Ep. 58: Let's Talk Financing

Part 10:00

This is Beyond the Arches, where full-arch dentistry meets real talk. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome to Beyond the Arches. I am your host, Dr. Daniel Noorthoek. Today, I have several special guests with us. We've got Lilia. Hi. And Erica. Hello. And we've got Sam. Hey, everybody. Sam's a new one to the podcast. Today, what we're going to be talking about is patient financing.

▶How do you pay for this? This is a big decision. This is a lot of money. It's equivalent to a car. So, lots of people wonder, how am I going to be able to afford this? How am I going to make these payments? All of those things. And I'm more or less here just to observe. So, in general, I don't really handle the money. I don't handle the finances. I don't pitch it to the patients, anything like that. And so, I'm going to do just as much learning as you today.

And we're going to kick it off with, who would like to start with some stuff on financing? I guess maybe Sam. Intro on Sam, so patients know who he is. Sure. So, I am a financial advisor planner by trade. I have been working with DIO for about a year now in a formal capacity. So, I've been working as the CFO for DIO for the last year, working in the background. Just focused on kind of the overall management of the company, but this has come up a lot and we've talked a lot about this in our meetings.

I'm trying to make sure patients have the right options and get the right advice around what's available in the financing space. And then we also have really tried to expand the other options that are out there or present the other options that are out there to them so that they know that this isn't the only option. So, that's the only way to get it done. There's other things you could do. Definitely. Yeah. So, in our office, typically the way this starts too is upon time of consultation, we'll usually send out some financing links.

We don't talk too much about it in the consult itself either. It's kind of just like, take a look online, see what they have to offer you. But we typically work with Proceed, Cherry, PatientFi. What's ours? The newest is Lending Club. Lending Club is what they're called. So, probably Lilia can run through a couple of these and just like their specs that they have to offer. They all have different credit scores, different term rates available. So, just to get a little bit of background there.

Yeah. And I think the main thing that I tell patients and consults is when you're applying to these financing companies, there's no, it's a soft credit pool. ▶So, essentially it doesn't hurt your credit score to just apply. I always say, look at them all, compare them all. Obviously, maybe there's some that are going to be more tailored to what you're looking for, whether it's a zero interest option or longer term option. So, lower interest. Lower monthly payment, whatever that might look like for you. But I say, look at them all, compare them all.

Don't get, you know, bummed out. If one doesn't approve you, you may try the next. You may try Cherry and they may, you know, approve you for the full funds or whatever it might be. So, definitely they all have their perks. Just running through them really quick. For example, PatientFi offers up to seven years. You know, the APR can definitely range on that one. They do have some no interest promotional options. I think it's important for patients to know that they're going to be able to apply.

But those are usually up to like a year. So, again, just looking at them all across the board. Proceed is another popular one. A lot of patients know that. A lot of financing. Other dental offices use them as well. They have, I believe, they're up to 10 or 12 years now. So, that's a very long time, especially if that can lower that monthly payment to 200 and something dollars a month. Another important thing is there's no prepayment penalty with all of them.

So, you could pay it off, you know, choose a long term. And pay it off essentially much quicker. Whatever, you know, you're comfortable with. Cherry's a new one. We've had a lot of success with it. Yeah. I would say in the past year with them. They have some zero interest options. They have some, you know, better. I think they approve of maybe a little bit lower credit score compared to our other financing companies. And then Lending Club is really the newest.

That one we just rolled out a few months ago. Yeah, brand new. I actually don't even know. We've processed, I think, maybe one or two patients on it so far. Brand new to us. Same thing. I think they all, that one has longer terms. I would say Lending Club kind of pulled a little bit of every other financing company. So, they're kind of like, I would say, have the most of everyone's. But again, we haven't used them.

Sometimes it takes a while for us to start to see those applications getting approved coming through. But overall, again, I just say look at them all. You really never know. And I know Sam's going to talk about maybe some alternative options. Patients will call me sometimes and say, like, I didn't get approved for any of them. I'm bummed out. What can I do? And then, you know, if you want to kind of touch on some points that we in the office recommend.

Sure. I mean, I think first maybe let's talk about some of what you already said because some of this stuff's, you know, really important for people to think about. So, patient file, you said no interest is usually for a year. Does that mean that typically it rolls into a longer term after that? It does, yeah. All right. So, that's good. That's, you know, a lot of people do zero interest credit cards. That's a pretty attractive option. I agree with you on the longer term.

I would, you know, I would just tell people just keep your eye on the rates. Like, the rates matter a lot. You and I were talking about, like, checking their credit score ahead of time. So, anybody that knows their credit score is going to be much better off because they're going to know what kind of situation they're getting themselves into. Right? Lower. I saw something recently. There's a certain. Kind of score that if you're beneath that, you kind of know you're going to run into trouble.

Yeah. And I think, Cherry, do you know the number off the top of your head what Cherry says? I think it's like six something. I think it's like 560. Oh, really? Okay. I think so. And obviously, just most likely patients at that level may not get approved for the amount that they're looking for. So, like the full, you know. Do you have a feel for what type of credit scores get approved for the full amount? I can't.

You know, I don't know the patient's credit scores. And I tend not to ask unless they tell me. But like you said, I think checking your credit score is so important. Learning how to raise your credit score. I know we'll talk a little bit about that. Yeah. But checking your credit score and knowing. Also, I think it's a misconception. It's not just credit score. Right? They look at debt to income ratio, other loans you have, how recent they are.

I think there's a lot that goes into it that I think patients maybe some will get a little bit like, what do you mean? Like my credit score is whatever it is. I make good money. But I think it's good to be in. Maybe they bought a car yesterday. Yeah, exactly. They bought a brand new car a week ago. And that's going to obviously affect a few months ago is going to affect, you know, everything. Let's roll it back for one second here.

Part 27:07

So this is what we've talked about predominantly so far is all financing options. So if you were to just to just I know that people are very curious to like how they stand against other people. So let's talk about for a minute. What does the finance versus paying cash options look like generally? Is it a 50 50 mix? Is it a 75 percent? You know, people like to know, you know, how do I stand against the other people?

And, you know, what a way. What's my story look like versus your average done in one patient? I think we're saying it's right now and it can every year fluctuates. ▶There's been years where it's like no financing. But I would say this year that we're about like we said, like a 70 percent financing. And again, not to say that they can't like pay at all. It's just that maybe that's the best option for them in the moment.

So I would think like 70. I agree. I think it's about the same, too. Yeah. And two thousand twenty three, two thousand twenty four. It was definitely flipped. Exactly flipped. It was 70. I remember it was sixty five point five percent cash. Yeah. And it's great that we have these options. Obviously, some, you know, some finance, some implant companies, I'm sure only have a few. Every year we try. It seems like to like tweak the financing companies.

We have add a new one that maybe is going to like help better prove we're always like team patient, obviously getting approved. So we're always on the back end, like reconvening. OK, this one clearly hasn't been working for us. Like, should we again ditch it? Should we look for another one? If you're paying cash, what's the typical payment? Process like what is when do you make certain payments in the process? So we always do a deposit right now.

It's two hundred and fifty dollar deposit. If you're not doing a travel package and then the remaining balance, if you're paying credit card, debit card, wire, cash, cashier's check would be due by the day of surgery. So that's important to know because, you know, some patients are like, is it half now, half later? We do take it all up in front. We have a lot of fees associated. So and just keep things organized. We don't want to come.

Eric and I don't want to call you. Chase you after her payment. We want you to pay and then focus on the rest. Be comfortable. Go through the process. You know, surgery. Yeah. To that point. Exactly. To that point is we we are a little bit different from some companies that do temporaries or an office. When I first started doing these cases, it was, well, this office said it was going to be twenty seven thousand dollars. But then I have to go to this guy.

I haven't gone to that guy. So I think it'll be about thirty. And then they go to that person and it's another twenty seven thousand. ▶But all due after, say, the temporary is done is for is for making the final teeth. And so when I first started doing these cases, it was if you can get one number for the patient, you're going to win, which was true for a long time. It was very uncommon to get just one number.

Now, if you've got a patient. You know, if a patient's listening, that has gotten a couple quotes and they're they're all one fee, but they're broken up over time. More than likely, it's because the office that they're talking to has the ability to break it into two because they're not delivering that expensive final right away. So our fee is a little bit more daunting in the beginning because it is the full fee, because we are providing the entire service and we don't want that to just get left out.

By the wayside. And then, you know, of course, there's a lot of bills with making the final teeth and such. So we are a little bit unique in that sense to the point of the financing companies. It's funny to watch how those ebb and flow and change over time. Yeah. And to a patient's point, even if you think that your credit profile is perfect and you get rejected to what you're saying is, you know, don't feel down or don't get reject or don't get dejected.

Because you might have let's just say cherry cherry was is a biggest example of it. I don't think I saw one approval over three thousand dollars. I used to get the emails for maybe the first two years we had them. It was abysmal. Now they're one of the highest approval approvers. So it all depends on who's underwriting, who's making the decisions. What's the profile we want now today? Do we want a bunch of like night guard patients, you know, or do we want a bunch of big owe us the value of a car kind of scenario?

I think knowing that credit score, just to bring us back to it, is huge because credit score. I know this is kind of basic, but it's a sign of credit credit worthiness. So at the end of the day, you know, they're trying to figure out how easy will it be for you as the patient to make these payments back? And so I know that. ▶I know people in at least in my professional life that they pay all their bills on time.

They don't have an issue in the world in their finances. So their assumption is I have a high credit score. But for example, like if you have a charge card and not a credit card, then you're paying it off every month. And that is actually not building your credit score. There's a lot of people that maybe the spouse has, like, I don't know, the mortgage in their name. So then not in their name. Is is a lot of bills and things that are actually hitting the credit report.

So all of a sudden you make this. You know, if you're making an assumption that I have a high credit score, but you haven't actually went in and looked at it, you might be surprised to see. And then there's things you can do to fix that, right? There's ways you can put credit in your name. I'm not saying that, you know, you can do those things quickly. So sometimes if your credit score is what it is, you know, you just go out there and apply and see who's going to give you the right the right program.

But. Do you have suggestions for what kind of services a person should go to and where they should what they should do to help build that? I don't have specific like credit repair companies that I would recommend. I would say kind of similar to what what you were saying, Lily, like read reviews. The same thing people are doing about us at Dio. Go read reviews. Hear what people are saying. Look, you know, look out there and make sure that you feel like this company is actually done well by people because there are companies out there trying to say that.

They're going to fix your credit score and they're they're just taking a monthly fee or even worse. So just be cautious and find, you know, and most of most people don't need credit repair. Most people just really need to pull that credit report and look at it. Missed payments are a huge issue because that says that you, you know, struggle to make those payments, even if that's not true. Yeah. You know, I started putting my credit cards on that minimum payment.

Yeah, me too. Auto payment. Yeah. ▶So like I try to pay it every month. But, you know, if I forgot, if for some reason I missed the date, at least the 40 bucks or 100 bucks, whatever their minimum was, auto comes out so that on my credit report, it never gets hurt. Yeah. What do you recommend? Let's say someone has no idea how to find their credit score. And I'm sure that's possible out there. Like, where would you say, hey, this is the fastest, easiest way to look up your credit score?

I know there's a few different options, but. Yeah, there's I think there's three major credit bureaus. But the fastest, easiest way is usually your bank account. Yeah. I don't know if you guys get, but I get my banks all the time are like, hey, here's one of their credit bureaus. Here's your score. I get a message every month. Your score has been updated and I'm always looking and it's like up three points, down three points. I wouldn't really tell anybody to worry about some of those movements because a lot of those are kind of them doing whatever they, you know, think makes sense for the way they're scoring people.

But major movements. You do want to pay attention to. And like you guys said, if you just got a car, some, you know, some of those credit bureaus are going to say, well, let's see how they do paying for that thing before we, you know, tell the world that they're going to be good to make that payment and this other payment. What do you think the timeframe on something like that would take to someone who needs to build up their credit score, maybe by 30, 40 points?

I don't know that I know the answer to that. I think it's it's at least a couple of months because you need the reports have to hit. Right. If you make these payments, the payments then have to go on to the credit report and then they have to update your score. So you're definitely talking about at least a few months.

Part 315:49

I know we talked about let's say patients don't either don't get approved on ours or don't like the rates on our financing options we have. I've heard it from patients. So it's more like patient questions we brought to you. I guess HELOC, 401K. What do you recommend? Or is there a little bit about each one? Each that you could tell the patient, you know, what would be beneficial for them? Well, I'll start by saying both of those options, HELOC and 401K, either loans or hardship there.

For the most part, there's no like origination fee or anything like that. If there is, it's usually low. Right. So like a 401K loan, we run a lot of 401K plans and they'll charge you $125 or $150 a year to have that loan. So it's a pretty low cost to have that loan. So let's just start with, let's start with HELOC because that one's I think a little more familiar to everybody. A HELOC is a home equity line of credit.

▶So if you own your house and there is equity in your house, let's say your house is worth $500,000, but you only owe $300,000 on it, then you have $200,000 of equity. Most banks are willing to give you up to 70% of whatever your value is. So whatever 70% of $500,000 is. That's what they're usually willing to hand out. They don't want to go over those numbers because they want to make sure that there's some room at the top just in case.

So that means you could potentially go to a bank. It doesn't have to be the bank that you have your mortgage with. You can, there's a lot of like HELOC only companies and a lot of them are, they just want to make the interest. So in that case, if they're going to give you a 10, 20, 30,000. $1,000 loan, then, you know, you can, and you can, usually it's interest only, which is, I just warn people to be careful with interest only because it means the payments can be really low because all you're paying is the interest.

So what you want to do, and you can do this online on a calculator, call us, I'll help somebody figure it out. They need to say, oh, well, what if it was a seven year loan? What should I pay? Right? Because if the payment says you should only pay a hundred bucks, maybe you really should be paying $210. And then over seven years, that loan will go away. But, but that's really nice. And HELOCs usually are going to be for the most part, they're lower interest rates.

So, I mean, you really, if you could, you would love to be in the four to 12% interest rate range, right? If you're going to be, if you're being offered something closer to 20%, basically like a credit card and most credit cards are 18 to 22%. So, so anyways, that's, that's HELOC fairly simple. They're just, they're collateralizing your house. So they're the second. The mortgage, the first mortgage is, is, is first in line and your, your HELOC is second in line before you can get any money out of your house if you sell it.

Yeah. But it's, this stuff's pretty standard at this point. So everyone's pretty much used to, you know, having, having HELOC if they need access to capital and let's face it, our homes are usually one of the largest assets we have. So tapping into the equity there can, can make sense for some people. Are there any tax advantages to doing this procedure? Do you know?

Part 419:09

I think that, you know, everyone's going to have to talk to their accountant or their, their tax professional to figure out if they're going to actually get a tax benefit. I hear people ask a lot, like, is the interest tax deductible? That kind of thing. Every situation is different because it depends on what kind of loan it is. There are itemized deductions for medical bills. But there's rules around it. Like, I think you have to, it has to be over seven and a half percent of what you make.

During the year. And so you, you put it this way. If you're going to do this and you're going to have an interest payment or things like that, and you're going to spend the money to get this work done. You want to tell your, you want to tell your tax professional. Sometimes they get a little funky too when it comes off as dental and not technically medical. Ah, okay. I know, I know a few patients have had, well, just patients that have told us because who knows they could all be doing it and it can be all successful.

But I know a few patients have had. I've said, Hey, like, can I have my statement? I'm going to like, you know, speak to my accountant. And then I think they've had success. I know on our Facebook group, we've had a few patients post about it and like, kind of like walk patients how to do it, which is great. So I'm sure there's ways to it, but we always say, and I know we talked about it earlier is like, speak to your accountant.

Just let them know because you know, you never know what's, what's possible out there. Well, and that, that moves us over to the 401k piece because you were saying that you all have provided a bunch of documentation. Mm-hmm. When people are going to try to take money out of their 401k. So I think the reason they're asking for that is when they're going for what they call a hardship. Hardship's a funny word because it sounds like you're going through a hard time, but you're really just accessing your 401k money for something that the IRS has said it's okay.

You're allowed to access this money and avoid the penalty. So try not to go too financial advisor nerdy on you guys, but you're not supposed to. You technically touch your retirement money until you're of retirement age. That's the way the IRS sees it at least. ▶So they have rules that if you're not 59 and a half years old, you're not supposed to do that. So a lot of 401ks don't have to do this. So my advice is if you have a 401k, the first thing you want to do is you want to go to whoever runs that 401k and you want to ask them for really the plan documents.

There's a bunch of different names for this stuff, but you, you, you want to know all the provisions. Of the plan. And if you don't want to ask for the documents, you just want to say, Hey, does our plan allow for loans or does our plan allow for hardship withdrawals? Those are the two easiest ones to, um, to figure out. And they're the more common ones, the hardship. If you do it, what happens is it avoids the penalty.

If you're not old enough to touch your 401k, it says, Hey, well, if this qualifies as a hardship, you don't get that penalty that the IRS is going to try and hit you with, um, which could be nice. And there are. There are medical situations that qualify. And that's why I think they're asking you for documentation because now they give it to their 401k administrator. They prove that they have a medical bill that is not being covered by insurance.

And in a lot of cases they may be allowed to take a hardship withdrawal and that avoids that penalty. They just have to be careful because they, they may still have to pay the taxes. If, if, if taxes were never paid, then taxes will be due. The government is notorious for getting their money. So if you owe them, they'll find you. Yeah. Um, but you could avoid a penalty, which is great.

Part 522:40

And then the other one is 401k loans. Again, does not have to be offered. So for like, like DIO, for example, their 401k plan allows for hardships and allows for loans. That's because DIO wants to make these things available to the employees. Some companies decide they don't want to offer them for one reason or another. So loans, um, may not be available. But if you, if your plan allows for it, you're borrowing out of your account and they're going to require you to pay an interest rate.

Usually it's prime plus a few percent. So like today it's probably in the eight to 9% range, seven to seven to 9% range. Um, but it fluctuates. Like when interest rates were really low years ago, um, you know, people were able to take a 401k loan for five, 6%. And that's way better than, you know, 12, 13, 15, 18%. Yeah. Because in our case, you know, we had to pay in just a few, two year time. We didn't really have a fixed rent and, and, uh, too many generalized payments.

So I had to, I had to go to a personal bank and I had to go back and have an in- struggled with it. ▶And so I had to take that, you know, credit card and there were a lot of different things that I had to do in my life. Yeah. I had to pay some money to be able to pay a loan. I had to get a loan. I had to get paid the rent. I had to pay the fees and I had to pay the利用.

I had to pay the rent. I had to pay the rent. My, my, my, my, my, my, my. whatever it might be and they're like nope nope i'm just getting a loan from my friend i was like okay yeah there's no there's no real documentation there because you're borrowing money for the most part from yourself um so if you want the money you can take the money you just have to pay that interest so that's not an issue another option that we used to do a lot was um form a relationship with a local bank and then that bank specifically would give say a personal loan you know a lot of banks uh um will open up up to 50 50 grand we'll say in a personal loan for a little bit less of a fee maybe put take a position on the home and that was great because the relationship we had with them was we'll send a patient down with the treatment plan and all the documentation that you need they would go almost immediately they basically had a standing appointment and they would come back with the check or the bank would send the check directly to us and something that used to happen occasionally before we figured that out was a person would go get a personal loan they'd be sitting in the you know the the parking lot with a fifty thousand dollar check i'm not kidding you would would this happen one specific time i can remember went and bought a duck boat and instead of getting in lieu of getting the procedure so we essentially had had hand carved out that that program and had made it so that like the the bank sent sent the check to us to make sure that when the patient was going to go get it done they didn't change the agreement later to say cannot be used to duck boats well it was a personal loan so it wasn't they could do what they want yeah but the um the reason why we don't do that uh because it is a very effective way for a person to get a reasonable rate to be able to be approved um was is that the high majority of our patients come from out of state and it requires them to sign that they have to physically um verify that there's a person there so um that that program is a little bit gone by the wayside but um at any rate i've we've seen some funny stuff credit credit unions are notorious for being more lenient so people are either with a credit union or want to become a member of a credit union i've found credit unions to be you know way more favorable and kind of accommodating to this stuff we actually had a problem with that program because we would have they would write so many loans the person in that position would write so many loans that they would inevitably get a promotion and then we'd have to start all over again and it happened i swear to you in a couple years it was one person per year it was at least three or four people that we went through pretty cool uh it was cool but um yes credit unions i i hear we hear a lot about that which and they seem like they work out really well for patients um i was going to say something else as well um while we were while you guys were talking about that i was going to say something about the 401k i was looking up a few facts um from claude so who knows on the verifiable um part of that nature but um one of our big competitors one of the big guys on the street uh has a report that 92 percent of their patients choose a financing plan so we're actually doing pretty good for um being lessened that's the goal of of Done In One is to be able to not of course everyone's going to be able to do it but we're going to be able to do it you're never going to get a hundred percent cash um because not everyone can afford this but to be able to make it affordable enough that we are in a high two-digit number that can afford it in cash and it's a very expensive procedure we know that but if it was a hundred thousand dollars there would be even less people that could so staying in some sort of affordability category that we're looking at that to make sure that there's enough people out there that can kind of reach for the cash that they need to be able to afford it and we're going to be able to do it we're going to be able to do it and we're going to be able to do it and we're going to be able to do it they may or may not have and of course we we consider cash as if maybe they did take a loan out of their 401k because we see that as cash instead of um going through one of our financing companies um another one was that uh where was it um eight in ten patients report when paying something more than twenty thousand dollars towards the dental procedure eight and ten or nine and ten uh patients uh report using some sort of financing plan so we're going to be able financing for a portion so it is expensive and i you know the majority of what i would want to get out in this message is you're not alone and there's options and um you know if you have to finance or you get said you know turned away from a financer i wouldn't want that person to feel left out or feel like they're um being singled out because that can be a really dejecting thing you've finally made the decision to do this you've finally gotten over the embarrassment and frustration and the pain and all of that you finally found a company that you want to work with and then you're rejected i um we were talking a little bit before the we went on air and i think we could kind of hash it out here too because i think it's helpful so normally if somebody's going to buy let's say a car and and i'm starting to see you know lenders give car loans for like seven or more years and i i don't like seeing it because i'm thinking okay even for myself if i stretch out my payment which makes my payment lower then i might try to get rid of that car before the seven years is up and that puts me in a negative you know equity position right then all of a sudden i'm paying money to get rid of a car it doesn't make sense but we were talking before the show like i asked zirconia is intended to to have a pretty long i don't know what you call it shelf life i think it's it's it's it's meant to you know to me these these financing options and we have a would somebody do me a favor and talk

Part 630:08

about the warranty program because i don't know enough about it but they have we have a warranty program that allows them to kind of ensure that they continue to keep them the teeth in best condition yeah and we we're always thinking about different ways to be able to get a person into teeth and out of their situation there's a lot of cases where if the person can get to us we'll take a lot of these a lot of these people are going to be able to get a person into teeth and out of their situation a lot of patients have maybe i don't know how to describe it exactly but there's a lot of patients that have some teeth that absolutely need to go that are like the big offenders and we're generally always happy to take those out for a person who's struggling to finance if they can get to us and they want to they want us and they know they're going to use us and they want to they have to wait another year or something like that we're not looking for anybody to wait and so there's lots of cases that we've taken those teeth out um and we don't really charge them anything because we know it's going to come around in the end so you know even if you get rejected etc there's probably some teeth that need to come out as an emergency basis we're more than happy to work with that um we've also tried to um create programs like we we created the um pmma the temporary program to sort of notch that up front affordability um sort of into um into reach and what's funny about humans is you show them the leather seats in the car and they all of a sudden never want vinyl or cloth yeah um so that program really hasn't done anything but you know what about refresh how does that i know we have refreshes for for people that already have had um the surgery done itself so if somebody's already had the surgery and they need help post surgery yeah they went somewhere else let's say yeah or not happy with their teeth or something like that or they're just old these these process this process is intended to last a very long time slash a lifetime but they do exist in the world and they can get um bone loss they can't get cavities obviously but they can get bone loss and they can develop just mechanical issues it's a physical you know it's a metal and a ceramic and they're both trying to mix and so um they can get it and they can get it and they can get it and over time and so we do the warranty program the warranty is is essentially just a way for us to make sure that it's getting checked and then for that check essentially um they're paying to stay in the program and they're cleaning and so what we've tried to do is kind of create a program that's hand in hand i'm responsible to you and you're responsible to me uh and as such it's not that we intend for it to be used or intended for it to be used it's not that we intend for it to be intended for it to go bad um but they can and and um so over time it's it becomes worth the investment to stay in that program um for both of us the the thing with the two and the three and the five-year warranty is you end up building a lot of friction with your patient base because either you're going to quietly suffer in the corner because a person will show up on your front door five years later after never seeing you again uh and not giving you the chance to to jump on it uh or the the other side is that the um patient will um well actually that's most most most of it is is the one-sidedness of the of those type of warranty programs and so we kind of decided you know what like let's make it so that they're responsible to us and we're responsible to them and can feel good about taking care of them without griping and complaining yeah so that to me that means somebody can finance let's just say through a 10-year period and they don't really have as long as they're going to take care of their teeth they're going to come back using the warranty program they don't need to worry that they've decided to stretch their payment out to get it a little bit more affordable for them and just and go forward with it so i mean i feel like all of what we've just gone through just shows between the refresh the pmma the standard you know zirconia that the the we normally do and then all the options that are out there i mean there's a ton of choices that patients can make if it's an affordability thing yeah we spend hours and hours talking you know as a group with with you involved in malillion with erica we spend hours and hours trying to come up with what's the best case scenario for the patient how do we end up finding more patients this is a predominantly blue collar procedure this is if i had to describe your very typical patient and obviously there's outliers but for the most part it's a blue collar worker let's say that they worked in the car industry for years and made fifty sixty thousand dollars their entire career very stable good income they put a little bit away but had two or three kids that went through braces and they spent all the money on them now for the most part they're looking to get their teeth fixed because of years of smoking and just putting other people first and they for the most part have decent access to credit decent sort of down payment if you will or just something but not a ton and enough that they need some sort of financing so that that's sort of like the embodiment of where i would say your average case falls so it's important to keep that in mind the point of what i'm saying is it's important to keep that in mind as you're running this company that that's your focus group that's your people so how do you make it so that you can still survive as a business and make money but still make it accessible and attainable to the to that group the people that are finally taking care of themselves yeah the people that finally take the leap they finally have said you know what my kids are off to college and i'm done smoking or whatever it may be um and that there's a there's another uh aspect this isn't financial related but i'm just thinking of the um lady we did a consult on um this last week um she's got a couple autoimmune disorders and she was asking me you know like i'm kind of already old what should i why should i do this not in a in a negative way but just you know pitch me on why i should why i should do this as you get older you're going to lose more and more motor function and more and more of your ability to keep things clean and so if you have a mess in your mouth when you can take care of it it's only going to snowball and the complexity of how to take care of it is going to go up and your ability to be able to take care of it is going to go down so just like a house yeah exactly it's exactly like a house it just yeah except for the price is a little bit more like a car but but i'm saying the house is dirty or the car is dirty and like it's if you get into your 80s 90s you're you're not going to take better care of your house

Part 737:30

correct yeah and that's what i that's why i get so passionate about this procedure people go into this because they go oh i can make a lot of money for the effort they don't realize and put all of the other parts and pieces like what happens when this goes bad what happens when this patient's mad because you've had one little tooth that they didn't like and you know all of those things end up kicking most small guys out you'll see somebody come to rise uh you know come on the scene in the first couple years because it's a very successful business in the very first couple years but if you don't have all the answers in the other end you fall by the wayside we've seen lots come and go and majority of it is because they just don't understand that there's a lot that goes into the rest of it and my passion isn't in the um expansion plans and isn't in the um profitability of doing these cases mine is on as an example being able to give a procedure be less complex to maintain for that person in their old age if she was to go through and fix her teeth which she's already done to the tune of what she said like forty six thousand dollars she continued down that path we're going to increase complexity and increase nooks and crannies to take care of and that's going to affect her into her long older age and so for me this procedure is really awesome because it helps people have solid fixed teeth even when they get to that point where they can't necessarily be taking care of it to the level you want i've told you stories of older clients of mine i have one in mind in particular that i mean he's definitely spent between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars on multiple twenty thirty thousand dollar surgeries and it's because he didn't he's never been in your chair you know he's never been in a dio chair and you know i just feel pretty confident saying that like it seems like to a certain extent if you're in the wrong hands it can be almost i don't want to use the word predatory but it's like you know to have to do this procedure over and over again with the wrong team and the wrong materials with less experience doing it the odds that you could end up you know having to spend throw good money after the bad or whatever the saying is you know that that would scare me more right because spending the amount of money it costs to do this procedure to the one thing having to address it again is is a whole scarier you know concept so and that we see that very frequently they go to the wrong place they get the wrong advice it's very easy for a full arch person to put full arch blinders on and say everything that kind of qualifies as full arch likewise and i would say i would argue maybe even a slightly bigger problem is it's really easy for a dentist to not look at anybody you know as a anything but teeth and so if there are one or two teeth left they're still going to go well you know we shouldn't take these out so this is how we're going to spend all of your money to populate everything around these teeth um there was uh there was a guy that we were training a couple years ago who um he he had been with us for maybe like three or four months two or two or three months and um i don't think he did any real surgeries but he had been observing me and was hopefully training to to do it and um he had been there for literally a couple months and he there was one case at the very end before we kind of decided to separate or pass uh ways he goes i'll never forget his comment he goes now i can see why you would want to do a full arch here and the person i'm not kidding the person had three teeth teeth left in their head. So it's really easy. It's very hard for a consumer. I don't envy them at all. It's very hard for a consumer to figure out who's full of it and who's not, who has the right opinion for them. How are they going to calculate that? Because everyone's different.

And sometimes it's really hard for a dentist to see past the fact that there's four or five teeth in there that really aren't going to help anything. And I'm sure that I'm guilty of the opposite. But yeah, it always sticks with me that it's very hard for a consumer to navigate all these things. I mean, as we're talking about financing, us alone have five options for financing, on top of which we said, well, that's just for financing.

Sam, do you have any other ideas? I got a couple. That's another... You know, that's 10 different ways and just the things that we can think of off the top of our head. So it's a very complex thing to sort of put together. We didn't even talk about friends and family and, you know, asking your brother for a loan or something. Yeah, which happens quite frequently as well. The other thing is like, don't get discouraged. If you don't... In ours, again, I love our financing companies. They work really well for a majority of our patients. But if you're that one patient that it doesn't work for you, just don't be discouraged.

Speaking of... It's a big mistake to us because I might not be able to go and like hold your hand through like the HELOC process or like with your 401k, but I can at least give you some suggestions of like, hey, other patients in the past have done X, Y, Z, give it a try. And again, it's not to say patients have got declined on financing and then didn't get approved with their bank. And then they've worked... I've seen multiple patients work on their credit score and come back six months, a year later, and they're ready to go and they get approved. So just my biggest thing is, don't feel discouraged. Don't be embarrassed. Speak to us. You don't have to like not answer me anymore if you don't get approved. Like we will do whatever we can to help or guide. And then it's a little bit on you to continue to like do the work, raise the credit score, whatever it might be. So...

Yeah. I was going to say very similarly to that is just that obviously our financing companies are pretty easy to know right then and there if you're pre-qualified or not. It's a couple of buttons on your computer that you're pressing at home. So if that happens to you and you're in that situation, don't feel like you can't, you know, spend a couple minutes on that. I mean, it's at the bank and just see what they have to say as well.

Yeah. And those kind of closing statements are exactly why we've, at Dun & One, why we are who we are. This is such an exposing procedure. When I think about it, it's a miracle that anyone ever gets across the finish line. You have to know that this procedure is out here. You have to have and suffer two things. For the most part, you've suffered through some sort of dental trauma. You have to be able to have made enough money to save enough to have the resources to do it. You have to navigate who's going to do it. You have to... All of those things, finance, dental, like you put those two things together. Those are two of the most painful, embarrassing, stressful things for a human to go through.

Finance and medical. Those are the big ones. Yeah. So to get over those, it requires a very big human component of, listen, we get it. This sucks. We're going to... We care about you more than anything. And we care about your decision and your movement forward more than anything. My new statement to patients a lot, and it probably isn't that great, but is that their check is... I'm obligated to the rent a whole lot longer than their check's going to last.

And so that being said... I can confirm that.

Part 845:24

Yeah. So that being said, my example and the point being is that I want them to be happy. We want them to be happy. We want them to tell their friends and come back and find the routes to get it done. Because the only way that we survive long term is that they're out there kind of pushing people towards us. So... But... To... To... To summarize it all, and I appreciate all of you guys coming on today. We are here for you. And the financing is a complex game. And there's a lot of different ways. And there's a lot of different...

▶Just like life, there's people that can afford it very easily. And then there's people that can't. We understand all of those things. And we want to help you. So give us a call. Talk to us for a consult. The lovely ladies here will walk you through the process. You probably won't interact with Sam. For better or worse. But no, thank you guys for taking the time. And thank you for listening and watching. We hope we can help you in the future. Thanks.