 Hello everybody, Andrew Mayesky here. So a day in the life of a dental hygienist who owns her own mobile practice. So I challenge you to find a video on YouTube where a dental hygienist who owns her own mobile practice talks about it. There is nothing out there. So I told myself when I did start my own practice that I would do these types of videos for you guys because if you're even thinking about starting your own mobile practice, if you want to go into nursing homes, if you want to go into patients homes or just pretty much have a portable dental hygiene equipment, it's kind of nice to know and talk to somebody who is doing it and who is succeeding. So let me tell you guys how my day is typically like. So what I had learned right away is that I can't just simply see eight patients a day. If you're in a dental office, it's quite easy to see four patients in the morning, four patients in the afternoon, you know, call it a day, you're exhausted, but whatever, right? For somebody who owns her own business, you want to see that many patients because that's how you make the money, right? The less patients you see, the less money, sorry, I had something stuck in my throat there, the less money you make if you own your own business. So as for me owning my own mobile practice, the more patients I see, the more money I make, right? Well, if you are a portable practice, so I take all of my stuff into patients house and my stuff includes a big luggage with my piezo, my trays, my instruments, gloves, masks, saliva ejectors, just pretty much everything that I need for that patient. It also includes my big compressor unit, which is about 30 to 40 pounds. I can't remember which one, but thankfully it's on wheels. It includes a patient chair that folds out, includes a saddle stool for me to sit on, and includes two foldable tables to put my stuff on because I don't want to have to be reaching down to the floor to get my stuff, right? So that's what my mobile practice includes. So the point is I can't see eight patients a day, right? Because if you're traveling to other patients homes, that's impossible. A one hour appointment takes two hours because the hour is spent cleaning the teeth, talking to the patient. But then remember you have to account for 20 minutes setup time, you know, depending on how long it takes you, and then 20 minutes tear down time. So that's about 40 minutes. Now I just kind of added another 20 minutes there to account for talking to the patient if they haven't seen me before, you know, it takes a little bit longer to go through the medical history. So for one patient, it's a two hour appointment, not to mention I'm pretty tired afterwards, even just seeing the one patient because I am lugging in all of my stuff back and forth because I do not, or at least I just haven't yet, hired a dental assistant. So I'm doing all of that. So I typically see two patients a day. You might be thinking, oh my God, that's not a lot of patients. Well, yes, I could see more if I'm in the same place. So it's nicer to be in an office, let's say, because I can set up in their conference room area, their hallway area, their room, and then I can see probably about eight patients that day, right? But if I'm traveling to different houses, yes, I could probably see three patients a day, let's say, you know, two hours each, that makes for a pretty good day. But my back would be killing me because I'm lugging in all of the stuff. So typical day for me is seeing about two patients a day. I'll see a patient in the morning. I'll see a patient in the afternoon or a patient in the evening. I come home and I'm pretty tired because it's a lot of work. The cleaning part is easy. The talking to the patient, I love that. But the lugging the stuff in and out, setting up is kind of hard. If I go to a nursing home, then it's typically about, I seem to see about four to eight patients a day, depending on the nursing home, depending on how many patients I have. But that's nice too, because I can usually go into one area of the nursing home and then the patients come to me. If I have patients who can't get out of bed, let's say, then I will go into their room. But in a nursing home, I do not bring as much stuff. In a nursing home, I'll bring, I don't even usually bring my saddle stool because that's just one extra thing that I have to carry. So I will bring a smaller carry-on luggage with my instruments, masks, gloves, but I don't bring my piezo because typically nursing home staff, residents, they don't like a lot of water in their mouth. So I don't bring my compressor unit or my piezo because I won't be using the suction if I'm not using the water. Yes, it's a little bit, because sometimes they have a lot of saliva. It can be like, okay, I need to get the saliva out of there, but you just work around it. You tell them to swallow a couple more times, but it's just more comfortable for them. So I don't bring as much stuff. How do I book appointments? I use a program called a simple practice. I can leave you guys the link to that on the bottom if you like. It is completely private, confidential. It meets all of the regulations because I did check to make sure. That's how I keep track of all of my appointments. That's how I send out the invoices. That's how I can also send to insurance. That's how I take my notes as well on my keyboard. What else do I do with that? That's how I can also schedule appointments. Add any notes pretty much. It's just such a lifesaver. I do not take notes typically when I'm there seeing a patient because I just simply don't have enough time. I will take point form notes so that when I go home at the end of the day, then that helps me to think, okay, what did I do on that patient again? Then I take the notes when I'm back home because if I took the time to take notes when I was there, I would just be sitting in the patient's space taking notes when I could be cleaning things up. It's just something that I prefer to do. Recently, I have been recording the appointments too because that way I can hear myself talk so that I don't forget anything when I go to take my notes, especially for charting. Charting the odontogram, do I have that? Sorry guys, it's probably downstairs with all my stuff, but I still do that on a piece of paper, but I fill that in when I'm home too. I will chart, I will record myself saying things like, oh, the 1-8 is missing, the 1-7 has an M-O-D amalgam, and then I will listen to that when I'm home and then chart on the odontogram. That has saved me so much time. I love that because I work by myself. I don't have an assistant, so I do it on myself. It's nice for the patient to hear me say it out loud because then they go, oh, what's an M-O-D? What the heck are you talking about? It just helps us have something to talk about. I do bring my interoral camera with my laptop too. I love that. It is so helpful to show people what's inside their mouth. This is about a typical day, right? That is my typical day. If I'm seeing patients the next day, I will usually load up my car the night before. Just because I know the next day, I will be unloading the car to the patient's house, home, office, residence, and then loading it back up again. It's just one less time that I have to make a trip the next day, so I don't hurt myself too much. That's just kind of what I like to do. I put everything in my car the night before. When I get home, I take everything out of the car to just sort of store it inside the house, where it's the most safe, obviously. Oh, I forgot to mention, I do run my suctions, the suction lines at the patient's house or office because what I used to do is wait until I got home. But then that meant that I had to open up my whole compressor unit again, put the cords in the right spot, hook it up, do this, do that. Yes, it's not a lot of work, but it kind of is. It takes like five minutes, but it just sort of saves me time to do all of that when I'm at the patient's house. I do that after their appointment. I just run everything through. I take such good care of my whole unit because it was expensive, and I want to take really, really good care of it. So I don't do that at home anymore. I do that after the patient's house, and I sterilize, so I do have my own stathom, everybody. So depending on how many patients I'm seeing that day, I might sterilize every two days or every three days, depending on, again, how many patients I see because I can typically fit four cassettes in at a time. So if I'm only seeing, let's say one patient, it doesn't make sense to put the load through. So I will pre-clean the instruments first, and then I just wait to sterilize them when I have enough. But I do have that in my own home, so helpful, so expensive, but so helpful. Let me tell you. What else, you guys? If you have any questions, let me know. I haven't done this video yet, and I'm really surprised. So please let me know if you guys have any questions. If I missed something, I am so happy to help. I guess a little bit of a background. So I have my own practice, Dental L Mobile Hygiene. I can leave the link for you guys on the bottom of that, too. I have had that since last year, and I love it. It's the best thing ever to see patients talk to them how I want to talk to them. I'm not behind. I can set my own schedule. Patients love to see me because I am coming right to them. It's just the nicest thing ever. To not have to deal with with office drama, to not have to deal with all kinds of things. So it is the best thing ever. Let me just say that. So thank you guys for watching. I will see you guys in the next one and have a good weekend.