445: Dentistry in a Virtual World

Kiera is joined by Tom Brown of Your Virtual Consult, a system that educates patients about dental procedures and expectations over the computer. Did you know that case acceptance across the United States currently averages 41%? By incorporating Your Virtual Consulat, you can bump that up to 89%!

Kiera and Tom talk about how the system will better both case acceptance and patience experience and improve efficiency and automation in your practice all while keeping a personal touch!

Listen to this episode to get a taste of what comes with Your Virtual Consult. Be an early adopter and get more qualified patients coming to your practice.

About Tom: After a decade in dentistry including stints at Dental Intel and LocalMed, Tom is currently partner and VP of sales with Your Virtual Consult.

Tom's love of dentistry (which he's been in for almost a decade!) and technology paired together has made him one of the most well-known faces in dentistry. He enjoys traveling to dental shows, tinkering and refining his teams' processes and of course meeting up with industry friends from across the country.

When Tom isn't working on Your Virtual Consult, you can find him hanging with his 10 brothers and sisters, exploring DisneyWorld, and playing volleyball every Tuesday night with his wife.

Episode resources:

Try out Your Virtual Consult

Get in touch with Tom directly

Reach out to Kiera

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Podcast Transcript:

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0:00:05.6 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent. And I have this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultant, but we have traveled to over a 165 different offices, coaching teams.

0:00:31.1 KD: Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress and create A Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And you guys, I have a fantastic guest joining us today. I've actually known him for a few years, we met... Some people say that when you travel, like you guys know, we travel, we go to events, we sponsor events. And somebody coined it, that it's kind of like the dental circus, which I agree, because we all show up, we all have our bag of tricks, we all hang out with each other, and then we take off and see each other at the next event. And this is somebody that I met that I instantly gravitated towards, him and his company that he was working with were just awesome. So you guys might have seen him, his name is Tom Brown with the LocalMed. And that's actually where I met him, and he has since pivoted to a really cool company called My Virtual Content, I lied, Your Virtual Consult. And it's awesome.

0:01:35.9 KD: So we're actually gonna talk today about case acceptance, patient experience and kind of tying it into this new virtual world because I'm so jazzed to bring Tom onto the show. Tom, how are you today?

0:01:46.3 Tom Brown: Here, I'm doing fantastic. It's great to actually be able to be on your podcast. It's exciting to be able to get to talk about these different topics with you and all of your listeners, it's... I echo what you were saying, it is kind of a circus being on the road, but it is a really fun Circus 'cause you get to meet great people like you and a number of other people who I now consider really close friends...

0:02:11.5 KD: Same.

0:02:11.6 TB: Over the last five six years. So looking forward to the circus starting again.

0:02:15.8 KD: I know, me too. That was literally what would happen. All of us with events, we all show up, it's like, "Oh, are Tom and Alyssa gonna be there?" I heard you guys have your Golden Ghost the Coast. I think the last event I saw ya'll it was Voices of Dentistry pre-pandemic, and you guys were giving away a trip to Hawaii for the person who could win the rock, paper, scissor, which I also learned that there's actually strategy to that game, so that was the last time I saw you in person, so I'm really excited to see you guys again. But Tom kind of give us a little bit of your background, who you are, how you even got into the dental space, 'cause you're seriously one of the most fun people I have ever met, and I just love to hang out with you, so. [chuckle]

0:02:52.3 TB: Well, thank you for that, I appreciate that. I would be remiss if I didn't say, How did I get into the Dental space? Which how I came into this world. And I came into the world as number eight out of 10 kids. So I think that's where you have to have unlimited energy or you don't survive. Right. So I grew up on a great team, my family, and I've kinda taken that through my whole career. It's always been about team. My parents didn't even let us play individual sports because they wanted us to be all part of a team, they didn't wanna leave anybody out, and so in my career, I've constantly built teams in multiple different industries. But I got into dentistry about... It's about 10 years ago now, and it was on the marketing side, and it really... What really called out to me was helping patients connect with doctors and helping doctors connect with patients, and that's where it started with the marketing company. And then as you pointed out, I was with LocalMed, which did a fantastic job of connecting patients with doctors, made it as simple as possible, like booking a flight.

0:03:56.9 TB: And the pivot that we just did is taking that connection with patients and doctors to a much deeper level, really organic level through your virtual consult and these videos, because it's so important for a doctor in a practice to tell their story and put it out there, but what better avenue or what better testimonial to give, then your own self, the doctor himself or herself, actually talking to the patient directly in what appears to be a one-on-one conversation. So that's kind of like my dental experience in a nutshell, in the last 10 years.

[chuckle]

0:04:33.1 KD: That's so fun, Tom, I love it. And you and I had chatted because I was super curious of what you're doing, we actually just reconnected, you're great on Facebook that I just messaged you there 'cause I... [chuckle] And that's how we actually got reconnected. I found out that you're with Your Virtual Consult. And you actually walk me through what you guys do, and we were talking about how this can really, really help you guys with case acceptance and how it can help with the patient experience, obviously, efficiency and automation. I personally think the efficiency and automation can go so far, especially in a service industry, and then we've gotta make sure that we keep that personal touch. So when you and I were walking through, I actually want to do this for Dental A Team, because I think it's just a great way to be able to connect and like you said, "Share your story." So, let's talk about some of the stats you guys have found with case acceptance and the patient experience from what you guys have been doing research on, 'cause I'm always intrigued, everybody's wanting to boost case experience, patient experience. So let's kinda dive into that.

0:05:27.6 TB: So basically, it starts off with this. Case acceptance across the country right now, average is 41%...

0:05:34.2 KD: I believe it.

0:05:34.4 TB: Which is obviously way lower in dental than it is in a lot of the other health care spaces. Right. And I know there are a lot of people out there that are helping doctors to increase case acceptance, and they're focused on what the doctor can say differently or how they can position the message, and all of them are helpful. But because of the technology that's been developed, somewhat because of COVID, 'cause we are forced to go video, we now have an in-browser experience that actually takes case acceptance on average to 89% if they're going through one of these YVC video funnels. And the reason that happens is, when you're asking the doctor to say something different, you are addressing one of the issues, but the real focus for the issue is really what's going on in the patient's head when they're walking into the practice. Right. They really have three main questions or fears, "Something's wrong with my mouth, I don't even know if it can be fixed. If it can be, what is it gonna take? How many times do I have to go in? Are my gonna be in pain? How much is it gonna cost?" All those things.

0:06:40.6 TB: And then third, I haven't met the big scary doctor yet. So it's just kind of funny like that, but now when you're walking into a practice doors, you're not gonna make a five, 10,000 decision in the next hour because, just human psychology, they've actually gotta take some time to process what's going on, and then be able to make that decision. And so, what YVC video funnels do, and it's not a top of the mug... Or top of the funnel, it's really a middle of the funnel, a tool, it actually helps qualify those patients and utilize the patient to self-select in, or self-select out. And they do that by a simple series of videos, 30 to 60 seconds long, you have a welcome video, and the patient gets to choose the treatment they're interested in, whether it's aligners, implant, veneers, whatever. And by the way, it's whatever the doctor practice decides.

0:07:35.9 TB: And then once they do that, they send some information and "Tell a little bit about your story." And now, this is a really really cool part, is it goes into a... It goes into our platform in a lead bucket, and now it's automatically processing into an automated response that the doctor has created for that particular service, like aligners, but the patient, when they see this, they really feel like it's a personal response to them, there's a delayed time, maybe we default it to three hours, and now the patient gets it. So when they know now the cost, how many times they have to come in. They've met the doctor kind of personally, and these are not marketing production videos, if you're doing them like that, it's wrong. It's kind of like you and I getting on a video call in talking, only it's 30 seconds, 30-60 seconds long.

0:08:28.8 TB: And now, when the patient decides to go into the practice, all of those questions and fears have already even have answered, so what reason would they have to book that appointment, that's why case acceptance is going from 41-89%. And yes, there are some patients that are gonna decide to self-select out, and isn't that a great thing?

0:08:50.7 KD: Right, yeah.

0:08:50.9 TB: Don't you wanna work with more patients that wanna move forward with your treatment rather than take up an hour of your chair time and your staff's time and everything else? So now, in a lot of cases, what's happening is the doctor might be seeing... They might be getting more leads, seeing fewer patients, but doing more production, so now they've got a better work-life balance, they're vibing better with the patients, so there's just so many different advantages to this that... Like local med was transformational, and being able to schedule an appointment online, your virtual console is transformational, and this is something that everybody's gonna be doing because it's just a huge competitive advantage.

0:09:32.7 TB: When we went through this, I remember sharing this with you for the first time, kiera, it was... You thought it was interesting. And then, I showed you it, and it made all the difference. And why is that, right? 'Cause I'm explaining this, and you might feel a certain way about it, but when you see the videos that everything we do is scripted out, but it sounds natural when the doctor is reading it, when they get used to reading it, of course. But it reminds me of the saying, "People will forget what you said... No, forget what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel." And this video series makes people feel confident, comfortable, and now they wanna move forward with the treatment. It's a huge difference.

0:10:15.5 KD: So I think Tom, on that, I love this. And like you said, when I saw it, I was like, "Oh, that's actually pretty cool," because when you pop onto the website, there's actually a video from the doctor, which most feel probably gonna click on, and she's like, "Hey, welcome to the practice, I'm so and so. I'd love to answer any of your questions that you actually get a response from me." I'm just curious Tom, what have you guys found of how many patients actually click on this and do you track like a bounce rate on it? Because as I'm thinking of how many patients... I guess, sure, our case acceptance is going from 41% to 89%, again, probably less people may be, but that's okay, because now they're qualified leads, if you will, they're qualified patients coming in, we know they're going to most likely do treatment. It's gonna drastically increase our productivity, it's gonna increase our patient acceptance, it's gonna increase our patient experience.

0:11:04.7 KD: But I'm just curious on that, do you guys track the bounce rate or do you see how many people... Like if we have a thousand visitors to our website, how many of those people actually will click on the consult and engage with it versus just browsing by, calling or not doing anything?

0:11:19.4 TB: Well, an exceptionally intuitive question. Thank you for asking me that.

0:11:23.9 KD: [chuckle] I just think... It's probably 'cause I've got website bounce rates on my brain right now, so I'm just thinking like, how many people actually do this? Are you guys sick of trying to figure it out on your own? I know, I am what. When I'm trying to run a business, sometimes I just think, "There's got to be a better way to do this," and so for me, my answer has been to find someone who's done it and does it really, really, really well, like I'm talking the best of the best of the best. I want someone who's been in my shoes, somebody who understands what I'm going through. When I was looking for the consulting business, I found a coach who literally has run a consulting business. Well, that seemed like the perfect fit. So you guys, right now, we have a few spaces open in our platinum consulting, that is in the consulting where we actually come to your practice, we help you get systems implemented, we don't just tell you a system to implement, we actually implement them with you and for you. Guys, it is one of the best investments I've ever made, is to hire a coach who understands the business I'm in, who's lived it, who's done it, and that's what we in the Dental A Team do, we literally physically fly to you.

0:12:32.4 KD: So if you're sick of trying to figure it out on your own. If you just want somebody who understands you, join our platinum, I'd love to have you, I'd love to have our consulting team come out and see you, be in your office, be with your team, and truly help you get on to the easy path of dentistry. It doesn't have to be hard. So join us in the Platinum, we'd love to have you on.

0:12:53.2 TB: So the reason why I say it's really intuitive is we started with, okay, here's how much our product costs, here's what you're getting out of it, and so you can do a quick calculation and no return on investment is 46 to 1 right now across all of our clients, which is awesome. But we have a number of doctors and practices asking exactly that question. So two weeks ago, we've just completed an analytics component to this, so when you ask me again in three months, I'll actually have some very good data, not just for individual practices, but across the board where I can tell you, Here's how many people are interacting with it, here's this. But I'll tell you right up front though, it was... Again, because of my past experience, you have to have people come into your website or your Facebook page, 'cause this isn't just on your website, Facebook...

0:13:47.8 KD: All color, social.

0:13:48.3 TB: Instagram. Yeah. Google My Business, Yelp. So there's a number of different ways you can engage the patient, but you have to be drawing them to that. Now, once you draw into that, now, like you said, if you have a thousand visitors, what percentage is actually gonna click on that? And that's what we're just in the process of gathering information and data, but anybody who signs up right now, they're gonna have that data from day one going forward. And like I said, in a few months, I'm gonna be able to give you that, say, "Hey, here's an average," and we'll update the average. But one thing I do know for sure, 46 to one is right now, the current return on investment, but a lot of that is 'cause one, high value case, like an implant, a veneer, aligners, pays for our system for the entire year. And you're not gonna get one, you're gonna get dozens and dozens of them throughout the year.

0:14:36.0 KD: Sure. And I think it's really cool because like Tom, I was saying, that's why I like this, because case acceptance is tricky. As a treatment coordinator myself, sometimes I felt like I had to try and convince patients, I had to explain it to them, doctor trying to explain it. And we're hoping and praying that the stars, the moon in the sky, all the line, when doctor walks in, the hygiene has teethed as well, the patient doesn't have too many questions because let's be real, doctors gotta move on to the next patient, and then they've gotta come up to me and I'm hoping and praying that there was enough value provided. And then, my job is to sit and close and to figure out what that patient needs, figure out how to get them scheduled for it. But if they walked in thinking their mouth was totally healthy and then all of a sudden doctor says like, "Hey, and we're up for an implant. And we're up for a liner." And now, that patient is like, "Wow, I did not expect this amount."

0:15:23.0 KD: I really do think, especially for those high-end ticket cases, sometimes people even just wanna know, "What would it be if I were to do ortho?" But like you said, sometimes we don't feel dumb and ask that question and feel dumb in the Chair. [chuckle] And so, I have found even myself, like, who's the most trusted friend, it's Google, like we all go to Google, we all ask questions to Google, we're all willing to interact when it feels more safe versus making us feel as vulnerable. So that's something that I really did love about this when I saw what you guys were doing, I saw how case acceptance would drastically increase. I would see how... 'cause so many people will say, "Kiera, we get all these new patients, but they're actually not qualified patients." So I think what this is helping to do is get more qualified patients coming to your practice.

0:16:11.2 KD: And also, I mean, is gonna take a couple... At the most, a couple of hours. Let's say like, on the grand scheme, and Tom, I know you'll say it's not this, but I'm like, okay, let's say it takes 10 hours, 'cause I'm really bad at filling videos, I feel awkward, I've gotta do my hair seven times, just 10 hours. But think of how many patients, new patients come into your chair, how many new patients are scheduling, they actually aren't really interested, they're calling your practice, as trying to price quote. And I could hear some people, I think there's probably... They're like, "Yeah, but I could probably win them over my chair," which is true. So track that and see what your ROI is on that, how many of those patients do you actually went over versus how many do you think you went over.

0:16:47.4 KD: And could you actually have more chair time that's used by patients who are actually going to execute versus having so much chair time of patients who are just price shopping, using you for free consults, using you for that free, cone beam. To me, I think it's definitely worth it. And especially when you said COVID has changed things. We get our groceries delivered to our house. We sit in our car for grocery pick up. We have anything that we can make simpler and easier, I think people are doing. So I think this is... Early adoption is key because I think it will take off very quickly.

0:17:19.3 TB: I 100% agree. And our normal on-boarding, you just talked about it, it could be 10 hours, we literally... It can be 100 hours if you want it to be. But the reality is, is getting people up and running takes an hour, somewhere between 55 and 65 minutes, and then it just... Like you said, "Oh, my hair is not nice, or I just think I sounded like this." But our Client Success Manager is really very helpful, because even one of the... Like Dr. Bryan Packard, he's one of the founders and partners here. Great guy. He did a video and at the end, he kind of rambles a level, but he goes, "Oh, let me do that again." And I said, "Bryan, no, don't do that. This is perfectly imperfect, because you're not scripture, this is just who you are, you're talking and when you screw up a little bit, it just it humanize you. And that's part of making a big scary doctor a friendly person and a friendly face, don't change that." So that's really why we can get away setting people up in an hour, and I'm not gonna tell you they don't go back and redo those videos a few times.

0:18:27.3 KD: Sure, of course.

0:18:27.5 TB: 'cause I'm sure they would, 'cause I know I would too. But you really don't want them to be too perfect because then they're not getting the essence of who you are, and then you're gonna feel like it's scripted, so it is usually pretty quick. One thing I will say, you know, when we talk about something like this and you're not seeing it, what does make this different. And the big thing is, and you may know this from your experiences, but if you're selling a product of some sort, whether it's technology or otherwise, if you've got a close percentage like in the upper teens or low 20s, that's usually pretty good.

0:19:00.7 TB: Well, when we do a demo, like a personalized demo, that takes like... We say it takes 15 minutes, but sometimes we get questions and it can go to 20 or 25. But when we do a demo for a doctor to practice, right now, we're at 67% close rate, so they're looking at that, the way they're feeling when they see those videos and they can picture themselves in it, they're saying, "Yeah, I'm gonna do that." And for that many, to purchase the product within that same month, some may buy it later, but that's just a huge statement that says, "Okay, there is something going on here, I gotta check it out."

0:19:37.6 KD: For sure.

0:19:37.9 TB: So hopefully, this will get to your listenership and they'll hopefully reach out and actually see the videos or maybe even going on to a precision dental and looking at Dr. Bryan Packard's website and going through that process, 'cause...

0:19:53.6 KD: Yeah, it's really cool.

0:19:55.9 TB: It's dynamic, and it does make you feel a certain way, and that's what the difference is.

0:19:58.1 KD: Which I agree. So guys, he said, "Precision dental," you guys can check out Bryan Packard. I saw the videos, I thought they were really, really cool. Like I said, I asked Tom if we could maybe use this in Dental A Team because I thought it was such a... I just think it's the way of the future. I think it's the way that we're going to do these. You guys, nobody thought Facebook was gonna take off. And like, "Wow." When it all went down on Monday, which if you guys aren't using any of the Facebook Instagram or WhatsApp products, you didn't know, but for the billion to gillion people who are, we were like "What the heck has happened?" And so, I think it's just one of those things, like, I'm really pro. I learned this at Tony Robbins, I went to their Business Mastery course and we won. We were the team that won, I got a hug from Tony Robbins, my first event, it was on real epic, there's thousands of people there, and I was actually one who got it. And I remember a big key take away that I took from that was, "Be an early adopter Kiera."

0:20:50.8 KD: Sometimes it's like first to market, the first people who are on that because I was not one of the first people on Facebook, I was not one of the first people on Gmail, I was not one of the first people on Instagram. And those people who are early adopters oftentimes, I get the ROI from it because you are willing to try something and this is nothing hard, it's videos. And also to your point, I like that you said to be authentic. I was just even thinking about the podcast today, I said My Virtual Content, it's Your Virtual Consult. I'm not gonna go back to it and edit that. You guys know my podcasts are usually one-take podcast, the only time I edit, there was one time I did burp on the bottle, [chuckle] and I was like, "We could edit that out, guys."

[laughter]

0:21:26.6 KD: But generally speaking, I try really hard to keep our podcast even non-edited, just because I want you guys to have it very real first of all. People call me and they say, "Kiera, you sound exactly that you do on the podcast," I'm like, "Well, because it is me, there's nothing changing." And I think it's that same thing, I feel like in a world where we're so desperate for connection, the more ways that we can connect with our patients, the more ways that we can humanize ourselves, I think the greater your patient experience will be, so.

0:21:53.3 KD: Tom, I love this. I would say, guys, honestly, everybody go try it out, try this... I mean, should be giving out one case off of this, one patient, I think it's worth it, because the cost to require patients is pretty high these days. And so, Tom, if people are interested in this. They wanna connect with you, do that demo... Guys, check out precision dental, you go check that out with Bryan Packard, see what it looks like on there, you can go through it, just even see if you even like it. But, Tom, if people want to reach out to you, how is the best way to connect with you?

0:22:19.1 TB: The best way is to go to offers.yourvirtualconsult.com/dentalateam. We wanna take them to a landing page, so we know that they came from this podcast, which would be really cool, and then they can just hit the button, it'll go right to a calendar where they can schedule a 15-minute demo. And that's really the best way. If they're looking to reach out to me personally, they can reach out to me at [email protected], but it's... Really, I really appreciate the time today, it's been fun. Hey, it's been great just being able to hang out with you as part of the circus, I'm looking forward to coming events and hopefully we're gonna run into each other a bunch more.

0:23:03.0 KD: Oh, we sure will.

0:23:04.6 TB: And have just as much fun as we've always said.

0:23:06.4 KD: We will. You always have a campfire to you. I mean, we had a light up booth because of LocalMed I had to buy the light up banner because of you guys, so agreed. So guys, and Tom, thank you for making one for our Dental A Team listeners. So I just typed it in, I wanna make sure I say it again. It's offers.yourvirtualconsult.com/dentalateam. And I just pulled it up, it's on there, there's everything, it's got our logo on it. So you guys can know there's even a discount coupon on there. You guys are super generous. Tom, thank you for that. So guys, check it out.

0:23:35.1 KD: Like I said, I like to be an early adopter, I definitely do things very unconventional, it's one of our core values, which is why I wanted Tom to pop on because when I saw it, I mean, honestly, I'll be completely honest, I did it as a favor, 'cause Tom is one of my favorite people from local Med, [chuckle] He's giving me the thumbs up right now. I was like, "Sure, Tom, I will watch your demo happily." And he was like, "Holy God, this is so cool."

0:23:57.9 KD: So guys, I really... You know, I vet every person before I bring them on the podcast, and if I'm willing to give up a podcast space for somebody, it's because I genuinely believe in what they're doing, I believe in Tom, I believe in the company that he's built. LocalMed was a huge success for so many people. And now he's moved on to Your Virtual Consult. So guys, try it out. And Tom, thanks so much. It'll be fun to see you at The traveling circus dental world. I'm sure I'll see you in 2022. Absolutely. And guys, thank you all for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast. And that wraps it up for another episode of The Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.

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