Ash welcomes CJ Carroll from Dental Intelligence, a leading provider of dental analytics software. They discuss the pressing questions many dentists have about practice data—how to interpret analytics reports, which key performance indicators (KPIs) matter most, and whether investing in dental analytics is worth it for your practice.

CJ explains how Dental Intelligence integrates seamlessly with major practice management software like Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and Open Dental to transform complicated data into actionable insights. From tracking provider performance and hygiene reappointment rates to revealing untapped revenue hiding in unconverted treatment plans, CJ breaks down how analytics empower owners to make smarter management decisions. Whether you’re a new dental startup or a seasoned practice owner, this episode sheds light on the real-world benefits of embracing data-driven growth, streamlining workflow, and ultimately maximizing your practice’s potential.

To find out more about Dental Intelligence, visit: https://www.dentalintel.com/

Key Topics Discussed:

• Overview of Dental Intelligence and its analytics tools
• Key performance indicators for dental practices
• Importance of data accuracy and common mistakes
• Onboarding process and ongoing support
• Suitability of analytics for startups versus mature practices
• Capturing lost production and reactivating patients
• Tracking patient flow, attrition, and recaptured patients
• Integrating with practice management systems
• Using analytics for employee bonuses and performance plans

Ash:

Welcome to Beyond Bitewings, the business side of Dentistry, brought to you by Edwards and Associates PC. Join us as we discuss how to build your dental practice, optimize your income, and plan for your future. This podcast is distributed with the understanding that Edwards and Associates PC is not rendering legal, accounting or professional advice. Listeners should consult with their business advisors before acting on any of the information that is shared at Edwards and Associates PC. Our business business is the business of dentistry. For help or more information, visit our [email protected] hello and welcome to another episode of Beyond Bitewings. My name is Ash and in today's episode we have CJ Carroll with Dental Intelligence. I was fortunate enough to run into him at the SWDC convention and I've been getting questions from clients and other audience members, listeners about how to look at analytics reports, if it's something that should even be invested in.

Ash:

And I figured why not bring in an expert who can talk more about it.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah, no, it's great to be here for sure.

Ash:

Right. Thank you for agreeing to be on this episode.

CJ Carroll:

You mentioned that a lot of your clients use us, so it's great to know that we're out there in the industry. Obviously we work with over 12,000 practices, so it makes sense that you run into it some. But those that are financially aware or financially conscious of the actual growth of their practice usually has something like us and you. So it's a common synergy between the two companies for sure.

Ash:

Right. Okay, so tell a little bit about Dental Intelligence and what it does. So it's the reports and then we're the translators.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah. So we provide real time sync with Dentrix, eaglesoft and Open Dental to provide practices common insights to what normally they miss. All of the information that we have is available in the practice management software, but it's more difficult to pull manually than what our reports do. So it provides a user friendly interface for them to not only see the data, but know how to act on that data.

Ash:

Okay, that's good.

CJ Carroll:

That's a big part.

Ash:

Yeah. And let's mention some of the KPIs or some of those things that show up on that report that might be beneficial to them.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah, so we have a performance board that talks about their production, their appointments, their hygiene reappointment percentage, which is a huge one for practices keeping the practice healthy and patients coming back on a consistent basis. And then we can dive into what we call our provider pulse that tracks the metrics by provider so you can find where there are inefficiencies if one provider's outperforming the others, we need to have a conversation on how the other ones can do a better job to grow the practice. We have a morning huddle that specifically breaks down what conversations you're going to have with the patients that are coming in that day so you can be as efficient as possible with those that you're already visiting with.

Ash:

Okay, let's talk a little bit. Because you brought up three things, then you're right. Like I could spend a good amount of time talking to my clients about those things. It's like, let's say we pull up Dental intelligence, those analytics and I see certain numbers, it easily see and tell them, hey, your hygiene department's underperforming. Or let's look at the provider codes that's being entered. Right. Are we, I don't know, using the X ray ones for the providers or the hygienists? How are we doing this if there are multiple associates, as you said, if one is outperforming the other, what's the reason behind it? And then especially, let's say I'm the owner. I want to see what kind of an arrangement I got into with these providers based off of their agreements.

Ash:

If it's a percentage of the production or collection, I want to make sure that there's a certain percentage that, that I'm getting to keep as an owner based off of those numbers. So it's very important to be able to analyze those numbers and make important management decisions. Now talk a little bit about accuracy because you know that data report is as good as the input, correct? Right.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah. And what's nice about dental intelligence, you don't have to operate differently than the way that you currently are. The biggest error that we see in the data reports is practices not rejecting treatment. So they might treatment plan and give them two options and they leave. They go ahead and move forward with option A and they leave option B as an open treatment plan when that's already been taken care of. So closing that out. So I have a lot of practice to say, well, let me clean up my dentrix or let me clean up my open dental Eaglesoft before signing up with Dental Intelligence. I recommend against that because dental intelligence helps expose that.

CJ Carroll:

And so you clean it up over the course of a year with us, you can compare when those patients come in. Oh, I needed to go reject that. Then it's easy to go in and reject that treatment plan.

Ash:

Okay, that's good.

CJ Carroll:

But you're right, data in is data out because we get everything that we have through the practice management software, Right?

Ash:

That's true. Now let's say if somebody signs on with dental intelligence, would you guys have like a key point person they can reach out to, talk to, who can walk them through the interface of the software or how to better use it?

CJ Carroll:

Yeah. So when they sign up, they go through our onboarding process, depending on what level. Obviously enterprise group practices have their own dedicated person that they meet with, but as far as 1, 2, office location, they typically go through our onboarding process which consists of training, setup and then we do personalized strategy sessions with them to get them up and running. Where I work is with partnerships. And so for those that are part of Edwards and Associates, we go in and we make sure that they're taken care of and we follow what Edwards and Associates wants us to do with their clients. So if they don't want us talking about a certain part of the software because you know they have something that you guys work with, obviously then we keep that between us and then we only provide the practice what they need that will help them with Edwards and Associates. So I run point on everybody that would be referred over by you. I can't fix things, but I make sure that I get the practices taken care of in a quick manner.

CJ Carroll:

I work with 75, 80 partners and each of them have hundreds of practices and I probably get from the clients five phone calls a month maybe, so not very often. We have a great support organization, but yeah, they have all the training that they can need.

Ash:

Okay, that's fantastic. And then earlier, you know, when we first spoke, you mentioned something about the growth, especially for a startup, if they decide to use something like dental intelligence. Share a little bit about those numbers.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah, dental intelligence has two parts, our analytics and then also our patient communication and engagement. So what that is specifically designed for is alleviating busy work. So it automates the forms, consents, we can do treatment planning, post op, follow ups that are automated so the front desk team doesn't have to focus on that. They can focus more patient centric on having the more meaningful conversations to grow the practice. So a startup practice gets referred over to us. I don't necessarily encourage them to use analytics unless they have the financial means to do it. So if it's a startup, but it's an established dentist, that's financially sound. Start off with the analytics because then you're teaching the right things from the beginning.

CJ Carroll:

Startup, brand new dentist, just graduating. I wouldn't recommend using our analytics right off the bat because there's not enough data for them to get the benefit. So once you start getting over 500, 750 patients of record is really when you want to start using something like dental intelligence. Because one of the key things is treatment slipping through the cracks.

Ash:

That's right.

CJ Carroll:

Nine out of ten dentists, when we do a snapshot, we can review their data with them. Didn't know they had as much outstanding treatment as they have. So we expose all of that, and then they can easily put one or two team members on calling those patients. And that's where we see that boost of production in that first 12 months.

Ash:

Wow, that's fantastic. And I'm glad you actually brought this up, because that's something we sometimes have a talk with our clients with. It's whenever they see existing practice, right. Their numbers going down, they're thinking of like, oh, we need to put more money into marketing.

CJ Carroll:

Right.

Ash:

To find those leads until they use something like this, where they realize you don't really have to spend more money. You always had them, you're just not converting them.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah, right.

Ash:

But you need to look at those numbers to determine who needs a phone call again, or maybe a new recall program. Something with the front desk team.

CJ Carroll:

You know, it's funny that you bring up marketing. Another KPI that we track, key performance indicator, is the new patient flow and attrition. So I could ask any dentist that's listening to this podcast, how many new patients did you get last month? And they'll be able to rattle off a number. How many patients did you lose last month? Is a question that they often don't know the answer to. When that comes into play is Dental intelligence follows the ADA guidelines. If a patient hasn't been in the practice physically in the last 18 months, they're basically an inactive patient. So statistically, we don't count them as an active patient. In our software, they're still marked active in the practice management system, but we mark them as an inactive patient and keep track of that number.

CJ Carroll:

So we have a little scorecard where you can go in and click on, hey, what's my practice growth look like? And it'll show you how many new patients you have, how many patients went inactive due to inactivity. And then also we track the number of recaptured patients, those that fell into inactivity that the practice reactivated. So they're not technically a new patient. Like you're saying you can spend a ton of money on marketing, but you could also go after patients who already have an experience with you that just Forgot or just got lazy and stopped coming back.

Ash:

Yeah, that's good. And then a lot of times, you know, I have clients that'll talk to me about setting up some kind of a bonus system in their practice to incentivize the employees, especially the front desk people. And this would be a great way. So if you have access to something like the analytics of Dental intelligence, plug those numbers. If you set up a phone call with me, I can actually look at those numbers and tell you if somebody deserves a raise or if we should really look into implementing a bonus system. Or maybe implement a bonus system, look at those numbers to see if it's actually working or not. Should we continue this bonus plan or should we get rid of it or find other ways to incentivize the team? So that's good. Again, we spoke.

Ash:

Speak the same language. Numbers. Right.

CJ Carroll:

It's just exactly.

Ash:

You know, one is, I don't know, one's being translated, the other is the one writing it. Right?

CJ Carroll:

Yeah.

Ash:

It's like you're the one with the reports and then the analytic reports and then we're having to translate it. So it's kind of amazing, right? It's how different professionals from working in the same field can come together to make one organization successful.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah. And I don't know if working with your clients. You've seen our follow ups tool that's in our analytics. It does exactly what you had mentioned. It puts together a plan of action for things that slip through the cracks and assigns it to specific individuals. And as they complete those tasks, it ties it to the production that was involved with the task. So it makes tracking bonus systems that much more efficient.

Ash:

See, there you go. That's fantastic. So what other things? You also mentioned that it syncs in with the practice management software, Right. What were they again?

CJ Carroll:

Dentrix, Eaglesoft and Open Dental. We have. Yep. We have a brand new integration for our communication side with Dentrix Ascend.

Ash:

Okay.

CJ Carroll:

Ash:

Okay. Now I did notice some of my clients also working with Henry Schein One. It must be. It's completely new, but in the future, so.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah. So Henry Schein one is Dentrix or Dentrix Ascend.

Ash:

Okay.

CJ Carroll:

And their product suite. So basically Henry Schein took all of their digital products and then created Henry Schein one.

Ash:

So you guys can work with.

CJ Carroll:

Correct? Yeah. So Henry Schein one isn't a practice management software. It's a culmination of the two different ones that they have.

Ash:

Okay, that's awesome. That's Fantastic.

CJ Carroll:

Yeah.

Ash:

Great. Great. Well, thank you so much for being on our episode today. C.J.

CJ Carroll:

Absolutely. It was a pleasure.

Ash:

Thanks for listening today. Be sure to subscribe to beyond by Wings on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn or reach out to us on our website. You can also shoot us an [email protected].