 Hello, everybody. Andrew Meyske here with Dental Tutoring. So this video will be a very interesting video because it's going to be more of something that I feel that the public should know. This is a good watch for anybody in the dental profession, but anybody in the public too. If you are in the dental profession, you will be watching this and listening and being like, yes, yes, somebody's actually saying it. So let's talk about it. So I was actually talking to a group of dental hygienists just last weekend. And the funny thing is was I was looking through my Social media and one of the posts on a dental hygiene private group was about this exact thing. And the post is I'm not going to read it. But I'm just going to going to give you guys the key points and I do have it here just so I don't forget anything. But basically we all talk about nurses and, you know, teachers, we talk about hospitals and how things are changing so much, you know, they always want to hire less nurses. But the nurses that are being hired are, you know, overworked, underpaid. Same thing with teachers. They want to hire less teachers and pay teachers less, but look at what's happening with our kids these days. Things just aren't what they used to be. Now it's the same thing with the dental profession. Things are not the same as what they used to be. And for those of us who have been doing this for a long time, I've And I say only, like I have only been doing this for about 14 years. For those who have been doing this for 20 plus years, they have Really seen things change. And that is the dental profession as a whole. So I'm just going to check my post here for Somebody else's post here for a second. So we were all talking And basically saying how things have changed, but not always for the better either. Now let me just quickly say that I love Being a dental hygienist and I wouldn't have any other way, but I'm also starting to work for myself because that to me is the best thing. And that's treating my patients how I want to be treated. So let me talk about this a little bit. So the dental offices these days and I'm not picking apart any office. It might not even be all offices. So of course, this isn't for all offices. But dental offices these days. They're so I guess focused on their bottom line and that hurts us as dental assistants dental hygienists because we are typically Overworked underpaid. We have to do more and more and more but be paid less and less and less because our boss just keeps on saying there's no money In the budget. Yes, yet they have to have the latest computer technology. They have to have the latest equipment They have to do, you know, in a dental implants on every single patient and we're just back there saying, okay, We're here to educate the patient and teach them how to maintain proper oral health proper tooth care, how to understand that. Yes, if your mouth is not healthy, you're, you are not the healthiest either. But now It's switched so much where we are just pretty much talked to sell, sell, sell. I shouldn't say talk, but we are told In a lot of offices where, okay, well, you have to make this amount per patient. So do whatever you can to make that amount. It doesn't matter if they have hardly any plaque. Well, if they don't have a lot of plaque, then that means that you should be taking x-rays then on this patient. You should be doing this. You should be Pushing this treatment, you know, of course, I'm saying all of this very loosely, you know, the dentist would never come out and say push this treatment. But the dentist might look at the chart and say, oh, well, this patient has severe wear on their teeth. They have insurance through themselves and through their husband. So let's talk to them about crowds about full mouth crowds. Yes, they didn't go out and say, you know, we want to get as much money as we can for them. But when they start talking about insurance right away, that kind of implies that's what they're doing. Not all the time. But this makes me, so I'll just say me then. This makes me as a hygienist very concerned because I don't even pay attention to insurance. I don't because I am focused on that patient, that patient's health and what they need. I'm not saying that I don't know how much things cost and I'm going to tell the patient everything they need. It doesn't matter how much it costs, but I like to give them options anyway. But my first thought isn't, okay, how much insurance do they have? Let's maximize that. You know, that's not what us as dental hygienists and dental assistants think about. But dentists, a lot of them, that's what they're thinking about. The first thing that they typically say to their receptionists is call the patient's insurance, know exactly what they're covered for, get a printout before they come in. If they're covered every three months for a cleaning, get them in every three months because why not? And yes, that's true. Why not? It doesn't hurt anybody to come in every three months, but do they have to? Maybe not. If there's hardly any plaque or tartar there and no stain, I'm not going to suggest to a patient to come in every three months for their cleanings. I'm going to say every six months is probably good enough for you. You can come in every three months if you want, but you don't have to. Another point that these hygienists were making was basically, you know, a lot of offices are so, I guess, are so focused on making it a whole spa-like experience that if we hurt the patient, I may not hurt the patient. If we're cleaning somebody's teeth who hasn't had their cleaning in 10 years, and it's a little bit uncomfortable for them as it, you know, sorry, I have something on my lip there. There you go. As it probably will be because they haven't taken ownership, and it's been 10 years since their last cleaning, they get upset because we have made the gum sensitive and they will leave to go find another office. Yet we're just doing our job, and we are trying to get their teeth and their mouth as healthy as possible. Yet they might go to a dental office down the road that is like a dental spa. So it looks awesome. You know, it looks, you know, calm. It looks inviting. They offer free whitening for all new patients, even if that patient isn't qualified or just isn't a good candidate to get the whitening. Well, they will push that free whitening to get patients in the door. And then when they go in for their cleaning, they have a hygienist who barely cleans their teeth, barely touches them because she doesn't want to make the heat or she doesn't want to make the patient upset. And it makes us, as the other hygienists, look bad and look like we were hurting them. You know, that's what it's coming to is we don't want to disappoint the patients. We don't want to hurt the patients. We want them happy at all costs. Yet to be a good dental hygienist, you need to clean off that plaque and tartar. So a lot of patients don't realize we're not trying to hurt you. We're not trying to be difficult, but we need to clean off that plaque and tartar. You know, that's just what you have to do. Now, I'm actually, I'm that hygienist where the patient usually says, oh, that was a really good cleaning today. Like, you didn't hurt me at all. So that's kind of the opposite of what I'm saying. But I don't believe in hurting the patients though, either. But if they haven't been in for 10 years, it's going to be uncomfortable properly. Probably, I couldn't think of the word, probably. But I use certain instruments and I make sure my instruments are nice and sharp. So it doesn't actually hurt them because I'm doing a good job. I'm not saying that the hygienists that are digging in there aren't doing a good job. But perhaps they're, you know, your appointment's only a half an hour and they have to hurry up to get the cleaning done. So of course it's going to hurt. But if you have a hygienist who has technically all the time in the world has a full hour appointment, she can take her time. And it's not going to hurt. It doesn't mean that the last hygienist did anything wrong. It doesn't mean that I'm doing everything right. But time isn't an issue. So a lot of patients need to realize that as well, that we're not trying to hurt you. But maybe our, you know, maybe we've been working for eight, eight hours today. We haven't had a lunch. We're exhausted. We want to have a lunch so we might move a little bit quicker, you know, but that's why I love working for myself. I am now a mobile dental hygienist. So I actually traveled to nursing homes. I travel to people's homes and people's, you know, people's offices and clean 13, but I run the show. I don't have a dentist telling me, Oh, well this patient needs eight crowns. Make sure to talk to them about that. Send off an estimate to their insurance so we can get that covered. I love working for myself. I do still work though in a dental office about three times a week, but I work for a good, um, a good office, but I have been in offices before where we will literally have a morning meeting, you know, every single morning, and their first comment from the dentist and from the consultant is, okay, so we need to make this much money today. How do you think that that makes us feel as a dental hygienist? It's like, well, I can't just tell a patient they have a cavity if they don't have a cavity. I can't just take X-rays because you want to make extra money, you know, so it's very hard for us and how things have changed. What else? Sorry guys. Um, just pretty much, we're all saying like we are health care providers. We love what we do. We are a spa trying to make you guys as comfortable as possible. We're trying our best to make things healthy, but now talking to dental professionals, we need to work for offices that are good offices. If you get a bed, um, if you, you know, if something just doesn't seem right, if all they ever do is talk about numbers, go somewhere else. Go somewhere else, look for another job, say, you know what, I can't meet your quotas, so I'm just going to go work somewhere else because at least I can get an hour of lunch. I can clean people's teeth for one whole hour and not for a half an hour. So that's how the dentistry, I guess the dental field has definitely changed where it's more of the cost of living is so high and dentists are coming out of school with these huge loans and they hire the cheapest hygienists that they can find, but we also need to work. We need the money. So we might take a lesser hourly pay if we need the money, right? But then we have to work so hard. We don't get a lunch. We don't get a break, but we want to be the best for our patients all the time. Um, but still at the end of the day, at the beginning of the day, we're always thinking, okay, so the dentist told me the other day that I didn't bill enough for this patient that I should have built this much because I did. Their appointment was an hour and 10 minutes, not just one whole hour, but an hour and 10 minutes, even though you were talking to them just about, you know, how was your day? What's new? They were just telling you their life story sometimes. So yes, it took an extra 10 minutes. But am I going to charge that patient for making small talk with me? No, but that's what the dentists expect. The dentist consultants, that's what they tend to expect. It's like, oh, well, your appointment was booked for an hour, but it's been an hour and 10 minutes. So why did you only bill, you know, three units of scaling when it should have been four units of scaling plus a half unit of polish to just make that like one hour and 10 minutes? This might sound a little bit foreign or a lot foreign to you if you're a patient, but for a dental professional, you know what I'm talking about here, right? It's like, well, I didn't charge that much because we were just making small talk for 10 minutes. Oh, well, now you're 20 months behind for your next patient. That is not good. I can't just tell the patient to shut up and move on, right? So everybody talks about nurses, about teachers, but what about us? What about health care professionals, dental professionals? We try so hard, but we don't often get the appreciation for it. So tell me your thoughts, you guys. If you've been a dental hygienist for a long time, a dental assistant for a long time. If you're new at this, what are your thoughts? What are your concerns? I would love to hear them. Okay. I don't think I forgot anything because yeah, like we were just talking to a bunch of dental professionals. We were just talking last weekend. And then I saw a post in a private group and I thought, oh, this would be a nice thing to talk about. And everybody says we need to tell the public that this is how it is that us as dental hygienists love, you know, we love what we do. We work so hard, but it's sometimes the dentist. Sorry guys, that's true. That are making us sell, sell, sell. We don't get an hour lunch. They don't buy the proper instruments for us to use. I can go on here. They want you to take x-rays every year, no matter what. But what are we supposed to do? Say no and then lose our job. You know, just so many things. So let me know your thoughts. Thank you guys for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one.