 Hello everybody, Andrea Maesky here with Dental L. So I have started my whole Dental L mobile hygiene business. It's only been a couple months now. Officially, I thought of the idea probably in October. I looked into a small business loan, the ordering, taking courses, asking questions, insurance, all of that, November-ish. I started getting everything in slowly but surely. I wanted everything in right away, but these things take time. And the Canada Post went on their kind of strike thing that was happening. So that took longer for a lot of my things to come in. I was waiting on my compressor unit for a little bit longer than I had hoped. And I can't do anything without that. That houses the water, the suction, the compressor, things like that. I waited on my handpieces for a while. So when all in all, things just started to take place and I started seeing patients would have been a couple weeks ago. So in December, so let's say in December, I had my first official grand opening. Let me check the calendar actually. When was that? On December the 7th, which was a Friday, I just thought I would pick a date and do a grand opening just so I can kind of have a date of when I officially got started. So my business model, if you will, is that I go to people's houses, people's offices, anywhere else. So I go to them to clean their teeth, whiten, dental hygiene exams, anything dental related that a dental hygienist can do, I go to them. So that's my entire thing. My home marketing plan is to market nursing homes, caregivers who are looking for somebody to come to their home to clean their loved one's teeth because they're not able to leave the house or leave the nursing home or leave their area. Special needs clients who just find it much easier for them to stay home and not have to leave that type of thing. So that's my specialty, if you will, is seeing seniors, special needs patients who just find it so much easier for me to come to them. That's my main thing. But then I had people that had approached me saying things like, well, I don't have insurance. When I go to the dentist, they want the new patient exam. They want the X-rays. They want this. They want that. Can I see you for just a cleaning? And I said, yes, that sounds awesome. I would love to help you. And those so far are a lot of the patients that I have seen where they want to get their teeth cleaned. They don't have insurance. So they don't want the new patient exam, the X-rays, the extra stuff that comes with it. Now having that said, though, almost every patient that I've seen that doesn't have insurance or I go to them, but they see me, there's always a couple cavities in there that I've seen so far. So I had still had to tell those patients, I believe, I think you have a couple cavities. I do have an intraoral camera that I use to show them. I bring my laptop along. I let them know. I suspect, because I can't tell them you have cavities, even though it might be obvious to me, but we all know without the X-rays, we don't know for sure. And I cannot take X-rays on my own. A dentist has to be there to give the okay. Plus I need the equipment, which I can't have anyway, right? So those patients, I've still had to tell them, I highly suggest you go to a dentist as soon as possible to get those cavities looked at and get them fixed because cavities don't stay the same. They get larger, okay? So I have had to say that to a lot of people, but I'm amazed that they don't mind, even if they haven't been to the dentist in years because they just are nervous or they don't wanna see a dentist. They know they need their teeth cleaned. So they book an appointment with me. I tell them, well, you still gotta go see a dentist because I can't fix the cavities for you. They go, oh, okay. So I think it's just the whole, they wanna feel different. They want to not feel like they're at the dental office. They need to get this, this, and this, and this. If I can say it, they seem to trust a dental hygienist more. Having me tell them, okay, you do. I suspect you have a couple cavities you should have them looked at. They go, oh, okay. And then they're okay to have it looked at opposed to them going to the dental office. And they might even tell them the same thing. Like you have a couple cavities, but they're thinking, do I really have a couple cavities or are you just saying that to make some money? I hate to say it, but that's how a lot of people think. So, but anyways, you guys, things have been going amazing. I am super excited. So amazing that things are really taking off. The teeth whitening seems to be extremely popular now, I guess because of the holidays, new years, all of that where I keep having to order more and more and more to upkeep with everything. I had ordered a five instrument cassettes like just to give you guys an idea to get me started. Yes, I do have a stathom in my house to do all of the sterilizing, which is awesome. I have all of the spores, the, what's the words I'm looking for? The indicators, the classified indicators, pouches, all of that. It's expensive stuff, but I have it all so that I can make sure to sterilize everything at my house. At the most so far, I've seen two people a day, which is awesome considering I just got started. Word will, will travel fast. I know that. In fact, I'm in the works of in my house, our basement. My husband, Tom is using that as his area, but I want to kind of kick him out of there. And he actually thinks it's a good idea, believe it or not, to use his area as a home office. So yes, I will still travel to people for their tube cleaning and whitening, but they could also come to me if they wanted to as well. So I have all of those extra options too. So we're kind of looking into that. He has a lot of stuff down there, so it would have to be moved, changed around. So we're kind of looking into that, but that would be super exciting because let me say the hardest part so far is lugging everything around and moving everything around because let me tell you the types of things that I have. I have my compressor unit, my like a mobile unit, which is the heaviest thing so far. It's about 40 pounds. It is on wheels, like think of a luggage type of thing. Sorry, I got something on my lip there. There you go. I cracked my lip over here, so I kind of have some protection over it, but anyways, you guys don't need to hear that. I just happened to notice it in the video, so anyway, sorry guys. What was I saying? So I have the compressor unit, which is the heaviest thing, but at least it's on wheels. I have my own stool so that I can sit down. I have the patient's chair that folds out. I have two small tables that fold out. I have my piezo scaler. I have to have that. I love that. I have a towel warmer because I do like to offer my patients a nice hot towel or sorry, a nice warm towel. It's not hot. Trust me, the first time I used it, the towel was freaking hot and I thought I'm so glad I'm testing this. I could not give this to a patient right now, so I'm so glad that I tested it out. Anyway, sorry guys. I have a small towel warmer with, of course, towels. I bring black towels as well that I put over the patient's chair because I hate plastic, those plastic barriers that go over the patient's chair. I can't stand them. They look ugly, they do not feel nice and it's such a waste. I don't like waste or I try. So black towels go over my whole chair. It looks a lot nicer because the chair is black and I put them in the laundry at the end of the day. So I have a laundry only for patient towels, so I put those in there. It is hot and then it gets sterilized. So I have the towels. I have my polisher, which I will show you guys if you wanna see. My curing light. I have my instrument setups. It's not funny, I can't think of everything I have, but so I have at least a luggage, like a carry-on luggage full of stuff. I have another bag that I use full of stuff where I put the piezo in there, the towel warmer with the towels. I travel with Bucky the Beaver, which of course I don't have up here. Sorry guys, it's all downstairs because I just saw a patient yesterday, so it's all just kind of downstairs. I'm seeing another patient tomorrow, so it's just easier for me to leave everything downstairs for now. So I don't have to lug it up and down the stairs, so that's why. So I carry with me my compressor unit, the patient chair, my stool, a bag that I put those tables in that folds out, another bag with my piezo in there, the towel warmer, my luggage filled with my instruments, like toothbrushes, that kind of thing, and I have another bag too with other stuff in there, and I just can't think of that at the moment. Because my thing is, is I bring a little bit extra just in case, so like extra masks, gloves, instruments in case something falls on the floor, I bring all of my teeth whitening stuff in case I go to somebody's house, they want a cleaning, and then they say, oh, can I have my teeth whitened too? I don't want to say no because that's extra money, right? So I bring extra stuff just in case. I keep telling myself, as I get more used to seeing patients, I don't have to bring so much stuff, but right now I have a lot because yeah, I have a lot of stuff. But surprisingly, you guys, it only takes me about 20 minutes to set up and tear down after the patient, which isn't bad, but in total, that's 40 minutes, right? So it takes me about two hours per appointment. Cleaning the teeth or the white, or sorry, cleaning the teeth takes about an hour, the whitening takes about half an hour if that's what they want, and then add the 20 minutes at the beginning to set up, and then 20 minutes at the end to tear down. So it's about a two-hour thing, but I love it. I can't explain how awesome it is to have my own business. I talk to the patients how I want. I buy instruments that I want. I buy equipment that I want. I'm looking into a couple different whitening systems at the moment. I can buy them, charge what I want. I freaking love it. Like I can't even tell you how awesome it is. Another thing is that I ask my patients to pay upfront. They send their claim forms off to the insurance easy, but I have to prepare the claim forms for them. I print them off from the CDHA website, which is not easy because they're always having issues with their website. Sorry, it drives me crazy. So I have ended up printing off blank ones and then re-putting in my address, number, blah, blah, blah, codes, everything. On the CDHA website, they do have it where you are supposed to be able to edit the claim form. So it just looks nicer, but it never works. So I do that. And I haven't had any issues with that yet, thankfully. Yeah, sorry guys, this was kind of a scatter video. I just thought that I would talk about how things are going so far. If you guys would like to hear more, please let me know because I do like to talk about it. I will stop the video though for now, so it's not too long and too boring. And then I'm going to upload another one where I'm just gonna talk about my experience so far, what I loved about it, what I would have done differently and what you guys can kinda, if you guys have any questions, just ask me because when I was first getting started, I had so many questions, but I had nobody to ask. Even now, if I have questions, I have nobody to ask because you would be amazed at how unresponsive dental hygienists are that own their own business. They don't seem to wanna answer any of my questions. Maybe I'm asking too many questions. So I'm not being disrespectful to them at all. I'm sure they're just busy, but I have no help. I'm learning this on my own. So I will help you guys if you have questions and if this is something that you might want to do for yourself in the future. So thank you guys so much for watching and I'll talk to you guys very, very soon.