Putting Your Data To Work

Hello and welcome to the Orthodontic Products Podcast on the MEDQOR Podcast Network. I am Alison Werner and I am the Chief Editor of Orthodontic Products. On today’s episodes sponsored by Dental Monitoring, we are going to talk about putting your data to work. It’s a simple truth that if you make data driven decisions for your business, you are more likely to make effective and impactful decisions that will grow your orthodontic practice. To help us dive into this issue is Dr. J Barry Benton, a board certified orthodontist based in Oxford, Alabama. He is in private practice at Designer Smiles by Benton, which has two locations. In practice since 2016, Dr. Benton attended the University of Alabama Birmingham for dental school and went on to complete his certificate in orthodontics and a Master’s of Science and Dentistry at Louisiana State University. And an interesting fact about Dr. Benton, he is one of the youngest orthodontists in the country to be a diplomat of the American Board of Orthodontics. Dr. Benton, thank you for joining me today.

It’s an absolute pleasure.

Great. Well, so let’s get started. Can you tell me a little bit about your practice and the community you serve?

Sure. As you mentioned in that wonderful introduction, I do have two practices, one of which is a very established and mature practice. It’s the one that my dad started in 1985, and so we’re going on almost 40 years in the next few years. And we are in a more blue collar, rural demographic. The people are absolutely amazing, but we’re not a Beverly Hills supermodel type of practice and population. And then we have a satellite that we actually opened two years ago and it was a complete upstart from the ground up, hung a shingle waiting to see what happens and it’s just taken off. We’ve been so excited about that. So almost two different practice models that we’re working through. One very mature established practice and then one being a new upstart, no existing patients when we started.

Okay. So I want to dive into this, your role as a business owner. And so you have these two practices, two different models. So one of the keys to a successful business that continues to grow is goal setting. So what goals are you currently working to reach in those two different practices?

Well, in our mature established practice, we’re really trying to streamline everything. We’re in the mindset of trying to optimize the space that we have, the time that we have so that we can continue to grow. So we’re looking at metrics that affect our efficiencies, especially in the clinic. So we’re looking at the number of appointments and the types of appointments and things like that. For our startup, because we didn’t know how the practice was going to be, we didn’t know how the population in that town was going to respond, we were conservative with our investment and the space that we have. So it’s a very small physical plant. So it’s three clinic chairs, a TC chair, and then one kind of miscellaneous off to the side can do whatever. So with that clinic, as we’ve grown, we’re not really trying to maximize the efficiencies as more, we’re trying to maximize the space that we have. So we’re trying to offload as many patients into a virtual clinic as possible so that we can continue to grow that practice.

So one of the things that a lot of orthodontists will use is their practice management software to help them with data collection and data driven decision making. And so when you’re trying to analyze those aspects of your business that comes in. But one of the newer tools that provides a whole different level of data is remote monitoring. And I know that you implemented a remote monitoring platform into your practice in the last few years. Which platform did you go with and why did you decide to incorporate this technology?

Sure. We decided to go with Dental Monitoring because of the artificial intelligence that’s behind it. Now, we decided to adopt digital monitoring, virtual monitoring through the COVID pandemic. And employees were tough to find, tough to hang on to. There was so much uncertainty in not only the orthodontic marketplace but the employee marketplace. So we needed that artificial intelligence to be our employee to help us with the massive amount of photos and data that were coming in. So we chose Dental Monitoring because of the artificial intelligence that’s on the back end helping us out, sorting through all the data and the entry points that are coming in.

So you talked about how you have these two offices and they’re at different stages. How does the data from that remote monitoring platform or just the way it helps you work with patients, how does it impact each of those offices? Is there a difference in how you’re using it or the data per se?

There is. So in our main office, we are really getting down to the nitty gritty on the appointments that the patients have, why they’re coming in. And we’re trying to eliminate any sort of unnecessary appointment or an appointment that could have been avoided, had something else happened. So the way Dental Monitoring helps us with that is not only does it give us feedback on what’s going on in the patient’s mouth on a week to week basis, but it also aggregates all that data and gives us a global view of what’s going on with our patient population. So we’re able to track trends down to the tooth by tooth basis on, hey, is there a certain tooth that is debonding more than another, or is there a wire that’s disengaging from one tooth more than the other? And it’s just so much more detail than what our practice management software was able to give us, which was they came in for this type of appointment or that type of appointment, but it didn’t really tell us what went on during that appointment.

Was there a piece of data that surprised you when you started working with the platform and seeing what it could do?

So when we started digging into it, I was able to learn that I have one particular tooth that was debonded at twice the rate of all the other teeth in the mouth. And we as orthodontist, we expect maybe a posterior tooth to have a bracket emergency more so than an anterior tooth because those are the teeth that the patient’s chewing on or biting with. But I had one particular tooth that was debonding at twice the rate of all the other teeth. So it gave me a point to go look like, okay, what’s going on with this one tooth? Is it my bonding technique? Is it the way that the edge is going on the teeth? So we could really drill down into our technique and then also how we’re training our chairside assistants to really figure out what’s going on with that tooth and bring it back in line with the rest of the teeth.

Oh, that’s a great example. So when you’re working with this data, how do you use it to be more proactive as you set goals for your practice?

Well, one example is in our satellite office, we’re not there full time. It’s a growing practice. We have a small space, but we want to give the impression that we are. So we still want to be able to take care of our patients. So with Dental Monitoring, we’re able to treat them essentially virtually through the Dental Monitoring platform when they’re not in the office. So they still have that feel of, okay, it’s not a satellite office. That’s my main office from the patient’s perspective and they’re taking care of me and whether they’re actually in the office or not.

Okay. Let’s talk about kind of data as a whole for your practice. What types of data do you really try to focus on when you’re trying to make data driven decisions? What are the key pieces of data that are important for you?

Sure. And this is going to be different for every orthodontist. And I would recommend picking two or three different data points and focus on those and then move on to another one or another two or three in time. Don’t try to look at 25 different metrics because you’ll drive yourself crazy. You can get data overload really easily, which is great because you want the data, you just don’t want it all at once. And so you want it on your terms and Dental Monitoring’s able to give that to you. And so for us, like I said, our main office, we’re looking at things that lead to inefficiency. So inadvertent bracket debonds, arch wired disengagement, things that are slowing down our braces patients. So those are the data points that we’re focusing on right now. Those along with the patients that we have that are over treatment time, because they’re taking up space. We love them but we got to get them on.

Great. So when you incorporated Dental Monitoring, what was the experience for your staff and just incorporating into both your workflow and your clinical team, what was that experience?

So it was a little rough just because we were coming out through COVID and that implementation, but the way that Dental Monitoring is doing it now is amazing. So we’ve actually been re-implemented with Dental Monitoring the correct way and it’s been fantastic. The staff has totally bought in. Once they were able to understand the why behind it, why are the doctors making this change? This isn’t just more work for us or something extra to do. So really having that proper full rollout alongside Dental Monitoring in the office where we took our time, explained everything, explained the why, showed them how it’s working and how it’s going to take care of the patients better. It was almost like a light switch, light bulb went off.

Okay. And then given, in a way, they’re also seeing the data from what the platform gathers, has it changed the way they look at data as a whole now in terms of understanding it can help me make things easier?

Yes and no. They’re a little nervous at first because they’re like, Oh man, I’m being graded. Every time this happens, I’m going to get dinged or something like that. So once they kind of understood, no, this is to make you better and we’re not grading you and we won’t cut you from the team if you don’t perform. And once they kind of got that out of their head, it was like, okay, the doctors have my back, they’re trying to make me better. It almost became a game at that point for them where they’re competing against each other to try and make themselves better and get the best score. So it’s been fun to see that transition.

Okay. Well we talked about data just driven decision making. How long does it take you to make those changes when you’re looking at data? Because you can’t just make a decision on the fly. You do have to take time to look at that and place the data in context. How long does it take you to make those decisions? Because it can be intimidating to look at data and do the analysis because I think there are doctors out there who get scared off by the data and are afraid it’s either going to take too long or react too quickly.

That’s the beautiful part of the DM insights data platform is it highlights on the main page exactly where you stand with things. It doesn’t give you the answers though, so it takes a little time to kind of digest and figure out how this applies to my practice? What am I doing in the practice that’s affecting these numbers? But the data is pretty easy to read as far as these are your deficiencies, these are where you’re excelling, this is where you can improve and this is where you’re doing awesome. So the result is, or the data’s there and it’s easy to read, but getting it to the final answer, like how do I make changes that really depends on your practice and what’s going on almost behind the scenes or what Dental Monitoring’s not able to see as far as how you’re putting a bracket on, how you’re treating a patient, things like that.

Do you think data driven decisions are a luxury or a necessity for today’s orthodontic practices?

I think it’s absolutely a necessity. You don’t know how to get better unless you know where you’re falling short and the data’s what gives you that answer. We can’t make decisions based on feelings or subjective measures with any sort of accuracy or guaranteed improvement off those decisions. You may get lucky, but you may not get lucky. It’s almost like a gamble. Whereas if you have that data backing up your decision, it may be a tough decision. It may not turn the corner right away, but you know that, hey, I made the right decision. I need to stick to it because eventually it’s going to get better. I’m going to make myself better and the practice will be better.

Yeah. So final question, what would you love to be tracking that you aren’t currently tracking?

Oh, that’s a good question. I would love to dive in more with the Dental Monitoring platform and really start comparing some treatment metrics that I’m doing or as far as treatment modalities and getting into, okay, if I use this bracket system or this wire sequence, what’s the result and the timeframe looking like versus another one, different attachments with aligners. There’s all sorts of kind of comparing that I’d like to do to make myself better and to learn what works best in my hands with my patients. And we’re just not there yet though. We got some other cleanup to do before we get there.

Well, Dr. Benton, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I really appreciate what you’ve shared on how you’re using data and how you’re using remote monitoring in your practice. So thank you. And to our listeners, be sure to subscribe to the MEDQOR Podcast Network to keep up with the latest Orthodontic Products Podcast episodes. And in the meantime, to keep up with the latest orthodontic industry news, visit orthodonticproductsonline.com. Until next time, take care.