 Hello everybody, Andrew Mieske here with Dental L. So a lot of you know by now that I do have my own dental hygiene and mobile practice and I've been getting a lot of emails, a lot of comments, a lot of messages, which is awesome about just basically how I got started and how you can get started also because even if you've been starting to look into it a little bit, you will quickly hit roadblocks everywhere because it's very overwhelming. It's very, very overwhelming because you don't know where to start, you don't know who to talk to. Well, I make everything really easy. So as you guys may know, I have been tutoring for about, well since 2005, so a long time now. So I teach dental hygiene students and dental assisting students how to pass the board exam. I do also offer tutoring help for those students who are still in school and need help with their classroom tests, exams, essays, everything. So teaching is just something that I love to do. So it only made sense that I teach what I know and what I know is how to open up your own practice. Specifically your dental hygiene mobile practice. So I'm going to be teaching you guys 10 steps to get started with your practice like tomorrow. So I'm not saying how to start thinking about it, but to really get started now. If you guys don't know me by now, I am very, very motivated. I am very ambitious. I don't believe in the word no. And I want to kind of instill that into all of you as well, that if this is truly something that you want to do, but you just don't know how to get started, let me help you. So I do teach this fully inside the Mobile RDH Academy. It's a full online course, but just to keep it simple, let me kind of start you off with 10 steps to your practice. Okay, so let me just change the slide here. So and I do have this PowerPoint and it can be converted into a PDF also if you would like to keep this. I will leave the link for you guys on the bottom so then that way you have something to look at and something to kind of read into later as well. So as I mentioned, this will help you with pretty much the the overwhelm of you know, you want to start your own practice. You don't really know how to get started. You don't know if you can. You don't know if it's something that you can afford. So all of the I'm not sure, but this is something that I'm thinking about. So I will help you with all of that. So step one is the cost, okay? So the first thing that I that I would like you guys to know is to start looking up the costs of what you need, what you want. And this means looking up costs of of Instruments, you know, so start with the the simplest of things. Make a list and you will probably make a couple lists Probably even more than a couple because as you go down the list and then as you think about okay Well, what do I do in my typical dental hygiene appointment at the dental office? Okay Then what do I do if it's my own office, you know, how will I sterilize the instrument? So you have to think about all of that so think about the cost of everything Just write it down on a piece of paper from step one step two. Just think of the cost of everything. So Think of do you want to buy a sterilizer for your house? Do you want to instead save the money and Ask a dental office if you can use their sterilizer Once a week twice a week, whatever with a sterilizer you need to think about spore testing So you need to think about all of that as well. It's not a small cost You need to think about masks. You need to think about uniforms. You need to think about instruments You need to think of saliva Ejectors you need to think about Do you want to use a cavatron or a piezo? Do you want the intraoral camera? Do you want this? Do you want that? So as you can imagine, there's a ton of things If you need help with this let me know because I go through actually an entire list Of what I have the exact list that I had used when I was calculating my costs Now as I mentioned here, it can be tricky because even if you go online, let's say, um, if you go to any dental supply company There's patterson. There's um, um, maxill Henry shine three at, you know, all of those you can't just simply look up a price It would be nice, but you can't you need to have your own account To be able to see those prices and and and the And how do you get your own account? You have to call the rep you have to set one up So you might not know the exact prices of some of these things, but it's good to have an idea Um, a good thing to do to kind of start with this is to look on amazon Of course, you can't look at amazon for everything like if you were to look up A sterilizer from amazon, you're not going to find anything but just kind of look up prices that way Um, even if you go on um, kijiji, I did this also was I would look up the price of a used Statum used instruments used, um, cassettes, you know, all of that so you can find prices that way too um, I preferred to purchase new everything only because I Spoke with my accountant and and for tax purposes It just made more sense for me and I can get more tax credits buying new But that's kind of another story for another day Because as I mentioned, I do own my own tutoring company. So that kind of puts me into another tax Tax bracket where for you it might be more cost effective to buy used but for me It would not be but anyways as I said, that's another story for another day So think about pricing ask You know dental assistants ask just anybody and try to come up with how much things might cost. Okay, so Step two is make some calls And this is when you want to talk to the reps of these companies. So what I did was um I kind of looked at to see okay for most of my dental supplies. Where can I purchase those and then Typically where you purchase your instruments and your sterilizer will have to be from another company It would be nice if these companies did it all but that's just not the case So look up where you need to purchase what you need and go from there like for an example For my portable compressor unit I I had gotten that from a completely different company that does not sell like dental Supplies instruments none of that. So I had to know where to look for that. Um, and I do Help you with all of that if you need help. So please just let me know again This is probably the most overwhelming part is okay. This is what I need. Where do I buy it? Do you know so I can help you with that if you need help But make some phone calls. Okay, because you will have to speak to these reps And they will be able to give you a price Okay, next step three Call the bank. So once you start to have an idea It will not be be perfect But when you have once you have the estimate of how much things will cost Call the bank if you have the money awesome But I most certainly did not so I did have to take out a small loan. Um, a small business loan of $30,000 Now now initially I thought that I would only need $25,000, but that was because I didn't Look at how much things cost first. I just kind of had an estimate Um, it was the $10,000 sterilizer The you know $4,000 piezo or $2,000 piezo shoot now I can't remember that kind of put me over the top But even with the piezo I didn't end up buying that one thankfully because I just thought it was too Crazy to have to spend thousands of dollars on a piezo scaler So I didn't end up doing that anyway, but it was nice to kind of have some extra money to work with Um, so yes, so I took out a $30,000 small Business loan, but it doesn't happen overnight. You have to make appointments You have to bring the paperwork if you don't have everything you need You have to make another appointment bring more paperwork. Oh my goodness. It was the most annoying thing It probably took about a month My credit card that I use only for the business took about two months, which was insane I had no idea why it took so long, but I was kind of like okay I would like to order things like yesterday So I just ended up using my own credit card anyway, and then Transferring everything over But it would have just been so much easier and keep things more organized if I had my my actual Um business credit card, but it took like two months So call the bank so you don't have to wait as long as I did Okay, next one step number four is the ordering So now that you have an idea of how much things costs You have talked to different companies. You have the money now you can order. Okay Keep in mind that sometimes these companies have You know buy two and you get one free. That's a pretty good deal, especially on things that you know, you will be Using, you know a lot of So just think of things like that If you're lucky to be around the time of a dental Convention things are always on sale. Unfortunately I had missed the mark on that become I believe it's in May I will be attending the convention in Toronto for sure Because I will probably need to restock on pretty much everything. So I'm excited about that Okay, step five. You want to design and advertise? I find this is one of the hardest things for a lot of people, especially if you're not technology inclined, I guess is the right word Or not the right word. I don't really know but if you're Shying away from making a website having to use social media having to talk about Yes, I'm starting my own dental hygiene practice if you're You know not comfortable doing that I say snap out of it and get comfortable because you are missing out on so much If you're not advertising if you're not telling people that you have started your own Dental hygiene practice even if you're just thinking about it, you know, there is no harm in saying You know, hey guys, I'm so excited come You know mid or summer 2019. I will be starting my own dental hygiene practice stay tuned There's no harm in just saying that so then people can can start to think about it and say oh She's starting her own dental office. Oh my goodness. Like how does that work? You know get people talking. I'm not saying that you have to post five times a day every single day on On instagram on facebook on pinterest, but you need to start advertising and of course I can help you with that I'm the advertising queen. I love to advertise. I post all the time and I Even before I started my hygiene practice. I I had lined up at least 11 patients I um, I think even 12th And that was just from advertising and letting people know like hey the holidays are coming if you would like your Um, your teeth whitened. I can help you with that. You know, I don't know exactly what I said I can't remember but you have to advertise because if you don't advertise People don't know you're there. They don't know you have you know Something to offer you don't want somebody to say to you. Oh, um, I would have had my teeth cleaned with you But I just had my teeth cleaned. I didn't know this was something you were doing And that's the only insurance that I have for the whole year that can happen So let people know ahead of time. So they're thinking about you all the time Okay, step six, you want to think about Documentation so nobody likes that word But we have to do it and I'm not just talking about your charts your medical histories your dental histories confidentialities Consent forms. I'm not even just talking about that. I'm talking about everything infection control ms ds sheets for your chemicals every chemical type of thing that you have With infection control, there has to be a sheet on it somewhere You need to have your own office manual because that's just what we have to do. So don't forget about that um, I am excited to say that I have started using um, a software called simple practice. I did extensive research trying to find like a What's the word I'm looking for a practice management software that looked nice that did not have too much stuff that I didn't need Um, and that didn't have issues every half an hour You know, I have worked in many many many offices and every office that I've been in Their software has has issues of some kind. So clearly I wanted something without issues something simple, but also You know Something that I can use for my entire practice. So Simple practice is amazing like I can Write my chart notes. I can send um, the medical history and the dental history online I can submit to the insurance company. I can um print out. I'm just trying to think of all the stuff that I can do I can print out um invoices so If the patient hasn't paid or if they want to know how much things will cost Uh beforehand I can print them off an invoice. Um, it's just it is huge You can create your own template. So it's just an an amazing thing. Um, in fact, I go through actually the whole simple practice software in the mobile rdh Academy because it's so huge, but it's also Very easy to use if that makes any sense. So if you need help with that, let me know, but it is amazing But initially if you're not sure you want to do something like that There's no harm in doing paper charts Paper medical and dental histories, but I tried that for one patient and I'm like, okay I feel like I'm not organized enough. This is not going to work for me But it might be perfectly fine for you Okay, step seven insurance. So do you want to submit to insurance? on the patient's um behalf And or do you want to direct bill? So then that way the patient Is it paying you out of their pocket? So that is something that patients always prefer and then that way the insurance pays you But see I don't like doing that because in my opinion it takes too much time. You have to pay extra to offer that extra convenience for your patients and What if the insurance doesn't cover everything is the patient actually going to pay you? Are they going to pay you the difference? Yes or no? You should always ask for the difference up front anyway But if you don't feel comfortable doing that, are they going to pay you the difference? Who knows? So I How I do it is I just simply ask for payment up front And then I do say to the patient that I can submit A claim form for them or I give them a claim form on this spot. So it's up to you how you want to do it I use simple practice for this this Also, because it because it does help to keep me nice and organized, but you know think about it and But it but it is something that you do have to think about So do you want to make things easier for your patient or easier for you? You will probably get more patience if you if you only ask them for the difference But then you have to wait to get paid for the insurance So do you really want to wait that long? Sometimes it can take up to a month I don't know about you, but that's a long time to not get paid. So that's just why I do it that way Okay Step eight price saying so a lot of people don't think about this But you have to think about pricing. So when I first started You know, it's completely normal to think well, you want to get as many patients as possible So you should offer a lesser expensive price But you also don't want to do that because you work hard Um, you could even say well, even if I get paid say 100 dollars per per per hour per appointment that's still awesome considering in Get a law office per hour you might be making 30 35 depending on where you work 40 45, you know, who knows So making 100 sounds pretty darn awesome, right? But keep in mind if they were to go to the offices They're being charged at least um I don't even know like 180 dollars. So you offering 100 dollars is is pretty good But you could offer more. So how I do it is And I could be changing this who knows but I do charge 120 dollars per person Um, it depends though if they haven't had their two cleaned in five or six years and I do charge about 150 That's what I've been doing so far. Um So it just kind of depends for children. It's about 65 for teenagers about 100 So it just kind of depends on how much plaque or charter they have And that's always their first question is how much this is going to cost me. So I let them know It depends on how much plaque and charter you have If they tell me it's been a year since their last cleaning Then I quote them and say well, we'll probably be 120 to maybe 130 dollars depending On how much plaque and charter you have if they say, oh, it's been about five years Then I tell them that it will be at least 150 dollars. So think of your pricing Um, look at the um, I look at the oda fee guide. I believe so that kind of helps you too, but don't Charge not enough, but then don't charge too much either because then you're not going to get patients, right? So but I'd say Most times we tend to charge too little because we want to get in as many patients as possible But that isn't helping us and our patients will always expect that price. So you kind of Want to tell them well, I'm offering you a service here. I'm coming to you So this is why I charge this price if you don't like it then go to a dental office, you know I'm not saying say that but you know what I mean, right? Okay step nine tax time This is I have to say the most overwhelming I get the most questions about this tax time Because owning your own practice means you can apply for certain tax credits and certain Rightoffs as well. So your rent your mortgage your, you know heat gasoline Your car insurance Your house insurance your life insurance all of that you can claim So I do help you guys with that This would probably take me three hours to talk about so i'm not going to go into it too much here But start thinking about tax time at the very least hire your own accountant And make sure that they understand what type of business you are running Because not all accountants specialize in something small they might only deal with like Multi million dollar companies So make sure you are with somebody who is okay to handle the little stuff And is okay to help you along the way Next one last one step 10 is book in those patients you guys so once you have all of those steps You're all set and you are ready to go. So do not think But wait another couple months to start booking patients. No if you took it alone You need to start paying that back, right? So start booking those patients if you need help I am always here So I hope this helped you guys if you are overwhelmed if you're thinking. Oh my goodness What am I getting myself into? Please keep in mind. These are normal Reactions these are normal Emotions if you told me you weren't overwhelmed if you told me you were not scared I'd be like what's wrong with you, you know You should be it is normal to be excited But also a little bit scared at the same time if you need help. I am always here and um If you need me to help you with every single step, which is normal I am more than happy to do that. I do have the link here for you to the Mobile rdh academy. I go through everything and we talk online As a group at least once a month sometimes twice a month because I love to just kind of talk Answer questions teach. I love all of that and I do share And I do share a real-world experience also the good the bad the ugly The exciting all of it because I had to go through all of this And I was on my own trying to figure out how the heck I was going to start my own practice and Make money and be a good dental hygienist and do a good job for my patients So it's very overwhelmed, but it's totally worth it. So thank you guys so much for watching and listening I do hope that this helped let me know if you need anything and I will see you all very very soon