L ORTHOBITES et’s begin with the title of this article — what do these three things have in common with each other? First, If you do not grow your orthodontic practice by keeping it clean and crisp from a business model sense, you are simply going to have a hobby. Secondly, if you do not market your orthodontic practice with a clean and clear purpose, you will not have much of an orthodontic practice. And third, if you do not keep your orthodon- tic patients clean from an oral hygiene perspective, you will become frustrated from the plaque, decay, periodontal disease, decalcification, etc., and eventu- ally put orthodontics up on a shelf. Why did you choose to add orthodontics to your practice? I have begun every basic seminar that I have taught for the past 10 years with this same question. And I have heard very similar answers from doctors over and over again. The top five are: 1. “I learned nothing about orthodontics in dental school.” 2. “I started some aligner cases, and I do not know how to finish them.” 3. “I am looking at expanding my practice to add more services.” 4. “I took a course from another instructor, but he didn’t show me how to finish my cases.” 5. “I want a predictable system to treat my patients orthodontically.” I remember very vividly my first orthodontic case. I had just started Dr. Gerety’s basic course in 1988 and was so very excited. I went into my office that follow- ing Monday, found a patient with a few crooked teeth, took initial records and began my orthodontic journey. Of course I received nothing monetarily from the first few patients as they were all either family or employees! But, I gained courage, and soon, my orthodontic practice began to grow -— from one patient to five to 10 to 20 to 50 active patients within a few short years. During this time, I never looked at the profit I was making (or not making) from these cases until one day when I was challenged to do so. After analyzing it, I was a bit disheartened. I was grossing a mere $250 per hour in orthodontics while $700 per hour in general dentistry. How could this be? The answer is you must increase your speed to accommodate more than one or two patients per hour to make orthodontics a profit center. And to increase your speed, you must increase the number of orthodon- tic patients you see. To increase the number you see, you must increase your proficiency, and to increase proficiency, you must continue your continuing educa- tion path in orthodontics. Orthodontics is a numbers game if you haven’t figured it out yet. As the average per hour production for one patient at the time, I figured this out was around $125, I was literally sacrificing general dental income and profit to do braces! So I made a decision to see more patients per hour. And to see more patients per hour, I had to learn how to bring more orthodontic patients through the door. To do this, I realized I must take more marketing as well as orthodontic continuing education courses. I now see five to six patients per hour in orthodon- tics. At $175 per hour (a good solid average number) per orthodontic visit, you can see that orthodontics begins to become a significant profit center in your practice (if you are seeing at least four to five patients per hour). Secondly, you must have trained auxiliary staff to help you. You cannot do it alone. You must have empowered assistants who enjoy orthodontics as much as you do. Whether you empower them through Kay Gerety’s courses, Jane Johnson’s in-office courses, or my “Empowered Assistant” courses, you must get your assistants on board in orthodontics for your own prac- tice to bloom. And most of all, you must realize that orthodontic assisting, like practicing general orthodon- tics, is not for everyone. Do not try to force your assis- tant(s) to learn orthodontics if they don’t like it. Remember, they signed on as a dental assistant, not an orthodontic assistant. In my practices, I have both. I utilize them to the best of their potential strengths. A quick fix is to hire an “ROA” (Real Orthodontist’s Assis- tant)! I did just that. I hired a couple of assistants who had recently left orthodontic offices, and they have shown me many things that I did not know. Proficiency in orthodontics, like all modalities in dentistry, comes with time, practice and experience. As you climb the orthodontic ladder of knowledge, understand that there are different ladders. Find the one that seems right for you and stay on that ladder, rung by rung. Take from all continuing education courses you attend, but look for courses where the instructor shows you complete orthodontic cases (as well as progress pictures) from start to finish that they treated. Do not accept any less. Many instructors can tell you colorful stories, paint a pretty picture, entertain you with a few jokes, show you studies from text books and show a few before-and-after pictures. Look for the instructors, however, that show you clinical cases that THEY TREATED and the mechanics THEY USED. Be wary of referenced articles quoted by many instructors, as all referenced articles are biased to the belief of the person writing it. Do you think a doctor is going to put forth a hypothesis of a perceived fact that they have believed for many years, insert contradictory research and tell you that they were wrong? Of course not. Remember, no one can dispute what happens in www.orthodontics.com May/June 2010 13
Journal of the American Orthodontic Society May-June 2010: Page 13
