 Hello everybody, Andrew Maeski here with Dental L. So another recap if you are curious about my Dental L mobile hygiene business and how everything is going. So I officially started, it's been I guess a month now. I've been seeing patients for 14 years. So a long, long time, but my official business about a month again, officially. I got the ball rolling a couple months ago. I started seeing patients here and there, but I did have like a grand opening even though I go to people's homes. So I don't have a physical location where I do see people, but I wanted to have a grand opening so that I would always remember, okay, this is when I did start the business. So officially it's been about a month now and it's amazing. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. It's just so nice to be able to do things my way. And I'm gonna be completely honest here. So typically in the dental office, as I'm sure with any occupation, you are told what to do, how to talk, what to charge, which there's nothing wrong with that, but you do have to follow their mission statement. You have to do things for them as a team, all of that. But, and I'm not saying that I don't like that, but every office that I've been in, there was just always something that I didn't quite agree with. Not in a bad way, you don't have to agree with everything, but charging was a big thing. A lot of the times, at least the offices where I've been in, it was about, okay, so make sure to charge a recall exam, a polish. You have to make sure to build this much cleaning time, even if you only see them for half an hour, you need to build about 40 minutes, because as a dental hygienist, you charge according to how much time you spend on that patient. So even if you're seeing a patient for one hour, if I only clean the teeth for 45 minutes, but I spent about 15 minutes talking to them, taking x-rays, waiting for a checkup, that didn't matter in a lot of offices. You still had to charge for that full hour. And I would go back and say to them, well, I didn't clean the teeth for that full hour. So I can't write in the chart legally that I did. I don't wanna charge the patient that much because their insurance doesn't cover it. Even if it does cover it 100%, I didn't wanna charge the patient that much because I didn't do it. Plain and simple, but you don't wanna step on anybody's toes. You don't wanna be known as that hygienist who is always arguing with the front desk to change the codes, this and this. And I didn't wanna appear as if I knew better than them. But I did. I used to work as a dental receptionist when I first started. I was a dental assistant. I became a hygienist of course. I became a restorative hygienist also. So I do have an advanced certificate for that, which not a lot of people have. I did that about four years ago. So I've done a little bit of everything. I have worked with insurance companies. So I felt that it was a good time for me to start my own business. And it's nice, you guys. I can charge based on what I do. I don't have to always be thinking, okay, so the front desk wants me to charge this and this and this. My appointment with this patient is an hour long, but their grandmother just passed away. So I would like to spend the extra 20 minutes talking to them, but the front desk doesn't let me do that because then I do have to charge for that time. Like that's what would happen a lot of the time is, oh, Andrea, how come it took you 20 minutes past their appointment time? You have to charge for that. I would say to them, oh, well, me and the patient were just talking or her mom passed away. So she was having a tough time. I have known this patient for 10 years. I'm not gonna cut their appointment short because I have a patient waiting. Or these things happen. And then that patient who's waiting gets mad at me for being 20 minutes behind when I would say to them, you know what, I apologize, but my previous patient took longer. I'm not allowed to say her mom just passed away. I spent the time talking to her because you're not allowed to say things like that to another patient. So I would have to be as vague as possible, but then that patient who had to be kept waiting would say to me, oh, well, I have things to do, it took you 20 minutes. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness. But the nice thing about working for myself is I take my time. If you need that extra time, I take that time. I do not book patients back to back because even if I did, I couldn't because with like travel time, I just don't know per se when I'm gonna be there. So I do not book patients back to back. I see about three patients a day at the most because I do have to go from place to place. If I'm in one spot, like such as a nursing home in an office, then I'll book about six patients a day because I'm in the one spot and I don't have to move, you know, here, there, there and there. But I love it. It's so nice to be able to do my own thing, say what I wanna say, not to pressure patients to book treatment, you know, certain treatments that it's not that they don't need it, but do they need it now? No, to not, you know, like that's a huge thing for me is that I don't feel as if I have to pressure patients to spend a certain amount because their insurance covers it. And the nice thing too is that if a patient needs, you know, evenings, weekends, if you go to a dental office, they're booked up like three months usually in advance. Well, I can see people probably as soon as three days away because I seem to book about three days prior. So if you need, you know, evenings, weekends, that's okay. If you need me to see you, your husband, you know, three kids in like two days, no problem. So I don't mind evenings, weekends, that's what I'm here for and I come to them. So people love that, people love it so much. And that's kind of the thing that I like the most too is I know that they're happy, you know, after I see a patient, they always say to me like, wow, that was the most relaxing thing ever. Like that was so nice to not have to feel like we have to hurry, hurry, hurry because you have a patient meeting. It's nice to be able to ask the questions for you to take the time to, you know, talk to me. When I have questions about how to brush, you actually show me, you know, so patients love it. But if you're watching this and thinking about opening up your own practice, I would not suggest doing it unless you have experience because if you're a newbie, there's so much to learn. Trust me, if you open up your own practice right away, you kind of haven't learned what you have to learn first, like how to sterilize properly, how to time management, you know, how to work with team members, like all of that. But if you have a lot of experience and you were like me who was getting sick and tired of the politics and other offices and you want to start your own thing to see patients your way, this is amazing. So I hope this helped to just kind of give you guys a recap. If you guys have questions, let me know. Thank you for watching and I will see you guys in the next one.