Secure Dental -Jonathan Abenaim: 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:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of our Secure Dental podcast, where we bring in many bright talents from our dental industry. Today, we have a very, very special treat. I got this gentleman here, this guy has been like my lifesaver in full-arch so, but before we get started, I would like to shout out to our sponsor. DentVia is a dental virtual administration company that helps our front desk staff supercharge them with back-end calls and back-end tasks, so definitely visit them at DentVia.com again. That's D E N T V I A .com. Now without further ado, I got Dr. Jonathan here. He's a world-renowned double-board certified implantologist and has revolutionized the dental implant experience with the XCell Implant Process. With over a decade of experience in full mouth rehab, Dr. Jonathan has harnessed the latest digital dental technology to offer faster, more predictable, and superior quality service. From his state-of-the-art office, Dr. Jonathan, the brains behind the XCell Implant Process. Welcome.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Noel Liu:
So, doc, how did you get started with dentistry? Let's go back in dental school.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
So it's actually quite interesting. You know, a lot of people, they go into these fields because they have some sort of experience when they were young, you know, say, they say maybe you go to the army, you go to the police, you become a police officer, maybe because you were bullied or something. I would think maybe you become an MD because, you know, you had somebody in your family maybe was sick, or you had some experience at the doctor that decided that you wanted to do something about medicine. And if you were a dentist, maybe you got hit by a car, or you had some crazy dental experience that made you love it. But to be honest with you, I've never had a cavity in my life. I went to pediatric dentist my whole life and just had cleanings. Never really had the only. My biggest dental experience was at the oral surgeon to have my wisdom teeth taken out like every other 17 to 18-year-old kid. And I decided I'm going to go to do dentistry because I like people. But before dentistry, I thought I was going to be a computer science major. And then I realized, I really like people. I like technology, but I really like people also. And there was nothing in technology 20 years ago when I became a dentist. I mean, the biggest thing was a ... Dent, you know, like that was like, wow, that was huge. And maybe Dentrix had come out and we can actually not have to write our full charts, like you said, like hybrid charts, right? But I said, I'm going to be a pediatric dentist because that's what I know about dentistry and an externship of pediatric dentistry in dental school. And I swore to myself that I don't want to sing the wheels on the bus go round and round for the rest of my life every single day. So, I really looked into more things in dentistry, and I couldn't find anything that I loved more than the other because I just loved everything, and that led me to where I am. And people ask me, like, how did you do this? And I said, you know, I went back 20 years ago. We had this class in dental school that said to us, write down your mission statement. Write your mission statement about why you want to become a dentist and what is your business going to look like, and what's your practice going to look like. And I read it till today, I found it, and I read it till today, and the major topic was, or the major theme was change the brand of dentistry. Because I was so tired of hearing, no offense doc, we really don't like you. And that's like the most offensive thing because if you're a dentist, right? And you really care about your profession? You know how much we think about it, how much we dedicate our life to make the patient experience the best? I mean, listen, I'm not the one that makes the Septocaine taste really bad. I just buy it. I mean, I'm sorry, anesthesia tastes bad, and I wish somebody I'm not smart enough to make it taste good. So, like I really said, you know what? When I started doing full arches, I said, there is no way I'm going to be taking these Oprah tray impressions, cutting up these Invisalign trays, ordering a custom tray, hoping that I find those holes before the PVS or the Polyether sets, and do this again. And then when I take it out and send it to the lab, the lab either loses my impression or they mess up on the pour, and then I got to redo the whole thing again. And I was so tired of apologizing to my patients for things I didn't do, and that drove me nuts. On the other side, I felt kind of a hypocrite when I put in a beautiful restoration and I didn't make it. It was only my lab technician, and I'm like, yeah, I'm great, take a look. It's like when doctors show their case, and they show the before and the after. I'm like the before, your staff probably took the picture, and the after, your lab technician did. So what did you really do? You cut the tooth a bit. You took an impression. I mean, it's kind of hypocritical, and I was like, wow. And I don't have a problem with those before and afters, but like, if you didn't do it, tag your lab. The guy or the gal worked really, really hard, tag them. You know, give them the give them the credit. Don't take it off.
Dr. Noel Liu:
I love the statement.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
It's like, it's crazy. So, as you guys know, like I'm the surgeon, I'm the restorative dentist, and I'm the lab technician. I'm the guy that runs the mill. I'm the guy that centers it. I'm the guy that does a lot of it, and if not all of it, and I don't know, I guess I sleep better at night.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, that's an excellent statement because, you know, a lot of these before and after, and I think you're the only person who called out that shot. So I love it, man, I love it. So after graduation, did you guys go right to, you know, your own practice? Did you work in an associate? What was the process like for you?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
So, like I told you, I had nothing that I wanted to only do. So, my dream was always be to be a periodontist and a prosthodontist. And I applied to Perio Pros at Penn, where I went to undergrad, and they accepted two people, and I was one of them that they accepted. And they had changed the dean, and I was the year that all graduate funding was gone. So I went to Penn, I wouldn't have a scholarship, I paid for four years of dental school and Perio Pros is another four years. And I said to myself, oh my God, if I go for another four years of Perio Pros, even though I was recruited from the day that I started to do this, I said, My God, I'm going to finish with half-a-million dollars in debt then, which is almost a million today, probably.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Easy.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
And I said, I can't do that. I tried to speak to the dean. It was a new dean from Harvard. She said to me, oh, you want a scholarship? No problem. Just dedicate seven more years of your life after school here. I'm like four years of dental school, four years a Perio Pros, and seven years of academic teaching. I'm not going to do this. So I started looking for other programs, and Florida was the first and only Pros program in the country that allowed Prosthodontists to place implants. Now, they have to place implants, all pros residencies, to be able to graduate, but it was the first one, and they offered me a full scholarship. I got to school, and the implant director was fired. The director was fired, and my scholarship vanished. So I said, well, I'm not gonna leave Penn to come to this school. I'm going to say, what? Not even. And I stayed there for six months. I was married, I had a kid, and I said, I'm out of here. I went, and I did a part-time implant residency with Dr. Miller at the Atlantic Coast Dental Research Clinic. I did that for about a year, and that was really like it was so little. You know, people think they take maxi courses, and they're going to be implantologists. I mean, you got to practice. So, once I left there, I was working in Florida. I worked for 7 or 8, what you guys call DSOs today or DMOs. And I got fired seven times, and I got fired seven times because my dentistry was bad, was because I didn't want to do bad dentistry. And I'll never forget, on the last day of my job, the head of the DSO said to me, Jonathan, just shut the f up and do what I tell you to do. And I said to him, I'm really sorry, but I worked really hard for my license, and I'm not going to use some lab technician who does this in his garage, and I don't know what the hell they're doing or how they're coming. And it's, I'm not proud to put this in people's mouth. And a high-end lab for a DSO, then was Glidewell like, they're like, you cannot use Glidewell, it's too expensive. And that was $99 then. And I said, this is enough. And it was two years after dental school. I probably had like $30 to my name, maybe, plus my dental school debt and everything. And I was like, I told my wife, I said, I don't understand. I went to the best school in the world, I have nothing, I have all of this skill that I learned and I can't do it. And we decided to one day I decided to open The New York Times, which is that's how you found a job. And I found a practice in New York, New Jersey, actually, and I said, let's go. I bought it sight unseen. I lost 40% of the practice within the first three months.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Why was that?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Nobody likes to do nice dentistry. They like when you buy a practice from a dentist who just patched everything or just watched everything, and then you come in and do digital X-rays, redo the office, redo everything, and start telling, diagnosing novice dentistry people that just want you to diagnose what their insurance covers, they don't like it. And when you don't have the communication skills, especially when you come out as a dentist, you think that you're talking to teeth. You need to talk to people.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Wow, that's huge, man. That's huge. This thing, what you just said, I think that's going to help so many people.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah, like when you come out, you're trained by people that can't do most of the time most of the dental professors, unless they're passing through or doing this for fun because they're already been successful. Most of them are just there because they're stuck there, and they don't teach you how to talk to people, or you're just so busy in dental school, you don't learn how to talk to people, and you talk to teeth, and you start saying, well, you know, the occlusion and the curve of Spee and the curve of Wilson and the non-balancing occlusion and the non-balancing contacts and the protrusive movement. And patients are saying, well, what do you even say? And you know my big thing is when I talk to other people and other professions they start to talk to me about this. And I say, listen, man, I'm a dentist. I don't know anything else. Explain it to me again, because if you want my money, I better understand it. And if I don't understand it, you're not getting it. And they get very frustrated. People get very frustrated in other industries because, like, what do you mean you're so difficult? I'm like, you tell me, why does my HVAC need to be replaced? If it's working, tell me why, and I'm having my HVAC replaced right now in my office. Why? And people think that, you know, they start saying heat transducer and the blower and the and I'm like, I don't know what any of that means. Like, explain it to me. And we do this same thing every single day. Like, you do not have to read your consent form to the patient. You need to talk to them as if they were your brother, they or your sister. They were your mother; they were your father. And talk to them like a human being, that's all people want. It's the most vulnerable thing to sit in a chair. You know, they're not sitting in a chair like this. They're sitting in a chair like this, and it's so vulnerable, and you're just like you expect them to say yes to you. And getting back to I lost 30% to 40% of my practice that I purchased, and the history was from there. Like they say, you know, before something great happens, everything has to fall apart.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Would you say that was like your bottom part of your life? Like, you know, you lost everything you married?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Not the part I didn't care about the patients. Really, the biggest thing of my life was my dream was to be a Florida dentist. I came from Canada. It was freezing. I want to live in the sun, right? And that was my dream to do cosmetic dentistry in Miami, Florida. And I had all of this skill and I worked so hard to be the best at what I thought I was, and nobody gave me the opportunity. I was just another associate. What was nice about being associate is that I used to come in with my coffee, my newspaper, and my bag, and everybody was happy to see me as opposed to today, not my staff, but I'm assuming a lot of people, they come in, everybody runs away, oh shit, the boss is here. It's a different mindset, and associates, they don't get it. You know, when you're an associate, you're living by today, and that's one of the problems that associates have. They say like, well, how much am I going to make today? And dentistry is not a sprint; it's a marathon. And there's going to be days where you're not going to make any money, and there's going to be days that you're going to lose money. You may have to write a refund check. You may have to redo something at your own cost. That's just the business that you're in. But if you understand that you build relationships with people, it's like, you know, when I first started, I wrote a book. It's called The Trust Factor about building trust with people. And I used to teach about all of these ways to talk to people in the hygiene room, how to build trust with your treatment plan. And, you know, today, like almost 20 years into this, I really don't have to do that as much because my patients know me. I did that 15 years ago. So, if you're a young dentist and you're an associate, use that opportunity not to make as much money as possible. Use that opportunity to hone your skills. And when I talk about hone your skills is not only your skills, just like communication-wise, try what works, learn about what works. Learn about nonverbal communication with people. But more importantly, like how do you become a full-arch dentist? If that's what you want to do, take out a shit ton of teeth. Give out bone grafts for really cheap, so you'll learn how to pack bone. You learn how to manipulate flaps. You learn how to do multiple different types of sutures. Because I can tell you when you see full-arch dentists and they show you their flap wide open and they have all of those implants put in, that is the easiest part of the procedure. The hardest part is how are you going to put it back together so that it looks good and it stays good. And I always tell my team, I'm like, this is the most important part, how we put everything back together. It's doing a screw, dude. Anybody could do that. It's it's a bit like one of the guys I used to go to dental school said, it's a post and core. It's a huge post and core; it's not that hard. But to put everything back together, to manipulate the tissue so that it has tension in certain areas and no tension in other areas, and it stays where you want it to stay, and it thickens where you want it to thicken, that is everything about full-arch dentistry. Because you can see people that are doing full-arch dentistry, you look at their cases, the tissue is gone, completely gone like six months, eight years. And that's why when I show my post-ops, I don't care about the X-ray. The X-ray is for dentists that treat teeth when I post ..., like look at my tissue. That is everything. If the tissues stay, that means I designed my prosthesis correctly. I educated my patient correctly on hygiene. I maintained them correctly. My occlusion is correct. All of this stuff that everything comes into it. And really, I would say that probably like real implant dentistry. And when I say, by real implant dentistry is not oral surgery, implant dentistry, periodontics, implant dentistry, general dentistry, implant dentistry, but a real implantologist, implant dentistry that involves surgery, restorative dentistry, and lab, that is probably the hardest thing in all of dentistry. So yes, the money is fun. Like I want to do what you do. Hell yeah. I also want to go to the marathon, to the Ironman and wait at the finish line and cross with you, but that's not the way it works, man. You got to really, really study your craft. And if you don't study your craft, you're never going to be great. You're going to get burned. And that's what happens, people get burned. And it's not fair because there's a lot of money involved.
Dr. Noel Liu:
You know, you're so true about the money involved because people actually putting their house, they like taking out like HELOCs from their houses, right, and their homes where they live, and they're trying to get this procedure done. If you are like one of those weekend warriors, I mean, you got to understand there are limitations. And I love the fact that you are like, hone onto your skills.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah, you know, we talk so poorly about our dentist friends that go and take a course on the weekend. I mean, when else do you want them to take it? The weekend is when they're not treating their patients. It's when they're able to like, breathe. But I think we can worry, or is probably, we're referring to somebody who went Friday and Saturday and then decided he's an expert.
Dr. Noel Liu:
No, that's exactly what I meant, you know?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
And it's important for us to say that because, like, what else do you want me to take a course? MDs also take courses on weekends, you know.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey, I did all the weekends. You know, I did, like, several weekends, right? And nothing wrong with that, but I never called myself an expert till I did not put in the hours and the years.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Amen.
Dr. Noel Liu:
I love into getting that craft like, you know, like perfected. So you went from your office. So, let's dive into your XCell process, man. I mean, I love this stuff here. Yeah, I've been using it for about a year. I'm sold. I mean, I try so many different systems out there. I mean, this is, like, no joke. I even had, like, my lab guy coming out do photogrammetry for me. But ever since I started using your product, photogrammetry is out of the window. So let's talk a little bit about that. So, how did you get started with this?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Oh, man, like I mentioned before, when I was doing full-arch dentistry, I was doing it like everybody else. Take the teeth out, place the implants, do a denture conversion, grind the shit out of the denture, trying to make it fit. Patient always ended up like this, then patient goes home. After that grueling 16-hour surgery, comes back, you got to take everything off. Hopefully, it didn't fail and then start all over again. Start taking all the records and the bite rims and the wax and the this. And I said to myself, If I'm going to scale this, this process is not scalable. It's impossible. Like imagine I did I, you know, I, 20, 30 arches a month like that, like okay, the surgery you can do, but how are you going to restore it? You know, and I think that implant dentistry hasn't changed. Before I started pushing this whole digital thing, which I believe I was really the first one that ever did this. And I'll tell you about this in a second, but implant dentistry didn't change because it was controlled by surgeons, and surgeons just placed the implants, gave them the immediate denture, and it was someone else's problem. All of the funds were usually eaten up by the surgery, and the restorative dentist, which was usually the general dentist or the prosthodontist, had to, like, deal with whatever money small money was left for the patient to restore them, and it was a loss leader. The lab bills were good. Hybrid was anywhere between $7500 to $12,000. That's what it cost. And I would say 2008, 2009, that's what you had to pay. The components were crazy. Gold was crazy, zirconia wasn't as nice, and if you did use zirconia, you had to use it as a substructure. And then the guy had to layer the whole thing. And then everything broke two years later, and it was just like, this is not fun. Like, I'm just going to do scaling and root planing a single crown with my CEREC, and I'm going to call it a day. I don't need the stress in my life, but I loved it. I loved doing it. So I said to myself, enough; I need to figure this out. And I literally deep-dove into digital dentistry. And I think that when the trios came out, trios three, and when the Roland machine started to become actually affordable, not 50, but Roland 51 became available, it was actually financially feasible for us to actually do something like this. The problem is in 2015, 2016, when I started inquiring about this stuff, everybody said to me, no, it doesn't work. And I said to myself, we do full arch of teeth with a scanner. Why doesn't it work with implants? And the literature continuously, even to today, or even the people that have photogrammetry, will say it is not possible. And I just take out the thousands of X-rays that I have, and I show it to them, and I show them the post-ops, and it is possible. And in 2024, like, I don't need to do that anymore. But in 2016, 2015, when I started to teach this, everybody said, I've doctored my X-rays. I lied about the cases. It wasn't true, and it was just like as I started amassing the cases, people started saying, whoa. So the first thing I started doing was, how am I going to acquire the data correctly? It wasn't even about manufacturing or designing yet, so I needed to master how do I acquire it, and I started studying what was wrong with the internal scanner and to today, what's wrong with the neuro scanner? So I solve that problem. Then I went into the manufacturing because I wasn't really interested in design, and design was like just I felt like it was root canals. If you don't do it every single day, you don't spend the time. And it was too cheap to outsource even to today. It's just so cheap to outsource it. So, I started doing manufacturing because manufacturing was the bottleneck that stopped me. When you send it to the lab, they used to say to you, it's going to be ready in two weeks. And when I started visiting labs, I'd never been inside a lab. And what you realize that happens in the lab is they have these little bins and they're stacked up one next to each other and say one, today is Friday, and the due date is Sunday. It's been sitting there for about 12 days, and they work on it on the last two days. And I said, well, why are you making me wait two weeks? Why can't I just schedule it correctly? Because it really only takes you two days to do it, because I used to think that they worked on my case for two weeks straight and I'm like, how are they making any money? Two weeks of charging me $100 a crown doesn't make any sense. And then I started realizing how labs are. They don't have a good management system. That's why it takes them two weeks to do it, especially smaller labs. So, I started looking into manufacturing. I said, well, if I can buy a mill, because when I started, the mills used to cost half $1 million, and they were massive, probably the size of this office that I'm sitting in today. Most dental offices don't have room. Most dental offices, I would assume, are I haven't been in a lot of dental offices, but probably 1000 to 1200 square feet. I would say an average dental office, right? If you're like in middle of nowhere, real estate is free. You can have a million. You know, if you're in Manhattan, you like you work like this, right, right? Anyhow, so I started getting into manufacturing. That was pretty eye opening because I thought I had a CEREC and I knew how to manufacture, which is not true. So, I really started studying this. And manufacturing and milling is really something that it's a craft. It's an art. Just last night, we figured something else out to make the workflow even easier for people. And this is, like I told you before, we got on air yesterday was like massive eye-opening, like so many breakthroughs that came through in milling, design, acquisition, like crazy stuff that I'm going to be showing in August at Full Arch Raw, that it was like, wow, I can't believe I'm doing it the other way this whole time. And I know if I didn't figure out, nobody's figuring it out because I work with people all the time and they have no idea to this day, everybody's just like taking little pieces, and they're not weekend warriors. You know what? They are social media warriors. They look on the internet, they see a picture, they see a video, and they think they know it. I told somebody, you need to come to my course in August. He said, oh, I'm really busy. I have this, I have that, and meantime does not a mill does not acquire, does nothing. He goes, well, in the meantime, I'll just be looking at the stuff you pump out on social media. I'm like, dude, this stuff I show on social media is not even less than 1% of what I'm doing, and it's done for a reason. Why would I show you everything? It's bad for business anyhow. So I started doing manufacturing, and we cracked that code, and just lately, I started doing designing to crack that code. And when I say when I crack that code, it's not about learning how to do it. It's learning about how to do it efficiently. Because, you know, at the end of the day, I'd rather be doing podcasts with you. I'd rather be on Google. I'd rather be on playing basketball with my son. I'd rather be swimming. I'd rather be doing something else other than standing in front of a computer doing this. But if I can do it really, really quickly and really, really efficiently and really, really well, why wouldn't I take that on?
Dr. Noel Liu:
Exactly. So your manufacturing, what made you start with that, man? I mean, like a lot of dentists, they'll be like, hey, I can just give it to my lab, or I can just order it from here. What was the thought process behind you with saying, hey, I want to manufacture this thing here, and I don't want a third party doing it?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
I would say that I don't know if the word paranoid is, but I always I have this fear that one day everything's going to be taken away. And I feel that if I'm not prepared for disaster, disaster will eat me alive. In my career, I've had a lot of disasters to the point where I almost lost my whole career, when I injured my arm, where I defied all odds, and I wasn't supposed to operate for six months to a year. I was operating in three weeks because I took my health and my own hands. And in terms of manufacturing, specifically, when COVID hit, and I had 90 days where I could not produce a dollar in my practice, yet I had all of these full arches that I had started that were time to be restored. Now, okay, if I have 20 arches that need to be restored, okay, 20 arches that say $5,000 an arch, do the math. It's 100K, right? Yeah, it's 100K, and that's each month. That's $300,000 that I would have had to come up with out of my operating account when the practice is not making any money to restore these patients. And if I hadn't set up myself to be able to manufacture this on my own with my own time, which all I had was time during COVID, who knows if I would still be open? Who knows if I would have the savings that I have? Who knows if I would have had what I had? Who knows? Because dentistry is almost like a restaurant business. If you don't plan correctly, you could be done in a month if you don't have the reserves to be able to be there. And in full-arch dentistry, it's not like general dentistry where you okay, you'll just keep cranking the single crowns. You could have a CEREC; you could outsource the crown to China for like, I don't know, 20 bucks, 10 bucks and still survive. But when you're in full-arch game, there's no laboratory that's not going to do this for like less than $3,000 that you would be proud of putting this in the mouth, right? An average $5000, a good one, $10,000. Like that's just what it costs now, you have no income, and you owe these people these restorations, and that money is gone. What are you doing? So I felt that that was the first thing. And the other thing is that I really enjoy it. Like I told you in the beginning, I was like, I felt like a hypocrite when I put it into people's mouths, and it wasn't me that did it, because the patients don't know that there's a lab technician behind it. They're like when they think the lab, they think it's a room in your office. They don't, they think it's all you. And when they said, oh my God, Dr. John, you did such a good job. They never say that when they look at the X-rays of my implants, where they look at the margins of my crowns, because that's really what means we did a good job. Our impression was right, our placement was correct, but then we'll look at the thickness of our tissue. They don't look at the occlusion. They don't know any of this stuff. They just look at the aesthetics of the teeth. And I never did that; it's hypocritical on a daily basis. So again, my dream was always to work with the lab technician in my office, but we just don't speak the same language. Dentists and lab technicians don't speak the same language on a general basis. They just don't. There's like this massive animosity, the technicians taking too much from the dentist. The dentist is making too much compared to the lab. And it's this constant battle. And I tried, man. I tried for years to get people to work. I've had in-house lab technicians. I've had conversations with labs. They're not bad people. We just speak two completely different languages, and we're doing the exact same thing. So, for me, I just felt like it wasn't going to be successful. So I needed to figure out to do that. And I'm also very impatient. Like if I put in a prototype on Monday, I want to finish the case on Thursday. I don't want to think about it anymore. I finish the case. On to the next one, on to the next one, on to the next one. And that's the freedom that this gives me. I like, I love freedom, I hate owing anybody money. I hate having to rely on somebody else. And there's so many things we have to rely on as it is in a dental office. The less I have to rely, the better it is for me. That's awesome.
Dr. Noel Liu:
So what's next for you and your XCell products? I'm always looking forward, like, what's coming up.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
The two latest things that we came out with is I redesigned the scan body. You know, I was the first one to ever invent and patent a cup specific scan body. You know, scan body is one of the biggest errors that Intraoral scans has is that the scan body isn't picked up correctly. So with my teeth's caps, they will always be picked up, and the triangles will always be perfect. So we came up with the scan body. When I originally made it, I put a really small head on top to be able to temporize very easily, but we found in some cases that if you scan too fast because it's so small, the scanner doesn't pick it up as sharp. So what we did was we changed the head to be our beloved scan body, which was my original scan body. It still has a different cuff heights. It has different colors. I've also invented something called the Power Tax screw that allows you to I love those reference your bite reference your pre-op and post-op. We made it in two pieces. You can even use the power screw if you buy the one piece. As a bone generation guide to be able to let you to take a bone out, it's the only bone tacking screw that is multidirectional that you don't have to screw it in, like with a Phillips head, and go straight through. It has my Powerball head on top, so you can change the angle to 30 degrees. So if the patient is back there and you can't get your instrument back, you can still angle it and be able to get it in. So imagine going like this to the side of the head. And not having to put the screw through the patient's cheek. And that's really it. We have Powerwall 2.0, which, surprisingly, a lot of people haven't jumped on. I think it's just a really better screw. I have no, 1.0 is amazing.
Dr. Noel Liu:
What's the difference with a 1.0 and 2.0?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah. So the difference between 1.0 and 2.0 is that the screw is exactly the same. The difference is the shaft on the inside has one extra feature. You know, as our world is going to hell is on fire, as I call it, money is getting very, very tight. And you know that it's getting tight and in full-arch dentistry, because what's happening is the companies are investing so much money in what we call these resin materials to be able to print in-house, be able to generate this in-house. And really, that's really led by people not having enough money to pay for full arches. And dentists, I need to figure because they don't know how to mill, because they don't know how to layer porcelain, they know how to do composite. So if they can buy a printer for $10,000 and they can use a resin that's as strong as enamel, if not stronger, then it should make sense, and I should start to use it. The problem is, is that how do they hold these things in? And if you use a tie based on any printed or PMMa material, it just doesn't work. It will dibond it will break less on resin wear more on PMMa, but when it does dibond, the restoration is cooked. So what we found was these restorations innately resin more than PMMa, because again, PMMa you still got a mill, but more people are using resins innately. These resins, they're flexible. It's just the way they are. They're very, very, very flexible. And what happens is when the patient actually occludes on these, the restoration microscopically goes like this. And when the restoration microscopically goes like this, your screw goes like that. And then you're more likely to have screw loosening with any screw. Now you'll have the least amount of screw loosening with my screw. So what we've done is we've created this extra screw-loosening feature that you can use if you want. And the way that you would want to use it is if you actually talk Powerball 2.0 to 20 Newton centimeters, it acts exactly like Powerball 1.0. It uses the Powerball head to clamp down the restoration and hold everything down. Now, if you have a restoration that you're like, I know this guy isn't going to be in a long-term temp, or I know this guy's in zirconia, and he's really grinding, and he's more likely to screw loosening. The second you go to 25, the screw just goes just slightly deeper into the seat. It engages a very, very small five-degree cone to allow it to have that extra screw-loosening feature, and that's really the difference.
Dr. Noel Liu:
So it could go up to 25.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yes. These are the Powerball 2.0. I talked to 25 all the time because I want that extra feature.
Dr. Noel Liu:
And that's not available in 1.0.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
No, because it's not part of the 1.0 body. The 1.0 body is just, is a parallel shaft. And the reason it's a parallel shaft is because all of the forces, instead of going to the thread, it will go to the thicker part of the Powerball, which is right under the head of the Powerball. And you'll see when Powerball screw breaks, it never breaks deep down, like all other abutment screws which can never get out, it will break right at the top so that you can actually use an explorer and just turn it out. You can see it. It's designed that way. A lot of people don't know. They're like, oh, I buy the Powerball screw. It's good screw. It's bigger, it looks great. But there's so many things that I built into this. Why? Because I have problems. I'm a practicing dentist. And you said in the past, you know, you tried so many different systems. All the other systems are not invented by dentists. And if they are quote-unquote invented by dentists, they either copied me, or they're just regurgitating corporate words. That's just the truth, and they know it, and I know it. And my system was developed from the ground up, from my years of experience and my years of messing up and my years of learning what's right and what's wrong, and really building all that in. And for us, as dentists, to rely on some engineer at Nobel, at Straumann, at Three-i, at Zimmer, at all of these implant companies, to actually create anything is ridiculous because they don't live what we live, you know, they don't live. That's why I would say the best practice management software is the one created by dentists. The best impression material is probably the one created by dentists. All of these things that dentists create is because we know the problem and nobody can understand. I can tell you my problem, right, doc? But if you don't live my problem, your head's not going to be like this. You're going to be like, what is he talking about? But the whole podcast, you're going like this because you live my life and I live your life. We live together. We have the same issues. I don't care where in the world you are. It's the same thing.
Dr. Noel Liu:
You know, it reminds me of that part when one day when I was ordering those VHS scan bodies, remember that tax crew? And then I can't remember if you remember or not, but I was, like, using breadcrumbs. And, you know, those little breadcrumbs are, like, all over the place. And when I saw that VHS, and I'm like, all right, what do I do with this VHS? Is it a scan body, or is it, you know, I use it for reference? And you were like, hey, you can use it for both. And I was like, man, this is awesome. I mean, you know, these are the kind of things that I was like, you know, just wowed by when I saw your product, seriously.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
And true or false? Are you wowed about it because you think it's cool? Or are you wowed by it because it solved the problem that you had?
Dr. Noel Liu:
It solved every single issues I had with full-arch. So my photogrammetry, that's the first thing I was telling him, my photogrammetry went out the window. I mean, what's the point? I mean, literally, I can say this factually that you saved me 40 grand from investing into one, right? I was having my lab guy come in, and he kept telling me, hey, why don't you go buy one? You know, you go buy one. And I have, like, you know, multiple locations. I cannot buy a photogrammetry for every single location. It doesn't make sense. And your system helped me scale. My man, I mean, I can say that wholeheartedly. Your system helped me scale every single location, so thank you, man.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
I'm so happy to hear that because, you know, I told you in the beginning about changing the brand of dentistry. Dentists, they practice by themselves, at least for me. I'm a solo practitioner. I have a small team. I have one office. I'm busy enough; thank God I used to have three offices. It was too much for me. It doesn't work for my brain, but one of the goals that I created for this was like, there's just so many patients I can treat. There's just so many lives that I can change. But if I can create something that other dentists can use, not only will I make the dentists' life easier, but they will change other people's lives. So whenever I see a restoration with my Powerball screw, that use my system, you do not understand how happy it makes me. Not because you send me 200 bucks to buy these parts. I don't give a shit about that. That's not what I'm in it for.
Dr. Noel Liu:
... Value.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Is because I can change your life. Like when I die, you'll remember that I had an impact on you, and I never met you in person. And your patient that's walking around with a restoration with my screw or my process, I made an impact on them through you. And to me, that's everything. That's my reason. Other than my family, that's my reason for being. If I can make an impact on people and make the world a better place with what I thought of that God gave me, I'm good. I'm happy. That's all I want.
Dr. Noel Liu:
That's preach, man. Hey, so I want to end with this one thing here. You got a course coming up in August. What's that about? And who's it for?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yes, so it's FullArchRaw.com. It's going to be in Miami Florida on August 8th and ninth. I am going to be partnering with one of my students, Dr. Ryan Dunlop, who has really taken digital dentistry to another level, to a point where him and I get the same results. Mine's better, but him and I try to find the same result, but he does it in a completely different manner. And when I talk about a different manner, that means that the way that he acquires data, the way that he manufactures, you know, the size of the people that he uses, meaning how big is his office, right? He's taken his methods and created massive institute to be able to do that and gives courses all the time, and that's what he loves to do. He has multiple associates, and it teaches. And what you'll learn is you'll be able to learn full-arch digital dentistry from marketing, from acquisition, from milling. I have a section on how to close. If a patient says to you, I need to talk to my wife, what do you say to them? You say, okay, fine, call me back. Patient says, oh, let me think about it. What do you say? And in full-arch dentistry, it's different than a single crown. And I'll have a whole section on how to close. I'll have a whole section. Um, Ryan's going to do a whole section on marketing. I'm going to be doing a section on Intraoral scans. I can say to you, I'm gonna say this. If you're brand new in this game, it's gonna be way over your head.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Got it.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
If you want to be like, wow, come. If you're in this game and you're like, I've done a couple arches, I want to scale these arches. I don't know what to buy, how to do it, where I should go, intraoral photogrammetry. If I should even go into this, which is probably everybody in this world, come to this. If you're just a general dentist that doesn't even want to have anything to do with full-arch, it's not for you. If you're a general dentist that doesn't know what an intraoral scanner is, this is not for you. If you're a general dentist that doesn't understand what a multi-unit abutment is, this is not for you. If you're a general dentist that does implant dentistry, that does full-arch dentistry, not at a crazy level. Even if you do one arch a month or one arch a year, and you understand that you would love to do more of it because you enjoy it, this is where you want to go to, because it's going to be like a fire hose. Because usually, I give my course two days by myself. I now have to share the stage with somebody else and give the same amount of information.
Dr. Noel Liu:
So someone attending better be prepared.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
You got to sleep a week before you come for this, but this is going to be, you know, it's going to be the truth. There's no corporate sponsors at all. There's nothing wrong with sponsors, but we want it to be able to just disseminate 100% the truth. That's it. Like, this is what it is. This is what we're going to do. This is what we do. And you can ask any question. The location is unbelievable. We rented out a movie theater. Super high-end movie theater with reclining seats. You're going to have your private waiter come and bring you food. Unlimited popcorn, unlimited drinks. It's not going to be like sloppy food. You're going to order from a menu. They're going to bring it to your seat. It's going to be like super high-end.
Dr. Noel Liu:
So wait a minute, you're going to have this course in a movie theater.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
This is a show, and it's not just random movie theater with shitty seats. Imagine like Emirates first-class seats and stuff. Full reclining couch, full table, full food, unlimited popcorn. Because this is really going to be a show, and it's going to be something in dentistry that nobody's ever done. And mark my words, after I do this course, everyone's going to rent a movie theater because it's genius. The screen is huge, the seats are amazing, the seats are amazing. Everything is just going to be great. The food is there. The location is in Miami, Florida. I mean, why not? We have a couple spots left. I think there's like 7 or 8 spots left, and then it's over. I can add your chair anymore, but you legit, if you're not going to come for the education, come for the entertainment, because you're gonna love this.
Dr. Noel Liu:
You said August 7th and 8th, right?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
August 8th and 9th. Thursday, Friday.
Dr. Noel Liu:
8th and 9th. Okay.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
8th and 9th. It's not a weekend. 8th and 9th. You get the weekend to chill with your family.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Got it, August 8th and 9th. Let me see. That's a Thursday and Friday.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Yeah.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Oh, man. You enticing me on this here.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
You, your friends, anybody who's gonna come. I'm telling you, this is gonna be. It's even a time to just relax with like-minded people, with like-minded people. Because the people I can tell you, the people that registered, they are amazing. It's like a mastermind of the best of the best that come to these courses, because they know. And to be the best, you want to be with the best so that you can be better and better and better.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Alrighty, I'm definitely gonna try my best to block that calendar, man. I mean, this sounds amazing. Who else? And then the guy who's actually, I'm using his system, right?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
You have all the answers in front of you. The only one that can stop you is yourself.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Exactly 1,000%. Hey, Jonathan. Thank you so much. I mean, this was an honor and a pleasure to hear your story and the whole process. This is such a great, great thing.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate that.
Dr. Noel Liu:
I'm definitely going to put your link up and also the link to the course as well. So, any last tips before you go?
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
All I can say is we live in a world of social media where what you think you see is real, and it may or may not give you anxiety about it. All I can say to you is love what you do, have passion, and I promise you everything will work out. Don't worry about all the noise. Don't worry about everything else. There's going to be challenges, but you can barrel right through them, as long as you love what you do, you are passionate, and you have the right people around you. So check those three boxes and I promise you you'll be successful.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Man, that's preach right there. I appreciate you.
Dr. Jonathan Abenaim:
Thank you so much.
Dr. Noel Liu:
Hey everyone, we're going to land the plane. This was an amazing, amazing episode. Definitely check us out on our next one and make sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you next time.
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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