Secure Dental_Jay Hogan: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Secure Dental_Jay Hogan: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Welcome to the Secure Dental Podcast. Through conversations with the brightest minds in the dental and business communities, we'll share practical tips you can use to scale your practice and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. My name is Dr. Noel Liu, CEO and Dentist at Secure Dental and also co-founder of DentVia. I'm your host for the Secure Dental Podcast, and I'm so glad you're joining in.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Alrighty. Hey everyone, this is Doctor Noel Liu. I'm back with my other episode, another episode of my podcast, and today, we have a very special guest. We got Jay Hogan from ortho, PerfectFit Ortho, and he is going to be introducing himself and telling a little bit about what he does and how does it work. So Jay, let's get started. Let's the floor is yours.

Jay Hogan:
Awesome, I appreciate you having me. Yeah, I'm the co-founder and vice president of a company called PerfectFit Ortho. We are virtual orthodontists, so our whole goal is to help general dentists with their case selection, with starting treatments, getting patients to say yes. And we also monitor those treatments for those patients remotely from home. So what we want to allow general dentists to start more cases, but without having to invest the time necessary seeing those patients every 6 to 8 weeks. So we start more cases, see your patients left less often, but they get to see an orthodontist every single week from home.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Absolutely. I can attest to that because, with us in Secure Dental, we actually have Jay on our side. And one of the biggest thing that I think the value proposition here is, for my associates, they really don't really have to think about how to treat these patients because, Jay, tell me, correct me if I'm wrong here, your orthodontist, once the case comes to you, your orthodontist is looking at it and guiding our doctors through the entire step of the way, correct?

Jay Hogan:
Yep. So every time someone in one of your locations has a patient in the chair, and they realize that patient has malocclusion, what normally happens is they'll take some photos of the patient, and within 15 minutes, we tell your associates how long that treatment will take and what's going to be necessary, whether it's elastics, IPR, attachments. And then, our orthodontists go through and set up and design that case with the aligner manufacturer of choice. And then we also provide video consults with your doctor. So if they ever have questions or concerns or maybe want to review or revise that treatment plan, they can do video calls with our orthodontist to walk through the case.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Awesome, awesome. One thing I'd always amazed me, and I know we've been working together for a while. How did you get started?

Jay Hogan:
So we started in 2019, actually. My partner and I, we were offering these services to the general dentists in our area that we're referring to our brick-and-mortar orthodontic practices, and we did this as a way to to tell them, hey, if you want to expand your case horizon and your case selection, we know you're doing aligners. So if you want help and you want some support and guidance, we'll provide that to you. And in return, just send us the cases you don't want to do. We started that process, and we realized quite quickly that most of the general dentists we were working with, in our local area, started keeping everything. And at that point, we realized, oh, we may need to pivot a little bit and change our not necessarily our business model, but change the direction in which our focus. So we started launching nationally in January of '23, and we are now in 17 states and Canada.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, wow. Okay, so you guys were brick-and-mortar before?

Jay Hogan:
Yep, there were three brick-and-mortar practices. And we basically went out within our 20-mile radius of all of our offices and said, hey, you keep these the easy class-one cases or the 810-month cases, we will help support you, we will design and set the case up. We'll monitor your patients every week. You keep those, send us the stuff you don't want to do. And they just started doing more and more. I think as the doctors got comfortable and as they got more confident knowing they have that orthodontic support, they started taking on more and more cases. So the point where we had some doctors that almost few exceptions stop referring to us in general, they were using us as PerfectFit, but they weren't referring them to our brick-and-mortar practices any longer.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So who are your main clients in terms of who would be an ideal client? Is it like a group practice? Would it be solo dentist, or would it be like somebody who's never done orthodontics, like orthodontics?

Jay Hogan:
It's very interesting that there's a different bucket for each type of doctor. We have a doctor in California who is a private practice dentist who is a very large provider for a certain aligner manufacturer, and they reached out to us and said, we don't necessarily need as much of the case setup or the guidance, but we have reached the ceiling. We cannot see any more aligner cases. We do 120 a year. We need we're going to stop doing the cases because we don't have the chair space. So for them, the value proposition was they don't have to see their patients unless something is going awry. We're monitoring them weekly at home. Then there's other doctors who want to get more comfortable doing aligners, and they find the value in us because we're able to help them with case selection and case setup. And then, for group practices, they love it in the sense that they have continuity of care, number one, as associates open their own practices, or they leave the organization, or new ones come in. I know, and you can probably speak to it. It's sometimes challenging to ask a doctor to take over a case someone else is working on. We maintain that continuity of care by continuing to monitor them with the same orthodontist the entire time. And we help group practices, which it seems right now, in 2023, a lot of practices are looking for same-store growth, and that's where a lot of DSOs and group practices will find that with us.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So are you like shifting your focus more from private to like group and DSOs? Because I've seen you like recently featured on DEO as well, and congratulations, and I see that, I see what you're trying to shift your focus. So is that something which, or you just adding on to it?

Jay Hogan:
I think for us right now, we're just adding on.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Okay.

Jay Hogan:
We want to work with, my doctor, Brian Woods, my partner, his goal, number one, was he just wanted, he was frustrated with a lot of the direct-to-consumer products that were going directly to patients, and it was causing a lot of issues. And he wanted to just help general dentists because, again, he said, I know they're doing it, I want to help them do it better. And I think that's where it started. And we can help provide support to group practices. It works very well, not to mention the sales process. So we provide the doctors and those offices with software that will allow them, that will allow patients to do virtual consults from home on occasion. And you've actually your practices have had a couple of these where patients will take photos from home. We will send them a treatment plan on your behalf. And then the patient's side, and they pay, and they've never stepped foot in the practice. If patients decide against treatment or they don't decide to move forward, the day of the treatment plan is presented. We will then follow up with them for the next 90 days via email, text, phone call, and every time we do as another chance for that patient to start their treatment plan.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Wow. So yes, I think that's one thing I can attest to that your team is following up. What is the size of your company right now? How many doctors and how many sales force that you have right now?

Jay Hogan:
Sure. We have four orthodontists that we have one lab technician that work, for orthodontists, one lab technician, myself, and an admin person, and we have a sales person as well that travels to events and cold calls practices. We are finding that it's much more beneficial for us, I think, to go to events and go to shows more so than it is cold calling, knocking on doors. There's a lot of gatekeeping that happens. I will tell you, though, when we get into a position with a practice or a group, and we're able to actually present what we do, we have 92% of our doctors sign up with us.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Wow. I can see the value proposition in this, because a lot of times, like the direct-to-consumer problem with that, as there's a lot of lawsuits going on with that stuff, and then there's a lot of issues going on with that stuff. And I think even going to a general practice facility and trying to get like clear brackets or clear braces or clear aligners, right? Everybody kind of mixes everything in one. But what you guys are doing is it's one step even ahead of that, because for us, the value proposition has been that, hey, you know what, Miss Jones? We're not only going to be treating you in this office, but we also have an orthodontist that's going to be monitoring your case, and I think that becomes a huge proposition. So is that one of the main selling feature why 92% of the doctors signed up? It's because they have that peace of mind.

Jay Hogan:
I think so. I think the most doctors see it as a way that, to capture more market share within their own practice. We don't know, when we onboard new doctors or new groups, we don't necessarily have a dialogue about changing their marketing or becoming more aggressive in the aligner space. We have a conversation with them normally to say those patients already exist. They are your patients. You're referring them somewhere. We're going to give you an opportunity to keep them in your own practice, as long as the patients are compliant and as long as the teeth are tracking, it becomes, in practice, not a bad word. It becomes one of the most profitable things you can do in your practice, because you're you may only see that patient at bond IPR in the middle if they need it, and then D bond as long as everything is tracking and things are working the way it should, and the ... on your point about direct to consumer. My partner did it. He could use the SmileDirectClub, he went through, did not tell them that he was an orthodontist, just followed their instructions, went through the entire process, and he did not have good results at all. He went as far as trying to get a refund, and they asked him, and it's public knowledge now, so I don't, I'm not throwing dirt on anyone's grave, asked for a refund, and they asked him to sign an NDA in exchange for getting his money back, which he didn't do because he wanted to use it as a case study to show what happens when you go direct-to-consumer. We just want to allow doctors to give their patients the best treatment that they can, and it's amazing how much better treatment is, when you do have an orthodontist that's reviewing that case on a week-to-week basis. There are many orthodontists probably in your area in Chicago area that can't say that. But now Secure Dental, for instance, can say you're going to be seen by an orthodontist every single week, but at your convenience. You don't have to take time out of school or take out of work. You can do it all from home.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, that's great. And that's, and I think that's one of the biggest selling proposition there that for us we had the peace of mind, right? That there is someone behind us. And then also the fact that it makes it easier for the patient, saves chairside time. So this whole virtual thing, did it come about like after COVID?

Jay Hogan:
We were lucky. We started.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Or was it something in the plan already like you had in mind?

Jay Hogan:
We were already utilizing virtual appointments and weekly monitoring with patients prior to COVID. We started in 2019, and so when COVID hit, almost, yeah, I'll say it was foresight, or, but we got lucky. So once COVID started, we really leaned in because we were one of few practices, probably within a 5060-mile radius, that were actively seeing patients still weekly. We had the ability to really maximize our potential as far as giving patients what they need, when they need it, but not having to compromise and have a lot of people in the practice and run that risk, especially very early on with the governor here in Florida, had shut down everyone in the state for, I want to say 45, 50 days down here. So we were still able to see those patients and view them, and it got real. It was real lucky for us, but it allowed us to really hone in on what we were doing and how we were doing it, and now it's very seamless.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Would it be fair to say that the whole teledentistry, like, started with what you were doing?

Jay Hogan:
I don't know that I would take the credit for that, but I think that, I do think that in the next 5 to 10 years, I think orthodontics especially is going to look very different. I think that there, you're going to have your orthodontic groups, orthodontic practices, and you're going to have general dentists who use us. I really don't see. I just think that the future is here in that regard, and I think that it just makes so much more sense to be able to have that collaboration work in tandem. And I think, you're still have your mom-and-pop practices that may just do 1 or 2 cases for friends or family, but I think that doctors should really want to provide the service to their patients instead of having to refer them somewhere else, are, we're going to be the PerfectFit.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, that's great, because once one of the endodontists that we had a course with last couple of weeks ago, and same thing with Endo as well, there's a trend with all the new endodontists coming out. They're not looking into opening up a practice, and I see the same trend is happening with orthodontists. Like all these guys coming out, they're actually being employed by DSOs, or they're just going to do moonlighting here and there or join a team like yours. So what's the workflow like for someone, let's say, starting off from onboarding and the process like just a very 30,000-foot view?

Jay Hogan:
Yeah, ... the onboarding process for a new practice is really quite quick. We send out a request for some information, and then we build out the sales website and all of that, the intricacies there. Then, we meet with the team, whether it's virtually or in person, and training takes an hour. And once that's done, doctors are off and running, and the workflow is very simple. When the patient is in your practice, and you think they could benefit from ortho, you take some pictures. Okay, 15 minutes, we'll tell you that patient's going to need treatment for x amount of time approximately. We think that they'll need this and that, and here's what will be necessary. We want to give the doctors an idea as to what's going to be necessary, because we want you to be able to present a treatment plan, financial treatment plan to your patient on the spot. So I don't want to, we don't want to tell doctors, hey, it's going to be 18 months. And then the patient says, yes, they pay, they move forward, and then the doctors find out, oh, I have to do IPR. I'm going to need attachment. They're going to need to wear elastics, I didn't know that. So we want to at least give you the information you'll need so the doctor can make a decision on whether they want to present the case, and then so the patient is informed on what's going to be necessary. So we present that treatment plan to the patient or someone in the practice does. If the patient moves slower, the doctor will take the scan, submit all of that to us, and we start working on the case. On average, we probably not.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So at the time of console, there's no scan; it's only photographs, right?

Jay Hogan:
Correct. Now, we have some practices that want to take that scan. They want to show the patient the simulation. We oftentimes tell our doctors it is a simulation. It's not exact. And most of our patients, we have found, are more concerned about how long is it going to take. What, can you fix the issue that I have, and can I afford it? And if you can answer those three questions, there's no need to take that step and go through that simulation, because that's a, I don't want to say it's a waste of time, but it's a misallocation of time. You're asking the staff member to take the scan, to wait for it to load, to move the things around when a patient doesn't need that information. The patient says yes, they sign, they pay, they decide to move forward, we start working with the lab, and we set up and design that case. And I'll tell you, on average, you can actually go back and look at any of the patients that you've started, and you'll see how many times that we do not approve a case prior to even presenting it to you. On average, we probably go back and forth more times with each ... to get the case set the way we want prior to showing it to your doctors for approval.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's great. That was one of our main points that we wanted to make it as easy as possible for our team and doctors, because one of the biggest gripe with everybody was like, hey, I've never been trained in ortho. I don't know anything about orthodontics. I'm not sure how does the whole thing workflow-wise? How does it work? So with your workflow, what I love best about was everything was like very manageable. And we could have, and we can delegate to our team, and they are like, it's just photos and just snapping it in and just getting the shots done and uploading it. I think that's one of the biggest advantage for us, and I'm sure it's going to be for, and I'm sure it's for a lot of people as well, like as easy as possible, even though I know that I had problems. I had, personally had problems, but then I reached out to you, and you walked me through the whole step.

Jay Hogan:
Yeah, it's not, there, there's definitely times, I know that eventually, as we continue to grow, I'll have to stop giving out my cell phone number, but I want to be, we want to be available, we want to guide people and be your virtual orthodontist. That's really the whole, we really boil it down. That's just what we are. You can hire an orthodontist and pay them a daily guarantee and have them in your practice two days a week or two days a month, what have you. Or you can hire a virtual orthodontist, and they're there when you need them, and you only pay them when you use them. That's the other big benefit of what we do. We can go through that entire process. We actually, doc, we have one three days ago, an associate in one of your practices that did a video consult with our orthodontist. They walked through the case, allow questions, looked at the setup, and then the doctor decided, I'm just not comfortable. I don't want to do this case. And they didn't pay us a dime, right? So we did the case setup, we did the presentation, the side consult, we went through the whole step of process, and then the doctor decided that I'd rather refer this out.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's fine.

Jay Hogan:
Y'all, we don't charge our clients until they accept the case. And that's part of our goal and our mission statement of setting up doctors to be, setting doctors up for success with the patients that they have. And if they're not comfortable doing the case, we don't want you doing the case. We always tell our clients, anything that can be done with brackets and wires, we can do with aligners, but it's up to the doctor to decide what case they want to do.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's great, because I love the fact that you're putting the value out first, right, before getting paid. And I think that's huge for anybody hearing this, because not a lot of places are like that, right? We know how we get treated with other industries, like when we go trying to do anything. So no, that's great. So tell me one last thing here. What is the future of PerfectFit?

Jay Hogan:
That's a great question. I'm not real sure. I think that changes daily. We've had a couple clients as of late reach out to us that are in Europe, which I was not expecting to be crossing the pond anytime soon, but that may become a situation for us. We just want to continue to grow, honestly, and we have the systems in place that we can continue to provide that same level of service. I want my personal goal, and I don't want to speak for my partner, is I hope that one day people refer to virtual orthodontists the same way that people refer to storage bags. I don't ask for a clear bag, ask for Ziploc, I ask for a Kleenex. I hope that one day that we can be the Kleenex of virtual orthodontics.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey, and the only way you can do it is if you go global. And then, I love the fact that you got 1 in 1 in Europe. That is huge. The same thing for me to like, we have our Denver team, which is virtual, and our team was founded on the basis of necessity and pain that we were growing through. And these guys are all the way down the other side of the world on, in Philippines. So, when I look at your service, I can almost see like a parallel line, like you providing that service anywhere on this planet.

Jay Hogan:
And it's crazy, I've been thinking about that company, your company. And I was, and we should probably, maybe outside of the podcast, have a chat, because I'm thinking, man, I bet there's some synergy. I bet there's a way that we can leverage each other to provide that kind of virtual support and virtual services to doctors, our existing clients, and on the back end so that patients, doctors, don't have to accept that hurdle of human capital. That's one of the biggest costs of any practice. And if you can outsource that and have that level of support and that level of consistency, which is important, I think it could be awesome.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Because virtual nowadays, everything is virtual, right? Everything is electronic, everything is cloud-based. Everything can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

Jay Hogan:
Yeah, we don't even have a home office. All of my staff work from home. We don't. We have a physical address where things get mailed. But outside of that, like you said, it's all virtual.

Dr. Noel Liu:
That's the future, Jay.

Jay Hogan:
It is until you're doing a podcast and you have dogs, so you have to bribe them with treats and.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Right, right.

Jay Hogan:
Keep them quiet. But otherwise, yeah, I enjoy it.

Dr. Noel Liu:
No, because I can see that happening because what you're doing is it's like virtual. So whether you have an office, you don't have an office. And that's why we, right now, I do like real estate two on the side. So I can see like all this real estate spaces being empty and nobody wants to go back to a brick building. Everybody wants to be home. Everybody wants to do it virtually, everybody wants to do it remotely. I can see that happening very, it's a reality. We're already seeing it and it's just going to get even. I would call it better or worse however you want to see it, but it's like everybody would want to be at home or elsewhere doing the job and not be in a physical building.

Jay Hogan:
Let me ask you this. I haven't had a chance to even ask yet, which I feel a little embarrassed. How's the feedback been from your patients after they've gone through the system and gone through the monitoring and those type of things?

Dr. Noel Liu:
They are blown away that they have an orthodontist and they can actually scan and keep the progress going. And I think that's the feedback I've been getting, which is huge. So we took the same feedback, and we're putting it in our pamphlets that we have a virtual orthodontist that's going to help you out.

Jay Hogan:
Awesome. No, I think that's great. And it's funny, we get messages from patients all the time that are not ortho-related. We'll get messages because the patients can message us directly through that app so they can message us in real-time. We provide them with annotated photos and scans of their teeth to give them advice. But sometimes patients will message us ask when their next cleaning is, or if their insurance company made a payment. Oh, all the time.

Dr. Noel Liu:
So in those senses, if someone ever texts you or email you guys for emergencies, they're in pain.

Jay Hogan:
Oh, yeah. Hey, what's up? What else is interesting is that we put a virtual widget on the website, and you've had patients that have used that widget for implants or perio scaling and all types of other things that are not aligner-related. So it's very interesting. It's an unintended consequence, but it's actually, helps garner and capture new patients and additional leads that are not aligner-related.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Correct. And it's people, they're going to go anywhere and everywhere just to find an answer. That's a great side effect. I love it, I love it. So with that being said, Jay, how do people find you?

Jay Hogan:
Sure, you can find we're online, right? PerfectFitOrtho.com. You can go to our, we're on Facebook and LinkedIn and all that good stuff, but the easiest way I think is just the website. There's a couple tutorials, shows you how the system and process works. You can always sign up for and go through a demo with us, but it's really pretty, pretty quick, and concise. But we want to be there to help, so if anyone is listening and they decide they want to find out more, they can just go to our website and click Contact Sales and someone will reach out to them.

Dr. Noel Liu:
No, I love it, I love it. I'm definitely going to put a link down, like after we record. And so for people to find and also follow up and if there's any questions, they can always reach out to your email and go from there, correct?

Jay Hogan:
Yes sir. That's right, that's right. And I'm going to get, I'm going to get a videographer out to your office one of these days so I can film a testimonial from.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Let's do it. Let's do it. All of our collaboration.

Jay Hogan:
There you go.

Dr. Noel Liu:
All righty. Jay, thanks a lot for your time. It was awesome. It was very valuable. Since, full disclosure, we are a client of PerfectFit, we have great experience just because from the workflow standpoint of view, and also the orthodontists, they are very helpful. And with that being said, you guys know where to find Jay. So for now, we are going to be landing the plane and calling it a day. And everyone, thanks for attending. Make sure you like and subscribe. Secure Dental Podcast. Doctor Liu, out.

Dr. Noel Liu:
Thanks for tuning in to the Secure Dental Podcast. We hope you found today's podcast inspiring and useful to your practice and financial growth. For show notes, resources, and ways to stay engaged with us, visit us at NoelLiuDDS.com. That's N O E L L I U D D S.com.

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