Finding balance

I’ve worked for over 2 decades as an orthodontist. These have been great years. I was able to work with my father and hope that someday I will be able to work with one of my four sons in the practice. In a sense, orthodontics is my life. Treating patients has given shape to my life, connected me to my community, given me challenges, and provided interesting experiences that have changed how I see the world. I have built many friendships through my work as a lecturer and adjunct professor.

But at the same time, orthodontics is not the entirety of my life. As practitioners, we need other meaningful things in our lives to protect us from burnout. The truth is, you can’t spend all your time at work. At this point in my life, I am looking for balance. I want to spend as much time as possible with my wife and four sons without compromising my professional standards of providing quality orthodontic care and facilitating a fantastic work environment for my team.

The conventional thinking used to be that if you wanted to maximize your profitability, you needed to build a big practice, fill it with a lot of chairs, hire a large staff, and then market your practice to dentists and your community. That was what success looked like.

But I believe all of that has changed. For me, it has become more interesting to think about growing your practice without carrying big overhead costs. This can free us up to achieve the same, if not more, financial success without feeling burdened by huge operating costs and the need to work all the time. In my opinion, the best way to do that is by implementing remote monitoring into your practice.

By going All-In with DentalMonitoring, I feel free to work the way I want to. I can increase the number of patients we treat while reducing my doctor-days by streamlining our schedule. We receive clinical notifications from the AI that allow me to elevate the standard of care I can provide. The AI-driven technology allows us to eliminate some of the extraneous work for my staff, which makes them happier and more relaxed at work.

But the biggest benefit of DentalMonitoring is what it does for patients. It makes treatment easier for busy patients to finish treatment on time and trims the amount of time they need to spend in our office. This is what the future of patient choice looks like.

AI-driven remote monitoring doesn’t tell us how to treat our patients. Instead, it empowers us to transform the orthodontic experience into the best possible version for patients, staff, parents, and doctors. It’s a whole new world, and I look forward to seeing how it will change our industry for the better.