Dentists Who Invest Podcast
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Dentists Who Invest Podcast
The Business Of Implants with Dr Pav Khaira DWI-EP285
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Unlock the secrets to balancing profitability and patient care in implant dentistry with Dr. Pav Khaira. Discover how prioritizing patient outcomes can naturally lead to financial success, as Dr. Khaira emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and skill enhancement. Throughout this episode, you'll gain insights into how a patient-centric approach, coupled with curiosity and the analysis of both successes and failures, can enhance both your practice’s bottom line and the quality of care you provide.
Communication is key in every aspect of dentistry. Dr. Khaira shares valuable strategies for mastering both hard and soft skills, emphasizing the impact of effective communication on practice efficiency and patient satisfaction. Learn how to optimize appointment times, offer discounts for multiple procedures, and ensure a seamless patient journey from consultation to treatment. This episode also covers critical moments that shape a clinician's approach, offering inspiration and guidance for professionals at any stage of their careers.
Enhance your dental practice with advanced techniques and a cohesive team. Dr. Khaira discusses the benefits of providing additional services like sedation and Platelet-Rich Fibrin (PRF) therapy, and debunks prevalent myths about implant placements. Understand the importance of maintaining quality while ensuring profitability through efficient techniques and streamlined procedures. Tune in to uncover Dr. Khaira's process for patient consultations, the necessity of competitive pricing, and ways to connect with him for further learning and training opportunities.
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Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional.
Another episode of Dentists Who Invest Podcast, and you know we've been doing a fair amount of finance episodes recently and it's good to bring it back to the clinical dentistry side of things, keeping it real, with Dr Pav Khaira here to talk about everything profitability when it comes to implants. Pav, how are you? I'm good, james, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm always flipping, smashing. Thanks so much for asking, Pav. People may know you from the the dentist invest podcast because you've, of course, been on before. So we're turning face in that sense and you've got your own podcast right indeed, I have.
Dr Pav:Indeed, I have the uh, the dental implant podcast. Uh, I don't, I need to be a bit more prolific on it, but I'm just being really busy. Basically, that's what it comes down to poor excuse, but it's an excuse.
Dr James:You know what, though? Sometimes the people who make the most interesting content, they just make it like laissez-faire whenever they become inspired. Maybe you're one of those content producers.
Dr Pav:Yeah, yeah, I've got some good, really cool stuff to share. I've got some stuff which is just going to over the next few episodes that I've got planned. I've got some stuff which people are just going to be like what? I didn't even know that this was the thing and I like that. I like, I like showing people, yeah, you, you know this stuff that you thought was impossible, it's completely possible. Here's the evidence for it.
Dr James:See, I don't even know about implants, but I get excited about stuff like that right there I'm not I'm not. Part of me is like, oh, what could it be?
Dr Pav:but I probably won't be a closet titani nerd I. I've always known this, that's pretty good titani nerd.
Dr James:You need to tm that. You need to tm that, right, because I still remember you saying that last time. Yeah, but this is the thing there's actually. There's actually a school of thought that says we should only make a content whenever we're feeling like ultra inspired or you know, and there are a lot of people out there who do that sort of stuff and they wait to those moments, not like me.
Dr James:I do three podcasts a week. Everybody's bored of me, bro, everybody's bored of what the hell I'm gonna say? Right, but with someone like you, they come along and they're they're waiting a little bit, but when it comes out, it's worth the wait, I bet. And it sounds like those episodes keep them guessing. Never let them know your next move. Never let them know your next move. Anyway, we should probably talk about what we're supposed to talk about today path, which is profitability and implants. I knew we covered this last time. There's a lot of hacks out there whenever it comes to our implant dentistry and how we can serve the patient to the high standard, because it always starts with that yeah, always starts with that and then, when you do that to the best of your ability, there's scope for you to be remunerated to a higher level. Have I got that right? What are your thoughts on what I just said?
Dr Pav:yeah, so that is absolutely correct. Um, I think when you're focused purely on making money, patients can smell that and they know that that's the case, whereas if you are focused on getting the best outcome for patients, the income will just come by itself further down the line. So it's a thing a lot of people get backwards and, particularly early on in your career, you want to earn the income. You want to earn the money. Particularly for younger colleagues, things may be a little bit tight and you always hear more experienced colleagues and I remember hearing this as well saying that you know, focus on the quality and the money will come by itself. And you're not doing that and you take on cases that maybe you shouldn't be taking on. But as you start to mature and get on and get on with things and you have your fingers burnt several times, because that's happened to me plenty as well you start to realise hang on. No, there's a certain hierarchy of everything and it always starts with patient centric first. And that's really important because that's the cornerstone of what we do as healthcare professionals, and if it's any other way, you are setting yourself up for potential problems. So it's always patient-centric first. So the question then becomes right. How do we start to generate income with implants? And the first thing that I will say there and this is something that I've said many, many times before and I still stand by it you need to upskill, and it's not just into implants, because people think you do a quick implant course, and I've got delegates on my academy where they've even done an MSC and they're still like we need to know more to deliver a higher standard of care to our patients. So one aspect of it is ramping up your knowledge. Then you need to ramp up the I always talk about muscle memory, so it's doing enough cases that you can build up the skill, and that's kind of like a time game, okay.
Dr Pav:So if you stay committed to the process and what I always say is stay curious, right. And what I mean by that is if something goes right, great. Why did it go right? How can I replicate that next time and how can I even improve on that next time, right. And if something doesn't go right, you still stay curious. So, instead of blaming yourself, instead of blaming the patient or instead of blaming the lab, like we all do, because they're not there in the room, it's easy to blame them right Is what you do? Is you stay curious? Why didn't this go according to plan? How can I prevent this happening next time? Could I have done anything to prevent it? So the game is really simple, is just to stay curious, okay.
Dr Pav:So when you stay curious and you commit to learning and you commit to expanding your skills, what you'll find is, over time, you'll start to separate yourself from what most people are doing, and I think that's really really important if you want to start to generate significant income with implants, because you need to be at a point where you are not just good, but you are really damn good at what you do, and that comes across to patients as well. So when I'm expressing what patients need to have done, I can say it with complete confidence. It doesn't matter what needs to be done for the patient, because I know that I've had the training and the mentoring to execute what I'm recommending for the patient. So the issue that you have is when you first start with implants. You think to yourself cool, I'm going to do simple cases and you start advertising for implants and you get all these simple cases coming in, but you can't filter out in your marketing simple cases from complex cases. You just market implants and off the back of that, naturally, you just get people coming in who are having more complex cases. You just market implants and off the back of that, naturally you just get people coming in who are having more complex needs. So this is what I'm saying is, if you don't continue to expand your skills, you're going to hit a ceiling. Now some people are quite happy, and that's fine, that's not a problem. It may be that people just want to do delayed implants and healed ridges and refer everything else out or get somebody else in to do it. That's absolutely fine. But the profitability starts to come when you can do things quickly without cutting corners, because you're just confident at what you're doing. So that that's that. That that's one element of of of the profitability of it.
Dr Pav:Another side of it, um, I would say, is so I have another thing, um, and it's you need to understand the evidence to such a deep level that you can call marketing, that you can call companies out on their marketing bullshit, because implants and biomaterials and regeneration it's very, very lucrative for the companies selling these products, so they come out with all sorts of outlandish claims. When they come out with these outlandish claims. You need to be able to assess and turn around and say to them sorry, that's complete bullshit, that's not how biology works, or hang on, there might be something here. Let me look into it and this is why, um, I say that you know, there's a lot of things that, um, uh, that that that we can implement which will give better outcomes for patients. It will give faster outcomes for patients, and that is another aspect of it that we need to be able to filter that out, because what will happen is a lot of your profit can be chewed up and taken by.
Dr Pav:If you're doing set fees for certain procedures, that you're using really expensive products, and the question becomes is do you need to use those really expensive products? Can you get the exact same result by using something else? Or is it that actually, yeah, these really expensive products, they do work, but you need to increase your fees to cover the cost of it? And I think it's a blend of different things. And the last kind of crux of it for me as well is your communication skills have to be on point. You've probably had guests talk about this before. If you cannot communicate with patients, forget about it. It's game over. You are not doing any big cases, okay.
Dr Pav:So I am a very, very big introvert. I can quite come. People said you know, if everybody on the planet disappeared and you know you were the last person on Earth, how would you feel? I was like I'd be quite relaxed about it because I'd be like, oh cool, I don't have to speak to anybody. So I'm a severe introvert. In fact I was.
Dr Pav:I had a trip over to Germany, to the Meisinger factory about a year ago, and when I got to the hotel it was kindly provided by Meisinger. But there was a bit of an issue because when I went upstairs to my room there was no bed in the room. There was a conference table and I was like there's some sort of mistake. And as a normal person you think to yourself oh, the easy thing to do is go downstairs and say you know, I think there might have been a bit of a mistake because there's no bed in my room, and that was the first thing that came across my mind.
Dr Pav:But then the introvert sat up and went. But then they're going to call the manager, there's going to be this whole awkward apology, there's going to be this, that, the other. So I actually I messaged my um, I messaged my travel agent and I said to him this is where I am. I need for you to sort out a hotel for the next two days and I need it. I need it in the next half hour because for me, checking in in another hotel is more comfortable than going downstairs and having an awkward conversation, right?
Dr James:but that's slightly better than where I thought you were going to. Thought you were going to say you slept on the table you were like I need a comfortable place to sleep.
Dr Pav:I need a comfortable place, but that that aspect. So that's one aspect of my personality. The other aspects of my personality I'm a very driver type person, so I like everything bullet pointed, which means when I'm speaking to patients I quite often bullet point things back, and I've learned over the years that a those two combinations has landed me in hot water on a number of occasions because patients perceive it as aggressive and dismissive. So I've learned over the years that it doesn't matter how I feel. I need to understand how the patients want to be treated, how they want to be communicated with. And, as uncomfortable as it can make me sometimes is, I have to step my game up because that's the right thing to do for the patients. And what I noticed is, as my communication skills increased the patients. Firstly, they went ahead with more treatment. And secondly is, if something didn't quite go according to plan, they're more amenable for me to fixing it. Because what it's about at the end of the day, james, is relationships. You know you're doing something invasive for somebody. They need to have trust in you and if they don't have that trust in you, you're not the right person for the job. And sometimes I will turn around and say to the patients if I feel that they're putting me under pressure or I feel like they're a personality mismatch, I'll just turn around and say to them I don't think I'm the right person to do this treatment for you. And if they turn around and say, but I really want for you to do it, I'll just dig my heels in and say, look, I'll refer you to some colleagues that I trust they're very, very good, but I'm not the right person to do that for you. And the flip side of that as well is so my driver type personality the polar opposite to that is the is what they call when you talk about disk profiling. It's the. It's the C type personality. Ok, and that C type personality is your typical accountant librarian. They will want an a huge amount of information before they can make a decision and they won't make decisions quickly. I will make a decision like that and I won't even think things through, and you know that's just my personality type.
Dr Pav:So sometimes what happens is, when I'm speaking to these patients, whether the polar opposite type of myself. I've got to remind myself up here be patient with this person. They just need that. They need that patience from you. And I also explained to them. I said, look, I said I can see that you're the type of person that likes a lot of detail. Just to let you know, my personality type is the polar opposite. I'll just bullet point everything. So I say to them you feel free to ask as many questions as you want. I said don't think that you're rushing me or anything like that. I said it's just my personality type. I said so if you've got any questions, you just keep asking until you're happy.
Dr Pav:And it's a combination of, I would say the hard skills are one aspect of it, but when you learn to speak to patients, that's what will unlock your career, not just in dentistry, but not just in implant dentistry, but any field in dentistry. It will unlock your career, in any career. Ok, that ability to be able to speak to patients and speak to people is really important. And there are people who out there who have made careers just teaching people how to communicate, because it is that important. And there are people out there who've made careers just teaching people how to communicate because it is that important. So now what you can see is we're building this bedrock, so we've got good marketing, which is not always easy to do. We've got good communication with skills, skills with patients, and then we're starting to enhance our skills as well. So this is where the fun stuff really begins.
Dr Pav:Okay, because over a period of time, as your skills increase, you will naturally get faster at doing things. But you're not compromising anything, okay. So what I mean by that is the very first implant that I placed. It took me the best part of three hours to place it. It was in the wrong position. I couldn't even use it. I had to take it out and start again.
Dr Pav:If I've got a healed ridge now and there's like plenty of bone for me to put an implant in, from the patient coming in the chair to leaving out nine, ten minutes, it doesn't take long. But I haven't built that skill overnight. You know I've made the mistakes to learn from it. I've done repetition after repetition after repetition. I don't do any general dentistry at all. I solely focus on implants. So that's where I've been able to refine my skill. So what happens naturally over time? Able to to refine my skill. So what happens naturally over time, the amount of time that you need per appointment starts to reduce. Okay.
Dr Pav:And then the magic really happens when the patients need multiple implants, because now it's not just price per procedure, but now you are magnifying your hourly rate as well, which is really important. So sometimes I will give my patients a discount if they're having four implants done at the same time, because I know I'm not booking out any more chair time. If I'm booking out an hour for placement because my nurses need to time out afterwards, I can place either one implant or four or five implants in that same time in a yield ridge, and that's when we need to start thinking a little bit differently. Does that all make sense? Yes, so. So it's not just price per procedure. You need to look at price per procedure whether it's profitable. So you need to know what your overheads are, but you also need to look at what your hourly rate is and whether you can do something in multiples and offer a reduction to the patient. So the patient's happy, but your hourly rate actually increases.
Dr James:Awesome man, listen, thank you for that, because those right there are words of wisdom and they signpost the journey of not just an implant dentist but also, more broadly speaking, most clinicians. Do you know what I think would be really fun to get into? Right? So, obviously you've been on this journey. Everybody goes on a journey, right, whenever they learn a skill set or they, they become involved in a profession or really just in lots of areas in your life. Everything is a journey, so to speak.
Dr James:So you've been on this journey whenever it comes to your implants, right, and naturally, to bring it back to what we were saying at the start, what we both are aligned on, what we both agree on, is that it starts with giving as much value as you possibly can, right, and there'll be certain epiphanies on that during during making progress on that front. There'll have been certain paradigm shifts for you, like seminal moments, and I'm so, oh wow, I'm so excited, right, that you said that. Right, because I'm so curious to hear what those were for you, because there'll be people out there who are listening this podcast. You're at varying stages of their journeys and one of these things that could come out of your mouth right now might just be that seminal thing for them.
Dr Pav:So there's a number of aspects that we start to look at. One of the easiest things to do is look at other services that you can offer the patients to give them better outcomes, which requires a certain amount of upskilling from yourself, not just relating to implants. So now we're talking about sedation. Now we're talking about PRF, so taking blood, mixing it and plasma, because what can happen is, let's say, you're booking out an hour and a half for an implant placement. Okay, if you were going to offer sedation, you may charge 300 pounds, 250 pounds You're still only going to book sedation. You may charge £300, £250. You're still only going to book that hour and a half. If you're going to add PRF into the mix, you may charge a couple of hundred quid for that. You're still only booking out that hour and a half. So now what's happening is you are starting to offer more value for the patient, and it always has to be patient centric. Are these patients nervous? Would they benefit from the sedation? Would they benefit from PRF? Prf is wonderful, absolutely amazing, okay. And then the next aspect is as well, you know is okay If you're not doing immediate placements. You need to learn how to do immediate placements, and it's not just the what most people think are immediate placements, where you have to have X Y, z is because a lot of people think are immediate placements. Or you have to have X Y, z is because a lot of people think you need really thick bone, really thick gum tissue to be able to do immediates. And that's not the case at all. You know, you can have extremely compromised teeth, extremely compromised sites, and there are techniques out there, very predictably, where you can do immediate placements. So now what's happening is you start to offer not only immediate placements where you can do immediate placements. So now what's happening is you start to offer not only immediate placements but you can do immediate placements that 97 percent of implant dentists perceive as to be impossible because they say haven't got enough bone. How are you going to place an immediate implant? It's like watch me and then I do it, and they turn around and say how did you do that? I said I told you, you just didn't believe me. So it's, it's looking at all of these multiple layers.
Dr Pav:Okay, another epiphany that I had over uh, over time as well, is that every time that you upskill, you've got to introduce that, you've got to learn that skill, so it will slow you down a little bit and then you'll pick up speed again at it. And patients really value quality. They really value quality. So I charge uh higher than average for implants. And if a patient says, uh, you know, joe blogs down the road can do a thousand pounds cheaper, 1500 quid cheaper I'll just tell her I say sure, if, if, if, that's, if, that's what you want, that I've got no problems with that. But they're not doing it the way that I do it. Like, if you want me to do it the way that I do it, using my protocols, these are my charges.
Dr Pav:And when you start to have these conversations with uh, with patients, and you're confident about it, they will have the treatment with you and they'll be prepared to pay more because they trust you and they see that you have a skillset that warrants that. So if you've got a patient coming in and they're having an implant, you're doing guided surgery. They've been to three other consultations. They've all said that they can't do an immediate implant because there's not enough bone. And you're like, yeah, it's cool, it's easy, it's fine, and you're adding sedation and you're adding PRF and you're adding this. All of a sudden, patients prepare to pay a lot, okay.
Dr Pav:The other thing that I've noticed as well is some techniques take a lot of time, and what happens from a clinical perspective? It's nice, it's very satisfying to be able to offer all of these techniques and be able to do all these techniques, but sometimes they can take so much time to clinically execute that it significantly reduces your profitability. It's not to say it's not the right thing to do for the patients, and sometimes you have to do that. But you have to be aware that, okay, if I'm going to add this in, I have to charge more, otherwise there's no point in doing it, or you look at alternative methods, which is still going to give you a great result. For example, a lot of people when they're doing soft tissue grafting around implants, which is critical for all implants okay, it's my opinion. Probably about 98% of implants need soft tissue grafting on some level or another, but it's actually very rarely done.
Dr Pav:Normally, when you add that skill into your armamentarium, it's another half half an hour of of of of clinical time. If you get really good at it, you'll be able to do it in about 15 minutes, but that's if you get really good at it, and I found out a way to do it in 90 seconds. 90 seconds, 90 seconds, yeah. So now I've got a way to maintain quality, give the patients an optimized outcome without it hitting my chair time. And when you start to, when you understand the biology and the biomechanics on a deep, deep, deep level, this is when you can start to be clever with things.
Dr Pav:So I now have certain cases not all cases, because the criteria are very specific. I now have certain cases where I can place the implant, do bone and soft tissue grafting and fit the definitive crown in one visit. So there's no healing time, coming later taking impressions and then doing this, doing that, fitting another crown, because that might be. Even then I I still believe that should be two appointments. Okay, you should, you should. You should place your implant, should take your impressions, you should fit. That's it.
Dr Pav:I'm not a fan of get the patient back in for this. If the patient has a problem, they will call you, right, you can put it in where your, your support team, calls the patients. After a week is everything fine, is everything comfortable, and you should have the confidence that actually you know what your surgical skills are, that good. You don't have to see the patients all the time. You know, I see I see a lot of people where they'll place the implant. They'll review the patient a week later, four weeks later. If you're doing something complex, you may want to do that, but if it's a straightforward implant, I personally don't. And, as I said, I now have the protocols in place where I can do everything in a single visit. And do you know what happens, mate? Patients love it Because patients are like well, joe Bloggs, down the road, said it was going to take six months to do.
Dr Pav:I mean, I had to have 15 appointments and you're saying you can do it into one. Yep, how can you do it in one? Because I'm confident at what I do, because this is all that I do. How much are you going to charge for it? I'm going to charge you two thousand pounds more than what Joe Bloggs is charging. When can we start?
Dr Pav:So it's not only becoming quick with things, and when I say speed, I'm not implying compromising quality. There are certain cases which are difficult. It forces me to slow down, but, as with everything, the more that you do it, the quicker you get at it right. And it's not just understanding, but it's understanding what you can combine together in certain surgeries and how the data is collected from diagnostics all the way up to restoration, and you know. The other thing as well is, you know, I talk about accelerated treatment protocols as well.
Dr Pav:So I treat the implant surfaces so that they integrate better and faster, and that's something else that the patient's like as well, because I don't have many problems. Yes, I do have them. I have some. I still have catastrophic ones now and again. That's the nature of what we do. But what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to.
Dr Pav:Anybody who turns around and they say that they don't have any complications. They either place two implants per year or they are lying to you. Ok, everybody has complications. They just don't post it on Facebook, ok. Apart from Bill Schaefer, because he's the nicest guy and he's open and honest with everything he's like, here are my failures. I've got a lot of love for Bill because he will openly say I messed this up or I did this. It didn't work, and that garners a lot of respect because he's such an experienced and such a top, top person. So Bill's fantastic to learn from.
Dr Pav:But what I'm expressing, james, is as well as your skill levels going up and the knowledge going up now you can start to play, and when you're playing you can start to play.
Dr Pav:And when you're playing you can start to reduce your treatment times, reduce your chair times. And, as I said, I've now got it down to in certain instances, patient comes in for a consultation, uh, they come back for everything and they're done, that's it out the door. And not only is that significantly less chair time, but I actually charge more for that service as well. And the reason why I can charge more for that service is because nobody else is doing it. You know how many other people out there are doing everything and fitting the definitive restoration at the time of implant placement. I've heard of one person maybe doing it, and the cases that I've done so far are going absolutely swimmingly. And I'm not doing that purely for the sake of make as much money as possible. There's biological and mechanical reasons why it's better for the patient as well. So, better for the patient priority, better for the business, better for me.
Dr James:There's a good analogy there on what you've just said. Right, if you're going to get the train from point a to point b, there's two trains. One takes an hour, another takes 30 minutes. Right, which one are you going to pay more for, exactly? Yeah, but we all have this whole time equals money thing in our head on some subconscious level, and it's not just a binary thing. It's like a, a continuum for most people, and you need to force yourself as far away as possible to the other side of the continuum, which is actually its value more than anything else. Right, and focus on that. Everything else flows from there. Pav, you're a flipping fountain of knowledge. Seriously, man, I get the impression we're like scratching the surface of what you have to offer today. Do you know what?
Dr James:One more really quick thing that I wanted to ask you on in this podcast today, we talked about giving loads of value. Was it a value per unit time? And what we're giving to the patient? What about efficiency? Yeah, as in what we do in terms of our clinical procedures that make it as efficient as possible, let's, and let's say maybe, let's, maybe, let's look beyond the treatment that we're giving right here, right now. Maybe more just like backroom coordination or communication between you and the nurse and things along those lines. The logistics, the logistics of implants.
Dr Pav:Yeah, so everything needs to be as red hot as possible. Ok, so I work in a number of different practices and I'm very picky about the practices that I work in as well, but there are some practices which really excel. And those practices which really excel, they all have certain things in common, and what they have in common is they have a very clear vision. And what they have in common is they have a very clear vision, a practice owner who is very specific about what he or she expects and a team that's bought into that. And what happens is the practice owner also understands that without the team, nothing works, because a lot of people out there unfortunately think oh, the brand is what works. The team secondary is when you've got this synergy of the team that's brought in and the practice owner or owners really looking after the team, that's when everybody pushes the business. All of these practices, they've all had communications training on front desk, which is really important, and that then segues into tco the teeth.
Dr Pav:The more data that I can have before the patient comes in, the easier it is for me and the smoother the rest of the process is going to be. So I like to have one-hour consultation appointments, okay, and sometimes a patient comes in they're good to go and I only need 10 minutes. Cool, I'll be twiddling my thumbs for another 50 minutes writing notes, sending out consent letters. But what that hour allows me to do is, firstly, consult the patient, get to know them a little bit, chat to them, take a CBCT, explain to them what needs to be done and then whether or not they are ready to go ahead or not. Because some patients are like cool, ready, let's go ahead. Fine's, let's connect the next set of data, and some patients like I'm not sure yet. So I'm like I understand, you're not sure. What I want to do for you is I just want to scan your teeth. I'll take an intraoral scan and I turn around and say to him because it's just going to save another appointment for you to come back and see me. I said if you don't have treatment done, I said I'm not charging you for this, so, but if you do want to have treatment done, I can start making your surgical guide. So by doing that at that same appointment, you're saving another appointment for the patients coming back. So it's combining as much as.
Dr Pav:So what I want is, at that consultation appointment, take all the diagnostic data that I'm going to need as well, okay, and then at that point, I will formulate the consent letter and send it out as well. So it's all done within that hour. I use an app called Chairside to help with it, because it shows like little animations. I can attach my consent to it. It emails it out. Once I've emailed that out to the patient, I email it to the TCO as well, and I also have a WhatsApp chat group with my nursing team and I turn around and say right, this patient, this is what we're going to do, this is what their treatment cost is. The consent letter's gone out, they booked, or, if they haven't booked, I tag the nurse who's responsible. I'll say to them I want for you to follow up this patient in in 48 hours. So I do everything that I, everything that I can, and at that point, I leave it because I've delegated it and, uh, I, I expect the nursing team to do it and if you're in a good practice like that, they will do it. Okay, and then, at that point, I'm I've already formulated my treatment plan and I don't need to bring the patients back.
Dr Pav:And the other thing that we can do as well is as well as making our surgical logistics slick in terms of everything as well, is we can make our our appointments slick as well. So you can just add that first consultation appointment. Just book all the appointments that the patients are going to need, as opposed to one at a time, so say, right, okay, the next appointment is going to be implant placement. I need this length of time, and then, eight weeks after that, we're going to take impressions. Two weeks after that, we're going to fit everything. I need half an hour for impressions and 20 minutes to fit, and if it's all booked in, then it just makes it all nice and smooth for everybody.
Dr Pav:The other thing that I'm a great believer in as well is using a good quality lab. Now, this also ties in with something else that I'm not a believer in competing with Joe Bloggs down the road, because if I do implants at 3,000, they do it for 2,750. I can drop it to 2,500. They can drop it to 2,200. It's a race to the bottom. I'm deliberately more expensive because I'm confident of what I do, and I don't believe we should be doing a race to the bottom, because everybody's business is different. Some people can afford to charge 2,500 pounds because they've paid off their business loan, doing a race to the bottom because everybody's business is different. You know, some people can afford to charge two and a half thousand pounds because they've paid off their business loan and other people have got a massive, whacking business loan. They have to charge another thousand pounds on top of that. So it's not as straightforward as you just charge a straight bank blanket fee.
Dr Pav:So then what happens is that's where the building the differentiating skill set comes in. Building a good practice, a good team around you, that's where the building the differentiating skill set comes in. Building a good practice, a good team around you, that's where that comes in. So when the patient comes in to see you, they understand what you do is different, because it's different to anything else they've ever experienced before. And then again, same with the lab.
Dr Pav:Use a good quality lab. They might charge you another 100, 150, maybe even 200 pounds, but I want a crown fit to be done five minutes, don't want to touch the occlusion because I'm lazy. And this is what I say to my team, and I joke, and I say this to my patients as well. I say I'm lazy, I want to do this as efficiently as what I possibly can for you and give you the best quality outcome in as least time as possible. Patients go love it Because patients are busy. People think if you charge more you've got to bring the patient back more and more times. You know, bring the patient back less and charge them more Because you just turn around and say to them I'm charging you more because I know how to do it and for your appointment.
Dr James:The patients will go. Thank God, god, because I can't keep coming back for this backdrop. Yeah, I'm gonna say what I said earlier. Again, I feel like we're just scratching the surface of your knowledge here and I feel like we could probably make like a podcast out of each and every section or those things that we talked about and you know what maybe I should right, yeah, there you go inspo, bro.
Dr James:Hashtag inspo, hashtag inspo. There we go. Listen, mate, honestly, like I don't even really know that much about implants. It was a big black hole in my uh dental knowledge back in the day. I know a little bit, you know. I know what an implant is let's say that but I certainly don't know anything about placement uh, that's for sure. But you know what your enthusiasm is, so frigging infectious about implants that I actually want to go and learn about implants, even though I haven't been in clinical dentistry for three and a half years. So it speaks more than about you, Pav. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge on the Dentistry Invest podcast today. If anybody wants to reach out to Dr Pav, where are they best off finding you, mate?
Dr Pav:um, so, um, you can reach out to me on uh, instagram, uh, drpavcarer, uh, or go to the website academy of implant excellence. Um, because that's the, you can just fill out a form, uh, that that that's, that's the platform that I use to to train and all the courses and stuff are on there. But those reaching out either through the website or Instagram are normally the easiest ways to to to, to get in contact with me.
Dr James:Top stuff. Well, listen, Pav. Thank you so much for your time Once again, the series that you didn't hope. You have an absolute evening and weekend and I'm looking forward to getting you back on the podcast super soon. A hundred percent, Thanks.
