a minute,

my profit margin for my practice,

my overhead is seventy five.

So I'm only making twenty five.

And if I do financing now,

they're going to take fifteen of that.

And that's not really how it works.

Not really how it works at all.

Another reason to especially

like when you have like a

legacy office manager

that's been with the doc forever.

I like how he said that

legacy office manager.

Legacy office manager.

AKA Greta.

Greta.

No offense to any Gretas out there.

Yeah.

My, my grandma was a Greta.

So no, no Ethel.

I was going to say Ethel.

Wait, her name's Greta or Ethel.

You don't know.

It's Ethel.

I,

Oh, I didn't mess that up.

I always talk to my clients

about the Ethel Greta.

You did mess it up when you

said Lisa's name.

OK,

I just hope you don't get hate mail

from all the Ethels and Greta.

I know they're not listening

to the program.

If you're a dentist, I'm sorry.

Back to back to the legacy office manager.

You know,

they they've known the doctor for

so long and they've been in

the practice for so long

that they don't offer it

because they think they're

saving the doctor money.

Yes.

Not offering it.

And what do they usually offer instead,

Michael Clark?

Do you know?

Oh, I know where she's going with this.

A lot of times they will

offer an in-house payment option.

There you go.

Because number one,

they don't have to worry

about a rejection.

You know,

the patient is not getting approved.

Number two,

they can at least get the

patient on schedule.

Right.

And the patient only maybe

has to pay a couple hundred down.

And they think that we'll

just collect it over the

next two or three months.

What they don't understand

is that statistically,

if that outstanding balance

goes on any longer than a

hundred and twenty days,

the probability of actually

collecting it drops to near zero.

Well, I like that you said that.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead, Michael.

No, I was just saying, of course,

dentists and business

owners think that there'll

be better banks than the

bankers and other people.

I mean,

offering payment plans is in every

consultant's

vocabulary coaching tool bag.

We all say, do not do it.

Why?

Because of what you just said,

it doesn't get collected.

And then there's the

management of staying on

top of it and tracking it

and getting Greta to follow

up with those payments.

And it's just, it's a bad idea.

It's just a bad idea.

Is that where you were going with that,

Paula?

I interrupted you.

Yeah, no, no, no.

That was it.

It's the managerial fee of

the front office now

tracking this payment down.

It's the risk of not getting the payment.

And I say to my team members,

how about we forfeit your

your payroll for one

hundred and twenty days

till I get that money collected for,

you know, to pay you with that.

If you're going to make

those kind of decisions all the time,

doctors are doing in-house

payment plans and it makes that.

This is way off the subject,

but on the subject, I say this every day,

we're the only industry

that allows somebody to

take a product home and not

pay in full or finance.

Why not finance?

They finance their cell phone.

They finance a mattress.

They finance everything.

I showed you that thing the other day,

Michael, that I did with the hygienist.

One point two to two or one

point five to two billion

dollars every day on hygiene.

plastic surgery,

just like a nose job alone.

It's like a thirty billion

dollar industry and people

have no problems financing it.

But heaven forbid the

gateway to their body,

they just like go to hell

in a handbasket.

Well, I mean, I mean,

the statistics are that the average.

adult has less than two

thousand dollars in their

savings account right now

like that that that

statistic has gotten worse

and worse and worse over

the years and and so

payments matter so so not

all three of the the

panelists today aren't

disagreeing that payments matter.

That's what gets people to say, yes,

that's the way that

millennials and millennials

and so on and so forth.

That's the way they think.

Even the older folks, my mom,

she's on a fixed income.

She's got her money coming every month.

She wants a payment plan.

Payment plans matter.

It's what gets people to the

to the finish line.

But doing it in-house, not the way to go.

So, Michael Clark, why do they matter?

Two points there, two points.

And I'm going to give a

shout out to the wonderful,

one of the dental speakers

that I used to follow.

She wrote a,

she actually started off as an

office manager with her

husband and then started

looking at the business of dentistry,

discovered some really interesting stuff,

eventually wrote a book and

then she became a

consultant and now she is a traveling

famous speaker.

And I'm speaking, of course,

about the lovely Kathy Jamison.

And Kathy Jamison studied

what the cost of managing in-house is.

And her conclusion after

reviewing multiple,

multiple practices was that

it's forty two cents on the

dollar as well to manage.

the postage the staff time

is forty two cents on the

dollar so your point about

why do payments matter uh

I'm going to tell you a

brief story real quick so

one of my former colleagues

story time story time um

one of my former colleagues

uh was looking to do

invisalign uh because she

was an ortho relapse case

she had some shifting she wanted to

you know, make her teeth pretty again.

And so she,

and she knew that she was

probably going to be an express case.

So it wasn't going to cost

her maybe as much, right?

This was before Candid, of course.

Of course.

Let's say a clear liner

company of the other.

Candid would have been more affordable.

Yeah.

Candid would have been way

more affordable and she

wouldn't have even needed payment plans,

but go ahead.

Sorry, Michael.

Absolutely.

So she reached out to her dentist first,

obviously, and, and asked him, she said,

Hey, you know,

What do you charge for an express case?

And they told her it'll be

about thirty six hundred.

And so she said, OK, you know,

I'll think about it.

And she went home and

thought about it and then thought, well,

maybe I'll get a second opinion.

So she called another office

that wasn't too far away and said, hey,

I've already been checked.

I know I'm an express case.

You know,

what does that run if I do it

through you?

And they told her, oh,

we've got some great payment options.

In fact,

we can start to start treatment on

you with no money down and

payments as low as, you know, whatever,

about fifty bucks.

Right.

Done.

Who did she book with?

Of course, she booked the payment option.

And what's really

interesting is she didn't

know until well after the fact that.

By the time she paid it off,

she actually paid more for

the second option.

So the office technically

collected more revenue as well.

So the moral of the story is ABCs,

always be selling.

No, I'm joking.

No, kind of not.

It's all in presentation and

verbal skills.

I love that.

That's a great story.

And it absolutely matters.

We also do membership plans,

help people with membership plans.

And we had our other partner, Dental Menu,

um, on the program,

check that episode out.

Same thing.

Um,

patients want payment plans and they

need them and they're,

they're budgeting and it matters.

So, okay, cool.

Anything else on that topic?

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think the other question I would

have is you're saying why financing,

right?

Um, I think Michael Clark,

if you can hit on level of care, you know,

that would be,

and we're talking to the dentist here.

Right.

A hundred percent.

So, oh, we care about that.

No, I'm joking.

I'm joking.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

We don't get hate mail on that too.

Um, yeah, no level of care as well.

Um, you know,

offering a way to pay over

time can mean the

difference between somebody

doing like a PFM in the interior,

you know, versus doing a fully, you know,

zirconia, something really beautiful.

Uh,

it can make the difference between a

denture patient getting like the absolute

baseline plastic looking

dentures versus getting

something that makes them

feel good about themselves

because it looks real.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's, it's the difference between,

like you said,

doing the couple of

fillings versus doing the

entire treatment plan, you know,

going ahead and do

everything that's planned

out for that year,

as opposed to phasing it out over a

a five-year plan.

Yeah.

Say actually we've been tracking same day,

same day treatment percentage,

I believe has been going

down the last two years on average.

Um, which is,

which is an interesting fact.

And maybe,

maybe Paula can fact fact check

me with dental Intel.

I don't know.

Um,

but I believe the last time I looked at

it,

same day treatment acceptance

percentage has, has gone down.

And maybe this, uh,

idea of patient financing is a way to, to,

to help you do that more often.

Well, and I'll tell you this much, uh,

both of my children needed ortho, uh,

two stages of ortho when

they were very young.

And of course, you know,

the orthodontist offered

the in-house payment option thing too,

but because of the time was shorter,

Uh, I would have,

I was almost forced to have

to decide which child I loved more,

you know, because it was too full.

Yeah, that was the first round.

Right.

But there was a, I,

there was a financing option that, uh,

I could spread it out over

a longer period.

And it essentially allowed

me to do both children

simultaneously for about

the same monthly payment.

I would have paid for one

job for the inhabitants.

Well, I guess like last little bit on this,

unless we really have a

burning desire to touch on other things.

But I'm curious what the group thinks.

I've never sold the stuff.

I've never really looked into it.

There's a lot of options.

We keep saying care credit

just because they're the lion's share.

But there are some others

that are really doing well out there.

Um,

and we've partnered with a few of them

over the years, but like, what are,

what are some of the things

that differentiate these companies and,

um, who's, who, who are they?

I mean,

I guess we don't even have to get

into that and there's no

way we know everything about all of them,

but, um,

any ideas there from the team on

other options, um,

other things other than care credit or,

or what,

what's the downside of care credit?

Let's have a discussion about that.

Well,

there are a lot more options these days.

Care credit has been around the longest.

They're still hugely popular

because the utility of

being able to use the card

over and over and over

again through the years.

The challenges might be

because it's a revolving line of credit,

the underwriting standards

are going to be a little

bit tighter than if it was

an installment loan, for example.

And so what you're seeing

right now is a big

big surge in FinTech and

MarTech companies basically

breaking into dentistry,

breaking into healthcare

and trying to provide

lending solutions for the

patients that are more palatable.

So for example,

like a true no interest

product where there is no

interest for the first six months,

twelve months or two years.

And then if the patient

doesn't pay it off instead

of being hit with the

retroactive interest of, say, a

deferred interest plan,

the patient would only pay

interest on the remaining

balance to the end of the law.

Okay.

So that's more popular for some people.

But yeah,

it's just there's a lot out there.

There's a lot popping up all the time.

Just comes down to, you know,

what are the fees?

What's the approval rate?

And what's the conversion rate?

Are the products that are being offered

palatable enough to patients

that they want to say yes today.

Right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani Well,

Paula has always talked about in offices,

teeing you up here, Paula, a little bit,

so get ready,

on delivering treatment one

hundred percent with that option.

On the treatment plan,

there's no subjectiveness,

there's no limiting belief.

Have you seen that before?

Or is that what you suggest, Paula,

when you're delivering

treatment plan is like

you've got all these

options and one of those

right there on one hundred

percent of the.

Treatments is right there.

Have you seen that?

Not sure what I understand

what you're asking.

Well,

just delivering it to the patient and

just having that as an

option one hundred percent

of the time on.

I think I think that every

time you deliver a treatment plan,

you've got to have multiple options.

And I think it's.

You know, cash, you know,

maybe a cash discount,

credit card or third party financing.

I think you let the patient decide.

I think that if you provide it all,

you know,

I always say patients are fifty

percent less likely to

schedule treatment once

they've left the practice.

Somebody's got to hunt them down.

Somebody's got to get that

emotion back in them of

just finding out they have

a mouthful of decay or

periodontal disease.

It's hard to get that back

after they've left and had a, you know,

bought a new cell phone, needed new tires,

whatever it is.

So whatever we need to do to

enroll that patient that

day into scheduling

treatment is the best

option or else you've just

paid your team countless

hours to hunt somebody down.

You're less likely to even

get them to schedule.

Probably not.

Even if they schedule,

it's probably not going to be committed.

So we kind of have to get

them while the emotions are raw.

And the best way to do that

is give them all the

options and let them choose.

It's, you know, again,

you asked and Michael Clark

kind of answered, you know,

why care credit above anyone else?

It's a household name.

They work in vet, eye, cosmetics.

Most people that are going

to not choose another one

is because they've already

got healthcare credit and

they don't want to their

credit checked again and like another,

you know,

form of that credit out there so

That's by care credit.

In my opinion,

I have nothing against your credit.

I think they're amazing that

I do not always like to

push the promotion period

on those smaller payments.

So I wanted other options.

Um, if they say, can I use this?

Absolutely.

I'm not going to fight somebody.

I'm not going to turn down

treatment because I might

get penalized with a little

bit higher interest,

but I'm going to lead with, with,

you know, something else,

but a third party option.

But I always want to be with

care credit because it is honestly,

I couldn't even tell you

it's it's a house.

It's a household name with

so many different fields of

medical out there that it

would be silly not to have them.

I do think their onboarding

training is great.

You know,

they require that you take these courses,

which is annoying,

but at least they set you up for success.

And then they come in and check on you.

They make sure that you

understand you're utilizing

the financing.

They try to meet with you

and encourage more usage.

Of course they do.

But it does set the front

office team up a little bit

more for success.

But you are suggesting two multiple,

not just care.

No, I'm not even like, sorry, care credit.

I'm not even saying.

What do you mean?

They didn't pay.

No, I know.

I'm not even saying suggest them.

I'm saying have it because

you have to sign up with them.

You have to have a direct deposit.

You have to go through the training.

I'm saying have them as an option.

You might not lead with it,

but you want it there in

case someone whips it out and says,

can I pay with this?

I'm saying lead with

multiple options and it's

third party financing,

whatever you choose.

Obviously, care credit.

and a cash discount, you know,

those would always be, you know,

and which works better for you would be,

you know, how I would say it.

But I'm going to lead with all three.

Whatever venue you choose

for your financing is up to you.

I just don't think you

should be afraid of offering it.

No, no.

And you're right.

One hundred percent.

The strength of CareCredit

is their network.

Really, it's the reuse.

that keeps coming back, right?

But for new patients,

there may be some other options.

There's two great

up-and-coming lenders that

I've been introduced to

that I've been talking to recently.

So you got Covered Care and

you got Clarity Pay,

and they've got some

exciting things that are

different than what has

traditionally been offered in the space.

But one thing I did want to

also kind of point out or

cover with this is that

Another side effect of the

patient leaving without scheduling,

unfortunately, and there,

I believe it was a path to

purchase study that was

done a few years back with

dental patients.

Okay.

And, and I may be misquoting,

so don't send me hate mail

if I'm misquoting this, but it was,

it was somewhere in the

neighborhood of twenty-five to thirty,

twenty-five, maybe twenty-seven percent,

close to thirty percent of

the patients that walked

out without scheduling

ended up getting the

treatment done at a different office.

That's interesting.

Yeah, that's too bad.

It's such a simple thing.

I also, while you guys were talking,

I was thinking about like

extra large things

specifically like clear liners.

um there's other groups and

and fintech fintech

companies and other

competitors that kind of

have that niche of bigger

stuff five thousand or

bigger or you know and

there's just different

things to to consider so I

I just think that like you

can't just go care credit

like I think you guys

brought up a really good

Really good points on why

one of the options should be care credit,

but I don't think care

credit is pulled on every opportunity.

I think if it's clear aligners,

it might be someone else.

If you already know that

someone's going to have a

less of credit score,

maybe you bring out another option,

but it's having that

options for patients to say

yes and deliver care.

care.

That's what I heard.

Any last minute kind of

things on this topic and

hopefully the three of us

move the needle to our

audience because I just

don't think we're doing this.

We're not as an industry.

We're just not doing this

and we should be.

We should be.

I would say all of our

startups that I work with,

I tell them to pick two.

Pick two and have them

available and like you said,

maybe once based on

lower interest ones based on easier,

more widespread access due

to credit scores.

I think you've got to do some interviewing

There's so many out there.

I can't be super

knowledgeable on all of them anymore,

but I think you've got to

interview and sort of pick

two different options that

will cover a wider range of

patients that you feel comfortable with.

Cause I'd rather you,

if you're not going to use care credit,

don't go with them.

Although I think it's a miss

because like I said,

it's a household name having it there,

but I think you've got to

be comfortable because you

want your team to

to lead with that as well.

You know,

it's gotta be something that you can,

you know,

be comfortable offering because you're,

you're having a big miss,

like Michael Clark said earlier that,

you know, if you're a one point two,

one point five, whatever,

you probably have two,

two and over millions of

dollars of unscheduled treatment.

And unfortunately, you know,

you can't tell me those,

you know,

if we did it right the first time

that we couldn't get a

larger volume of that coming out.

And to that, go ahead, Mike.

I was just going to say,

and don't get something

just to get it like, Oh,

I got to do it because

everybody do your research,

understand the service,

educate your team and be a

loan broker to your patients.

Understand why you would

offer this one versus this one.

And if you know,

Your front office needs to

know and maybe even create

us an incentive around it.

But whatever.

I mean, but but the tools that you have,

like own it.

But don't just get it just to get it.

You got to you got to be a solution maker,

not a box checker.

Go ahead, Michael.

Last last comment.

Oh, no,

your comment was so brilliant that

I completely.

None.

I just blew your mind.

You blew my mind.

I mean, yes, go.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

No, that's it.

No, no.

Oh, no, you go.

Oh, no.

Oh, you go.

You go.

No, you go.

No, you go.

It's gone.

That concludes the program.

Wait, you just thought of it.

You forgot.

No, it bubbled up for a second,

but then it went away again.

That's what happens when you

reach this chronologic section of life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

you should have financed that

brilliant idea.

Dang it.

All right.

You too.

It's a pleasure.

And I hope our audience got out of it.

Just another reminder, check out Candid.

We love them.

We think they're great.

Check out the description below.

Again, they have a great starter package.

If you want any help on

practice management, case acceptance,

just helping set up your

practice from scratch, like Paula said,

even buying a practice,

don't just inherit what they all did.

Look at all the contracts

you have and utilize, you know,

figure out what you're

trying to do and see what

works best for you.

So without further ado, Paula,

thanks as always.

Michael, great,

great guest today and great knowledge.

Thank you for everything.

All right.

Happy to be here.

Have a good evening.

Yes, you too, guys.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

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