Time is the one thing you can't buy back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone! In this episode, Kirk Behrendt brings back Mike Buckner, executive vice president of revenue at Pearl, to talk about AI and how it can help you and your team be more efficient in your practice. To learn how to free up time for the things that matter most, listen to Episode 930 of The Best Practices Show!
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Episode Resources:
Main Takeaways:
Quotes:
“Once you get into that phase of running a business, time is your hottest commodity. You cannot replace it. It's the most expensive thing that we have, and you can't replace it. Once it's spent, it's gone.” (0:56—1:10) -Mike
“In [Buy Back Your Time], Dan Martell talks about a three-step process. One big misconception, he says most people think that they're hiring people to grow their business. He says, ‘You shouldn't hire people to grow your business. You should hire people to buy back your time.’ Meaning, once you reach that point of capacity where you don't have any more hours in the day and you are maxed out, that's when you need to think about what are those things that are energy sucks that you're spending your time on, and offload those.” (1:22—1:57) -Mike
“The first step — and this is for anyone. This is whether you're a dentist, whether you're a team member in the practice. Everyone should do this — is really audit your time. So, track what you do for two weeks, then write down the things that completely drain you, that you hate doing. The second step is to transfer. So, systematically offload the low-value tasks. What are the things that drain you, and how can you maybe either offload them, look at technologies to replace them? How do you get rid of those things off your plate so that you can shift your focus back to what fuels you and helps you feel alive? Then, the third step is to fill. So, replace that time that you have offloaded with higher leverage activities. For dentists, for practice owners, it's really focusing back on vision, strategy, growth, or focusing on those procedures that you really love to do. That three-step process, I think, is phenomenal and will help practices really grow. Otherwise, you reach that point where you're adding more bodies, you're adding more team members, and you're even adding more operatories. But if you're not careful, you stay stagnant.” (3:31—4:56) -Mike
“We have limitations with what we see, especially with black-and-white images and X-rays. But with AI, we can pick up so much more and we can catch things earlier. We knew we had a powerful product that could help there. But we also knew, when we were talking with practices, we would often get the response of, ‘My dentist would love this,’ or, ‘My hygienist would really love this.’ But we were leaving out a portion of the team, which were our office managers, our treatment coordinators, and those that really helped the practice run. There's a great group, AADOM. I love this group. We decided to really focus on a core group of office managers from one of these annual meetings. We said, ‘We want to pick your brains. What are the things that drain your energy? If you could have AI solve a problem for you — don't even think about what we're currently doing. But if you were to wave a magic wand, what is the one thing that you could replace and never do again that would change your overall mood in the office?’ All of them came back and said the insurance verification process. It is a time suck. It is an energy suck. And honestly, there are a lot of solutions out there that maybe do little parts of it. But nobody, right now, is solving the problem and doing it completely right. We're paying for tools that we still have to go in and still spend hours every week doing. So, that's where we got to work.” (5:55—7:40) -Mike
“We went to work to create an AI-driven insurance verification solution. Now, what we found was that, a lot of times, there are some great solutions out there. But for the most part, most of the solutions only get you about 60% to 70% of the way there. You're still having to see the history per tooth, and here's what they're eligible for, but what was done in the last two years? They're still having to go back. They're still having to get on the phone and call. We spent the next 12 to 14 months developing a solution that gets the practice about 90% to 95% of the way there by also providing the history per tooth. So, it's showing not just all of the remaining benefits and who's eligible, but the history per tooth. They can see it all right there by treatment code, and also get a summary at the top saying are they eligible for night guards, for ortho, what's covered. That aspect alone was something that was asked of us by office managers. They said, ‘If you could, could you make it easy and have it all summed up, and have that information there so we don't have to go back and hunt it down?’ We did that, and it's changed the way that office managers and treatment coordinators and our front office team are spending time in the practice, because now they can shift that back to where they want to and they need to spend that time — with the patients.” (9:27—11:05) -Mike
“[By using AI], now you're able to see, ‘This is what these patients have remaining on their insurance. So, they're eligible.’ You can go in before the patient comes in and you can also see the treatment per tooth, what they've had in the past, and you know what they will be able to cover that day. Also, when you pair that with the AI, the AI showing you all of the undiagnosed opportunity from their last set of X-rays, now we can get very strategic and we can say, ‘Okay, we have an opening here. We know that Mike is coming in. We know that this is what's remaining on his insurance,’ and we can plan and prepare to get that taken care of before that patient comes in. The AI is helping us be more efficient with our time, saying, ‘You might want to check these areas.’ The AI is picking this up from their last set of X-rays. So, take another set of X-rays. Let's see if that's progressed any more. But this spot right here on the X-ray was never talked about with the patient. Nobody mentioned this to the patient. So, you have this. Then also, here is what they have remaining on their insurance. So, pairing those two together really speeds up the process. It allows practices who are interested in doing more same-day dentistry have all the information at their fingertips so that they can be really efficient with time in the practice.” (11:51—13:19) -Mike
“I will say, you may still have to get on the phone here and there. But with the practices that we've tested this out with and that are currently using it, the majority of that work is really offloaded. Close to 90% [is accurate]. Now, we also have a massive update that we're doing coming this next month. So, if you're using it or if you haven't used it, be sure to go and check it out because it will change the way that your team spends their time in the practice. Now, I will also say, sometimes you get those patients that come in, and they're like, ‘Oh, shoot. I just switched insurances last week.’ Or maybe they're new patients. You can quickly go in, put that information in there, and it will run that same-day check. This differs because a lot of the systems out there may run an insurance check like once a month, and you'll have that information from the last time that they pinged all of these different sites. We do this on a continual basis so that it's all updated information.” (13:37—14:41) -Mike
“I'm going to put this in layman's terms. I actually love mowing my lawn. I love getting outside. I'm in front of a computer. I'm on a plane a lot of the times. So, when I get the chance to get outside and mow my lawn, I love it. Sometimes, my wife is like, ‘We don't have the time. Let's just pay the kid next door to do it.’ I'm like, ‘No, we're not going to pay him.’ Then, to put it into perspective, take your hourly rate, take what you made last year, break that down into hours. You'll think about where you spend your time a lot differently, because then you're thinking, ‘If I take an hour to mow the lawn, it's worth X. But I can pay Johnny next door like $20 to go mow my lawn, and I buy myself an extra hour on Saturdays to spend with my family. Got it. Okay.’ So, I would challenge you to think of your time differently. Take your hourly rate, take what you made in a year, break that down by hour so that you know, ‘I am choosing to spend an hour of my time doing X, and the real cost of it is X.’ Now, if you can offload and outsource some of that to a fourth of the cost, you've just bought back more time.” (16:28—17:41) -Mike
“Practices that are resistant to artificial intelligence will, no doubt, be surpassed by the practices that leverage it because there is such a competitive advantage when practices are up to speed with how AI can improve everything in your practice — not just clinical, not just practice management, but every aspect in your practice.” (18:49—19:11) -Mike
“Have an “AI expert”. Appoint somebody in the practice to be an AI researcher, an expert, and come to the table every week with ideas of, ‘Hey, what if we used AI to do this, or to do that?’ Because little by little, you're going to buy back more time in the practice for your team to shift their time spent into areas that are more productive.” (19:13—19:34) -Mike
Snippets:
0:00 Introduction.
0:34 Time is your most important commodity.
2:47 The three-step process to offload what drains you.
4:56 Benefits of using Pearl AI for office managers.
8:50 Why Pearl AI is a better insurance verification solution.
11:05 How Pearl AI helps you be efficient with your time.
13:19 How accurate is Pearl AI?
14:42 Does Pearl AI work with all software?
15:15 Things you should know about AI.
17:47 Final thoughts.
19:36 More about Pearl AI.
Mike Buckner Bio:
Mike has spent the last 12 years growing dental software technology companies that are designed to streamline office efficiency and increase overall production while elevating the standard of care for your patients.
Mike has led business development and partner strategy for Solutionreach back when offices were just starting to text patients to confirm appointments. He then helped grow Dental Intelligence, focusing on providing valuable insights to practices, allowing them to focus on vital key performance indicators to improve overall practice health.
Following that, Mike joined Weave while it was in its infancy, leading partnership growth strategies. His most recent endeavor finds him as the Executive Vice President of Revenue at Pearl, the first company to bring Artificial Intelligence into the dental space with comprehensive FDA clearance to assist clinicians and team members in reading and detecting pathologies in 2D X-rays (Bitewings and PAs).