Innovative Orthodontics growing with DentalMonitoring

In 2008, Dr. Dan Bills started Innovative Orthodontics with one location in New Jersey. Over the next decade, he used technology to deliver efficient care and grow his practice, adding two more locations and two associate orthodontists. Dr. Bills’s wife, Dr. Emily Eilerman, expanded the practice to include pediatric dentistry with a focus on clinical excellence and technology.

While Dr. Bills is an orthodontist with an interest in new technology, he doesn’t consider himself an early adopter. Instead, he’s happy to learn from his colleagues’ experiences before making a purchase and bringing it to his team. He had been watching DentalMonitoring for years before utilizing it to improve his patients’ treatment experience. In 2018, he began using asynchronous, virtual visit apps, but at that stage, remote monitoring was more useful as a marketing tool for the practice than as a clinical tool for improving treatment outcomes. Dr. Bills initially considered remote monitoring as a tool to compete with direct-to-consumer orthodontics. As that segment of the orthodontic market collapsed, the pandemic created a whole new need for remote monitoring as everyone struggled to see patients. Patients appreciated the convenience of the asynchronous appointments and the new patient process. Additionally, Innovative Orthodontics has nearly 3,000 patients in observation because of the pediatric component of the practice, so remote care became useful for managing those appointments.

Before implementing DentalMonitoring, Dr. Bills explains, remote monitoring took too much doctor and staff time to manage. They started working on virtual and remote care options to make the treatment experience more convenient for patients, but that didn’t mean the practice staff was sharing in the convenience. ”We created a remote treatment platform using barebones technology to stay open during COVID. We realized then that patients loved it, and they wanted it to stay. We started searching for a better solution and onboarded DentalMonitoring 2 years ago.”

Dr. Bills knew his team was ready to onboard DentalMonitoring because he’d been discussing the platform with them and showing them parts of it for years. He’d built trust with his team about new technology; they know he’s vetted each new tool he brings to the practice and that they aren’t getting “a shiny toy” he brought back from a trade show. “After 2 years of using DentalMonitoring,” he says, “I want to go back and kick myself for not bringing it on sooner. The AI component of DentalMonitoring has made our lives so much simpler.”

The key to success, Dr. Bills explains, was going all in with DentalMonitoring from day one. “Aligner patients, braces patients, retention patients, and observation patients all get DentalMonitoring. We use DM Engage as a lead management tool, which is helping us with new patient growth.”

Dr. Bills had already recognized that allocating chair time for pretreatment observation patients was wasteful for everyone involved. With DentalMonitoring fully integrated into the practice workflow, “The team immediately saw how AI-powered monitoring was the robust platform we needed. Our headcount has decreased through attrition by one or two team members while the practice has grown. Production has increased, but our number of doctor days needed has decreased.”

“My remote care coordinator utilizes the DentalMonitoring AI to troubleshoot just about anything. When there is a question that needs a doctor’s attention, they’re able to get that directly. DentalMonitoring decreased my digital homework, and I can accomplish more during business hours.”

Treatment philosophy

Dr. Bills’ treatment philosophy is focused on delivering what patients want and deserve. As he tells it, it boils down to three key elements: great patient experience, clinical excellence, and optimal efficiency.

Great patient experience

From the first phone call to the last visit, we make sure that patients feel like they’re part of the family.

Clinical excellence

Clinical excellence is the bare minimum. Every patient expects a great smile, and we make sure to deliver upon that.

Shortest treatment times

People are busy and want the quickest treatment without sacrificing great outcomes.

Efficiency

According to Gaidge, the national average of months in treatment is 27, with an average of 19 visits. For Dr. Bills, that number is too high. “We’ve always embraced the patient side of this journey. We believe that excellent work and efficient treatment is a win-win. If you care about efficiency at all, DentalMonitoring is a solution to a real problem that we all have.”

Emergencies

For Dr. Bills, there are no emergencies in orthodontics. “We call them comfort checks.” His practice now uses DentalMonitoring to triage when someone calls or messages over the app and says they have a broken bracket and need to come in. This is where the patient experience and clinical efficiency meet. The team makes sure that patients know they’re receiving immediate care via the DentalMonitoring app, and they will make sure the patients are out of discomfort as soon as possible. “We let the patients know that they’re taken care of, then send them a scan request and get eyes on the situation immediately,” Dr. Bills explains. With DentalMonitoring scans, the team knows how to schedule the patient’s next appointment. “We’re finding that nearly half of those appointments don’t require an office visit. We no longer have any surprises on those visits,” Dr. Bills says.

Referrals

One way to get referrals, Dr. Bills knows from experience, is to partner with a pediatric dentist. Another good way is to use technology. For Dr. Bills, both have worked out great. He met his wife, Dr. Emily Eilerman, through the dental community. They have a daughter, “who just became a better skier than me,” Dr. Bills proudly shares.

It’s common for orthodontic practices to spend time and money buying snacks and drinks for referring dentists; however, Dr. Bills explains, “Our community appreciates the fact that we use technology that makes the patient experience better.” General practitioners continually hear how much patients love DentalMonitoring and the convenience that it brings them so the practice has become known in their region as an efficient and convenient practice. Dr. Bills has been teaching about the need for efficiency and the way that DentalMonitoring allows him to boost the value-per-visit of every treatment. He says, “Our referral base knows that their patients are not going to have their time wasted.”

Dr. Bills loves the DM Insights component of DentalMonitoring, explaining, that “DM Insights data means you can’t hide.” The Innovative Orthodontics team is focused on clinical efficiency. “We use DM Insights to validate our efficiency, but I see how it would also help other orthodontists become more efficient as they pull reports on breakages and treatment planning.”

Prioritizing growth might seem more logical because some inefficiency won’t hurt practices that aren’t feeling the pressure in their schedule. Dr. Bills is very clear that this is an unacceptable choice. He says, “There’s no such thing as being 100% efficient, but efficiency needs to be central to your treatment philosophy. You’re stealing the time you need to grow if you let your team and procedures take longer than necessary.”

Data

One part of DentalMonitoring is the powerful DM Insights data hub, which Dr. Bills uses as a quality management system. With close to no additional work for his team, he’s able to explore practice data and validate their efficiency. While there’s no such thing as 100% efficiency, there’s honesty in data that lets Dr. Bills know that he’s delivering the level of care that patients deserve. “We can use DM Insights and see that we are well below the national average for breakage rates and other issues; it makes sure that we’re not fooling ourselves. We aim for excellence and clinical efficiency at every step of treatment, every appointment. DM Insights data shows the success of that intentionality.”

But efficiency is more than a set of numbers; it’s a way of practicing. Dr. Bills says, “I can sit down with my team and DM Insights and look at bond failure rates using real numbers. We can get granular, and look at outliers, people with the most breakage or attachment loss, and use it in our training to help individual assistants improve.”

Partnering with DentalMonitoring

Dr. Bills can’t help but express his enthusiasm for the new releases that DentalMonitoring has been working on. “It’s really fun to work with a company as visionary as DentalMonitoring. I don’t see any other companies attempting to innovate at this speed. It’s amazing to just have a group of people who are all rowing the boat in the same direction. There are some companies out there that haven’t made a new product in 20 years. I can’t think of another company in orthodontics that is trying to continue to develop tools to make our lives easier and our patients’ lives better.”

He explains that DentalMonitoring CEO Philippe Salah has been teasing the upcoming product release of DentalMonitoring+, which features updated 3D models based on remote scans. Dr. Bills can’t wait to get his hands on the new tool to monitor and customize treatment. “I’ve never been this excited about where the profession is going and where technology is going as I am today. DentalMonitoring+ will be the new standard of care.”

Orthodontic education

Dr. Bills is on the faculty at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches a year-long mini-residency on technology-based solutions. He also teaches an annual in-office course for working practitioners looking to increase practice efficiency. “We talk through all the different technological options in the orthodontic office from patient acquisition, marketing, clinical treatment efficiencies, digital workflows, retention, patient experience, and experiential branding.” His takeaway from his time teaching is that the next generation is not only embracing this, they’re demanding technological innovation.

“I started my residency the year after Invisalign® started and was able to use it during my residency, but other programs at that time did not allow clear aligners in their program.” The correlation for Dr. Bills is that DentalMonitoring and remote care are just as transformative for the orthodontic industry as the clear aligners. “The spirit of technological revolution of 2000 to 2001 is happening again in 2024 and 2025. It’s exciting that educational programs are putting this into the hands of residents.”