https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3QIJ3Zy-9o

Carrie Webber:

Welcome to the next episode of the Jameson Files. I'm Carrie Webber and I'm your host. And I'm so glad to have you back with us for another informational, exciting, and what I think is going to be a very fun episode. I'm really thrilled to have a good friend as our guests that I'll introduce in just a moment, but I do want to encourage all of you that support the Jameson Files community to continue to bring guests and resources and topics that are most important to you. So I want to encourage you to reach out to us here at Jameson and give us your requests and any guests that you want to see in the future. Any topics you want us to cover and tackle for you and with you. That's what we want to be here for.

Also, we appreciate you introducing the Jameson Files to others in the dental community. You can follow us on our Facebook page and watch us live, just like those of you that may be joining the live stream today on the Jameson Facebook page, or you can watch the videos on Facebook or YouTube. And then if you are a podcast person, you can subscribe to the Jameson files anywhere that you listen to podcasts, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it. So join us, stay tuned in, and let us know what you want to hear in the future. 

Digital Dentistry with Dr. Chad Duplantis

So today we're talking digital dentistry and I'm really excited to have my friend, Dr. Chad Duplantis of Fort Worth, Texas, joining us today to talk about this and talk about his journey and what successes he has experienced over time, and perhaps some of the lessons he's learned. So Chad, thank you so much for being with me today.

Dr. Chad Duplantis:

I'm so glad to be here, and you know what? I gotta tell you a story. I'm so glad that we finally got this worked out because I'm sitting here in a closet and I'm watching live on Facebook. And you know, we’re having some technical difficulties and I'm watching you on Facebook and I'm getting this delay. But now all of a sudden it worked out, and I can see you, and we're both actually moving at the same time now on my screen. And so I think the technological difficulties have gone beyond us. So we're good.

Carrie Webber:

See technology, technology. It's a part of our world these days. I mean, we just got to live with it and go with it. Right?

Dr. Chad Duplantis:

Exactly. And I usually don't wear this silly headset.

Carrie Webber:

You look so serious. I mean, you look legit, like, you've got the headset, you've got all the things. So the backstory on Dr Duplantis and how we know each other—we've known each other for several years now through times when we were speaking on the same courses. A lot of opportunities have come your way in the last several years as a speaker, as a key opinion leader, as an instructor. And I've had the privilege of seeing you speak and spending time with you out in the world and watching you teach and seeing what value you're bringing to the dental community. A lot of what you speak on and teach on is digital dentistry. And I'm curious to learn a little bit of your backstory about your journey in dentistry. What led you to incorporate so much digital dentistry, the technology that you have in your practice? What is it that you find led you to make those decisions for how you practice? And how do you go from making that decision to being the teacher and leader in those topics that you are today?

Dr. Duplantis’ Backstory

Dr. Chad Duplantis:

Yeah. So digital dentistry for me goes back to about 2004. I graduated from dental school in 1999. And at that point in time, you know, same-day dentistry was really becoming a hot topic. It was fun. It was a way to possibly eliminate a lab bill, and you know, I learned a lot because in 2004 we incorporated our first piece of digital technology in the office, which was a scanner and a mill combined. But it was an ultimate failure. It wasn't a failure because of the system. It was a failure because we didn't really have the appropriate systems in place to make it an efficient workflow in our practice.

So we spent a hundred thousand dollars on it and three years later, we sold it for $27,000. You can tell that there was not a great return on investment. We did use it quite a bit over those three years. and we backed off for a while and then we got back into it in 2012 and I haven't looked back. I mean, I've taken probably a dozen traditional impressions since 2012, but what's happened over the past nine years is so much more than just digital clinical technology. Digital technology is just what dentistry is all about. And I hope that we get to some of that because it's a life cycle in your practice and for your patients.

Carrie Webber:

I feel like your story is probably a lot of stories out there in terms of how you jumped right into it. You loved the idea of it, but you didn't know how to actualize that successfully in your practice, you know, on that personal implementation level. And do you think that a lot of doctors out there maybe didn't give it that second chance that you did and perhaps this conversation today is that encouragement to take a look again, knowing that it could be a whole different story. How did you get to that point where you wanted to give it that second chance and what did you implement differently to make it so successful for you that second time around?

Dr. Chad Duplantis:

You know, I have a business partner I love dearly. He and I are very close. He's a big brother to me, a mentor, but he's 15 years older and technology wasn't really that important to him. He felt that, you know, I've been doing crowns the same way for the past however many years, so why do I need to change what's been working for me. So the learning curve for him was much steeper than it was for me. And so you've got one doctor that's using it and one doctor that's kind of like, eh, it's not that great. And so when you don't have two doctors that are on the same page, that sometimes leads to failure. In no way, am I blaming him because I kinda got jaded as well, because I don't think that digital technology was where it needed to be in 2004. But now it's definitely there. So one of the things that I teach and that I've learned over the past several years is that integration of digital needs to be systematic. It needs to be methodical, and it needs to be understood by you and your team. They need to understand why you're bringing it into your practice. And if you can check all of those boxes, it's going to be successful.

Key Questions When Implementing Change in Your Dental Practice

Carrie Webber:

I couldn't agree with you more because, you know, you have to start there. I was just doing a presentation on implementing change with the team and talking about how we often get ahead of ourselves. Just using you as an example, you know, in 2004, 2005, you more than likely bought that technology without even really thinking through some of the key questions: 

How will this fit my workflow and the way I practice? What do I need to communicate to my team? How do I need to help them become more comfortable with this so that we're all very successful in incorporating this? Where am I wanting to go as a practitioner? How does this play a role in that? What do we all need to work on together to get really competent and confident in utilizing these tools on a daily basis?

Dr. Chad Duplantis:

A hundred percent, and everybody learns at a different level. And so, you know, what may take me a day, may take somebody else three, and it may take somebody else an hour. So we need to be respectful and mindful of that and not get frustrated with those team members that take it on a little bit slower than the others. And we talked about this last week that we have so much technology in the office right now. And so we're going to just devote time. Every Monday, I have them writing down a list of what they need more help on, and we're going to take an hour out of that day and, you know, make sure everybody gets a lunch because that's really important that everybody gets their lunch, but make sure that we can have that time to go over those pieces of technology and help them improve upon the areas that they need to. And we're going to go back to the basics and start really talking about why we use that technology in the first place, because they need to understand that. I's so important.

Carrie Webber:

Do you find that embracing this much technology in your practice has started attracting particular patients to your practice? Is it a part now of your community reputation as a dentist?

Dr. Chad Duplantis:

Oh, for sure. And we're getting calls asking, “Are you utilizing a digital scanner in your office?” I wouldn't say that's the number one question that people are asking when they're seeking out our office, but we are having patients requesting that because they don't want the goopy impressions anymore. But what we're finding is that when patients have a great experience (and I think technology is a big part of the experience in our practice), that they're telling other people. And so, yeah, when, when, when you have a great experience, you want to share that with other people. I believe technology is one of three key aspects that gets us referrals or people coming into the practice.

Carrie Webber:

Okay, I'm hooked. What are your three key aspects that are bringing people to your practice technology? I mean, what else?

The Importance of Digital Technology in Patient Experience

Dr. Chad Duplantis:

So, I did a lecture a while back, and it was obviously very technology-based, but I talked a lot about the patient experience. You could have a patient “experience” like a waterpark day or serving hotdogs and hamburgers in the parking lot. And that's an experience. But, you know,