Stop Drowning in Post-It Notes: How a Bank Bankruptcy Led to Transforming Dental Practice Technology
What happens when a 20-year-old college student loses her banking internship to bankruptcy and ends up stringing wire through ceilings to install computers in dental offices? For Dayna Johnson, that unexpected detour in 1989 launched a 35-year journey that would revolutionize how dental practices use technology. From working with DOS-based software and paper charts to becoming a certified Dentrix trainer who has delivered 187 podcasts and transformed countless practices, Dayna has witnessed—and driven—the evolution of dental practice management. In this eye-opening episode, she reveals why 60% of patient appointments are booked after hours (and what you’re missing without AI receptionists), how redundant software is quietly draining your budget and efficiency, and why that “we’re booked six months out” excuse is actually a scheduling problem, not a marketing victory. If your team is still using three-ring binders for unscheduled treatment or hunting for notes in 12 different places, this conversation will change everything.
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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- 00:00 – Introduction and sponsor shoutout to Marketing 32’s performance guarantee
- 00:31 – Shoutout to Dr. Arun Garg’s episode on implant marketing and DSO growth
- 01:42 – Meet Dayna Johnson: Dental practice management expert, podcast host, and founder of Navoni
- 02:42 – The accidental journey: From marketing major to bankruptcy to building computers in dental offices
- 03:50 – Introduction to dental technology in 1989-1990: Stringing wire through ceilings with screwdrivers
- 04:44 – Walking into a practice with only two computers and DOS-based software in 1994
- 05:13 – The 2003 software upgrade: Leading the charge to implement Dentrix after years of resistance
- 05:43 – The training gap: Struggling with new software due to lack of onboarding and resources
- 06:13 – Becoming a certified Dentrix trainer in 2005 (originally just to be an expert for her own office)
- 06:48 – The career explosion: Blog, stage speaking, training offices, and transitioning from paper to electronic health records
- 07:38 – The biggest challenge today: Lack of training and onboarding as teams face massive turnover
- 08:34 – New team members being told to “just start doing it” with no systems or guidance
- 09:03 – The Post-It note problem: Manual systems everywhere because teams don’t know how to use the computer
- 09:45 – Redundant software spending: Overlapping third-party tools draining budgets unnecessarily
- 10:32 – Streamlining dashboards and reducing overhead expenses by consolidating software
- 11:18 – Garbage in, garbage out: How inconsistent data entry breaks marketing attribution reports
- 12:29 – The documentation crisis: When teams put notes in different places, critical information gets lost
- 13:07 – Legal and audit implications: Your PMS is your healthcare record and must be defensible
- 13:24 – The 12 different places you can document in Dentrix (and why that’s a problem)
- 14:35 – Free resources: 187 podcasts, YouTube channel, and tip sheets available at Navoni.com
- 15:35 – AI everywhere: The new reality at Greater New York Dental Meeting
- 16:32 – AI is already in 60-70% of what you do: Insurance verification, eligibility, and benefits syncing
- 17:34 – AI receptionists answering phones after hours (when 60%+ of appointments are actually booked)
- 18:20 – Why practices without online scheduling are losing patients to competitors who have it
- 19:35 – Five-star x-ray ratings: Dentrix’s new AI feature that evaluates image quality and gives recommendations
- 20:05 – Bad images kill claim payments: The financial impact of poor x-ray quality
- 20:45 – The transcription game-changer: AI converting dictated notes into beautiful SOAP notes automatically
- 21:36 – The practice still using paper charts everywhere (and the one that got hacked and now uses both)
- 22:37 – Security warning: Unauthorized API connections are how breaches happen
- 23:52 – Dayna’s PMS recommendations: Why Dentrix is most feature-rich for private practice preservation
- 24:10 – The multi-location players: Dentrix Ascend and Open Dental excel in the cloud
- 24:42 – EagleSoft struggling to keep up with innovation; Archie new on the market
- 25:43 – The golden nugget for office managers: Embrace automation and stop clinging to paper systems
- 26:12 – Why controlling the appointment book manually is holding your practice back
- 27:08 – The ChatGPT disruption: OpenAI rolling out ads and changing how patients find dentists
- 27:37 – The “booked six months out” myth: Why this is a scheduling problem, not a marketing excuse
- 28:25 – Block scheduling essentials: Perfect day scheduling with reservations for new patients
- 28:38 – The 50% stat: Half of adult Americans have periodontal disease—do you have SRP blocks ready?
- 29:21 – If you stop marketing, people don’t know what makes you different or what you’re good at
- 29:45 – Solutions for being booked out: Add associates, extend hours, add hygiene-only days
Dayna Johnson’s path to becoming a dental technology expert began with an unexpected crisis. As a 20-year-old college student in Washington state pursuing marketing and business, she was six months into a paid internship at a local bank when it filed bankruptcy. Suddenly jobless with a mortgage and bills to pay, she went to work for her uncle Dave’s computer company that installed computers, networks, and software into medical and dental offices. This was 1989-1990, and Dayna found herself literally building computers and stringing wire through ceilings and floors with screwdrivers. Her introduction to dentistry came through the technology side, and she quickly discovered she had a knack for it. After working at two dental practices in Washington, she encountered a practice in 1994 that felt like stepping back in time—only two computers (one in the doctor’s office, one at the front desk), DOS-based software requiring colon backslash commands, and file cabinets full of paper charts.
Dayna made it her mission to upgrade that practice with modern computers and software, but the doctor resisted for nearly a decade. Finally in 2003, he agreed to upgrade and put Dayna in charge of leading the transition. They purchased Dentrix, but Dayna struggled enormously due to complete lack of training, onboarding, and resources—something that simply wasn’t available at that time. Determined to master the software, she became a certified Dentrix trainer in 2005, originally just wanting to be an expert in her own office rather than planning to train others. But what transpired changed her career trajectory entirely: she started the Dentrix Office Manager blog, began speaking from stages, and trained offices on transitioning from paper charts to electronic health records. By 2014, she left the dental practice entirely to focus full-time on software onboarding, workflow optimization, live events, and speaking—a career that has now produced 187 podcasts and transformed countless practices nationwide.
The challenges Dayna sees today mirror her own early struggles but are amplified by massive industry turnover and staffing shortages. New team members—often from outside dentistry—are told to “just start doing it” with no real onboarding process, leading to persistent use of manual systems like Post-It notes everywhere, three-ring binders for patients wanting earlier appointments, and notebooks for unscheduled treatment follow-up. Practices are also bleeding money on redundant third-party software that overlaps functionality, forcing teams to log into multiple dashboards when their PMS could handle much of it. The data entry inconsistency creates legal vulnerabilities (the PMS is a healthcare record that must withstand audits and subpoenas) and breaks marketing attribution when notes are scattered across Dentrix’s 12 different documentation locations. At the Greater New York Dental Meeting, Dayna witnessed AI’s explosive integration into 60-70% of daily dental tasks—from insurance verification that contacts carriers and syncs benefits automatically, to AI receptionists capturing the 60%+ of appointments booked after hours, to five-star x-ray ratings that prevent claim payment failures, to transcription services that convert dictation into polished SOAP notes. Her golden nugget for office managers clinging to paper systems and manual appointment control: embrace automation and technology. And for practices claiming they’re “booked six months out” so they don’t need marketing—that’s a scheduling problem requiring block scheduling for new patients, perio maintenance, and SRP appointments, not an excuse to stop telling the world what makes you different.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Novonee: Dayna Johnson’s dental practice management consulting company offering software onboarding, workflow optimization, live events, and strategic guidance
- Dentrix Software: Dayna’s primary expertise and recommended PMS for private practice, noted as most feature-rich and innovative on the market
- Dayna Johnson: Dayna’s linkedin profile
- Video: “How I named Novonee”: Dayna’s linkedin profile
- Free Documentation Tip Sheet: Specific resource on where to make notes in your PMS for consistency across the team—direct link available in show notes
- Dr. Arun Garg Episode: Previous Marketing 32 Show episode on implant marketing and DSO growth strategies
- Marketing 32: Performance-based dental marketing agency with growth guarantee helping practices with lead generation and patient acquisition
Quotable Moments:
“I was all of a sudden building computers and stringing wire through ceilings and on the floor with screwdrivers, installing computers. And that was my introduction into the dental practice—through tech.” – Dayna Johnson
“I walked in like the first day and there were two computers in the office. DOS-based software. The colon backslash, you know, the whole deal. File cabinets full of paper charts. And I’m like, I had just gone back in time seriously.” – Dayna Johnson
“When I first got Dentrix software, I really struggled with it because of lack of training, lack of onboarding, just no training at all. No resources. We didn’t have anything like that back then.” – Dayna Johnson
“One of the biggest challenges I see is the lack of training and the lack of onboarding with software. Our whole entire day revolves around software—we’re scheduling all day, we’re producing, we’re collecting, we’re writing documentation, we’re doing everything in the computer.” – Dayna Johnson
“Team members come in to a new practice and maybe they’re even coming in from outside of dentistry, and they’re like, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ And the office is so overwhelmed that they’re like, ‘Okay, just start doing it.'” – Dayna Johnson
“I still see a lot of Post-It notes everywhere and three-ring binders for patients that want to come in earlier, notebooks for following up with patients that have unscheduled treatment. There’s just this lack of efficiency because of the lack of onboarding.” – Dayna Johnson
“If everyone on the team is documenting information in the same places, then you’re not hunting for information. This is your legal record. We’re a healthcare provider. If we get subpoenaed or audited, we have to be able to provide documentation.” – Dayna Johnson
“AI is now involved in probably 60 to 70% of what you do every day. If you are doing insurance eligibility and verification, you are probably using some version of AI because AI is able to contact the carrier, get benefits, pull benefits, and even sync benefits into your practice management software.” – Dayna Johnson
“We do know that more than 60% of patient appointments are booked after hours. So if you want to stop missing phone calls after hours, get an AI receptionist to answer your phones.” – Dayna Johnson
“If the clinical assistant is taking an x-ray and the x-ray gets a two-star rating or a one-star rating, the AI will give you recommendations as to how can I make this image a five-star image. It’ll tell you exactly what you’re missing in that x-ray.” – Dayna Johnson
“If you have this third-party API that’s not authorized and approved, then that’s how hacks happen. That is potentially how a breach could happen.” – Dayna Johnson
“I don’t think there’s a practice management software on the market that is more feature-rich and innovating than Dentrix. I strongly believe that. I’ve seen them all.” – Dayna Johnson
“If I was going to speak to all the office managers out there that have been working in a practice for a long time: embrace automation and embrace technology. I know you love your paper systems. I know you don’t want patients doing online booking because you want to control your appointment book. But that will change your life and your practice. I guarantee it.” – Dayna Johnson
“You can’t stop marketing just because you’re booked out. That’s a scheduling problem. That’s not a marketing problem. That’s a scheduling problem if you can’t get a new patient in in the next two weeks.” – Dayna Johnson
“50% of adult Americans have periodontal disease. So for every 10 new patients, you need to have at least five open time slots for SRP unless you’re gonna refer it out to a periodontist.” – Dayna Johnson
“When you stop doing marketing, then you stop sharing with the world what you’re really good at. What do you want everyone to know that you’re good at? Implants, ortho, sleep—whatever your specialty is, if you stop marketing, people don’t know who you are or what makes you different.” – Dayna Johnson
Action Steps
- Download the documentation tip sheet: Visit Navoni.com or the show notes link to get Dayna’s free resource on where to make notes consistently across your team
- Audit your software redundancy: List all third-party software subscriptions and identify overlapping functionality that could be consolidated into your PMS
- Standardize data entry protocols: Hold a team meeting to establish consistent naming conventions for referral sources, insurance carriers, and documentation locations
- Implement block scheduling immediately: Reserve specific appointment blocks for new patients, 3-4 month perio maintenance, and SRP procedures
- Evaluate AI receptionist options: Research after-hours phone answering services to capture the 60%+ of appointments booked outside business hours
This episode is brought to you by Marketing 32—the only dental marketing team with a performance guarantee where if you’re not growing, you don’t pay. Marketing 32 is truly invested in your growth, helping practices across the spectrum from solo practitioners to 30-location groups acquire new patients and break through growth plateaus. They get patients to your front door through proven digital marketing, SEO, and patient acquisition strategies. But as Dawn reminds us, what happens when patients walk through that door is up to you. If you need help with the marketing side and want to see if you’re a great fit to work together, reach out to Marketing 32 at marketing32.com for a quick discovery conversation.
Episode Transcript:
Brett Allen (00:19)
Hi, Allen here, host of the Marketing32 show where I connect with leading dentists, influencers, and industry experts to uncover the latest and greatest, the insights and innovations to help your practice grow and thrive. As always, this episode is brought to you by our team here at Marketing32. We are the only dental marketing team that I know of with the performance guarantee that if you’re not growing, you don’t pay. It’s that simple. We’re truly invested in your growth and demonstrating that impact. ⁓
I wanna build a team that’s the most ethical dental marketing team out there. And so if you need help with growth, if you need help with marketing, set up a call with our team at marking32.com. We can go back and forth on your goals and see if we’d be a great fit to work together. Quick shout out to Dr. Arun Garg. Recently had him on the show. He does a lot with implants, implant symposium, CE, also a owner of a multi-group
practice and a DSO. We talked all about implant marketing and how that can be successful for your practice. So if you’re in implants or looking to add that to your practice, check out that episode with Dr. Garg. Excited to have a new friend on the show. Dana Johnson is with us today. She is a dental practice management expert, podcast host, and the founder of Novoni, revolutionizing the dental industry through innovation and strategic leadership.
Through her life’s work, Dana’s goal is to empower dental teams to live up to their true potential, provide guidance that transforms challenges into opportunities, and help dental professionals have the thriving practice they’ve always dreamed of. Dana, excited to have you on the show. Thanks for coming today.
Dayna Johnson (02:02)
Thank you, Brett. It’s pleasure to be here. And we got snow this morning for the first time this year.
Brett Allen (02:07)
Yeah, we did. Yeah, if
you guys are watching on YouTube, I don’t know if you can see out there, but a lot of lot of snow up here in Evergreen and you’re you’re in Denver area, northern Denver, right?
Dayna Johnson (02:12)
Yep. There we go.
Yeah.
Yeah. Just north of Denver. Yeah. We’re a little bit lower elevation than you, but we both got, you know, a few inches for the first time in 2025.
Brett Allen (02:25)
Yeah.
Yeah, the first big snowfall is fun. It’s a winter wonderland out there. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for coming on. I’m excited to go deeper with you about practice management softwares. I know that’s how you work closely with teams and getting the most out of the PMS and how you can integrate that and get all of that figured out. ⁓ But before we go into those details, tell us more about your journey and how you got into dental and
Dayna Johnson (02:32)
Yeah.
I love it. It’s so pretty. Yeah, so thank you for having me.
Yeah.
Brett Allen (02:59)
and into what you’re doing in industry.
Dayna Johnson (03:01)
Yeah, which is kind of why I love software so much because, you know, I kind of fell into dentistry. It was not my career path of choice. I was, I was on a completely different business marketing path, ⁓ and in college and all the things. And, you know, I was, I was in college working, I was doing a internship at the marketing department at a local bank up in the state of Washington. That’s where I’m originally from.
And I was doing a paid internship, you know, going to college and about six months into my internship, the bank I was working for filed bankruptcy. And I was all of a sudden out of a job. was, gosh, I was 20 years old. You know, I was already married. I had already bought a house. I had bills to pay. I had a mortgage and I was
I needed a job. so I went to work for my uncle Dave. He had a computer company that installed computers and networks and software into medical and dental offices. And I was all of a sudden, I was all of a sudden in, you know, year 1989, 1990, somewhere around there. I was all of a sudden building computers and stringing wire through ceilings and on the floor with screwdrivers, installing computers.
Brett Allen (04:10)
cool.
wow.
yeah.
Dayna Johnson (04:27)
And that was my introduction into the dental practice was through tech. Yeah.
Yeah. And then I went to work for, I went to work for my first dental practice up in the state of Washington. I ended up working at two dental practices in Washington state. The second dental practice I worked in, ⁓ you know, I went to work for this dental practice and I walked, I walk in like the first day and there was two computers in the office. One was in the office, the doctor’s office and one was at the front desk. ⁓ DOS based software. mean.
Brett Allen (05:02)
Okay.
Dayna Johnson (05:03)
The colon backslash, you know, the whole, the whole deal, you know, file cabinets full of paper charts. And I’m like, I had just gone back in time seriously. And, know, so it was my goal to get this practice upgraded with computers and new software. like, that was my ultimate goal. This was in 94, I think 94. And my doctor was not going to have any part of it at all.
Brett Allen (05:05)
I remember writing those commands, yeah. Yeah.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dayna Johnson (05:33)
And,
uh, so finally, like in 2003, he finally said, okay, we’re going to upgrade, we’re going to get new computers and new software and Dana, you’re going to lead the charge. So, you know, I did all my software demos and, uh, we did end up purchasing Dentrix back in 2003. And, um, when I first got Dentrix software, um, I really struggled with it because like lack of training.
You know, lack of onboarding, ⁓ just no, no training at all. No resources. didn’t have anything like that back then. And I really struggled. And, ⁓ so in 2005, I became a certified Dentrix trainer. Really not thinking I was going to go out and train. I really just wanted to be an expert in my field and to be an expert in my office. I really just wanted to learn more about the software, but.
Brett Allen (06:03)
you
Yeah, yeah.
Mmm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Dayna Johnson (06:33)
What transpired was I started being the Duntrix office manager blog. I started speaking from the stage. started, you know, going in and training offices and helping them transition from paper charts to electronic health records. And then my career, you know, just exploded. And, and then in 2014, um, I actually left the dental practice and now I do, I do full time software.
⁓ onboarding and workflow optimization and speak from the stage and do my own live events. so now everything’s kind of just blown up, but, ⁓ it definitely didn’t start out that way, but yeah, I love it. I love, love what I do.
Brett Allen (07:08)
Wow.
That’s awesome. ⁓
That’s cool. And I imagine you see a lot when you work with teams, see a lot of missed opportunities or problems or ⁓ friction with a practice management software. And you do these local in-person events where you’re working hands-on with teams and things, or maybe even ⁓ in-person at the client ⁓ in the practice, hands-on with the practice.
Dayna Johnson (07:27)
Yeah.
Definitely.
Mm-hmm.
Yep,
for sure.
Brett Allen (07:44)
Let’s
talk about that. Let’s talk about what are some, some tips that you can give our listeners to get the most out of working with their teams and what are some pitfalls challenges that you see with, with what you do.
Dayna Johnson (07:57)
Yeah, I think probably one of the biggest challenges I see is the, the, and how I started the lack of lack of training and the lack of onboarding with software. You know, it’s like our whole entire day revolves around software where we’re scheduling all day. We’re, we’re, producing, we’re collecting, we’re writing documentation, we’re doing everything in the computer and
And so what you, what I see is, you know, in our industry, we have a huge, we have a huge turnover and lack of, lack of staffing and we have a huge hiring and keeping, ⁓ team members. so right now I’m seeing just a lot of lack of training. so team members come in to a new practice and maybe they’re even coming in from outside of dentistry. And they’re like, they’re like, okay.
Brett Allen (08:35)
Mm-hmm.
Dayna Johnson (08:54)
What am I supposed to do? And, you know, the office is so overwhelmed that they’re like, okay, just start doing it. You know, and they’re like, well, where do I start? And, you know, so there’s just, there’s a real lack of onboarding process, which leads to, ⁓ people are still using a lot of manual systems because they don’t know how to use the computer. So I still see a lot of post-it notes everywhere and three ring binders for
Brett Allen (09:03)
Good.
Yeah.
Dayna Johnson (09:23)
patients that want to come in
earlier, or, you know, I see offices using, you know, notebooks for following up with patients that have unscheduled treatment or things like that. So, you know, there’s still this, just this lack of efficiency because of the lack of onboarding. you know, so that’s my ultimate goal is to help offices with resources and training and onboarding. And…
And the other thing that I see a lot of is, ⁓ you know, overlapping or redundant software is trying to work together. You know, you know, if you’re, PMS, your practice management software, it’s like grand central station, you know, all your patient data is there, all your systems and processes are there, all your accounting and your production and everything is in the PMS. But then you have, you need something for.
Brett Allen (10:04)
Mm-hmm.
Dayna Johnson (10:22)
texting or electronic forms or onboarding or online booking. And, you know, so then I see there’s a, sometimes there’s an overlap. They’re using two or three different third party softwares and they’re spending so much money a month on all this redundancy. And so I see a lot of that as well. That’s a big challenge that I help offices to streamline what you’re using.
Brett Allen (10:24)
Mm-hmm.
Dayna Johnson (10:52)
reduce the number of dashboards that your team is having to log into, ⁓ reduce that overhead expense of all different softwares. And so that’s been one of my biggest priorities is to help offices streamline their software.
Brett Allen (10:52)
Right.
Hmm. Yeah. Imagine you see how teams are inputting the data too, right? There’s probably like garbage in garbage out kind of thing, right? Like we’ve seen when we try to, we have an integration that we built that integrates with the PMS so we can track marketing dollars spent to production generated, which is awesome. But we also in building that integration, we uncovered that if you’re trying to attribute.
Dayna Johnson (11:17)
Okay.
Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Brett Allen (11:38)
patients to different channels of marketing, depending on how the team puts that data in, when you go to run a report, it may not actually pull it all because instead of saying Google, they say search engine. So do you see that too, is like how they’re putting the data in? that, yeah.
Dayna Johnson (11:44)
Mm hmm. Yes.
Yes. Yes, that is
such a, that’s such a great point because one of the things that I will, one of the most basic things we could start with, efficiency, like saving your practice time, saving you headaches for finding information and, and saving you the
Redundancy of sorry, this whole sheet of ice just fell right in front of me. just scared me. ⁓ it did, ⁓ you know, one of the things that we could give your listeners, ⁓ is this, this tip sheet on, okay, where should I make notes? Right. one of the things that we could do right now is get everyone on the team consistent with where should I document this piece of data?
Brett Allen (12:24)
I startled you.
Mm.
Hmm.
Dayna Johnson (12:49)
And
because if everyone on the team is documenting information in the same places, then you’re not hunting for information. And also we have to think about the practice management software. I mean, this is your legal record. know, we’re a healthcare provider and we have to think about, ⁓ you know, if we get subpoenaed for information.
Brett Allen (13:07)
yeah.
Dayna Johnson (13:17)
for documentation, or if we get audited, we have to be able to provide documentation. And if everyone on the team is putting things in different places, that could be, that could be really problematic. And so, you know, that could be one thing that, that I could share with your audiences is a free tip sheet on, okay, where should I make notes? Because in the Dentrix software, you know, I’m a Dentrix trainer and the Dentrix software, there’s about 12 different places we could
Brett Allen (13:26)
Mmm.
Mm, yeah.
Dayna Johnson (13:43)
we could document things, you know? And so one person on the team may be putting it in this place and another person may be putting it in this place. And then it’s like, where’d you make that note about, you know, Mrs. Jones and her financial arrangement? So that can be really, really helpful. That could save hours for, you know, just finding document, defining information.
Brett Allen (14:02)
Yeah.
That would be great. Yeah, I know your website has a lot of valuable videos, resources. Should we just send them there or do you have a specific link for this ⁓ tip sheet that you want?
Dayna Johnson (14:16)
Yeah, I have a specific link.
Yeah, I have a specific link I could send you and that way they could go straight to this one tip sheet. But you’re right. I mean, if they go to my if they go to my free resources page on my website, they can find I mean, I’m almost to like I’ve done 187 podcasts and I have a YouTube channel. So there’s lots of great information for free. And and then if we want to deep dive even farther,
You know, we have, I go into offices and I have the membership and I do in-person events. So there’s lots of other ways we could connect.
Brett Allen (14:55)
Great, okay. Well, if you’re listening, we’ll put that into the show notes. We’ll link specifically to that tip sheet resource in the show notes. But I want to tell you, her website right now is, and I’m saying this wrong, aren’t I? Novoni?
Dayna Johnson (15:10)
You can say,
yeah, everybody says it a little different. I say Navoni. Yeah. And if you want to know, if you want to know what Navoni means, there is a video on the Who We Are page. I made a video of how I came up with the name. So you can watch. Yeah. People ask.
Brett Allen (15:15)
Navoni.
Okay.
Great, I love it. I think that’s cool. So to
spell Navoni, it’s N-O-V-O-N-E-E dot com. I think it’s a great domain too, it’s short and sweet. Yeah, okay, great. So we’ve touched a little bit on practice management software, the teams working in there and things like that. Let’s talk a little bit about, I know you just told me you got back from the Greater New York meeting.
Dayna Johnson (15:35)
Yes. Yes, I like it. It’s catchy.
Yeah, yes.
Brett Allen (15:55)
It seems like every dental event I go to now, there’s this new AI thing or a new PMS thing or bolt-on thing that rides on top of it. ⁓ Let’s talk about the progression of PMSs and what’s out there today. What are you seeing as kind of the great new things that are happening in the industry or any kind of tips around that ⁓ with software that’s out there?
Dayna Johnson (16:01)
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
I don’t think we could leave this podcast without talking about AI. so, I mean, AI is definitely the new shiny toy. And we know that AI has been around in involved with imaging for several years. We’ve had AI that has been able to be a kind of a, assistant to our, our treatment planning and our
Brett Allen (16:29)
Right?
Right.
Right.
Dayna Johnson (16:51)
our diagnosing AI has been in imaging for a couple of years. Where we’re now seeing AI come into the market, in the dental market, is with scheduling, ⁓ answering our phones, ⁓ writing up clinical documentation, ⁓ and also with helping us find the right image for our claim, things like that.
So AI, insurance, and verification. So AI is now involved in probably 60 to 70 % of what you do every day. ⁓ If you are doing insurance, eligibility, and verification with most of the platforms, ⁓ you are probably using some version of AI with that because AI is able to contact the carrier.
Brett Allen (17:43)
⁓
Dayna Johnson (17:48)
get benefits, pull benefits, and even sync benefits into
Brett Allen (17:51)
wow.
Dayna Johnson (17:54)
your practice management software. ⁓ AI is now able to answer your phones when you are not available. So we do know that more than 60 % of patient appointments are booked after hours. And so if you want to stop missing phone calls after hours, get an AI receptionist to answer your phones. So that’s…
Brett Allen (18:13)
Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah.
Dayna Johnson (18:18)
There are a lot of options for that.
Brett Allen (18:21)
Yeah. And we’re seeing that in marketing too, when we’re running ads. ⁓ People work during the day and yeah, they may have time during their lunch break or they may have time throughout their day to call and get that appointment schedule. But if you can tap into those windows where patients are
Dayna Johnson (18:25)
Yes.
For sure.
Brett Allen (18:39)
you know, they’re winding down for the day. They actually have time to sit and think about the other things that their family needs. And if you’re closed and you don’t have online scheduling and you don’t have some kind of way for them to connect with you and get that appointment scheduled, the practices that do are gonna get that appointment. And so, yeah.
Dayna Johnson (18:50)
Exactly.
Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. You know, we
have to embrace technology and we have to be open-minded about how can this technology help me and help my patient. Patients want convenience. The offices want efficiency. so, know, automation can help with both of those.
Brett Allen (19:07)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dayna Johnson (19:26)
those things and we have to learn. We have
to be open to, to those, those changes. Yeah. So, so I saw a lot of really amazing AI things at the greater New York meeting. ⁓ probably one of my favorite things was, ⁓ Dendrix is going to be launching, ⁓ in Dendrix imaging center, which I think is fantastic. They’re going to be launching this new like five star rating for the image. So.
Brett Allen (19:34)
Awesome, yeah.
Dayna Johnson (19:55)
If the clinical assistant is taking ⁓ an x-ray and ⁓ the x-ray gets
a two-star rating or a one-star rating, will also give you, the AI will give you recommendations as to, okay, how can I make this image a five-star image? And it’ll tell you exactly what you’re missing in that x-ray. So you could retake the image right away, get that five-star image. Yeah, that was one of my favorite things.
Brett Allen (20:13)
cool.
⁓ cool.
That is neat.
Dayna Johnson (20:25)
Yeah, definitely. then because one of the things that can happen is if you have a bad image, your claim is not going to get paid. So it can financially really hurt the practice.
Brett Allen (20:33)
⁓ interesting.
Yeah, interesting. Fascinating stuff.
Dayna Johnson (20:36)
Yeah. The other thing that I thought,
yeah. Good. ⁓ yeah. The other, the other thing that I thought was probably one of the best things coming on the market is transcribing for clinical note documentation. ⁓ you know, our clinicians, they’re, I know they’re busy, they’re overwhelmed just like everyone else. And they, lot of times don’t get their clinical notes done, but if you can transcribe it.
Brett Allen (20:41)
Go ahead, keep going. Yeah.
Dayna Johnson (21:05)
And then the AI agent can mold it into this beautiful soap note for you. ⁓ and then you just have to review it. That that’s, yeah, exactly. You just dictate it. Yeah, exactly. And so that’s a game changer, ⁓ especially for these doctors that still take charts home to write up. Right.
Brett Allen (21:11)
Nice.
So you just dictate it and then it puts it into the software for you. That’s cool.
I know. I walked
into a practice up in Boulder, this is two weeks ago, it still had paper charts everywhere and they were adamant about not going online. They’re like, this is what I’m doing. The doc was probably like 70 years old or whatever. This is what we do. And I had another practice of ours that said, they do have online, I want to say they’re open dental. I can’t remember which one it is, but.
Dayna Johnson (21:31)
you
yeah.
Okay.
Brett Allen (21:56)
They do have online, but they got exposed to a hacker and got all of their records like taken hostage or whatever. They had to pay all this money or whatever to get their stuff back. I don’t hold me to open down. I don’t want to bad mouth any particular PMS, but there was some kind of loophole that they got hacked into. And so they still have all, they still have everything on paper because they have this phone, this, this fear now of this happening again. And then they also have everything on in the cloud.
Dayna Johnson (21:59)
Mm.
Brett Allen (22:25)
And so it’s like, ⁓ that just seems like a nightmare to try and do two places. Yeah.
Dayna Johnson (22:28)
reduplication
for sure. Redundancy will kill you when it comes to time management. mean, yeah, yeah, that’s a, that can be really dangerous. You know, it’s like, and that’s why these software companies, you know, practice management software companies are adamant about approved and authorized API connections is because
Brett Allen (22:37)
Yeah.
⁓ yum.
Dayna Johnson (22:56)
If you’re using an unauthorized API connection through a third party software to access your Dendrix data, mean, you know, know, I know everything about Dendrix. So, ⁓ if there, if you have this third party API, that’s not authorized and approved, then that’s how hacks happen. mean, that’s, that is potentially how a, ⁓ a breach could happen. Yeah. And so.
Brett Allen (23:03)
Hmm.
⁓ yeah.
Yeah. So
we can kind of jump a little bit. This is such a fun conversation. We only have probably a few minutes left, but it seems like you’re a Dentrix expert. What are the other platforms? What’s your favorite? And what ones do you recommend?
Dayna Johnson (23:27)
I know. Yeah.
you
Well, of course I’m going to recommend Dentrix for private practice. mean, my heart and soul is preserving private practice. And so I don’t think there’s a practice management software on the market that is more feature rich and innovating than Dentrix. I strongly believe that. I’ve seen them all. ⁓ And now there is a lot of…
Brett Allen (24:04)
well.
Okay.
Dayna Johnson (24:11)
softwares that have come on online. OpenDental is really popular. And it has third party integrations. It has everything that you need to run your practice. ⁓ know, Dedric’s Ascend has been built from the ground up. It’s been around for probably upwards of 10 years. ⁓ It is the ⁓ one of the best cloud-based software. So if you have multi-location,
Brett Allen (24:30)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Dayna Johnson (24:38)
Dendrix Ascend is great for multi-location, same with Open Dental. Anything that’s in the cloud is great for multi-location. ⁓ And ⁓ I know that Archie is new on the market. ⁓ I think EagleSoft is struggling a little bit to keep up with innovation. Yeah. And then… ⁓
Brett Allen (25:01)
really?
Dayna Johnson (25:04)
But those are probably the big players. think Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Open Dental, Archie and Archie are probably the best ones on the market. you know, the really the, really the strong players that are keeping up with innovation, keeping up with updates. Cause that’s what you need. You need a software that is keeping up with technology. Exactly. Exactly.
Brett Allen (25:09)
That’s your favorite, yeah.
evolving with time here.
That’s great. I know we’re about out of time. We could probably pick your brain even more and share advice. There’s probably a ton of advice you could share to help teams get the most of how they work together and in their PMS. what would be, I always close the show with this question. What’s that one golden nugget that you could share, that piece of advice that would just really have a ripple effect, that one domino, you could push it over and has a
Dayna Johnson (25:35)
Okay?
Yeah.
Brett Allen (26:00)
Huge epiphany for them. What is that?
Dayna Johnson (26:03)
I think if I was going to speak to ⁓ all the office managers out there right now that have been working in a practice for a long time, embrace automation and embrace technology. Okay. I know you love your paper systems. I know that you don’t want patients doing online booking because you want to control your appointment book. But ladies,
Brett Allen (26:13)
Okay.
Dayna Johnson (26:32)
And gentlemen, that is one thing that if you could open your mind to things like online booking and having an AI receptionist answer your phones after hours and ⁓ open your practice up to automation and giving your patients those conveniences, ⁓ it will change your life and your practice. I guarantee it.
Brett Allen (26:59)
That’s a great, yeah. Embrace the change. mean, with the online market, chat GPT OpenAI just said they’re going to be rolling out ads. And so that’s going to be another platform that you can advertise on. ⁓ that’s going to, it’s already disrupting how we do online marketing and patients are more and more going to AI to find out information about procedures and dentistry. And, ⁓ that’s changing. So, so if you.
Dayna Johnson (27:01)
embrace the change.
Mm-mm.
Yes.
Okay.
in.
Brett Allen (27:28)
staying on top of what’s new and working with a marketing team and experts such as Dana to really leverage what’s new will keep you ahead of the game. I wanted to ask you one other question because I talk to a lot of practices and some of them don’t think they need marketing because they’re booked out six months, right? That new patient calendar, if you want to get in, we’re looking at May or June.
Dayna Johnson (27:37)
Yes. Agreed.
Yeah. Right.
Brett Allen (27:55)
And it’s like, my gosh, if you say that to a new patient right now, you might as well say, to the guy down the street ⁓ or go to the other dentist. ⁓ So what do you, from a new patient standpoint, like columns, what are some things that practices can do with their PMS to maybe find that extra room for a new patient? Do you have any advice there?
Dayna Johnson (27:57)
Yeah. Yeah.
They need to be
using block scheduling. They need to be using, in the Dendrix world, it’s called perfect day scheduling. You have to have perfect day scheduling in place in order to have reservations available for new patients, for your three and four month perio maintenance, for your SRP. We have to remember that 50 % of adult Americans have periodontal disease. And so for every…
Brett Allen (28:21)
Okay.
wow.
Dayna Johnson (28:45)
for every 10 new patients, you need to have at least five open time slots for SRP, unless you’re gonna refer it out to a periodontist. So new patient blocks, three and four month paromaintenance blocks and SRP blocks have to be blocked out in your schedule in order for you to get patients in on time. ⁓ Now, if you’re booking out, you know, six, seven months out and you don’t have room for a new patient,
Brett Allen (28:58)
Mm.
Yeah.
Dayna Johnson (29:14)
then there’s a lot of things that they could do differently. ⁓ But they can’t use that as an excuse for not doing marketing because when you stop doing marketing, then you stop sharing with the world what you’re really good at. What do you want everyone to know that you’re good at? Implants, ortho, sleep.
Brett Allen (29:34)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dayna Johnson (29:40)
whatever your specialty is, if you stop marketing, people don’t know who you are. You know, what makes you different. yeah, yeah, you can’t stop marketing just because you’re booked out. That’s a scheduling problem. That’s not a marketing problem. That’s a scheduling problem if you can’t get a new patient in in the next two weeks.
Brett Allen (29:48)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
And maybe it’s time to explore adding an associate. Maybe adding another op if you can bust out that wall next to you and buy more space or adding another hygienist or all those things.
Dayna Johnson (30:05)
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Add
an associate and stay open till eight o’clock at night. I mean, what’s wrong with that?
Brett Allen (30:20)
Yeah. I was in a practice yesterday, ⁓ visiting with them. They, they have specific days where it’s just hygiene only. And so the doc’s not even there. It’s just hygienist doing hygiene. And I, yeah. Yeah.
Dayna Johnson (30:30)
Yeah, yeah, we used to do that. Yeah,
we used to do that a lot.
Brett Allen (30:36)
Lots of of things you can do you guys you got it.
Dayna Johnson (30:37)
There are lots
of things you can do, you know.
Brett Allen (30:40)
You got to reach out to Dana to find out
what those things are. If you’re not, if you, if you don’t know who she is or if you need help with that advice, consulting around PMS and your team, ⁓ reach out to Dana Johnson. She’s a wealth of knowledge. So yeah, this has been so fun. We’re out of time now. ⁓ I guess we send them to your website. If they want more information, if they want to schedule a call with you, go to one of your events, Navoni.com.
Dayna Johnson (30:56)
Thank you, Brad, I appreciate it.
Okay.
Yep.
Brett Allen (31:10)
We’ll have that in the show notes. Thank you so much today, Dana. This was a fun conversation.
Dayna Johnson (31:15)
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
Brett Allen (31:17)
Alright guys, until next time on the Marking32 show, have a great rest of your day and an awesome Christmas season. Take care.
