Ep. 37: The DIO Travel Package: Concierge and Peace of Mind

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'm your host, Dr. Daniel Noorthoek. With us today, I have Erica. Hello, Erica. Hello. And it is my pleasure to have finally convinced Daniel on to join us today. Hello there. Daniel is our travel concierge extraordinaire. He is the person in charge of planning and booking the travel and making sure that patients have a great experience.

So obviously, it was very vital to have you on this podcast. We appreciate you coming on. He's a big part of Dun & One. Huge part. How long have you worked for us, Daniel? I've been here since May of 2022. Okay, May of 2022. ▶Coming up on four years. Feels like about 50 years. Feels like longer than that, actually. Feels very long. Daniel actually also drives, well, he does a number of things. Why don't you go through and kind of describe all of your off, because then we'll focus in on all of your like offshoot things that you do.

Obviously, I do all of our travel coordination for our out-of-state patients. I manage our Boca Perio office. I do all of your little fun side tasks. Tags and certain DMV things that I don't like to do. Weekend projects, everything. But it's always so much fun. You know, there's always something going on. Weekend travel in the van. Weekend travel, golf trips. Golf trips. Oh, yeah. Trips up to do surgery in Boca or Jacksonville and Tampa. Yeah. So you fill a lot of roles.

If you had to guess, how many hours? How many hours a week do you think that you're like kind of on the clock? Oh, man. Pretty much all day, every day, every day. You know, there's some days where it's from 12 to 4, there's nothing going on. But, you know, at night it all picks up or something like that. So I'm always on the phone, always doing something. So why don't we go through when we're talking about travel?

Let's go through travel package, Erica. And then maybe describe when you hand it off to Daniel. And then maybe, Daniel, you maybe can describe like what a patient's experience would be like from there. Yeah, absolutely. So on my end as a treatment coordinator, usually we will start off kind of in the consultation itself. Actually, even Alex talks about it a little bit as well on the first initial call. But from the consultation, we'll let the patient know kind of towards the end.

Hey, we have this service that we offer. You let us know if you're interested in it or not. Totally optional. ▶Our prices change not really very often. Actually, I think I've only ever seen them change once and it was for the better. We kind of offered a special on it. But it's a really good thing to offer to the patients. They don't have to worry about kind of the hassle of booking their own stuff in addition to having the surgery itself.

So it's just to take that additional thing off of their plate and kind of hand them over to Daniel. I let them know travel package consists of flights for you and one other person. The hotel stay for you and one other person comes with our driver. So Daniel will be your concierge. He picks you up from the airport. He'll take you to the hotel. Any office to hotel visits as well. I think every once in a while you do offer a grocery trip.

Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. It comes with our travel package bag, which usually I'll hand off to Daniel. He'll drop it off at the hotel prior to the patient checking in. So that'll be there waiting for them ready when they arrive. It has some bone vitamins, saltwater rinse, Yeti, gauze, Vaseline, a whole bunch of goodies. To kind of have around while you're healing. Has medications included in it as well. So he's super safe and conscious about that.

And then from there, once that patient decides if that's the way that they're going to do it, I'll hand them off. I'll say, hey, Daniel, can you reach out to this person? And then you let us know. What do you go from there? Yeah. And that's when I step in. And, you know, sometimes we have patients that are booking surgery for a week out. And then sometimes they're booking months out. And that's where my job, it's kind of fun.

It's kind of like an adventure. You know, you get to touch base with these patients. And see, you know, where they're traveling from. What are their concerns? Do they have questions about traveling? And then, you know, you go on to the next step of where are you flying from?

Part 24:36

We go through all the flight options. Do you want a long layover? Do you not want that? Do you want something that's direct? And then we go over their hotel. And do you want two queen beds? Do you want one king? Get all the fun stuff out of the way. And then I go over the process with them. So the day of your flight, you're going to fly in the day prior. Once you arrive, you know, you're going to fly into.

Fort Lauderdale Airport. And you're going to let me know as soon as you land. So that way I can meet you right at the door. Pick you up. Take you over to the hotel. And then go over all your travel package bag stuff. ▶And then your appointments throughout the week. I think I forgot to mention as well. The travel package actually is a Monday through Friday process now. Which it was not before. This is something fairly new within the last, I would say, like nine months to a year or so.

It did change in that way. Is that all travel packages? All travel is Monday through Friday. And that's something that we're super proud. And we were super excited to be able to offer. So it does bump that timeline up a little bit. In the best way possible. Because sometimes that does actually convince a patient that this is actually why I want to do travel package. Not only is it for the convenience. But it's actually because it kind of gives you that little bit of a upper level access to kind of our lab.

We will see that patient. And if Monday surgery, we'll do double PTIs on. We'll do double try-ins on Tuesday. Double try-ins on Wednesday. So morning and afternoon for both of those. We'll have finals. By Friday. Yeah. I've always said that Danimal has like the inner working of the backside opinion of a patient better than anybody. He knows the inner workings of Dun & One because he's in there for the trips up to Jacksonville and Tampa. He also knows very well how it goes from the patient side.

▶It's always been really good insight. By the end of the week, you're usually their best friend. All right. It's super. Cool. You know, you get to be with them through their process. So they're coming in. They're nervous. You know, it's you're flying to another state to get a surgery. And I mean, I would be the same way. I wouldn't want to talk to anybody. I wouldn't know what to do. And just as the week progresses and as they go through their try-ins and, you know, they get to meet the staff and see how wonderful the office is.

Totally changes. You know, it's a totally new personality. And it's amazing. Like, they're just so happy to be here. And it's a really cool thing to see. It is really cool. We started that just the whole process because and I've mentioned it before, but we started it all because I had some shoulder surgery and they said, yeah, we accommodate people from out of state all the time. And I was like, great. Who do I talk to about coming in?

And they handed me like a list like this. And it was just a bunch of like hotels in the area, et cetera. It was like was no of no assistance to me. And so I went back. I went back home and thought, you know, like we have a lot of we have a lot of really out of state, cool people that come.

Part 37:36

I wonder how the how the world would be if if we were able to kind of take that off their hands. It's been really pretty awesome, successful. And since then, we brought you more. You were already full time, but we brought you more over into that that world. So that's kind of your ecosystem. You kind of manage and run it. But we've also become a travel agency. We're registered with the state of Florida as a travel agency.

So we've taken it serious. And I think we've done a pretty good job with it. The patients seem to like it a lot. Absolutely. We went on some and we lose on most. But the point is to sort of be able to take that work in that unknown. You know, as you mentioned, they're coming from a different state. Generally coming from a different state can be a scary thing, especially for medical procedures. So the patient being able to have that peace of mind.

And already know and feel like they know you to begin with and kind of have a friendly face just all the way through has been really awesome. How many patients do you think that their first flight was to done in one? Because I know quite a few. Yeah. Their first ever travel flight experience. Daniel has booked. Who? I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess like 70 would be my guess. You think it's high? We have had quite a few.

It's quite a few. I would say it's a lot. Daniel walks into the process of. How to even or what to expect at like a TSA line, you know, how to navigate an airport. OK, Dan, well, tell us your wildest flight that you had to book. So the craziest flight. We had a travel package patient. She was came in for her consult. Erica told me she booked the travel package. I reached out to her. Didn't really know much about the situation, what was going on.

And the surgery was for the following week. So I was like, perfect. We do that to Daniel a lot. It happens. We do the surgery on a Friday and I'll be like, hey, they're coming in Monday. So he really is around the clock. Yeah, it happens. But, you know, that's that's the exciting part of it. It's like a project for me. So I reached out to the patient, spoke to her. I was like, you know, went through all of her questions, concerns, asked her where she's flying from.

She told me north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska. I remember her. And I was like, I don't I don't know if Delta flies there, you know, but I'll check. And so I had to go on this like down this rabbit hole. I was like, who flies to Anchorage and all this stuff finally got her in. But man, that was. Yeah. A long day of travel. Was that two two layovers or just one? Three layovers. Three. Three layovers.

Three layovers. One in Seattle and then one in Atlanta. It reminds me of a YouTube I watched recently, which was the guy. You know how you get the the nonstops and then the single stops and the two stops. Yeah. He he was going to go meet up. With his friend for for lunch or something in L.A. ▶And he picked the worst one that came up. And so he was going from somewhere in the States to L.A. And he went he ended up going to like London and Austria and somewhere else.

Just a sightseeing as layovers. Well, they were like part of the part of the flight that came up. You know, when you can pick. Yeah. And they get crazier and crazier. Yeah. He picked the craziest one. The one he could. I mean, there have been some crazy travel stories, though. I mean, I remember one time we had a travel patient and she was coming down for surgery. She had her surgery done. I was picking her up one morning for her trying appointment.

And she had her big tote bag with her that we give with all travel package patients. And I'm driving in the car. And this is back when we had the the van that we were using the van for travel package. So you got the big partition and you can't really hear people. But you can kind of hear them. And I was driving down the road. And all of a sudden I heard like a cat meow, like a kitten.

I was like, OK, maybe I'm going crazy, but I don't think I am. And we got to the office and she was like talking into her bag. And I was like, man, I was like, I'm going crazy or something's going on. And she pulled out these two hairless little kittens that she had got the night prior. And I was like, no way. While she was here for surgery. While she was here for surgery. Bananas. I'm going to send Carly a photo to insert here.

Because I have one. Wow. Hairless cats. Yeah. I love them. Any any other like stories that you can think of off the top of your head? No, I mean, there's so many. But, you know, everyone's an adventure. And like, we always make the best out of it. You know, even if there's issues where, you know, like your flight gets delayed, cancels. Well, you know, it's part of traveling, you know, and we'll try and make it as easy and fun as possible, you know, to get you through.

And it's always fun. Even more than that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Hyatt was on fire and we had patients staying there. We did have. Yeah, the Hyatt was on fire. Yeah. The Hyatt was on fire. There was there's a restaurant in the lobby of the Hyatt named Louis Bossy.

Part 412:37

Really good. We actually just mentioned it in our travel package soft food video. I heard as a side note, he just got arrested. Yes. He did. Yes. He did. What for? Not too sure. I haven't looked into it. Battery. Battery. That's not good. Maybe he's on edge because his restaurant burned down. It was not good. It was violent. Yeesh. Yeah. And we one night I was actually going to the office from the lab and it was pretty late at night.

It was like nine o'clock at night and I saw this smoke and I was like, oh, you know, whatever fire must be happening. Didn't cross my mind once that it could be the hotel that we use. So I'm got a notification on my phone from a patient like, hey, just want to give you a heads up. The hotel's on fire. They have us all outside. And I was like, what do you mean the hotel's on fire? Like, this is important.

Like you have meds up there. Your family's here. They had a little. They had a little baby with them. I was like, we got to do something. So I rushed over to the hotel and they were just chilling there sitting on the curb. And I was like, guys, it's like, we got to get your meds and we'll move you over to another hotel. Like, you need to rest. Like, it was just one of those things you never think will happen.

You know what I mean? Absolutely bizarre. Yeah. That was about eight months ago. And they finally just reopened Louis Bossy about a month and a half ago. Yeah. Are you sure it was only eight months? ▶It was like a, I thought it was like a year. It was, it was long. Yeah. But. Louis Bossy is good. It's good Italian food. They're really punchy in the face. Yeah. But it's right under our hotel we use and it's soft food.

Oh, wait, I got it. Sorry. Okay. It is good food though. Um, so that's, that's, uh, yeah, the, the hotel being on fire, that's got to be one of the craziest. One thing that I, uh, admire about you, Dan, is that you have a really good way with people because there are a lot of patients that come in. Trying. To take advantage of the travel package, which is sort of natural, just when you're selling something to the general public.

And there are others that don't maybe want to use you enough. Um, and I think that you do a really, really good job of managing expectations and allowing people to be able to go to the grocery store without it feeling like you're getting taken advantage of or being pushed around. Right. Um, at the same time of. Like getting those people that maybe wouldn't inconvenience you to also partake in that. I think you do that very, very well.

I wouldn't, I don't know if I would be able to handle it. I don't think so either. We used to myself and Lily, I used to get very defensive about Daniel because at first it was a lot of taking advantage of, and we were like, dude, it's tough. Yeah. I, you, you know, the thing is you gotta find that, that balance and you gotta be under able to understand how to like, you know, vibe with people and see, you know, I mean, there's people that are more.

Prevalent to asking you a question about, can you take me here? Can you take me there? You know, and if there's times on the schedule where it's empty and there's not much going on, of course, you know, definitely, you know, it's an experience for everyone, but you gotta know how to like help certain people get to, you know, the steps that they need over their trip and it's hard, but it's, it's manageable. And that's what makes my job so fun.

Part 515:49

How many, what's the longest you've ever waited at the airport for somebody? We, um, Me and Lillia were actually just talking about this. Um, there was a patient who was supposed to fly in. I think she was supposed to land at like five in the afternoon or something. Flight got canceled, got stuck at her layover destination. And I was sitting at the airport from about 9 PM till two 30 in the morning. Oh, wow. So that's a long time.

So when you just set up camp and hang out, rock and roll, at least your Tesla has Netflix and such on it. Yeah. Yeah. What, um, what are patients most anxious about before coming and like, what, what anxieties and nervousness do you have to work through with them? So a lot, it depends, you know, it varies. There's some patients that like Erica was saying that haven't flown before and they don't really know how to navigate an airport.

So what does it, what does a real ID, you know, what does that mean? What is a boarding pass? Where do I collect that? Um, how do I check my bag? And there's a lot of steps, you know, so you got to walk them through and thankfully nowadays, you know, there's a lot of digital aspects to it. So your boarding pass the night prior, I'll text it over to you. So you have your QR code there, nothing you have to do.

Um, as long as you have your real ID on your driver's license. And I think now they just rolled out a program where you don't even need to have a real ID. Um, that's a whole nother process to get through security. So I'll walk them through checking your bags, getting through security, boarding your flight. Once you get to that boarding, your flight stage, there's really no more stress. Um, you get on your flight. Enjoy your flight. Once you land in Fort Lauderdale, you go to your carousel, pick up your bags.

I'll explain the process to them. If they don't know, you know, where do I find out what carousel number I'm at? I'll explain to them where to find that. And then most of our patients fly into Fort Lauderdale. There's very few that fly into Palm beach, but you know, depending on what the breakup of that is, it's about a 90% that fly into Fort Lauderdale. Yeah. So luckily Fort Lauderdale has a very simple, um, setup. There's four terminals and each terminal at their arrivals has a door number.

So it's like one Oh one, one Oh two, something like that. And I tell them it's as simple as, you know, call me, text me. I'm always around. ▶They always have my number. They know where to find me and just let me know what door number you're at. I'll swing by. I'll pick you up. Luckily we have, um, our logo on the car now. So it's super simple for somebody to locate me. And I would say getting through the airport and navigating a new airport is probably most of the time.

So they're concerned there's some times where their concern is, you know, what's going to happen if I have to stay later, my zirconia finals won't be ready. And, you know, I explained to them, you know, things do happen, but the way that our process is set up, it allows the lab, it allows us enough time to still be able to get them out on that Friday or Saturday, depending on when they fly out. How many times have we had to delay five?

Very few. There's been more. A little. More, I would say, but not too far off. If anything happens, something. Yeah. Yeah. Five to 10. 10. Yeah. That's not bad. I would say. No. That's, that's life. You know, that's. For sure. Dentistry. That's anything and everything. I'm right now.

Part 619:12

I'm in the middle of working on my, I have bought a Mustang. That's it's not restored and I'm not restoring it. I'm just fixing up some, some aspects of it. And there's stuff done that just, it's unbelievable. How long it takes. ▶Because it's just the wrong screw and this and that. And it's, you never know what's going to happen in life. It's bananas. All about the experience. Yep. So that also, I wanted to mention, it's one of the best things about our practice location has always been because we're, we're so quickly located off of 95 and the airport or the hotel is, is so convenient to our office, but it's always been really great because.

We do have Miami, if we need it, we've got Fort Lauderdale, 27 minutes away and we have West Palm 27 minutes away, which is really great. Um, anything else you want to add in terms of travel type stuff? No, I mean, it's like you just mentioned, we're in a great location and I have a lot of travel package patients who come back, whether it's their 90 day, their yearly cleaning. Um, and they're so comfortable at that point that.

You know, if I'm available, I'll pick them up from the airport, bring them to the hotel and they make a little vacation out of it. You know, they'll stay at the Hyatt. It's so close to the office. I think it's half a mile walk, you know, they could just walk right there and they make a whole little trip out of it. So it's really great to see like our practice being incorporated in there, like vacation, you know, it's, it's really cool.

Cause you don't typically think that when you think of dental dental offices, like you want to. Not at all. You don't ever want to visit your dentist. And that's what another thing that I will say that is. Is really awesome about our practice location is that it is amenable to walking. If you want to walk and enjoy the outdoors, it's amenable to doing the travel package with Daniel and being able to take advantage of that and being as slow moving as you'd like to be and take that time to heal and relax.

We also have people that take the week of it and they rent a car and then they drive down to the keys and go have a keys vacation. So it, it, it caters. To a lot of different experiences. You can be as hunkered down and, and trying to heal as much as you want, or you can be out there and showing off your new teeth, usually temps. ▶But we have it go both ways. Sometimes patients are in the hotel all week, which is totally fine, relaxing, resting, recovering.

And then sometimes they're like asking Daniel, we, Hey, what should we do? What, what are your best suggestions? If someone was coming down, trying to plan their week for their surgery, what are your, what are a few of your staple spots? Yeah. That you would suggest that they stop by at man. I depends, you know, we have people that come that are, like you said, very chill, laid back and want to either go lay by the beach or, I mean, I always recommend going to the beach.

I always recommend if they're up for a little bit adventure, but don't want to go too far Atlantic avenue and Delray beach it's lined with restaurants and little shops. It's really nice. You know, you want to people watch, just walk down the road. Um, that's a really cool place. I've had some patients before that want the adventure and want the thrill. And they've gone on fishing charters, you know, they've went up to Disney. I had a guy, um, one time he flew down, had a surgery on, I believe it was like a Monday or Tuesday and, um, two days after surgery, I went to pick him up in the morning and he was all cut up, all bruised up.

And I was like, man, what'd you do? And he was like, I bought a fishing rod and I was fishing off the rocks at Boca Inlet and I caught a shark and I had to get down in the water and start fighting it. And I was like, no, no, no, no. No way you're two days after surgery. What are you doing? But no, it's really cool. You know, I mean, I always say, go to the beach, try some of the local restaurants, you know, it's Florida.

We got a lot of seafood and majority of seafood. ▶You could definitely eat it on a side food diet, especially after a few days of surgery. Um, we get the people that live here as locals that have been here for a long time. We get kind of caught up in traffic and such, but there's a reason why this is a great place to visit. There's this is a. Just awesome. You know, it's close coast, close to the coastline.

You've got boats everywhere. You've got fishing, like that guy fishing off the pier. You've got charters, you've got good weather, good restaurants, good food. Um, really great, great stuff. Yeah, it was super cool. And Boca is its own little hidden gem. You know, it's not a very transient area, so you don't have to worry about like the. There's very little shadiness happening around here. Not much happens. I love it. My brother, just speaking of good weather and such, is stuck in like eight to 10 inches of snow right now.

And, you know, I called them on my way here and he was telling me about how he was going to have to go remove some snow. Meanwhile, I'm been working outside in the garage or in the, in the driveway all morning. Like, yeah, I also just got a very similar photo from my brother who also lives in Michigan. And I said, Oh my word. Yeah. So if you need a break, as long as you can leave your house.

We've got you and a Danimal will be the one that, and I'm sorry, I keep calling him Danimal. It's the only thing that I can call him. It's my given nickname. I don't know where it came from. One day I just started calling you Danimal. I think it was your nickname. Yeah, it is. It is my nickname, but I passed it on to you.

Part 724:44

You're certainly a staple and we appreciate getting you on. I know we've had some difficulties getting you to agree, um, but we've enjoyed having you on here. Um, in the Dun & One, if Dun & One was a plated meal, certainly Daniel would be the mashed potatoes, absolute staple, fills you up, warms your soul. That's how, that's what I would say about Daniel. I agree. I agree. Thanks for saving the day for us so many times and time again.

My pleasure. And if you book with us, you will be talking to Daniel. Uh, we hope that you do it soon and, uh, he'll take care of all of your travel needs. Make sure. Make sure you arrive here safely. Um, but in addition to that, have a good time. And that's sort of the whole point of everything is build good relationships, have good service and, um, let our patients have a good experience with dentistry. Not a bad one for sure.

So thanks Danimal. My pleasure. I'll see you guys soon. We'll see everybody soon.