Sean Wild, Pennsylvania Oral Surgery & Dental Implant Centers and Practice Metrix (“Dental Business Radio,” Episode 7)
Sean Wild, CEO of Pennsylvania Oral Surgery & Dental Implant Centers, discusses his multi-location practice and its growth. Sean also discusses his work as CEO of Practice Metrix, where using both technology and consultative services, he and his team help OMS owners and managers better understand and manage their practices. “Dental Business Radio” is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient: PPO Negotiations & Analysis and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
Sean Wild, Pennsylvania Oral Surgery & Dental Implant Centers
Sean Wild, CEO of Pennsylvania Oral Surgery & Dental Implant Centers discusses the complexities surrounding the growth of multi-location practices, and what it takes to go from three locations and three surgeons to 8 locations (soon to be 10) and 14 surgeons. As you can imagine, lessons learned are invaluable to those that seek to do the same.
For more information, go to their website.
Sean Wild, CEO & Cofounder of Practice Metrix, originally OMS3, LLC
Sean also discusses his work as CEO of Practice Metrix, a business intelligence data visualization company serving 16 practice management software platforms for the past 10 years. Its premier product, the Practice Pilot & SnapShot Pro grew out of the need to truly understand your practice data in making important practice decisions. What started out as a Data Dashboard company, now combines technology and 10 years of interpreting providers’ data across America, and the combined experience of managing practices along with understanding how to tie data back to workflows and proven solutions in its unique consulting services – invaluable in telling the story of your practice through its data. He and his team help OMS, Endo and Perio and large dental group owners and managers better understand and manage their practices more efficiently; transition founding members, acquire new associates and bringing greater efficiency and peace of mind to their practices.
For more information, go to their website.
Offer for “Dental Business Radio” listeners: Sean and Practice Metrix are offering a trial business dashboard and free coding review if you mention this show when you get in touch. Email Sean directly here.
Show Transcript
Intro: [00:00:03] Live from the Business RadioX Studio in Atlanta, it’s time for Dental Business Radio. Brought to you by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient bridges the gap between the provider and payer communities. Now, here’s your host, Patrick O’Rourke.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:00:18] Hi there, friends of the dental business community. This is your host, Patrick O’Rourke. On this edition of Dental Business Radio, brought to you by Practice Quotient, PPO negotiations and analysis. When there’s a lot of money on the table, you probably need professional guidance. You could do it yourself, but you can also do your own taxes and represent yourself in a court of law. It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:00:47] Today, I have big man on campus, Mr. Sean Wild is with us. And so, Sean Wild has more letters after his name than alphabet soup, so I’m not going to go over that. And Sean is also one of the guys that doesn’t sit still. He does a lot of different things. And so, it would be very difficult for me to tell his story. And so, what I’m going to do, Sean, is I would like – for those that don’t know you, I would imagine a lot of the listeners here do know who you are – but for those who don’t know you, tell us about your path into the dental business world.
Sean Wild: [00:01:25] Well, first, thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it, Pat. So, I started back in 2008. I was in automotive prior. I worked for Naval Intelligence prior to that. When we came into automotive, I was attracted to a lot of the metrics that drove business and the way that every single thing had a value on what they did. Even with a phone ringing, how much it cost and what you gain from that call. So, when I came to dental, it was by accident that it happened. I met a really progressive oral surgeon who really, to this day, we still meet every day at 6:00 in the morning, in the last 13 years every morning. And it’s just been a really inspirational ride for me. And I think we both feed off and for each other on our professional and personal levels.
Sean Wild: [00:02:15] But, anyway, he basically challenged me to come and look at his business. I did. And when I looked at his business, I was a little frightened. I was frightened that they generated so much money, but they had little green monsters running everywhere around their practice that they just need for coffee cups and named them. They were just things that you would typically not do in business. For instance, real quick, they have a person that worked for them for a long time. They start to become deficient. Well, they don’t say, “Hey, goodbye. This isn’t working out.” They, basically, gave him a title and make him a higher ranked person in the entity. And that seems to be the culture that I was walking into.
Sean Wild: [00:02:55] So, in the end, he asked me to stay on and see if I wanted to help grow his business from three locations to where we are now. And I said, “Great. But if I see something and I liked it, would you be interested if I could go change it or maybe build a piece of software or whatever it was for a solution?” So, he said, “That would be great. Would you mind if I did it with you?” So, that was the beginning of 2008. Now, we have eight locations. We went from three docs to 13 docs, requiring two more. We are going up to ten locations by the end of the year.
Sean Wild: [00:03:31] We now have a software company. The software company is OMS3. For most of the people who know us, it’s now called Practice Metrix. It was a dashboard that we discovered when we gave data to doctors and spreadsheets. They kind of melted. They couldn’t see it. So, we said we need to do something better. We need to come up with something that’s maybe more visual. You know, they worked a millimeter [inaudible] buckle when they approach things. They’re very analytical and they just can’t see empirical data.
Sean Wild: [00:04:02] So, that led us down the road of talking to a friend of mine. I said, “I’m going to go to this place called CareStream. They’re having a meeting up in Canada. I’m going to walk in and find the CEO and pitch this idea to my friend,” who’s sitting with me now. They said, “Are you crazy? They’re going to throw you out of there.” So, long story short, we did meet with the then president of CareStream and made a deal with the company to become a dashboard for their CSOMS product. And that’s how we started.
Sean Wild: [00:04:32] We were basically in a deal for a long time. And one thing it was that was restrictive for us is prevented us from going into other verticals who are bringing the same dynamic dashboard that could help tell their business story in a much easier fashion than what they had. And last two years ago, approximately 2018, we were able to enter into the rest of the dental space. We’re now in 18 practice [inaudible] softwares, all Henry Schein’s except for one, I believe, DSN, you know, just a number of great companies.
Sean Wild: [00:05:10] And the one thing we get out of that relationship is I love to see someone’s business data and show them, “Hey, did you see this? Did you see that?” Most of the time they’re like, “I see it but I don’t understand it.” And then, Pat, that led to us kind of meeting you, which I’ll talk about here shortly. But also led us to helping them understand where the data comes from, what part of their workforce is being fed from positively or negatively, and being a practice administrator all along that ride. I actually understand what the data truly means and what we have to fix internally.
Sean Wild: [00:05:48] So, we really have a good ride in helping folks understand their data. And then, I would get calls, “Sean, I’m jus too busy. I know I need to change this, but I don’t know necessarily how to change it. I don’t know what I don’t know.” “It looks like you did if you were able to go from three to, say, there’ll be ten locations and all those doctors.”
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:06:07] Not easy.
Sean Wild: [00:06:08] “I don’t know how to acquire someone. I don’t understand the marketplace, how to even negotiate that contract with them or what’s appealing to a practitioner at this point in their life.” So, you know, that just led us to doing things we do every day inside Pennsylvania Oral Surgery and help ensure that success with other folks.
Sean Wild: [00:06:31] So, when I was out and about one day, I met a person who was using your services, Pat. I, first, was a little skeptical. I was like, “Oh, here we go. So, you’re going to give me free money and it’s going to cost me something.” And, honestly, it was just that simple [inaudible]. We put the professional on, like you said. I don’t want to be a brain surgeon on myself. I have no skill sets forth, so I want to find the best brain surgeon. And it turned out you were easy to talk to. Kind of almost too easy. We would see you go away. And we weren’t sure if someone kidnapped you or we had to call [inaudible] to come retrieve you.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:07:08] [Inaudible] all the time. Like, we did not abscond to Mexico, I promise.
Sean Wild: [00:07:12] Yes. But then, all of a sudden, you know, two or three months later, “Hey, would you accept this 18 percent higher negotiated rate or this other win?” And another great point about your services are, you might go away, but the benefits keep coming. And that’s really, to me, the true win. So, as we started, you know, helping people understand their data and then helping them grow their businesses, why not call somebody that was successful? For me, it was predictable. I enjoyed the process. I love the results. And that’s what led us to, you know, work a little bit closer together. So, anywhere I go –
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:07:52] Likewise.
Sean Wild: [00:07:52] Well, thank you for that. But anywhere I go with my consulting business, you’re just another arrow at my quiver. And I love the fact that we stay in the same – you know, we know where our lanes are. We try to do them very well. And it works out just fantastic for the client or the end user. So, from there, we just now been working on some more solutions. We’re coming out with a new patient collaborator, which is amazing. It’s the way that you get the specialists out of the drawer and not be in a drawer with seven other cards or seven other oral surgeons. It’s a way to share data back and forth. But as we treat a common patient, it’s a way to never lose their x-ray or their patient again. And, most importantly, it’s a way for the GP to know when they use my patient exchange, that they can dial in any time they want from any device across the world and see exactly the status of the patient they referred and where they’re at in a treatment plan. And, most importantly, it saves about $2,000 to 3,000 a month in stamps, mail, and letters that these folks pretty much don’t even do anything with for the most part.
Sean Wild: [00:09:04] So, that’s something that helps us continue to grow our partners in oral surgery, perio, and the rest of the specialties that we work with. And, most importantly, we grow. We are the end users. We are the hair club presidents. You know, we have the same pain. We try to come up with a great solution. We test it with some of our folks and then we share it with our clients that want to do the same, you know, gain ground without having to have pain or a number of mistakes along the way. So, I hope that tells you a little bit more about who we are.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:09:36] I think I learn something new about you every time I talk to you. And that’s saying a lot because it’s not that we talk infrequently. I’ve never heard the expression out of the drawer. I get it. It took me a second as you were talking. I was like, “What does that mean?” And so, what I think it means – and correct me if I’m wrong – is that, general dentists and specialists in general are reliant to some degree or another. On general dentist to send them patients. They don’t do a certain service that they’re not comfortable. And so, the specialists says, you should send your implant case or your wisdom teeth or your complex oral surgery stuff over to us. We’re amazing to work with and here’s why. And some sometimes oral surgeons say the same things, right? And so, you’re looking for a way to differentiate, particularly in an environment where there’s a lot of different oral surgeons like the Metropolitan area. Am I reading that right?
Sean Wild: [00:10:42] Yeah. So, what happened to us was when I first took over the role as the CEO of Pennsylvania Oral Surgery, my principal is really sharp. He said, you know, “Why don’t you just walk around for about two months, follow us around and just watch what we do. And then, while you’re at it, why don’t you go meet my referrals.” I said, “Oh, your customers? That’d be great.” He said, “No. No. They’re my referrals.” I was like, “Well, I think they’re your customers. If they’re sending you business and you’re fulfilling their needs, they’re really your customers.” Because I came from a different business line, but, to me, you must know who your customer is if you’re going to be successful because you need to treat them the best you can.
Sean Wild: [00:11:22] So, I went out with a few folks and we would meet some of our top customers/referrals. And when I walked in, they were like, we would say, “You know, we have some extra referral cards for you. And I want to make sure that we were meeting all of your expectations.” And I watched them open a drawer and dropped our cards. And my fantastic oral surgeons, that I thought were the best anywhere in the world, into a drawer with about 14 other cards. And I thought, “Wow. This needs to change. Somehow, I need to find a way, some transformative process that would get us out of that drawer and make us their top and only choice.” And that became my mission for, really, the past 13 years as a CEO of our surgery group.
Sean Wild: [00:12:07] But, really, as a business person, I feel like we have these folks who are the best at this kind of time that they do and money to become who they are. They need to be seen differently than just anybody with an oral surgery brand, you know, or any other specialty brand. So, with my patient exchange, it’s a little icon. It’s just on your desktop. It’s so easy to use. They have the x-ray up in their software, they drop it in, they click, click, click a number, they send it. But the nice thing is, when that happens, one, you are never in a drawer. They pick you automatically because you are easy to use. And their doctor was able to look in there without having to.
Sean Wild: [00:12:50] This is typically what happens, Pat, “Get that guy on the line. I want to know about this.” Well, that guy is in surgery or that guy was in surgery. So, that doctor is standing there, their front desk has to pick up a phone and call your front desk. So, they have to find a way to get your doctor out of a place. By now, his patient is calling, “I’m here.” She’s back in that room. And then, just a whole communication pathway was just not elegant or slick. So, this, we just thought we need to keep fixing these things as an entrepreneur or just as a problem solver.
Sean Wild: [00:13:21] In my old world, if you kick the door and it bounced back in your face, so to speak -I mean, older world of being overseas – you might not kick the door and walk in fully forward. You’ll learn to take a step back. And I said, “I don’t want to do that anymore.” And that’s kind of what it was for us. We said, you know, “We don’t want to do this anymore. We don’t want to keep bothering the GPs, you know, our customers, to get a simple x-ray or to try to give them the information they need and sending a letter out.” In today’s world, I guarantee you, Pat, about 99.9 percent of our partners in the dental community are still printing letters, specialists are still printing them, put a piece in the mail, put a stamp on it, mailing it to folks who then have to find someplace to put that into a meaningful way for the GP to retrieve it. It’s just archaic.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:14:09] I had no idea that’s how it worked.
Sean Wild: [00:14:13] Every letter, every patient that you see has to be totaled up, so to speak, in a treatment plan or some type of communication back to the referral. It has to. Or else you lose the patient, right? So, I think we’re onto something that’s going to be just so transformative for the industry. And the fact that they could just look at any devices, like [inaudible] how our product works. Look at the Cloud, pull the patient up, not only see everything that you did for the patient, but ties the dental implant company, the lab, into the process. So, the total care is being managed in one view.
Sean Wild: [00:14:51] And the really nice part is, when you want to send that patient back, they actually have a calendar in their hand that they’re looking at that lights up when that patient is coming back. So, now, they automatically know, “Oh, these four people. That’s right. That was an all-four. Wait, that was that. Let’s make sure we’re ready.” And it makes you the choice for them to do business with. That’s elegance.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:15:14] That is elegance. That’s awesome. And so, my mind goes to, “Okay. That reduces my cost of care.” Because I’m an insurance guy, so I’m always like, how does this affect the actual cost of care, maybe health care outcomes? That’s important too. That’s very important, don’t get me wrong. But as somebody who sat in the board room, we do talk about cost of care a whole lot. Now, health care outcome, you improve the health care outcome, you reduce your cost of care, that’s generally speaking given. But this sounds to me like it makes the specialist look like a hero but, also, you’re reducing time. It’s more efficient and there’s less likelihood of x-rays getting misplaced, or wrong, or anything like that into the patient. It’s a smoother transition of care amongst the providers, which is a goal of really everybody in the industry right now, from payer to provider to patient. That would be accurate, right?
Sean Wild: [00:16:17] Yes. You just named a lot of touch points that we think that it solved. One was, for [inaudible], because that’s also a challenge to worry about, a lot of folks are just sending things back and forth in your e-mail and they’re not using encrypted devices.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:16:33] Gmail is not HIPAA compliant is what heard.
Sean Wild: [00:16:37] Most of them are. Yeah, most of them are not. And they’re cumbersome. So, we thought it would solve that challenge. It would save a lot of trees, Pat. There’s nothing wrong with that either, right?
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:16:48] Yeah. I like trees.
Sean Wild: [00:16:48] [Inaudible]. And then, in the end, you’re also giving the GP really, truly what they want. And that is the story of – think about this, they took their coveted patient and they handed them off somewhere and they can’t see anything. Until some day, a letter arrives at their office. Hopefully, that got brought back to their attention. Because a lot of things that happened between the time it hits the office and it didn’t really got back to the GP, the dentist.
Sean Wild: [00:17:15] So, right now, they now are trained that when they want to look at something, they want to see what they want when they want to. Well, that’s not so easy in this world when we’re tethered together for paper and snail mail. And a lot of those other archaic methods are here. It’s instant gratification. They instantly know. And there’s nothing worse than having a thought, trying to remember, because 14 other things happened because you couldn’t get the answer right away. Now, you’re trying to remember again why you started.
Sean Wild: [00:17:42] So, we think it’s going to just change the way that we do – we being all of us – like you said, a better outcome comes from tying a dental implant company and their specialists into an all-four case or a complex multiple implant case. And they’re seeing the treatment plan and identifying a potential challenge, measuring twice as always, better than cutting twice. So, get a separate look there. And the lab also has the ability to share its portion. And, now, it’s a team-based approach in a virtual operating pathway, so to speak, where everybody is onboard. And yet the quarterback still remains, the GP. That’s priceless.
Sean Wild: [00:18:26] So, we think it’s really revolutionary. And whether it is or isn’t, Pat, and remember my motivation financially, I just think it’s going to change the way we do business. And once you do that, that just makes things fun from the perspective of our little company called Practice Metrix.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:18:42] Right. I think it’s kind of cool that you’re like, “I just solved the problem for us.” And then, you’ve tested it. You believed in it, obviously, because that’s what you’re using, because that’s you. And then, you then export or you’re like, “Look, whoever wants in can jump in.” I think that’s great.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:19:02] Let’s switch gears a little bit, because, you know, one of the topics of the recent show, really, in the environment that we’re in right now, there’s certainly a lot of folks that are in growth stage. And, you know, anecdotally, I talked to a lot of folks and when they get into – they start growing their practice. You know, you get one location and one location. You’re knocking it out of part two. Yeah. You got it going on. Three? Now, you’re starting to extend yourself. So, to me, anecdotally, this is what I’ve noticed, once you get to that three or four mark, things become a lot different because you can’t be in so many places at one time. Now, you went from three to ten now. Where do you think are some of the biggest challenges that you had to jump over?
Sean Wild: [00:19:57] Great question. That’s a great question. I think the biggest challenge internally – and this is with every human being, in my opinion – as you all rise to your highest level of incompetence season, you stay there or you do not. You decide to overcome, which takes reflection, evaluation, and change. And I think that’s where you really need to focus with a business is, whatever that thing was that made you successful to have one or two of them, there’s a brand there, whether you realize it or not.
Sean Wild: [00:20:28] And most specialists or physicians, in general, don’t realize the brand is more than just their treatment or the way they provide their care. They seem very egocentric, you know, “Of course, I treat patients great.” And you might and probably do. But does the rest of your customer facing interactions support that vision or support that outlook that you’re trying to portray? And that’s everything from the time they walk up to your front desk or to the time they finally are escorted out to their car. And was their billing completed in an efficient manner so that they’re not getting the wrong bills, and, now, you’re devaluing that brand along the way. So, we really break things down. Again, I guess it’s my ex-military background. A lot of processes. You don’t put two or three million people into the services and not have a lot of lessons learned, reflection, organization, and process review.
Sean Wild: [00:21:26] So, where I found a lot of doctor, when I first met them initially, I must be smart. My check cleared. You know, I mean, [inaudible] of money. I am pretty smart. And the truth is, they’re really highly intelligent, but they spend zero time, for the most part, learning how to operate a multimillion dollar business that they’re going to have because they are great practitioners. And then, how do you communicate across multiple locations, making sure that your brand is still the same brand in every place, field, touch all of it.
Sean Wild: [00:22:01] And then, how do you train people, and manage those people, and grow those people without processes when you’re operating in 25 square centimeters of space every day? You know, facilities are always looking in that space. They can’t see behind them. They certainly can’t see three office locations away. And they really don’t understand all those interactions because they’re not there. And how do you measure it, test it, weigh it? And that’s where data comes back in, Pat. When you start to see pay offs by percentage of a formula, my production, my collections, my patient count. If all those were seeing equal to X, and that X is lower or higher, there’s something there if you know how to dig it and figure it out.
Sean Wild: [00:22:45] And that’s where the magic really happens in my world is, I want to identify where they are, how that happened. You were easy for us, Pat. You gave us something we could easily measure. You know, it was just simple. What you do isn’t simple. To me, you must have elves. But whatever you have up there, your Santa’s workshop –
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:23:05] It’s not easy, let me tell you.
Sean Wild: [00:23:06] You did a great job for us, but it was easy to see in our percentage of collections going up, right? But how do you measure when you have two offices? In our software, you can easily see your top referrals. It’s very visual. But if one of them is no referral, it tells me automatically they’re not getting that information at the front desk. Then, I can dive in instantly and tell you, “What front desk?” And I could tell you what front desk I would want you to use as a training source with mobile locations, because it’s all math, it’s all metrics. And it’s not at all fun unless you enjoy doing it. We enjoy doing it.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:23:44] I don’t want to do it but I think it’s cool.
Sean Wild: [00:23:48] Yeah. Exactly. But then, when you can come on the ground, we have clients all over the U.S., we fly into their practice, watch them for a day, and bring them really great, meaningful change that is measurable, that’s predictable. And on top of that, it’s profitable. Really, it seems to be taking off for us because it’s just resonating with all those folks each and every time we have an engagement. So, that’s the kind of fun part. And then, when I pull you out or someone like you, it really brings that value. It’s just the set it and forget it for me. “Hey, by the way, don’t you also want to make more money for the same work you’re doing with your carriers?” “Sure.” And we pull out that predictable [inaudible] called Practice Quotient.
Sean Wild: [00:24:31] So, we’re trying to just approach this as an engagement. I hate to say consultants. I hate to say, “We’re going to have an engagement for a year and we’re going to grow your practice. And you’re going to find, typically, a four, five X mobile greater return on the dollar you spent compared to the dollar.” Much like you do, Pat. Much like the dollar used to build previously and people like that. Who doesn’t? I’ll give you a dollar –
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:24:58] It is pretty easy.
Sean Wild: [00:24:58] Yeah. I’ll give you a dollar, you give me $5 back. But forget the financial return. We always bring – and honestly, Pat, we can measure it upfront. We know automatically through our coding reviews, because we have three professional coders and some other smart folks looking at the data, we could tell initially automatically what we’re going to bring to that practice as a financial return. And that’s great. You know, four or five [inaudible].
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:24] That’s amazing.
Sean Wild: [00:25:26] But put that aside. That’s not the magic. The magic is when you give a doctor time to have lunch, because they’re so disorganized with their scheduling, they just never get it. Or the time to do their notes properly and not take it away from their family at nighttime, because they’re sitting there at the office with their notes, they’re bringing it home with them. To me, that’s the sweet spot for them. You know, money is great. Nothing wrong with that, Pat. We all need it. But when you can change your life, I think, that’s when you’re starting to say, “Wow. I did something there.”
Sean Wild: [00:25:58] You know, those are the kind of relationships we like. And, typically, we’re now on our second year of consulting. We have a pretty high percentage ratio of folks that are signing on for us. We call it partnering, you know, coaching. So, we not only coach, we fly onsite. We review them continuously through the 52 weeks. We have calls and actions, call to actions, that help us, you know, show them where we are effective. Reinforce their staff, because they help us become more effective. Create reward systems internally, better management systems internally, and really clear ladders for their own staff to go and grow, because they now understand what it is you really wanted them to do.
Sean Wild: [00:26:45] Most times, the doctor walks in and they’re like, “You know.” And you’re saying, “Well, what is the challenge?” Well, they don’t know what I need, but there is that layer between that really looked at the mission, identify what it was going to be, made sure everything was there, checked twice. Because there’s no one who really understand – I shouldn’t say no one – but, you know, many times there’s one or two great people. So, when you walk into a practice, “I got married. I have Jill.” That’s it. Because there are other people in there. So, if you had a great team, you’d say, “I have the best team in the world here, Sean.”
Sean Wild: [00:27:19] So, those are the kind of things that tell us, “Hey, we’re going to be having fun here. There’s a lot for us to do.” And the practitioners are going to get to have lunch. And I’ll tell you a quick lunch story, I met a fellow – he was a gentleman that hired me – and his partner, and I sat right next to him 13 years ago. And, you know, it was August. I was looking at their business throughout the summer. And he said, “You know, Sean, I just want to have lunch. I’m a lunch guy. I just want to sit down and have a really good lunch. Is that crazy?” I said, “You know what, Andy? That’s great. And come September, we’re going to put that on the board meeting schedule. We’re going to talk about that. We’re going to get your lunch because right now you need to go back out there and work.” And he was just like, “You’re right.” Then, off he went doing more whizzes.
Sean Wild: [00:28:00] But the truth of it was, I knew that when the next year came around that I can increase his production, his predictability, have a less stressful day, and he’s going to produce more than I really want. Does that make sense?
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:28:15] Yeah. It do makes sense. The gospels that I preach, I had to learn the hard way. You know, as a business owner and entrepreneur, you run, you run, you run. But nobody has ever sat on their deathbed saying, “You know, I wish I would have put in 90 hours instead 80.” You know, it just doesn’t happen. And so, I’ve got two small kids, and that’s my priority, Dylan and Evelyn Grace. And I’ll tell you one of the more fulfilling things I’ve done that I didn’t think I would ever have time to do, I coach basketball. I don’t know if you know that. So, fifth grade basketball, Little River Eagles. That’s right. I know you like that. Philadelphia zone.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:28:59] And so, one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. And I didn’t play basketball growing up. You know, end of first year, second grade, we didn’t win one game. And last year, we only lost two. We went second round in the playoffs. And so, that kind of taught me when I look back, I mean, I’ve done a lot of good things business-wise. But the balance – you know, I was talking to a client the other day and he’s like, “Oh. Well, you know, I’m taking my first vacation.” I’m on the phone, I’m like, “Dude, if I knew you’re on vacation, I’m hanging up right now. Don’t talk to me.” And he’s like, “What do you mean?” And I’m like, “Go hang out with your family. And the world doesn’t stop turning because you’re at the beach, bro. So, chill out.”
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:29:39] The other thing that you said – and I’m going to say it another way – because I think that a lot of docs – you know, and you talked about your brand – they talk about how there’s a lot of time, effort, training, and prestige that they’ve built and what they feel. And that’s their brand. And then, as it expands, but you can’t have your eyeballs everywhere, and you don’t know what you don’t know, and you can’t see all of that. And I like analogies, so while you were explaining it, you reminded me of, like, somebody that’s a really good chef. He makes the best food ever. They’ve got a beautiful dining room and they got a great host system and everybody comes in. And it’s awesome, except for one thing, the bathroom. The bathroom is awful. The bathroom looks like a third world country. And there’s no paper towels. That ruins the entire experience. And that’s kind of what you’re saying, is, do you know all the facets of your business? Am I picking up what you’re putting down?
Sean Wild: [00:30:56] One hundred percent. It’s about identifying. An old mentor of mine probably changed my life. It took me a while to digest what he said because of maceration, I need to get a little bit older and wiser. But I was, “How did you do all those?” He was like, “It’s real simple.” Probably, I was 26 or 27 and he probably had $10 million in the bank. A self-made guy. He said, “It’s simple, kid. You do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.” “Wait. What? No. No. Tell me what you really do.” And he just looked at me. But it was so true, learn to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Now, when you dive into that, it’s a great statement, right? When you dive into it, it’s about evaluating.
Sean Wild: [00:31:22] And the doctors do all that. These guys are so sharp. They can’t make mistakes or they get sued. That’s what I’ve learned early on. They can’t be wrong. There is no place for wrong. So, in that light, because of the wrong, it’s going to be harm or it’s going to be, you know, legal harm. So, in that light, they’re always doing this themselves. But getting somebody outside of their world to support them that’s looking at those things every day, and inspiring people to be their best, and teaching them to measure twice and cut once, and all the things, you know, we like to use as these euphemisms. But the truth of it is, it’s only that way. There is no shortcut to it. And you have to be always looking, measuring.
Sean Wild: [00:31:22] The same with renegotiating, Pat. If you did it at one time and it was over, well, we had that done in 1974, we’re fine. We know it doesn’t work that way, you know. You know, “We better call Pat every couple of years because these guys, the truth of it is, they are working not equally harder. Exponentially harder to take our money away.” That’s their job, to get the most they can get through our services for the least amount of remittance. So, you need something like a Pat out there on the frontline that’s our special forces of negotiating for these folks. The same as we need to be looking at their business when we’re onsite or looking at their data and saying, “You know what? This portfolio you’re using.” Like, we have so many facets of savings for our engagements. It’s in procurement. It’s in their waste. It’s an overnight shipping. It’s all these things that, you know, it’s easier for me to say, “Hey, you’re going to give me 50 grand. I’m going to give you 250, 300.” Who wouldn’t do that deal? But it’s not the money, Pat. It’s that renewable energy, and effort, and outcome that you produce in their practice that when you leave that year – and I’m throwing we do – because they can go fish now forever themselves, you know, and they just take off.
Sean Wild: [00:33:35] I was a product of a single mom, a single parent, for a while. And I looked at how hard she worked and the many jobs she had. And, you know, you don’t even appreciate it when you’re six or seven, you know. But when I look at most of our medical field gals – I’m very proud to say at Pennsylvania Oral Surgery, we have a board of directors, but we also have a supervisory board – and that middle management board runs that entire practice while I can be sitting here today talking to you, it’s because of them. And they’re all female and they’re all really, really strong leaders now, and are people that other females outside of practice, because most of them are dental world or surgical world, is this female-based for the most part and support staff for doctors. So, here they are, they’re out there and are becoming role models for each other. And there’s nothing greater than that, watching somebody change your life and find a career where they only had a job. Does that make sense?
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:34:31] It does. Absolutely. Yeah. I’m [inaudible].
Sean Wild: [00:34:35] So, I think that’s what drives every time we graduate a practice, you know, it’s our team sitting around the room and we’re tossing those folks for success. We’re really tossing those middle manager levels, the manager levels, we create for the doctors so they can get all the things they want. But what they really have, and I hope they realize it, is they have a future that’s going to be less dependent on them and more dependent on our staff, and their staff can do it. They can handle it and they’ll take them to greater lengths. So, that’s greater, I guess, reliance or whatever.
Sean Wild: [00:35:10] So, that’s kind of our motivation internally and a lot of psychology. It really is. But there’s a lot of ingredients to go in the soup. And I’ll tell you this, I watched some chefs show. I love watching the cooking shows and things like that on T.V. And I watch these folks down south. And in Louisiana, I miss those old timers sitting there and she’s like, “You know what? There’s all my ingredients, you could take a peek because it’s all up here.” I tell you, it’s not the ingredients. It’s what you do with them. I thought, “You know what? She is so right.” So, you know, we’re not afraid to share what we do because sharing it, and getting it done, and producing that outcome without doctors having pain in the process, that’s the magic. That’s really the magic for us. And then, leaving and seeing them do it afterwards, there’s nothing greater than that. Nothing greater than that for our company.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:36:04] I completely agree. When people say thank you, it makes my day. It really does, you know. And when I go to different conferences and folks walk up – I remember being in one earlier this year pre-COVID – and the guy next to us, he’s like, “I have never seen anything like that.” You know, I don’t like hanging around the booth. You don’t either. I see you occasionally walking around. But he’s like, “People just walk up to your booth and they say thank you.” And if you’re not there, they’re like, “When is Pat coming back? Can you tell him I stopped by and say thank you?” And that makes my day.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:36:36] So, anybody listening to the show, I’m telling you that it makes me happy. Send me a Christmas card or a holiday card if you’re not into Christmas, you know. I think gratitude is really important, you know, and especially these days. I think that it keeps me going. I mean, it’s not about the money for me. I could stay in corporate. But the show is not really about me. Is there anybody that you would like to give a special mention or a shoutout to? Because I would like to give one to Mrs. Sean Wild, because every time I type in congratulations and I get confetti on my little iPhone text, I think of her. And so, thank you again, Mrs. Sean Wild.
Sean Wild: [00:37:24] Well, I appreciate that. My wife has been watching you for me. I would say the two people – obviously, the two factions of people, my wife and my children, but also my partner, Charlie Burns. I’ve been with him 35 years. I’ve worked for him and he’s worked for me. We’ve always worked together. He’s right here today with us. And, honestly, I was in Wisconsin – like you, Pat, we’re everywhere, you know? When you turn around and your partner is always there, always supporting. Nobody runs [inaudible] better than he does as far as the training and the educating goes. And, you know, without him, I wouldn’t be here, so that would be my shoutout.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:38:01] All right. Charlie Burns. Shoutout to Charlie Burns. He is the man. And when you can’t get a hold of Sean Wild, you just find Charlie Burns. He’s kind of like Scott. Scott’s kind of worked behind the scenes. Tracy Duncan called him underrated this week, I think he liked that of. But talking to Scott is just like talking to me and he sounds just like me, but looks a lot different.
Sean Wild: [00:38:24] I think you’re probably better talking to Charlie first, but I don’t want to say it upfront. Charlie is definitely the glue of our company though. But I would say this, because of you, Pat, if there’s anybody that wants to try our dashboard, no strings attached, and maybe get a free coder review because of you and because of this opportunity here to get in front of them, I’d be glad to give it to them. And that would be, you know, take it for 60 days and enjoy it. Don’t pay for it. And if you like it, that’s great. And if not, at least you will have a amazing coder review telling you how much money you can make next year doing nothing different with the same work you’re doing.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:39:04] So, what I heard and, listeners, what you should hear is, if you mention the words Dental Business Radio and/or Practice Quotient to the team over Practice Metrix, then you will have – say it one more time, Sean.
Sean Wild: [00:39:21] You’re going to get a dashboard to help them see their business in a much easier fashion for free for 60 days and a free coding review. Or we will look at their current billing processes, what their charges are. We have three certified professional coders, some are dental coders, some are medical coders. And what we’ll do is look at what they’re billing and how they’re billing it, and let them see immediately that they could be making X number of dollars more. If they wish to go forward, we could talk to them at that point. But, at least, we’ll know you’re leaving a couple of hundred thousand dollars or more on the table every year.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:40:00] Let’s talk about coding just for a minute. And so, before we end this, we want to make sure that we get the contact information there. And because sometimes I get asked about the coding and I’m like, “Listen, we’re not clinical. You’re the doc, so we don’t do that.” And so, it makes sense, it’s helpful for me to know that there’s a resource there. Because those of us in the insurance industry, we’ve been talking about medical and dental integration for well over a decade, probably 20 years. And, now, everybody’s like, “Well, now, it’s high time. Is it now?” What are you seeing -you know, anecdotally – with medical versus dental, without getting into any privacy issues?
Sean Wild: [00:40:53] Sure. I think I get the question. So, think about it this way, when the physician started doing what they do, they’re pretty predictable. They want to do the same thing over and over again. So, unless someone comes to them and says, “No, no, no. You’re going to actually do this or that.” And without being in that world like everything else you said, Pat, you don’t want to be your own lawyer if you’re not an attorney. And even if you do, you probably don’t want to be, right? So, when you’re not looking for those changes, you’re trying to be, say, predictable. Or you’re not in that environment to say, “Hey, you can no longer build this way. You need to build that way.” Or, “You can now build this in conjunction with that.”
Sean Wild: [00:41:36] I’ll give you an example. There’s one code that most folks are doing anywhere between three to 10,000 of them a year. Now, what if you could add $35 to that as an acceptable billable charge? You know, that could be life changing when you take 10,000 and times that by 35. So, it’s not [inaudible] 100 percent. Or your wife’s kitchen she’s been asking for, for these last four years and you weren’t able to give it to her, you know. So, it could be anything that’s important, sending your kids to private school or a better education.
Sean Wild: [00:42:13] So, when can you look at their coding and the things they’re doing, it’s not just saying, “Hey, here’s our code.” We, actually, will fly in, attend, look at their processes, help them change their coding, help them change in the software, help them change it through their processes, make sure it gets build out effectively. And it gets returned at the end of the month or, you know, paying on time their claims hit the kick. Just separating things dental and medical and not understanding where there’s an edge on either one. When you do a lot of things and we do an oral surgery or, you know, and they’re probably all the same, you’re doing a lot of things, a simple change at the multiple is thousands, you know, so that’s really exciting for me.
Sean Wild: [00:42:58] And then, the doctors are like, you know, “I don’t know if I feel good doing that.” Let’s say that’s a potential average change. Take somebody saying we’re not sure. And you look at me like, “Wait a minute. What if there’s [inaudible] for that?” And like, “You know what? You’re right, Sean.” They just don’t know. It’s like a scary thing, once they get past that and look at it like, “You’re right. I’m billing for this. I’m billing for that. It’s the same thing.” And they need to have it or you wouldn’t be doing the thing that you’re billing for. You just said no, those are charged. Does that make sense?
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:43:27] Sure. It does.
Sean Wild: [00:43:27] That’s exciting. To me, that’s just super exciting. And then, looking at their process is when you’re onsite and you’re saying, “Wow. You’re doing this and you realize that has a cost or a benefit if you change that.” And like, “I don’t know why I do it that way. No one’s come in and said, why do I do it that way?”
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:43:48] I get that sometimes.
Sean Wild: [00:43:48] I’m sure you do. You did it with me a few times. I’m like, “Okay. You got a point there.” So, it just dropped in your realities and you usually stay there or you evolve and you don’t. So, we like to give the folks a lot of choices from everything, from their scheduling, to their billing. And especially, Pat, the way they collect money is probably our biggest win for them. We have systems, when you do a lot of procedures – we do about 77,000 procedures a year – you tend to get more efficient or you’re out of business. It’s pretty much you’re really good or –
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:44:30] Driving around town with a baseball bat. Not very efficient.
Sean Wild: [00:44:35] There you go. So, you know, what we tend to do is look at their billing processes, really, to save them money and reducing their efforts. Because they didn’t know what they were doing. They chased it not in a very effective manner. And once they look at our processes and we’re able to dial into their systems every week, Pat, and review it, then the doctor is like, “Wait a minute. I just picked up a whole billing team.” And that’s in there, too. That’s what we always hear, “Is that extra? Is that extra, Sean?” It’s like, “It is nothing extra. This is what you get for us.” And that’s probably the greatest win when you hear them go, like, someone’s not taking advantage of me. Someone’s not [inaudible]. I’m actually getting more than I thought. Pat, that’s the magic for us.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:45:18] Yeah. That’s awesome. You’ve been busy. I’m really happy that you’ve shared all of this, because I’ve learned a lot.
Sean Wild: [00:45:26] Thank you.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:45:28] I know you don’t sit still, but that’s a lot.
Sean Wild: [00:45:29] I would say our people really are the reason we are finding a success that, really, it’s our team. You know, Charlie and his team are just amazing. And having them partner with other folks that want to go and grow, that’s magic.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:45:45] Amen. Amen. So, folks who want to find you or Charlie, how do they do that?
Sean Wild: [00:45:52] Sure. They can go to www.practicemetrix, that’s M-E-T-R-I-X, .com. And they can call 610-600-9932.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:46:05] Okay. Terrific. Thank you again, Sean Wild, for being on the show. And I want to thank our sponsor and everybody on our team, on the Practice Quotient team. Nikki B., who runs it, who’s also a female and is certainly the lead. She’s really the boss in our organization. And everybody on the PQ team. Shoutout to Scott Marquardt, even though I don’t think he’s listening to the show yet. You’re underrated, brother.
Patrick O’Rourke: [00:46:35] And to Practice Quotient, PPO negotiations and analysis. You can find us at www.practicequotient.com. If you enjoyed this content, please share it. And also rate it five stars. If you did not like this content, then please get a hold of me and tell me why, and I’m happy to take your feedback. Or if you disagree, come on the show, we’ll put on the music and we’ll have a little dance. If you have really profanity laden things to say, then send it to John Ray at jray@businessradiox.com. Thank you to John Ray, and to Diane Lasorda, and everybody on the Business RadioX team for making us look and sound good. We appreciate you all. So, with that, this is your host, Patrick O’Rourke. Until next time.
About Dental Business Radio
“Dental Business Radio” covers the business side of dentistry. Host Patrick O’Rourke and his guests cover industry trends, insights, success stories, and more in this wide-ranging show. The show’s guests will include successful doctors across the spectrum of dental practice providers, as well as trusted advisors and noted industry participants. “Dental Business Radio” is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
Practice Quotient
“Dental Business Radio” is sponsored by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient, Inc. serves as a bridge between the payor and provider communities. Their clients include general dentist and dental specialty practices across the nation of all sizes, from completely fee-for-service-only to active network participation with every dental plan possible. They work with independent practices, emerging multi-practice entities, and various large ownership entities in the dental space. Their PPO negotiations and analysis projects evaluate the merits of the various in-network participation contract options specific to your Practice’s patient acquisition strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.
