The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry – Episode 225

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From Impressions to Innovation: Dr. Scott Barton’s Journey in Digital Dentistry

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In-office milling DSO podcast transcript:

Welcome to the Group Dentistry Now Show, the voice of the DSO industry. Join us as we talk with industry leaders about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry. With over 200 episodes and listeners in over 100 countries, we’re proud to be ranked the number one DSO podcast. For the latest DSO news, analysis and events, and to subscribe to our DSO Weekly e-newsletter, visit GroupDentistryNow.com. We hope you enjoyed today’s show.

Bill Neumann: Welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now show. I’m Bill Neumann, and as always, we appreciate you watching us, whether it’s on YouTube or groupdentistrynow.com, or maybe you’re just listening to us on Spotify, Apple, or Google. We appreciate you checking in. We have a returning guest and somebody new to the show. We’re going to talk about digital dentistry. And it’s a pretty broad topic, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. And I think we’ve gotten to the point in the industry where, you know, there’s different adoption rates. I think some groups and docs are adopting it pretty quickly and others are kind of still sitting back and waiting. And so we’re going to get into things today. We have with us Rob Bernese. He is with Glidewell. He is the chief growth officer. Rob, it’s great to see you again.

Rob Brenneise: Oh, pleasure. Thanks for having me back.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, it’s always good to have you on. I think we had you on about a year ago, and Rob and the team at Glidewell, we see at a lot of the different DSO events, and they’re doing a lot of really creative things when it comes to digital dentistry, as well as also really created some interesting educational programs. I mean, it seems like every week, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like every week you’ve got something going on at Glidewell from an educational perspective.

Rob Brenneise: Oh yeah, absolutely. Probably three out of four weeks easily hosting here. Not to mention, I think this year we’ll do 254 events across the country.

Bill Neumann: So that’s more than weekly.

Rob Brenneise: Yes.

Bill Neumann: almost daily. And then we have us, Dr. Scott Barton. He is the lead dentist at Whispering Oaks Family Dental, which is part of Heartland Dental. But Dr. Barton, it’s great to have you here as well. And you’ve created some content for Glidewell that we’ve shared on the Group Dentistry Now website. So we appreciate your contributions and Really interesting to kind of have a conversation with you about what you’re doing in your practice and how you’re leveraging technology.

Dr. Scott Barton: Oh, sure. Thanks for having me. I didn’t know I had content out there. I send Rob some pictures every now and then. I send them to Dr. Cheese. So I like to share because I couldn’t do those things without their technology. I graduated University of Texas Health Science Center right here in San Antonio, where I live, in 1989. And our technology was polyvinyl impressions and stone models and big messy labs and things like that. And I’ve always been a part of a group practice setting. And long story short, I know it’s a podcast, but after my partner and I had built and sold some practices. And at the end of 2013, I decided I needed a break and I’d sold my last practice, took a little bit of time off in 2013. 2014 into 2013, took a little bit of rest and I started picking up some temporary work just because I wasn’t done doing dentistry, I was just taking a break. And I was actually subbing in a practice outside of Houston in Katy, Texas. And that dentist there had a CEREC machine. And I’d heard about them. I’d known that they had come out approximately in the 80s or so. We weren’t going to incorporate that technology then. The reputation wasn’t great on it. The restorations were breaking. I didn’t really, we really didn’t pursue, and I didn’t know a lot about that technology then. We were just doing our regular daily bread and butter dentistry for most of those years, general dentist practices, and I did a lot of orthodontic work. After that break, like I said, I went with subbing in at this practice and just said, let me show you this. the CEREC machine. So I took that as an opportunity to see how he was using it. That particular technology at that time, it was in 2014. after placing a couple of those crowns and doing it under his supervision, because he’d had the technology, learned all the details of it, I go, okay, so far I like this. And I didn’t work in that practice for very long, but it got me to the point where if I’m subbing in or going into a practice. Patients need crowns, usually have to wait two weeks to get the crown back. You got a temporary. And if I’m in and out, their crown is, their temporary comes off. They have other issues. I’m not there. Somebody else has to clean up or take care of that. I got my first taste of same day dentistry kind of in that little transition phase of my career. working with CEREC. A few practices later, ready to re-engage, I came across the Heartland practice, which I currently am residing in, and it’s been just a win-win for everybody. Heartland treats their doctors superbly. It’s a doctor-driven practice, doctor-led, doctor-driven, as they say, and the leadership team that we have with Heartland are superior than anybody that I’ve worked with at this point. Very, very great leadership team. Anyway, I got to my practice as an associate. I didn’t affiliate. I’d already previously sold my practices. So, I came on just as a general doc in a eight chair, three hygiene practice that needed somebody. And I go, how did I luck into this? This was a great practice. Why can you not have a doctor here? And coming up December, I will be here 10 years. Stepping away, we had, I mean, coming into our practice, we didn’t have same-day services. I didn’t have a CEREC, but we became, as a company, partners with Patterson Dental, which had the rights or were distributing or setting up all the CERECs. I did work in a practice with PDS for a while, and that was their go to. They had Surex in all their practices. So I spent about, you know, eight to 10 months in a Pacific dental practice. So I got my chops up a little bit in the Surex world. And once I got over to Heartland, I said, man, I got to get me one of those. And they were very kind enough being a doctor-centered organization, and I was able, with Patterson, to partner with them to get that particular technology in my office. So I was able to deliver those same-day restorations, and it changed our P&L once I was able to do that. I know that’s some of the questions you want to head up later on with the P&L, but basically getting my practice ready for that technology, and we adapted it very, very quickly. There are some limitations with the CIREC, which I found, but I was ready to go with that. Heartland does very well with their due diligence in incorporating technology. Scanners were becoming available, all of this other technology out there. They’re very careful, they’re very selective, and At that time, it was about 2016, 2017. They were piloting what scanners were the best because they’re a large company. They want to roll them out thoughtfully and methodically. And I already had the CEREC in my office, had the Omnicam. I was able to send my Invisalign scans through the Omnicam, through Alliance. We had our groove with Omnicam and CEREC. Heartland had at that time where I was grooving with the Shrek, they had at the beginning of 2016, beginning of 2016, they were elected to roll out through a line the iTero, at iTero elements at that time. And I go, well, shoot, I’m kind of committed to this Omnicam. They had said I could go ahead and get the Xerox machine with the Omnicam. And I would rather do that, deliver same day dentistry. as opposed to getting the iTero at that time. Fortunately, I get email and I get Glidewell emails. So that was when Glidewell was rolling out their IOML. And what stood out is it pairs with the iTero system. So it was perfect timing. It was divine intervention. However you want to piece that together, but it worked out well for me. So I was able to cut off the CEREC by at the time to the disappointment of Patterson and switch over so I could get the iTero, which Heartland had vetted out very thoroughly. And I was able to switch over to the IOML system and the rest is history as to what we’re doing. I now am up to two bills and will never go back to impressions and sending most of my work to the lab.

Bill Neumann: That’s a great history lesson, actually. You started with vinyl polysiloxane and you’ve taken us up to what you’re using now with FastMill. Rob.

Dr. Scott Barton: I can actually go over these expressions.

Bill Neumann: What’s that?

Dr. Scott Barton: I can actually go all the way back to rubber base impressions and some of my older colleagues, there’s a lost art there. I mean, there’s go back to copper band impressions. You get a graduate now or somebody in the last 10 years or more don’t even know what a copper band impression is. Fortunately, that’s not something I had to do. I did learn about it, but that’s some dental history there.

Bill Neumann: Right, right. Yeah, there were the hydrocolloids. Yeah, for sure. Rob, it’d be great to get a little bit of your background for the people that didn’t see the first podcast you were on. And then maybe since Dr. Barton did such a great job with his history lesson, maybe the history of Glidewell, and how really you’ve evolved into an organization that’s been a lot more technology focused. You started out as a lab, right, way back when, and things have changed quite a bit there.

Rob Brenneise: Oh yeah, absolutely. So I’ll start with a very brief about me so we can spend more time on the Glidewell portion there. a dental lab space and sales marketing education since May of 1988. So my entire career has been in the dental space, which I’m fortunate and grateful for because back then it was simply, I took a summer job because my roommate said it was a cool place to work and, you know, became a career for me, which has been fantastic. The, yeah, the Glidewell, biggest lab in the world, but it’s so much more than a lab. And the Iro Fast Mill would be a great example of that. Not only are they the biggest lab, but we manufacture our own, the mill’s manufactured in the parking lot behind me here. The implants, they make their own implants, just really so much more than a lab, which is really, I think, a key part of what keeps them trying to stay ahead of everyone else and provide best service, great pricing for products made here in the U.S. The mill is an amazing one to me because that’s so, even today, eight years after launching the mill, which is why I joined Glidewell back in 2017 originally, is so counterintuitive of why would a lab sell a machine that allows you to mill and not have to send cases to the lab. And I think the biggest part of that speaks to the Glidewell culture, which is be your own disruptor. And, you know, Mr. Glidewell’s book is called Constant Change, and this is probably one of the best examples of that. And so we’re in a unique position where I like to think when you’re talking to us as a provider, we’re not going to tell you, you should only, like, if you talk to a lab, they’ll tell you never, you know, do in office. If you talk to a myrmidon manufacturer, they’ll tell you more everything, never use a lab. And we’re in the unique position to just say it’s whatever fits the practice, the patient or the restoration, which I really enjoy being able to, you know, be in that position and be a true partner to the practices instead of just trying to push them one way or another.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, that’s great insight, Rob. And you talked about, I’ve got his book right here, not to actually promote the book, but it actually is a great read. And yeah, constant change. You’re right, it is counterintuitive for a lab to actually create something that pretty much doesn’t eliminate the lab, but does a lot of things that the lab would do, right? And just brings it into the office. Dr. Barton, maybe can you talk a little bit about, you’ve had a lot of experience with different technologies. You know, you talked about the CEREC, which went through a couple different iterations. You know, when you go back to the late 80s when it first came out and then through the 90s, you know, it advanced. And then when you came to the Heartland practices, you know, they were using something else with iTero. Talk a little bit about Glidewell and the Fast Mill and how that is a little bit different compared to some of the other systems.

Dr. Scott Barton: Well, I mean, CEREC was really my first and only experience with CAD CAM and, you know, same day restorations. And they were pretty much limited to one material, which was a lithium disilicate. I think they have the EMAX material. So the main reason to convert to the IOML was, hey, it’s from Glidewell. It’s going to be good, right? And everything holds true with that. Also, I have an iTero, which I do a lot of Invisalign. So now I have that connection link. to align, I have the connection link to Glidewell, and I have the best of all worlds in what I do. The nice thing and the biggest sell was a lot of times doctors will, I don’t want to do a same day, you know, they only want to do Bruxere crowns. And that’s fine. And like Rob was saying, it’s whatever the doctor, the practice, whatever that your needs are there. I have the best of all worlds in what I do. If I have to have some special thing sent to the lab, I can still do that. Plus, I even have a greater variety of materials to use since I first starting. They’re always coming out. They’re on top of their R&D. They’re on top of their research, and they’re always making things better, a little faster, a little more convenient, a little more streamlined, things like that. So you can mill. Emacs, or their version of Emacs, which is Obsidian, which is one of my favorite materials to use. So, Bruxure and Obsidian are kind of my two go-tos. But yeah, I can make a Bruxure crown the same as some of my counterparts send to the lab and have to wait for it to come back, have to have a lab fee if it doesn’t fit, maybe has to go back, patient’s inconvenienced. I’ve eliminated the inconvenience. I’ve eliminated the temporary appointment. No doctor, no office likes that little temporary that comes off in the middle of the week or before everything’s back from the lab. And we eliminate those sensitive teeth because I can put the crown in before the tooth wakes up from local anesthetic. And it’s a win-win all the way around.

Bill Neumann: Let’s focus on the training side of things. I mentioned this earlier that the library has a lot going on when it comes to education. But Rob, maybe we can start a little bit with you and then Dr. Barton, you can talk about your experience when it comes to the education, whether it was from your perspective or maybe from some of the other clinicians in your practice and even some of the staff there. But Rob, talk a little bit about the importance of that.

Rob Brenneise: Yeah, I think that’s one of the unique things that we bring to the table and come into this space is the training and support. And I mentioned the mill is made here at the campus. So are the blocks that go in the machine and the software is even Glidewell software. So the entire ecosystem is supported by Glidewell directly, no third parties. And we’ll start by coming to the practice first The implementation specialist sets it up, spends a day training the team in the office. And then once we leave, the next day, the offices are milling crowns, but we then have another dedicated team that’s a couple floors above me here that is available 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. So at any time, a Glidewell IO office can call in and you’ll get a person, not a recording, and they can dial in and help you at any time to support you with a case, whether it’s design questions or a challenging case or Maybe the normal person who’s helping support the fast mill and the practice is off that day. Anybody can jump in and we can support them and walk them through it. And then about 60 to 90 days later, we pay to fly two people out from each of the practices to come out here to the Glidewell campus for an advanced training. And we do that one to two times a month. And you’re here with about a hundred other users who are in the same boat to take it to the next level. And that’s really kind of that onboarding process to make sure that the office succeeds. And that’s another unique thing to be in supported by Glidewell. Again, if you’re just a distributor selling a piece of equipment, that might be the victory. I sold the equipment, whether you use it or not, or how much you use it might not matter. We’re tied to the success of it in the practice, which is to make sure they’re using it, getting the most out of it, and hopefully expanding more materials and basically restoration types they can do in the practice.

Bill Neumann: Dr. Barton, a little bit about your experience when it came to the training and onboarding.

Dr. Scott Barton: All right. Well, my experience was, like I say, I don’t know that I was the first, but I was pretty close. I was pretty close to being one of the first ones to incorporate that. And I just took off with mine. Like Rob said, they’ll take you out to the Glidewell facility. I was out there being one of the first ones. I got first class A1 service because it was just me and Rob. Flew my wife out with me and went out to dinner with Rob and his lovely wife, Tracy, and it was just us. Now there’s, like I say, hundreds of people that come out there now. My first one-on-one, my first education session, besides in the office when I came out there was a one-on-one with Dr. Chi. Now he fills up the room with the many clinicians that are doing what I did at that time. All-star service, starting out with any technology with this, coming from a CEREC technology where I got zero help with it other than, okay, this is how you do it from one single class or a book. There was no online technical support. With Glidewell, I could conceivably scan, draw some margins, and have my assistant call them up and design everything. The technology has grown. Their AI information on crown data and tooth data that is millions and millions of points that just rose exponentially in tooth data. Now we can take a contralateral tooth or a side-by-side tooth. They can mirror anatomy. We can copy anatomy. So all of those things have been incorporated as the technology evolves. It wasn’t that way in the beginning, but now it gets easier and easier to design a crown to the point where I know Rob has lots of points of metrics and data. And we as dentists, we have to tinker with everything. We want to move and you don’t have to do that all the time, but it’s instinctual to us that we have to do that. So it’s kind of comical. I’ll think of Rob and his data points. When I get the perfect crown, when I hit design, after I’ve drawn my margins, I go, it’s almost hard to resist. It’s so perfect. that I don’t want to touch it. So I’ll just look at it for about 10 or 20 seconds and I’ll send it to the mill. So there are certain things that I like nuanced now and I’ll move things around or I’ll smooth this or I’ll tighten up a margin or something like that. So I don’t get any open margins, which isn’t a problem. I don’t get open margins. If I get open margins, it’s my fault, but it doesn’t happen. Usually I’ll make them a little snug. But no, props to Rob because I’ll think of him when I get this perfect crown and then I don’t touch it at all. I just send it on to the mill. So everything’s great. And first class A1 star. five star customer service. So anytime I do need, occasionally I’m getting better at it now, I don’t have to call as often, but that first year, first couple of years, I took out some really interesting cases, some cases where I’m gonna deliver all those crowns in a day, an afternoon, a morning, 24 hours. The most I’ve done over a 24-hour period, I delivered 24 units on a patient. We rebuilt this whole bite. I was able to do it with CAD CAM, with scans, with design, with help, and patient loves it. And I’m not going back. It’s all great service.

Bill Neumann: Wow. So that was gonna be one of my questions, which I think you just answered, but what type of cases do you do with the fast smell IO? So you talked about the most complicated, then I’m sure you’re doing a lot of singles as well, and probably everything in between. So maybe go through some of the typical situations.

Dr. Scott Barton: Of course. I mean, the bread and butter of any Dela practice is a single unit crowd. And you don’t have to get all fancy like I do on some cases. If you’re a busy practice and you just want to do some single crowds, this is your ticket. This is your ticket right here. I will take pictures and I will time myself from point A to delivery and on your bread and butters, meaning you’re simple. You’re not doing endo. You’re just maybe doing a quick buildup and a prep if you really practice and you hone your skills, I can get anesthesia, I can get a prep, I can get a scan, I can get a design, I can get a mill, and I’ve taken pictures of my delivered crown in as little as about 80 minutes. So if you’re just a practicing doctor, with this system, with this technology, You can be as complicated as you want. You can do everything. You can do a full mouth case, or if you just want to run it and you do your bread and butter, single unit restorations. And we’ll get into talk about the different materials and the variety that I use in a minute, of course, if you want, but there’s such a variety. It has something for every skill level of dentist. You don’t have to have CAD CAM experience to begin this journey, to begin this process. They will take you through it, and you can get as technical or as advanced as you want to be, or you can keep it as simple as you need to be.

Bill Neumann: And, Dr. Barton, from a patient experience perspective, I mean, it would be obvious, I think, to me that, you know, they’re getting something in fewer appointments. It’s same day. I’m sure they probably, you know, are really, you know, it’s positive. But maybe talk a little bit about that. And I’m curious if you have seen, you know, the patients expectations change as they start to realize that these type of technologies are available at the dentist and they’re almost, I don’t know if they’re requesting it, but it might be more of an expectation than it once was?

Dr. Scott Barton: Oh, I get that now. I’ve been doing this since early, early 2018. So we have a reputation of that service. And when I get new patients that need a crown, oh, we can do that. We live in a world where we’re busy, we have technology, we have instant information in our hands, we got cell phones, we all have our lives to live. Plus, who wants to go to the dentist twice for one tooth, or come back or have a temporary fall off. So we can eliminate that whole process so everybody has more time, including the doctor at the chair, because we’re not having temporaries fall off. We don’t have to put cold cement in a crown and put it on a tooth that’s a little sensitive. So the convenience factor, I can’t think of a single patient that I’ve ever had that says, no, I want my crown from a lab. Or I tell them it’s like a lab crown, but nobody says, no, give me the temporary and I’ll come back. That’s not a conversation we have. Nobody’s ever told me that. And I’ve had many patients that have had many crowns, and it’s nothing but a positive situation and a positive reaction. And it’s something that, it should be almost, it’s almost standard of care. It’ll be that way in a few years if it’s not getting there.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, that’s a great point. Rob, from your perspective, let’s talk a little bit about, you know, the financial side of things. So, you know, there’s, I think that might be something that could potentially be holding some doctors back. But maybe kind of run through the numbers and talk about, you know, how long does it take once you actually use the FastMill I.O., you know, before you become profitable? What’s, what are some of the numbers?

Rob Brenneise: Right, and I think Dr. Barton can share some of his too, but it’s, you know, when we came to market, you know, in 2018, both the vision of Mr. Glidewell’s that we believe, yeah, it will be standard of care, will be milling more crowns and practices than we make at the lab and we make millions of crowns but the ROI is could be as little as seven to ten crowns instead of sending to your lab if you’re milling them in the practice Instead of sending your lab $700 or $1,000 for those seven to 10 crowns, you’re paying yourself for that equipment. Literally, that could be a break even just on the math of one appointment, not two appointments. Yeah, no failing temporaries or anesthetizing, flipping chairs. You’re doing 20 or 30 or more units. Literally, offices could put $1,000 to $2,000 in their pocket each month. by switching over the same day versus sending to a lab. And we came to market with, you know, we believe the best pricing there is for the equipment with the support, the workflow that makes sense in the practice. And the one thing we haven’t or I haven’t said as we’ve been talking so far, one of the keys to the success of this is it’s the only mill in the world that can mill a sintered zirconia. which means it comes out of the mill and you place it, polish it and place it in the patient’s mouth, you’re not becoming a lab tech. And that just speaks to, I think, our success and what we’re seeing and what we expect we’ll see in years to come.

Bill Neumann: Besides the convenient side of things, Dr. Barton, I’m sure the financial aspect of it was important to you as well. Does what Rob says rings true for your particular case and your practice?

Dr. Scott Barton: Sure, absolutely. Before our little podcast here, I jotted down a few numbers and kind of what I went through. So my year, I probably did with CEREC, I did a lot of units. We have a P&L that we watch and our lab percentage as a part of sales on what that is. And I was able to cut cut that in half, basically. So I think the sweet point is whatever you want it to be. Rob gave some numbers out. I just took, I do, I’m probably in the 60 to 80 crown per month, sometimes more, but usually baseline’s about 60, but 80 units, sometimes more, and then we got, you know, we’ll mill temporary sometimes, we’ll mill inlays, onlays, things like that. So I just took a couple of round numbers, say an office doing 30 crowns a month, and they pay an average of 100 per crown, you know, that’s $3,000. The materials roundabout with your bruxures or your obsidians, I figured that average about 30 or so. Rob can correct me on that, but I think when you kind of blend everything together. So if you’re doing, you have a lab bill at 30 crowns at a hundred bucks, that’s $3,000. If you’re doing 30 restorations on your mill at roughly 30 bucks for each block, that’s about $900. So you’re saving right there, Rob hit it on the spot, about $2,000. That’s $2,100 a month you’re saving. Extrapolate that over a year and you’re saving just a little over $25,000 just on that. I’d figured at a time where I’d saved my practice approximately $80,000. Now, as a very large group DSO, we have some preferred pricing as a group, which you all get in any kind of group. But I’m still saving my practice with that and still doing same day. you know, $50,000 a month easy by still doing it, even with some preferred pricing we may get. The other thing that doesn’t go on the bottom line that you can’t put a cost to, you can put a cost to it, but it’s not money going in or out, it’s your chair time. So if you prep a crown, you do a regular impression or even a scan, and that goes to the lab, and you put a temporary on and that patient has to come back, most practices will book a 30-minute appointment for that procedure, okay? Your crown is technically already billed out on your ledger sheet, so when that case comes back, you’ve got 30 minutes of chair time at zero on your day sheet. My chair time on three chairs each varies about $750 per chair. Your experience, your schedule may go up or down on that, but if you just take $750 an hour, Divide it in half for 30 minute appointment, that’s $375 of chair time that is taking up time that you’re not getting paid for. So you multiply that times those 30 crowns, that is another little over $11,000 in savings. So you add your actual cost savings by doing your in office crowns plus the added chair time that you’re saving. You know, that’s over, you know, that’s $36,000 a year right there. So you can, there are literally hard numbers and soft numbers that you can, any doctor in their own practice can figure out. And if you’re doing 10, 15, 20, those numbers will work for you and your technology essentially pays for itself. And it will pay for itself very, very quickly and most times in that first year.

Bill Neumann: So we have the financial side of things down, really extremely appealing. We touched on the learning opportunities a bit, but we really didn’t get into any detail about what those courses are. And like you said, I think the number was 254 a year or some crazy number like that. Rob, maybe go over some of the educational programs that you have and maybe talk about the ones that are specific to FSML.

Rob Brenneise: Sure, so the ones specific to the fast mill, the first one is the advanced one where we bring two people out from the office again after 60 or 90 days when we trained them in their office. And then we have things every month we do a live webinar with Dr. Chi. that is always highlighting something new or if there’s a topic that we get a lot of calls in looking for help and support, that’ll be a topic and that of course is a library that’s available. All of them have been recorded for anybody in offices to go back to. We also offer three different, what we call advanced classes and anterior advanced course. a bridge and partial coverage. And this year we launched the ability to mill screw-retained Bruxer crowns. So there’s now an advanced implant for screw-retained chairside courses. I think that covers all the ones that are specific to the IO universe. And each of those advanced courses are just for the individual office that wants to learn more about that specific topic. The 254 number I threw out that, yeah, that’s all the courses and everything Glidewell does, which is from, you know, the big symposiums we host here at our campus to the two-day courses we do across the country. And those are aesthetics, sleep, you know, removables, implants, digital. We really cover the gamut and all the CE side.

Bill Neumann: And we’ll make sure at the end of the show, we’ll have the URL. So if anybody’s interested in checking out any of those courses, they can do that. But it’s easy enough to find it on the glidewelldental.com website. We talked a little bit about the financial side of things might hold some docs back from making decisions. I think we eliminated any issues there. It sounds like it’s going to save you money. Part of it could just be the change, right? Going from what they’ve traditionally learned working with, the comfort of working with the lab, maybe a lab like Glidewell, right? Could be Glidewell that they’re working with. But and bringing this in office and and maybe somebody is just adverse to using technology. I mean, there are I think there are fewer and fewer of those dentists out there, but there’s still some for sure. So I think. You maybe talk a little bit about some of the the. Incorporating digital dentistry, I know this goes back a long time, Dr. Barton, but when you first made that change, what would you say to dentists that are maybe just holding back because of that aversion to this big, and it is a big change?

Dr. Scott Barton: It’s a big change. It’s probably not as big a change. The biggest change is probably in somebody’s head. Because this makes your life easier. It makes you more efficient. It saves you chair time. So when you kind of put all of that together, it It was a no brainer for me. I’m not averse to technology, but I’m also not somebody that jumps on everything that comes out either. So I want it to be functional and useful for me and my practice and of course my patients. This particular technology has not just a single crown, but they come out. We’ve got a three-unit bruxure bridge. We’ve got a multi-unit biotemp bridge. We’ve got individual biotemp bridges. We’ve got a product called Camouflage, which is a more of a like a 80, 80, 20, 80% glass, 20% resin, which I use in inlay onlay situations. Many dentists have these You wanna be conservative, so you don’t wanna, you have a patient with a big giant open contact and you can’t close it traditionally with matrix bands and all the wedges in the world and it just remains open. So you can stay conservative in your principle and create a solution for it quicker than I can condense a composite in a matrix filled tooth. all that. I can design and create it and then bond it in. It’s a good hard structure. And I can create a contact that will snap floss. So the versatility in this system is untouched in the industry right now. Nobody else can do it. So I’m like the MacGyver of dentists by having this technology and its multipurpose, multifunctional uses. It was an easy adaptation. Everybody has cell phones. It was easier than learning a new app on your cell phone. And it’s only gotten better. There were some early things where you needed to do a little bit more in your design, do a little bit more. Like I said earlier, as the AI and the information grows, it only gets easier. It only gets better. It only gets quicker. They’re always making, they’re always perfecting on what they’re doing. So I got to give props and kudos to to Glidewell, to Rob, to everybody there on their design team, their education team. It is world-class, and they’re there to help you, and things only get better and easier as you use the technology. You’ve got to be Little House on the Prairie, Doc Watson, to not be able to use the technology. If you can use your cell phone, you can use the technology.

Bill Neumann: There you go. So it’s, it’s become a lot easier to use than maybe that original CIRAC that you, you were working with back in the day. So it’s a good point. And we’ve become more technologically savvy as well. You mentioned something and I think I’ll ask Rob a little bit about this because, Dr. Barton, you talked about it and mentioned at least twice was the AI and how that’s come such a long way because, you know, Glidewell is kind of building this database, right, of all, you know, the doctors that have been using the solution and kind of honing your skills. So you’re probably at the beginning, everybody’s making the adjustments and now, the software is making a lot of the adjustments for you or alleviating the fact that you have to do that. Rob, can you talk a little bit about the use of AI? I’m really curious about that.

Rob Brenneise: Yeah, I think it’s a great question and a great topic because everything everywhere is AI now. It’s such a buzzword. But AI is only as good as the volume of information and the quality of information. And so when you look at the number of crowns that Glidewell does and millions of crowns a year, you know, over 200,000 digital scans, literally the AI and the software that we’ve put in the dental offices is the same software our lab techs are using on the lab floor to create all those crowns. So we have tens of millions of crowns in our AI software, and Dr. Barton’s alluded to, and it just learns and gets better every day, because every day our IO universe is also making crowns. So the crowns that are being created today are better than they were six months and 12 months ago and aren’t as good as they’ll be six months from now, as the AI just keeps continuing to learn and get better. We’ve talked about faster, easier, But I think the better is the key component there. The practice isn’t given up anything. The material is the same as you get from the lab. Our data actually shows the I.O. customer has a lower remake rate than the lab. And that’s because the doctor’s in control, can see the margins right away. It’s really dialed into each of their preferences over and over, so the consistency is there. Or I joke, it’s because they’re now their own lab and they’ve got nobody else to blame, so they just make it fit.

Bill Neumann: Well, as we start to wrap up this conversation here, just get some

Dr. Scott Barton: Let me add one thing on to that because that’s interesting about the remake process. As dentists, we all have to go through remakes. We have things that break. We have things that don’t fit. Everything’s not perfect. But as dentists here, we do have control of our margins. And sometimes they’re hard to see, they’re hard to get to, but you just prepped it. You know exactly where it is. So that process is much easier. So here’s the thing, having this data in my practice, we all have it. A crown falls off, the patient loses it. Some weird thing happens. It can break. Things are gonna happen like that. I don’t have to send it back to the lab. I’ve got the data right here in my office. Many times they would call. Oh, this happened. I lost it. What can I do? I have one ready to go. So they walk in. Usually I can put it in. It doesn’t happen often, but that’s a hidden convenience for you and your patients. That is great. They don’t have to have another impression or another scan. Goes back to the lab. Everything’s intact. Wait another two weeks to come back. You have it all right there at your fingertips. You get something back. Oh, it wasn’t the right color. Well, let me make another one real quick. We’ll do it. Doesn’t happen very often. One of those things that can happen, but you have it. You have it with you, so you have control over that and autonomy. And it’s another little side added convenience to have in your practice.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, great point, Dr. Barton. Why don’t we, as we close this down, just some final thoughts, Dr. Barton, from you, and then Rob, you can kind of finish things up. And if anybody wants to find out more about Dr. Barton, he is on LinkedIn, so you can find him there for sure. That’s how I found him. But yeah, thanks for your time and your insight. I know technology is, it’s everywhere. And I think from a clinician perspective, I think you’re inundated with options. And I think sometimes that can be so overwhelming that you just shut down. So it’s great to really have you, who’s been experiencing, you’ve been using technology since you talked about the early days of the CEREC and the late 80s, early 90s. and have really kind of grown as the technologies advanced. So we appreciate that. But final thoughts from you, and then we’ll go to Rob.

Dr. Scott Barton: I’ll even throw my cell phone out there. I do have doctors that call me. I have contacts in our company, which I’m trying to grow that. It’s interesting. We do have some Heartland doctors with technology. I’ve helped them get their units up. It is a preferred unit within our company. But I do have, Rob’s referred me or referred doctors to me before. I’m happy to pick up the phone. All they would have to do is send me a text, hey, I hear you have a mil or whatever, and I’ll call them back, we’ll text back, and I’m happy to answer any questions. I’ll answer them honestly too. I’ll ask them, what’s your practice like? What do you like? Do you do these type of restorations? How many crowns are you doing? I will give them an honest, honest feedback, even though I’m very much a proponent. I will delve into a little bit and be perfectly honest if I think it’s a solution for them. Most likely it is, but I’ll give them a thoughtful, honest opinion on it. So I’ll put my cell phone up. I’ll give it to you. It’s area code 210-416-8672. That is my cell number. And all they got to do is, you know, text out, Hey, I’m so-and-so from wherever. And I’d like to know a little bit more and I’ll be happy to reach out to them.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Thanks, Dr. Barton. I’ll put that in the show notes yourself, as well as your LinkedIn contact information, and we appreciate you doing that. Rob, can I get your final thoughts in here? And what I would just say before I forget is, we’ve mentioned the education component, and I wanna one more time mention it, but it’s easy enough to find out more about that. Just go to glidewelldental.com, It’s about as easy as it can get. You just go up. There’s a tab at the top that says education. You can see all their live courses, their online CE courses. They’ve got a study club. There’s a podcast. They’ve got the symposium. So you can find it all right on the website. Super, super, super easy. But Rob, I’ll let you have final words.

Rob Brenneise: Yeah, and we just added that and we just launched Glideworld TV. which is now on your smart TV with your Netflix and your Amazon Prime. There’s Glidewell TV, which has access to all of the online CE you mentioned, money recordings of the in-person CE we do, you know, not to mention so much more we’ve got planned for it. Yeah, final thoughts. I think, you know, Dr. Barton mentioned earlier about this should or will be standard of care. I think I believe that. I think every patient would want one visit, not two. And our view is simply, we’ll guarantee it. If it doesn’t work in your practice for whatever reason, we’ll take the machine back and make it still a great, pleasant experience and nothing gained, nothing lost. And we only do that because we know if we get it in the practice, and you use it, you’re going to keep it. Your patients are going to love it. I think it engages your team to another level when they get to, you know, for lack of a better word, you know, suck and spit. They get to be part of this technology and designing final restorations and supporting the practice. So we hear that a lot. We anecdotally hear constantly you get more patients to say yes because you can take care of that crown right now. differentiates you from the practices down the street. And it’s just a lot of fun and it’s just a great technology that’s, you know, with thousands of thousands of users and millions of units. We’d love the opportunity for any practice interested.

Bill Neumann: And, Rob, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with somebody? We’ve got a lot of DSOs listening to the podcast, a lot of docs that own their own small emerging group, might have 3, 4, 10 locations. So what’s the best way for them to contact somebody at Glidewell?

Rob Brenneise: Yeah, so they’re a great question. They can They can call in and just mention that they need to speak to the DSO team, or you can email DSO support team at glidewell.com. Of course, as you mentioned, you can go online. There’s a live chat there. You can fill out a form online. And yeah, you mentioned that. We do have special programs for DSOs in our equipment, in the Glidewell IO. So there’s some great opportunities for them to try the machine.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. We’ll drop the contact information for you to reach out directly to the right department at Glidewell and make sure you get in touch with one of the DSO specialists there, somebody that can talk a little bit more about what your needs are and learn more about your group and then figure out the right solution for you. I really appreciate the conversation, Dr. Barton and Rob. Great to have you back on. And I love talking about technology and just amazing how far it’s come. And I’m sure, Rob, when we have you on next time, the AI will be this much more advanced and you’ll probably have 365 courses instead of 254. But great conversation. Thank you, everybody, for watching the show today. And until next time, this is the Group Dentistry Now show.

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