In this emotionally powerful episode, Dr. Allison House shares the recent tragedy of a dental school classmate whose practice was destroyed in an accident that left him severely burned and hospitalized. This unfortunate event serves as a catalyst for an authentic and vulnerable conversation about the critical importance of proper insurance planning for dental professionals.

Dr. House and Shawn examine the complex challenges facing dental practices during unexpected tragedies - from patient care continuity to team member employment, from insurance claims to practice data recovery. They highlight the importance of own occupation disability insurance for sole providers, offsite data backups, and forming disability coverage groups within dental communities.

Through sharing this real-world example, Dr. House demonstrates how proper preparation can provide a safety net during life's most challenging moments, balancing professional responsibilities with personal wellbeing. The episode offers wisdom for the whole practitioner by addressing not just technical practice management aspects but the human realities of vulnerability and interdependence within dental communities.

Okay, Allison, so a few weeks back, you sent me a letting me know that you would not be able to podcast with me because of a tragedy. It's one of those things that like I'm getting the message and I'm looking at it I'm just like, this can't be real. But coming from you, I knew it was. Can we just go into that moment for a little bit?

So I was in Washington, DC at lobby day with the ADA. And I got a message that one of my classmates from dental school was in a terrible accident. And he was burned. And his practice has been demolished. And it was just a terrible, terrible tragedy. And he's in the hospital. He's still in the hospital. He will be there for quite a while.

But when I got the message, I knew that I needed to go out and see him. We were very close in dental school. And I also was thinking about his wife. She did not work in the practice. She's been a stay-at-home mom. And so there's a lot of pieces to that on disability and insurance. And I wanted to be there for him. But I'm here today to talk a little bit about what we all should be doing in our practice based on what I've just learned.

Yeah, because this is like the worst case scenario. Not only is it a dear friend of yours, but it's someone that loved dentistry. And the reality is, he's never going to be able to practice dentistry again. We don't know that for sure. But I think that's probably likely, based on the extent of the burns. So I flew out there. And of course, everyone is worried about his health. We all are, and his mental state. So that, course, is the first priority.

But then the reality is that there's still a mortgage to pay. He has two girls in college, so he's got college tuition to pay. There's a lot of bills that are coming due, and he's obviously not working. And so there's that financial stress too. Even including the team. It's like, OK, right off the bat, my gosh, our dentist, tragedy. But it's like, well, I'm still an employee.

and the practice was paying for my livelihood, you know, and now all of a sudden that's up in the air. So it's like, yeah, sympathetic, compassionate, but then at some point it's like, okay, so what's going on with the practice? I'm sure those questions even start coming in. Well, it's an unusual situation. When my other friend had cancer, we have a disability group and I highly recommend that you get a disability group. So there were 16 of us that covered his practice.

But the practice was still standing. He had to stop immediately and start his cancer treatment. And so we all went in 16 days a month. Each one of us took one day and covered his practice. And there were a lot of details there, too, to figure out to take care of his practice appropriately and get it sold. And fortunately, it was sold pretty quickly. But in this situation, we have a disabled dentist and the practice is gone. So usually you have one or the other. A tornado comes, the whole city is gone. Everybody understands.

or the dentist has had a tragedy and the practice is still standing. In this situation, we have both. yeah, so he has team members that have no job anymore, just out of the blue. But he's not there to let them go. He's not there to run payroll. He's not there to pay the bills on the building and the practice. And at first, I was wondering if there was even a mailbox. mean, the practice blew up. was there even a mailbox?

for them to continue to receive insurance checks. I mean, there were just so many pieces to this. And it was really tragic. So do you know who stepped up in terms of the actual team? Did the office manager all of a sudden start sending out a notification to patients? Or because of the nature of this being maybe a smaller town, was it pretty clear, hey, the dental practice from Dr. So-and-so blew up?

We now know. don't need to now notify. Because I'm guessing it made local news. I'm guessing it was like a pretty big headliner for the local community. Was that something still that the staff or the office manager had to all of a sudden now step it up and start reaching out to patients and say, hey, we don't know exactly what's going on right now, but we'll keep you in touch? So the practice is gone. They did have a backup system. So that's one of the things I want to talk about. They did have an offsite backup. So they have all the patient data.

which is wonderful because if you don't do that and something happens to your practice, how will you get in touch with those patients? How will you figure out what dental cases have been delivered? How will people get their records sent to another dentist? I mean, you really do have to have a backup. So by offsite, do you mean just kind of like they're working with some practice management system that has cloud backups? It wasn't on the cloud. Well, this was a rural practice, and there's 8,000

patients, basically, that are affected, which is not normal. mean, most of us don't have that many patients. But because it's a rural community, I mean, he was the only dentist there. So yes, everybody knows. But then what happens with all these patients? They did have a backup system. It was on a hard drive. And the hard drive had been backed up the day before. So that was a wonderful thing. Thank goodness they do all that. And so they're able to get to the data. So that's good. But then the question is, is the office manager still employed?

somebody had to make that decision if the office manager is still employed. Obviously, the hygienist and the assistants can't be. There's no way to make payroll. But the office manager is still employed, is going to do all of that to take care of the patients and collect the checks and post and do all of those kind of things because there's still money coming in, thank goodness. But you can see how many complexities there are. And if you were in a tornado,

and your office was destroyed and your home was destroyed, you wonder about that. Probably should be in the cloud. Yeah, so there was a lot of pieces that where decisions had to be made quickly and it was a lot for the spouse to just make those decisions when a sick dentist. Yeah, I think that's what probably is the hardest for me to handle emotionally is that I don't know if it's because of shows, but when you imagine a personal tragedy,

with someone close to you, like a significant other, you're not thinking right away that there's also all the business side of the liability, that you have to put that hat on from time to time because people need direction and there's questions and there's responsibilities. And you just want to be able to be there as a, just to offer care and support. Right. You want to be the spouse and take care of your partner. Absolutely. And, and obviously that's what she's doing. The good news is she's a brilliant woman.

And so she is seeing all the pieces and able to handle some of it. She did reach out to an attorney to start working on the disability. So that's another thing. He did have own occupation disability insurance. Thank God. I actually don't have that. And the reason I don't have that is because I am not the sole provider in my household. Both my husband and I have jobs, and we make about the same amount of money. He actually probably makes a little more.

So we don't really need a disability policy like that. But that was a conscious decision. We made that decision. Eyes open, hey, we're fine. It's not ignorance. No, no, it was a conscious decision. But if you are the sole breadwinner in your household, then you do need some kind of a disability policy, because what if this happened to you? You have to still be able to pay your mortgage and your children's college. And so he had a really good policy, which was so smart of him. So that was good.

And then, of course, there's a workman's comp piece. He was injured on the job. So is that a workman's comp going to pay the bill, or is there medical insurance going to pay the bill? That is not her responsibility, not his responsibility. But you do have to let everybody know that something's happened. So yeah, there's all kinds of parts that when you have a tragedy, you should really think about what would happen, what you want to happen. And it's unpleasant for sure. But it is important to look at all those pieces.

Yeah, some of the other things you think about is the insurance, like the insurance checks, you're gonna have to post them. So your office manager, somebody's gonna have to post those checks appropriately. Somebody is gonna have to find all the crown and bridge restorative material out there, who's walking around with the temporary, and who's, usually your dental community will help you, and in this case, we have a wonderful dental community that's stepping up and helping.

This is the only practice for 8,000 people. Where are they going to seat these crowns? I don't know. I don't know. There's people in the big city that might be able to help. But yeah, so there's some complexity there. How do we take care of patients? Because obviously, his spouse is not worried about that. But we have a responsibility because we don't want to be sued. Yeah, so there's just things you don't think about that it would be worth just running through in your brain.

if you own your own practice, you're the sole provider of your family, and maybe they're the sole dentist in the practice, what does that look like? What happens if you're injured or if something happens to the practice? So let's say you can buy your own practice at age 30, somehow you finance it. As a 30 year old, you're not thinking something's gonna happen or something could happen. Is it still smart to explore?

and try to get these things lined up even then? Or is this like a conversation as you're going into your 40s? I know the whole point of a tragedy and accidents is that you don't know when they're gonna happen. You have no idea when something This was not tied to this individual's age. It could have happened 15 years prior. It was just a freak accident. So I guess it's one of those things that you'd advise people- here's the thing, it could have been a tornado. I mean, that could happen when you're 26. Who knows? So you really do have to have all these things in place.

The other piece, though, is we bought these disability policies when we were in dental school. So they are a lot less expensive when you're 26 years old than when you're 50 years old. So I would suggest you do that sooner rather than later if you need insurance. Same thing with life insurance. I have a life insurance policy through the ADA that's $300,000, and I pay like $60 a year for it because I bought it when I was 22. Today, it's a lot more than that.

So those are things. So if you need a life insurance policy, you need disability, you want to do that now. Yesterday would have been better. Yeah. Yeah, so it's been a tragedy. It's been awful. I do appreciate how much the community has come together. everyone, all 8,000 of those people love my friend. They love him. And so that's been wonderful, too. Lots of support from the community, and then from the dental community.

But I strongly encourage you to have a disability group. Get 16 people so that your practice will be covered. Because what if you got breast cancer? know, things happen even to young people. So it's been an eye-opening thing for me. And then I've just been praying for my friend.