Brett Allen (00:19)

Hi, Brett Allen here, host of the Marketing 32 show where I connect with leading dentists, dental influencers, and industry experts. As you know, we uncover the latest and greatest in strategies and insights and innovations to help your practice grow and thrive. This episode, as always, is brought to you by our team here at Marketing 32. We’re the only dental marketing team that I know of with a performance guarantee that if you’re not growing, you don’t pay. It’s really that simple. So if you want to learn more about how you can work with us, it will be a great fit.

Head over to marking32.com, schedule a quick call. We’ll talk and set you straight. Quick shout out to the amazing women of Collabricon event coming up. Tia Hunter, Emmy Sanders, Dana Watson, and Lois Banta recently had them on the show. We talked all about how that event is so different and unique from any other dental event in the industry. You should check it out. And today I’m super excited to have a new friend. Gary Takas is here.

Gary, as you guys know, his reputation precedes him. He’s passionate about helping dentists and team members develop their practice to full potential. He’s spoken at nearly every dental conference in North America and is often referred to as the Podfather. Podfather, I did that wrong. The Podfather, since he started the very first dental podcast in 2011 and now has listeners in over 188 countries, you guys. If you don’t know that podcast, you gotta check it out.

So excited to have you on the show today, Gary. Thanks for coming on.

Gary Takacs (01:38)

Well, Brett, it’s mutual. I’m really excited to be on your podcast talking about things I’m passionate about. So thanks for the invitation.

Brett Allen (01:45)

Yeah,

yeah, as always, let’s dive into, mean, you’ve got a huge experience that we could go into with dentistry. ⁓ Tell us about how you got started and then ultimately transitioned into being a consultant now that you’ve helped so many.

Gary Takacs (01:58)

Yeah.

Well, pardon my enthusiasm regarding our amazing profession, but I truly believe that dentistry rocks. And Brett, know you share that ⁓ sentiment as well. ⁓ And the reason I believe dentistry rocks is we have the ability to change people’s lives every day. It could be something we do clinically. You you take a patient that has some really compromised dentition and you provide them the smile of their dreams. Or it could be something much more subtle, behavioral.

Brett Allen (02:10)

Yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Gary Takacs (02:27)

It could be a patient just needs someone to listen to them. And maybe you were that compassionate set of ears that they needed that day. So I truly believe our profession rocks. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But if I can share a little bit of background, I spent all of the 1980s working for two large dental consulting firms, essentially learning my craft as a coach and consultant. By 1989, I had worked with over 500 practices in all 50 states.

Brett Allen (02:30)

Hmm

Yeah.

Gary Takacs (02:54)

I still had a lot to learn, but I thought maybe I know enough to get started. My wife was a kindergarten teacher. We had two kids later to become four. And I cut the corporate, I cut the safety of the corporate job and we launched my consulting firm, ⁓ figured out how to live on a kindergarten teacher’s income. My wife says I have selective amnesia and ⁓ she’s right. I’m not sure how we did that, but I get, she gets all the credit.

Brett Allen (03:16)

I can ⁓ relate

Gary Takacs (03:22)

Yeah, she gets all the credit ⁓ and we made it. ⁓ for the last, ⁓ know, since since 89, I’ve had my own consulting firm, myself and my team. work with practices all over the country to help them develop their ideal practice. Along the way, I.

Brett Allen (03:30)

Yeah.

How

many practices have you helped now?

Gary Takacs (03:39)

Well, we stopped counting ⁓ just shy of 1800 practices. So it’s something north of that number. And ⁓ it’s, like I said, it’s just ⁓ a passion of mine. ⁓ I truly love ⁓ working with doctors and teams to develop their ideal practice ⁓ and to really ⁓ have it be a practice that…

Brett Allen (03:42)

Yeah, I bet.

Wow, wow, impressive.

Gary Takacs (04:06)

represents their values, their wishes, and it’s truly a labor of love. I’m not a dentist. I should mention that. I’m not a dentist. I’m

Brett Allen (04:15)

Yeah, I didn’t know that when I first met you.

I’ve seen you all over. I’m like, here’s an awesome Dennis. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (04:20)

I get accused of being one, ⁓ but I’m

not a dentist. I’ve never been a dentist. My background is the business and the behavioral side of dentistry. So the business side and the people side, the behavioral side of dentistry. ⁓ Years ago, I had a wonderful mentor that ⁓ some of your more senior listeners will remember, Dr. Omar Reed. Some will remember him. Dr. Reed taught me that dentistry is a people game. And you know what, Brett, he’s right.

Dentistry is a clinical game for sure, but it’s also very much a people game. If you can master the behavioral side, you’ll get a lot more ⁓ acceptance of your treatment recommendations because they know how much you care about them. ⁓ So it really has been a passion. I have been a practice owner. I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona. In Arizona, you don’t have to be a dentist to a practice. And from 2007 to 2022,

Brett Allen (05:03)

Yeah.

Right. Right.

Gary Takacs (05:17)

I was a partner in a dental practice, initially partnered with a dentist. We owned it 50-50 and continued to develop it. We brought a second doctor on board in 2013, diluted our shares from 50-50 to a third, a third, a third, continued to develop the practice. We had a goal of growing by at least 10 % every year. And even years where we weren’t adding providers, weren’t adding more hygiene or weren’t adding another doctor, we still wanted to grow by at least 10 % every year.

I was a partner in that practice until 2022. We always had a buy sell agreement between my partners and myself. And it was geared towards me. Frankly, Brett, I’m old enough to be their dad. Actually, much so. And it was directed towards me. And in 2022, I went to my partners and said, hey, guys, I don’t need to sell my third. But if it works for you, this would be good timing for me.

Brett Allen (05:44)

wow. wow. Yeah.

time.

Gary Takacs (06:10)

So I’d like to put, I’d like to spend the next season of my career really on my coaching and helping as many practices as I could develop an idea. It turned out it was good timing for them. So while I’m no longer an equity partner, they’re a client. My daughter’s their office manager and they’re my dentist. So I still have a deep connection for sure.

Brett Allen (06:14)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Well, we have a lot of dentists we work with in the greater Phoenix area. I we’re up to 13, 15 practices or something like that. Love the Phoenix market. It is great. And there’s a lot you can do there with alternative treatments, right? Like other implants, you name it. Huge market.

Gary Takacs (06:35)

It’s a great area.

Yeah, yeah, it’s,

you know, it’s a, it’s a sunbelt area. So it’s growing. We have a nice age distribution. There’s, there’s seniors, of course. But then on the other end of the spectrum, there’s lots of young families. ⁓ It’s, it’s really a wonderful place to live and practice. It’s competitive, but it’s competitive anywhere people want to live is going to be competitive. It could get a good marketing partner on your side and you can figure that out. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett Allen (06:50)

Yeah.

Sure, sure, sure.

Right? You can blow it up. Let’s go. Let’s blow it up.

part of that, and this is something you advocate for and really help practices with, is transitioning from PPO to fee for service, right? Let’s talk about that.

Gary Takacs (07:24)

I call it reducing

insurance dependence, Brett, and I’ve chosen those words specifically because you don’t have to go all the way to fee for service to improve your practice. Every time you successfully resign from a PPO plan, you’re strengthening your practice. But I always tell my clients, if your goal is to go all the way to fee for service, then I’m going to be your biggest cheerleader because that’s the way to get the most out of it. But you know,

Brett Allen (07:41)

Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

Gary Takacs (07:50)

I’ll get on my soapbox and I suspect I’m gonna have attentive ears in your podcast listeners. ⁓ Don’t get me started about PPO plans ⁓ and about the…

Brett Allen (07:59)

man, there’s

some funny jokes that I just saw this the other day on dental nachos. There was a post about, this is the greatest way that I, this is an example of how you can help people understand how the insurance industry has really like just put a damper on the.

This is somebody here talking about it, the favorite explanations. It says, the other day an attorney patient asked me why I wasn’t in network with his dental insurance. I asked why he wasn’t in network with my lawyer insurance. He asked, what’s that? I responded, that is insurance that makes you reduce your $350 an hour fee to $150 hour if you were in network. Want to sign up? How about you, right? It was really pretty remarkable. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (08:40)

Yeah, how about no? You know, imagine that.

I like to teach our clients to think of the PPO adjustments, the difference between your usual fee and your contracted fee. I like my clients to think of that as a marketing expense. Now, it doesn’t show up on your profit and loss statement because you’re not actually writing a check to Delta. Can I name them? Can I name the 5,000 pound gorilla? Yeah.

Brett Allen (08:50)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s, yeah.

Right, right, right. Everybody knows who you’re talking about.

Everybody knows.

Gary Takacs (09:08)

you’re

not writing a check to Delta. It’s even worse. Delta takes the money out before you ever get it. But I want you to think of that as a marketing expense because you are paying Delta to provide you patients and you’re paying them in the form of a 45 to 50 % haircut over your usual fee. It’s the average adjustment in 2025 at the time we’re recording this is 45 to 50%. In fact,

Brett Allen (09:13)

Right. Right.

It’s pretty high. Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah,

that’s an outlandish marketing fee. Yeah, if you look at the industry standard, it’s anywhere, depending on what kind of growth phase you’re in, you’re like anywhere from five to 10 % total production goes to marketing. And so if you’re paying 45%, that’s, yeah, it’s great. ⁓

Gary Takacs (09:38)

Where?

That’s crazy.

know, and sadly, ⁓ a lot of dentists don’t know what they’re writing off. And there’s a way that I can explain that really simply. In your practice management software, and again, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Dentrix, Eagle Soft, Open Dental, or whatever flavor of PMS you have, ⁓ there’s two ways to enter your fees. One way is you can enter your usual and customary reasonable fees, enter your usual fees. And then ⁓ if you’re participating with PPO plans,

When you get the EOB, that gets loaded into your software and it does the adjustment to figure out what you’re able to collect out of that. But only 10 % of dentists in the country enter their UCR fees. The other 90 % of dentists in the country enter their contracted fees. In other words, what the contracted fee is for the crowd. ⁓ And all the major practice management systems encourage you to do that because it makes it easier to track collections. ⁓

Brett Allen (10:31)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Gary Takacs (10:43)

But the part that’s bad about it is that you never know what you’re writing off. So for example, I equate it to

Brett Allen (10:48)

Right.

Gary Takacs (10:50)

you’re driving an exotic sports car blindfolded and the exotic sports car is your practice and you’re driving that blindfolded. ⁓ Let me give you an example. This is my favorite example to use. I won’t use the doctor’s name out of confidentiality, but this is a case study from my client base and this is a very, very strong solo dentist practice.

Brett Allen (10:56)

Yeah. ⁓

I’m honest with

you, I have a strong fear of signing up for signing up here. And if you do sign up here, sign up for the ballot.

Gary Takacs (11:11)

And I have two years side by side to compare. And it makes the comparison really valid because you’re looking

at two situations side by side. In 2023, this very strong solo dentist, so he was a four day a week solo dentist, two full-time hygienists, each also working four days a week. Nice mix of services. In 2023, he was contracted with eight PPO plans. So not as bad as it could be.

Brett Allen (11:21)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Gary Takacs (11:37)

Sometimes we see 2030 PPO plans. He was contracted with eight Delta was one of those. And in 2023, he was in network the entire year and his office in 2023 ⁓ produced 1.9 in real fees, $1.9 million. But I think you’d agree that’s a strong solo dentist practice. And the collected one for now the difference, the $500,000 difference was not a collections problem. It was a

Brett Allen (11:55)

Not bad, not bad.

Right, that’s what

I was immediately thinking, yeah. ⁓

Gary Takacs (12:04)

It was an adjustment problem. In other words, that was

the part that was adjusted off by the PPO fee plans. So Produce19 collected one four. Now let’s fast forward to 2024, the next year. We timed it so he was out of network by January 1st, 2024. So now we had a full calendar year. So remember the numbers, previous year Produce18 collected.

Brett Allen (12:11)

Got it, yeah.

So you had a full calendar year. Yeah. Yeah.

1.9,

Gary Takacs (12:29)

Produce19 collected 1.4. The next year his production went down a little bit to 1.8. Okay, we don’t usually like to see production going down. Yeah,

Brett Allen (12:29)

yeah. 1.4. Yeah, symmetrician, yeah, but yeah.

Gary Takacs (12:40)

not the end of the story because he collected 1.7.

Brett Allen (12:43)

Wow.

Gary Takacs (12:44)

Same team, same hours, same everything. So again, I’ll put the two years side by side. 2023.

Brett Allen (12:50)

Yeah. Well, he’s

probably doing well and a hundred grand less in, in productivity.

Gary Takacs (12:55)

100 grand less, so his overhead went down because his overhead now is based on generating one eight in dentistry, but he collected an extra $300,000. Doctor, if you’re listening to this, which would you prefer? Produce one nine, collect one four, produce one eight, collect one seven.

Brett Allen (12:58)

Right? ⁓

Right.

Right?

Yeah,

I think it’s pretty well known, the benefits to making the switch. It’s the how, right? It’s the how do I do this? There’s a lot of fear, understandably so. There’s a lot of ⁓ advice that’s shared on how to do it. Some of it’s good, some of it’s not. Yeah, how do you walk through a practice? What’s your typical process if you’re gonna…

Gary Takacs (13:14)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, would, Yeah. Well,

we’ve, we’ve got this down to a science. Um, we literally have a six step plan that is your blueprint to follow to successfully resign from PPO plans. And I can confidently say that because we’ve done it in over 400 offices, uh, every state, every locational environment. So urban, suburban, large town, medium sized town, small town.

Brett Allen (13:45)

Wow.

Wow.

Gary Takacs (13:52)

Company town. Let me give you two examples of company towns, Seattle, Washington, and Houston, Texas. ⁓ Yeah, look at Seattle. There’s four large employers in and around Seattle. There’s Microsoft, ⁓ Boeing Aircraft, ⁓ Amazon, and Starbucks. And all four of those have ⁓ PPO plants. ⁓ Houston’s a little bit different, ⁓ but large corporate employers, large… ⁓

Brett Allen (13:58)

Okay. Yeah. Well, you got a good percentage of people are in a similar industry or yeah.

Yep. Yeah, Amazon’s, Microsoft, yeah. Yeah. Right.

A of oil companies. Yeah. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (14:21)

oil gas, ⁓

Brett Allen (14:23)

Yeah.

Gary Takacs (14:23)

but we’ve done it there. ⁓ Done it in rural areas. it, you know, it’s a proven blueprint. Let me walk through the six steps. So it’s a stick six step plan. Number one is, is know your data, know your data. We have to know at a deep level, how many patients are in each plan, what the resignation notice is, what the discount is, whether they’d be willing to negotiate or not, and what that might look like. So we have to know our data and it’s not a casual scrub. It’s really,

Brett Allen (14:31)

Okay, great.

Gary Takacs (14:51)

know it inside and out. Step two, you’ll like this. Develop a comprehensive marketing plan. ⁓

Brett Allen (14:57)

Yep.

Gary Takacs (14:59)

Find a partner ⁓ like Marketing32 to help you market because we’re gonna replace getting your patients from Delta, Blue Cross, ⁓ Etna, Travelers, whatever, with your own marketing. And by the way, you’ll spend a fraction of the same amount, a fraction compared to what you’re writing off.

Brett Allen (15:15)

Right.

Right. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (15:21)

and you’ll get much better results. the truth is, I try to step back and be objective about it, you can get a good patient from Delta. Would you agree with me on that? Yeah, yeah.

But a lot of them arrive with baggage. And the baggage is I’m only interested in having that done if it’s covered by insurance. ⁓ That’s the dreaded phrase that so many dentists dread hearing is, is this covered by my insurance? ⁓

Brett Allen (15:34)

Right, they have expectations they’ve got yeah

Right, right

Is it covered? Yep. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (15:49)

So step two is develop a comprehensive marketing plan to replace any patients you’re gonna lose when you go out of network, but also replace the historic flow of patients that have come from participating. for example, if you get historically 10 new patients a month from Delta, the day you resigned from Delta, that drives up to zero. And if we annualize that 10 times 12, well, we need 120 new patients coming from somewhere else. So that’s where marketing comes in, that’s step two. ⁓

Brett Allen (16:06)

Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right.

Gary Takacs (16:17)

Step three is a membership plan, develop an in-office membership plan. By the way,

Brett Allen (16:21)

man, those are so great.

Gary Takacs (16:22)

in that example that I used where the second year in 2024 ⁓ produced one eight and collected one seven, the $100,000 difference there was all due to a membership plan. And I love the membership plan because the membership plan allows you to attract people that don’t have insurance. So ⁓ yes, there’s gonna be a discount involved with your membership plan.

Brett Allen (16:29)

Yeah.

⁓ wow, yeah.

Yeah.

Gary Takacs (16:45)

but it’s a way lesser amount than if we’re dealing with the PPO plans. ⁓ It’s recurring revenue. ⁓ So step three is develop and market, that goes back to you, market your membership plan to individuals and to small employers that are outside of the typical employers that provide dental insurance benefits. So market your membership plan.

Brett Allen (16:45)

Right and there’s that predictive revenue that comes yeah, yeah ⁓ Right

Yes, and you can…

Yeah, let me talk on that just a minute. ⁓ There’s so much you can do with text marketing to your patient list for this very reason. A lot of practices just turn on in the PMS, give me the automated text reminders for the appointment, and that’s the minimum they do. Or they might do one step further, which is the annual appointment reminder, hey, it’s time for your checkup. If you’re not leveraging that patient list for…

Quarterly marketing and promotional offers to the list to get them back into the practice. You’re missing out on a huge amount of production and selling the membership. Membership works great with that.

Gary Takacs (17:43)

How cool is it to have direct communication into their purse or wallet? Right to their pocket, it goes right to them. So step three is not only create a membership plan, but truly work with your marketing partner to market it to full potential. Step four is to fully train your team at a deep level. Train your team on how to talk to patients about this, how to answer FAQs, frequently asked questions, how to overcome objections.

Brett Allen (17:48)

Right. Yep. Yeah.

Right.

Gary Takacs (18:10)

how to explain, you know, if a patient says, I don’t understand, why are you doing this? How do we answer that? And train it very, very deep. Part of the training that we do is ⁓ we do a heads up conversation to let our patients know that nothing’s happening today, but we tell them what’s coming. And so that way we can get them kind of conditioned to what’s happening. They’re informed, they know why we’re doing it and they…

Brett Allen (18:15)

Yeah, Right

You’re talking about dropping insurance and say, we’re moving this way. Yeah, definitely heads up. I’ve heard stories where that’s not done very well and there’s a huge, yeah.

Gary Takacs (18:38)

Drop it here. Yeah. Yes.

The worst thing, if I

could help your listeners avoid a misstep, the worst thing in the world you could do is just send all your patients a letter. Worst in the world.

Brett Allen (18:55)

Yeah, man. He’s

like goodbye, they’ll just never come to you again. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (19:00)

They, know, it’s not a two way street. First

of all, many people will never read it no matter what format you send it in, whether it’s email, snail mail, whatever. They won’t understand it. ⁓ It doesn’t allow them to ask any questions. They don’t get the humanistic side behind it. They don’t understand why we’re doing this. ⁓

Brett Allen (19:16)

Yeah. And you missed

that opportunity to sell them into your membership. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (19:20)

Yeah, yeah,

the membership plan becomes a wonderful ⁓ alternative and segue so they can stay with you in a better format for them. ⁓ step four is train your team at a very, very deep level. And we do that. Step number five is elevate the relationship driven aspect of your practice. Now, the more relationship driven you are. But my definition relationship driven is we know our patients names.

Brett Allen (19:24)

The segue. Yep.

Right. Right.

Right.

Okay.

Gary Takacs (19:46)

We know their spouse’s name, we know their kid’s name, we know the dog’s name, we know their hobbies, we know their interests, we know where they went to college. If they went to UCLA, we don’t bring up USC. Yeah, they’re your friends. Now, don’t have to know that at all times about everybody, but we need to know the ones we’re seeing today. So we develop a system so that we truly are connected with our patients.

Brett Allen (19:55)

They’re your friends. They’re your friends. Yeah. Gotta track all that in the chart so that they know. Yeah.

Right. Right.

Gary Takacs (20:12)

And then step, yeah.

Brett Allen (20:12)

Yeah, and they feel that. I’ve

seen practices that do that well and those are the seven figure practices. No problem. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (20:18)

Yeah. So for

example, if I was the patient and you had a system set up like we teach, ⁓ and let’s say I’m coming for my routine hygiene appointment, it’s been six months. ⁓ doctor’s gonna, gonna know me because he’s gonna have done some, he or she’s gonna have done some quick homework to prepare for the day. And when he or she comes in to do the hygiene exams, Gary, it’s so good to see you. How’s your wife, Teresa? ⁓ I’ve, I’ve got to ask you about our yoga studio. How’s your yoga studio going? ⁓ you know, I’ve been to some,

Brett Allen (20:40)

Right? Yeah. Yep, yep. All your talking

points. Yep.

Gary Takacs (20:47)

Yeah,

I’ve been to a couple of her classes. need to go to more and dentistry is kind of, you know, it keeps me kind of bound up. I need to go to more her yoga classes and I’ve got to ask you about your grandson, Canaan. Now, how am I going to feel as a patient when we have it’s got to be genuine. You can’t, you know, you can’t be reading off the script. It’s got to be genuine. But I would argue that for your listeners, they wouldn’t be listening to a podcast on their own time if they weren’t genuinely interested in self-improvement.

Brett Allen (21:01)

Totally. Yeah. Right. Right.

Gary Takacs (21:15)

Right? So we just need to set up a good system so they can do that. And then step six is add more what I call high value services. Things like placing restoring implants, adult orthodontics, cosmetic dentistry, diagnosing and treating obstructive sleep apnea, sedation. Maybe we treat TMD, TMJ, ⁓ whatever. I’m often asked, well, Gary, how do I pick those? And my answer to that is pick the things that

Brett Allen (21:15)

Right. Right. Right.

Hmm.

Gary Takacs (21:44)

that float your boat, pick the things you like. Something that you might imagine yourself taking over a thousand hours of CE on and getting excited about it. Those are how you pick your high value services. You don’t have to do everything, but if you love it, you’re gonna be good at it. And the nice thing about those high value services, let’s use cosmetic nastry for an example, what we call a smile design, say a 10 unit upper interior porcelain aircase.

Brett Allen (21:45)

Right, interests you. Yeah, you’ll sell it better if you do.

Right.

That’s great advice. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (22:12)

The patient’s going to ask, that covered by my insurance? They’re gonna ask that. And we say, unfortunately, no, your insurance company calls it cosmetic and they don’t pay for that. The patient doesn’t like that answer, but they get it. They understand it. Your dental insurance was only meant to cover the most basic stuff and this is far from basic. okay. And they kind of chalk it up. Well, it didn’t hurt to ask.

Brett Allen (22:21)

Yeah.

Right, right.

Right, right. But you can present them so many different options on how they can afford it if you do it right.

Gary Takacs (22:36)

Yeah. And again, imagine

the membership plan with the savings that they would get. You know, we can emphasize the savings. By the way, if I can, if I can get granular for just a minute, Brett, I did the research on figuring out scientifically what is the best discount for your membership plan. And we did a, we did an 1800 practice study where we tested different price points on the discount, AB split testing. Of course, in marketing, you understand AB split testing.

Brett Allen (22:40)

Yeah, and financing. Yeah.

wow.

Yeah, yeah.

Gary Takacs (23:04)

And

we tested, here’s what we tested, 20%, 18%, 15%, 12%, 10%, and 8%. And what we found out was 10 % was a sweet spot. So 10 % was enough to encourage people to sign up, but had a lesser impact on the practice than a higher percentage. Now, if you’re a listener and you’ve already, let’s say you’ve got one and it’s 20%, here’s my suggestion. Pick a date in the future.

Brett Allen (23:14)

Wow!

Wow, interesting.

Gary Takacs (23:30)

pick whatever date you want. September 1st, I’m just making up a date and say from September 1st on our discount rate, our savings rate for membership plan is going to be 10%. Grandfather everybody in that is currently in your plan at 20 % leave them in because people don’t like things taken away from them. So grandfather them in, leave them in at 20 % and then starting September 1st moving forward, everyone will be at 10. Now trust me, this will happen.

Brett Allen (23:47)

Right,

Gary Takacs (23:56)

You know where I’m going with this, Brett. ⁓ A new patient’s gonna come

Brett Allen (23:58)

I do scarcity, yeah.

Gary Takacs (24:00)

in, a new patient, and you’re gonna present the membership plan with a 10 % discount. She’s gonna say, well, my next door neighbor, Millie, gets 20%. And here’s what we do. We say, you know what? The accountant has a fit when I do this, but I’m gonna make an exception for you, and I’m gonna grandfather you in under the friends of Millie, and I’m gonna give you that same 20 % that we do for Millie. But shh, keep it to yourself.

Brett Allen (24:09)

Yep.

Gary Takacs (24:25)

because we’re not offering this to everybody. And everybody’s happy. We didn’t take anything away from your existing patients and we indexed it where it should be.

Brett Allen (24:25)

Right? You just got to sail. You just got to sail. Right? Right? Well,

and there’s another piece that I was going after is once you create that date, you now have a scarcity tactic in your marketing that, hey, if they were thinking about it, they’re on the fence, now’s the time, you got to get in. ⁓ No, it’s real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Gary Takacs (24:45)

And it’s not an artificial scarcity. It’s real scarcity. Here it is. You guys

can, you can blow it out of the water and let all your friends know and bring them in. Oh God. Yeah. But you know, the reason I’m so passionate about this is think about this for a minute, Brett. Let’s just hypothetically say you owned a restaurant. Okay. And let’s say it’s a very fine restaurant. It’s one that you take a lot of pride in.

Brett Allen (24:54)

Right? Texting is great for that too. Come on in. Let’s talk about it. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (25:11)

in your menu, in the selection of your ingredients. ⁓ Let’s say, you know, you have some really nice Midwest corn fed beef, you know, hormone free. Let’s say part of your menu includes some seafood and you have ⁓ wild Alaska salmon flown in. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, you use ⁓ farm to table organic produce. Let’s say the cost of those things start to go up.

Brett Allen (25:21)

Hmm.

I’m liking this. This is great restaurant.

Yeah.

Gary Takacs (25:39)

you know, because of costs of doing business. As a restaurant owner, what do you do when that happens? You’d be mindful of your customer base, but you’d raise your menu prices a little bit to handle. ⁓ But, what do, what do, when dental practices are fee for service and costs start to go up, like right now we’re all experiencing massive wage inflation, in particular hygiene wages.

Brett Allen (25:42)

Yeah.

Bright. Yeah.

Yeah, right,

right.

Gary Takacs (26:06)

then

you suddenly raise your fees because you have control of that. Why in the world, can you imagine there was such a thing as a restaurant PPO? Would you ever sign up for that if the restaurant PPO? Yeah. Would you allow the restaurant board to set your fees? Heck no.

Brett Allen (26:11)

Right.

Right, man. Is that dessert covered by my insurance? Yeah, yeah.

my gosh, it is wild,

like it’s wild. I understand why the insurance game started, especially in healthcare, but it is wild when you these examples.

Gary Takacs (26:37)

But you know, it brings a

different story. I’m a bit of a historian and I’ve studied a lot about the history of dental insurance. Dental insurance started in the 60s and Delta of California started in 1968. Let’s go back to 1968. They cover as a thousand dollar annual award in 1968. That’s how much you could get under your annual award from Delta Dental. But let’s look at what it paid. The average crown fee in 1968 was $150. So it paid 50%.

Brett Allen (26:56)

wow.

Gary Takacs (27:03)

So the patient paid 75, the insurance paid 75. How many crowns could they get for the thousand dollar award? I know the answer. It’s between 13 and 14. 13 and a half crowns. So there is no such thing as half a crown. 13 and a half crowns. Fast forward to 2025, some plans still have the same thousand dollar award. Now granted, there are many that have 1200, ⁓ 1250, 1500.

Brett Allen (27:10)

Yeah. Do the math for me. Okay.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Gary Takacs (27:30)

But look at it, even if it’s 1500, look at it proportionately. How much benefit can you get for your $1500 award? One crown and hopefully it doesn’t need a root canal. If it needs a root canal, you’re above your limit. Yeah, but meanwhile, what’s happened, and this is where it really gets criminal, in my opinion, ⁓ is where’s the money going? It’s not going to dentists. It’s not going to the patients in the form of benefits. It’s going to the fat cat executives.

Brett Allen (27:37)

Yeah, it’s not the same.

You’re toast, yeah.

No. The bottom line.

Gary Takacs (27:58)

at the insurance company. ⁓ You know, and it’s crazy the amount of money that they’re making.

Brett Allen (28:00)

Yeah, yeah.

That is wild. Well, I

think we’ll reach a tipping point at some point when Delta has got to realize, and maybe we’re close. I don’t know, but yeah.

Gary Takacs (28:09)

I actually think it’s close. ⁓ I’ll

share a statistic with you and your listeners. ⁓ HPI, Health Policy Institute, it’s an independent research organization ⁓ that is ⁓ funded by the ADA, but independent from the ADA. They’re an independent, they’re a truly an objective research organization. They just did a survey of dentists nationwide in June.

Brett Allen (28:27)

Okay.

Gary Takacs (28:35)

So literally two months ago from the time we’re recording this. And in that survey, one of the questions was, are you considering resigning from PPO plans this year? 32.8 % of the dentists responding said yes, they are considering resigning from PPO plans this year. Can I round up and say that’s a third? One more percent, it would have been a third.

Brett Allen (28:39)

Yeah.

Ooh, that’s scary for them. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s they’ve got us. They’ve got to be feeling it. And, and if they’re listening to the market, it’s yeah.

Gary Takacs (29:07)

Are you

familiar with ⁓ what was called ⁓ Proposition 2 on the Massachusetts ⁓ state? ⁓

Brett Allen (29:17)

I

heard something about, I don’t know the details, but when I was at the AID conference in DC, that was in March, there was something about it, I’m not, tell us the specifics.

Gary Takacs (29:24)

So this happened in

2022. The Massachusetts Dental Association got together and they wanted to put a ballot initiative on the ballot for the public to vote on. In medical insurance, there’s what’s called the medical loss ratio. ⁓ And what the medical loss ratio means that out of every dollar that the medical insurance company takes in, they have to pay a certain amount of that out in benefits to policyholders.

Brett Allen (29:51)

Okay, so some legislation happening, yeah.

Gary Takacs (29:54)

And so, so MDA, Massachusetts Dent Association, wanted to get a dental loss ratio. Prior to this initiative, Delta Dental of California was paying 52 cents of every dollar that they took in on a premium for, for benefits to patients that had Delta Dental. However, in the initiative, it would require Delta of Massachusetts to pay 84 % of every dollar instead of the 52. I’m sure

Brett Allen (30:19)

Nice.

Gary Takacs (30:21)

⁓ Delta of Massachusetts never thought it would ever make it to the ballot measure. They wouldn’t get enough votes. Well, they got enough votes to get it on the ballot. And then it won by a landslide, an absolute landslide. ⁓ And so now in the state of Massachusetts that dental insurance company doing business in mass. Other states are now following suit. And ⁓ you’re starting to see the ⁓

Brett Allen (30:28)

yeah.

I love it. Hopefully other states follow suit. Hopefully. They’re hearing about,

Gary Takacs (30:48)

The very lopsided situation crumble. But I wouldn’t wait for it if I was a dad, I wouldn’t wait for it.

Brett Allen (30:52)

Yeah.

No, there’s way more freedom and control and yeah, 100%. Like you said, like you said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gary Takacs (30:58)

And maybe you don’t go all the way. Maybe maybe we get rid of the most obvious ones. ⁓ I can

understand why there might be reasons in a particular area based on the employer or based on, you know, a community of people you want to support. There might be a reason, but certainly we can get rid of some of the most offensive plans ⁓ and do it in a way that is a win for you. You know, right now in the insurance game, we’ve got the insurance company that provides the policy.

We’ve got the dentist that provides the care, the patient that receives the care, and the employer that buys the policy. In those four entities, the only one that wins is the insurance company. The dentist loses because of the massive discounts they have to take. The patients lose because of all the games they play. Like heaven forbid, Brett, you would go into your dental office five months to 29 days after your last hygiene appointment, because that one’s gonna get stamped denied because you didn’t have a 30 day, you know, six month wait. So the patient loses.

Brett Allen (31:40)

Yeah.

For real.

Right? you’re, right, right. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (31:52)

And the employer is losing because of how much they’re getting gouged for those premiums. So it’s time for this game to go away.

Brett Allen (31:57)

Right, right. We talked about that.

Disruption is ripe for disruption. Well, this has been awesome, Gary. This conversation, I mean, we’re about out of time. I always ask everybody, ⁓ what’s one golden nugget you could share? I mean, we’ve been talking about PPO’s and stuff, but if we could help docs and their teams have this epiphany, what would that one epiphany be that would really help make an impact for their practice?

Gary Takacs (32:23)

Brett, the epiphany I would like to leave with your listeners is this. ⁓ I happen to believe strongly as much as I believe dentistry rocks. I also believe that right now we’ve got a crisis in our profession and the crisis is a lack of work life balance, lack of work life balance. If you, as I have done, talk to dentists all over the country and ask, know, hey, how do you feel about your work life balance?

Brett Allen (32:41)

Mm. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (32:50)

The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of dentists are going to say, it’s not balanced at all. It’s way more on the work side, not on the life side. And I get it. mean, you your work as a practice owner doesn’t end when you put the handpiece down. You know, you still have your administrative side of your practice. Yeah. Your mind’s thinking about it. You have to take CE. There’s CE requirements. You’ve got HR to pay attention to as a practice owner. I mean, it’s a challenge. ⁓

Brett Allen (32:50)

The.

Yeah, they’re feeling pulled,

Right. Yep. It’s hard to turn it off. And when you’re at home, your mind’s thinking about it. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (33:19)

But

the takeaway I’d like to leave with all of your listeners is it absolutely is possible to have a world class, I’m gonna call it a top 10 % practice, to have a top 10 % practice and achieve an effective life balance, work-life balance. They are not mutually exclusive, but it’s gonna require doing some things differently. ⁓ know, that old Albert Einstein’s saying about the definition of insanity.

Brett Allen (33:35)

Absolutely.

Gary Takacs (33:45)

you know, continuing to do what you’ve always done, but expecting a different result. If you continue to be subjected to 45 to 50 % discounts and expect a different result, then you’re going to keep getting what you got, which is not work-life balance. But I love one of the models that we use with our clients is to get our doctors to a three day clinical week and in normal days, not, not three 12s, know, but three normal days. we did this in my own practice, and, provide

Brett Allen (33:46)

Yep. Right.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (34:14)

⁓ you know, great hours. The hours that I like, by the way, the hours that we had at our practice were seven to four. So morning huddle was 6.45. Seven was our first patient. So seven to four, Monday through Thursday, and then seven to two on Friday. We found the afternoon hours on Friday. Everyone thinks it’s a good idea to schedule a Friday afternoon appointment until Friday afternoon comes around.

Brett Allen (34:22)

Yep.

Yeah, and then they cancel because they’re like, guys, Friday, I want to go to the dentist. Yeah. That’s some great advice. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (34:39)

I’m going to the river. yeah, but I want

you to know it is possible. I can point to practices all over the country and you deserve it. If you achieve financial success at the expense of your relationships, at the expense of your family, it’s not a win. It’s not a success. At the expense of your hobbies, your interests, your fitness level, it’s not a win.

Brett Allen (34:52)

That’s a too high of a cost. It’s not.

Yeah. Well,

and when you have all of those buckets full in your life and your, you know, that your patients get a much better you and your team gets a much better you as a leader. Yeah. Yeah. So much better.

Gary Takacs (35:08)

Yeah. They get all of you. Yeah.

I’m on a campaign ⁓ to help as many dentists as possible achieve an effective work-life balance because, and I have a personal motivation for that, Brett. ⁓ Teresa and I celebrated 43 years of marriage a couple of weeks ago. We have four adult kids, three daughters and a son. And I’ll tell you why I’m so motivated about this. ⁓

Brett Allen (35:21)

I love it.

Wow, congrats! Awesome, congrats!

Gary Takacs (35:38)

Our youngest daughter, her name is Kelly. ⁓ Here’s what it felt like. It didn’t happen this way, but I want to describe what it felt like. It felt like she was born. And then I blinked my eyes and then I’m driving her off to college. It didn’t, it didn’t happen that way. Of course, but that’s how it felt. And I, I remember, I remember driving back home and I remember, you know, now being empty nesters, she was the youngest. And I remember ⁓ thinking,

Brett Allen (35:49)

Go on, I know, I’ve got, yeah.

It does go fast.

Hmm.

Gary Takacs (36:04)

that I wished I would have created work-life balance earlier. I could blame my boss. Well, wait a minute. I started my consulting firm in 89, so I’d be blaming me. But in all seriousness, I used, and I don’t mind sharing this very candidly, someday I’m gonna do that. Someday I’m gonna do that. Someday I’m gonna do that. And it took a wake-up call of,

Brett Allen (36:07)

Hmm.

That’s you. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

someday.

Gary Takacs (36:30)

you know, baby going off to college that it was like, got to make this happen now. Brett, how old’s your youngest?

Brett Allen (36:34)

Yeah.

My youngest is 10. We just dropped first day of school today, but I’ve got seniors in high school and it’s wild. Like you said, like I remember, you know, when my twins were born, that song, you’re going to miss this. You’re going to want this back. That cowboy. I don’t know. That was playing on the radio. I remember thinking driving home from the hospital. This is, this is now I’m going to want this She, I have all girls, four girls. Yeah. Yeah.

Gary Takacs (36:57)

Is your 10 year old a boy or girl?

girls. Well,

I raised three of them and you see my hairline. ⁓ There you go. ⁓ It’s looking good, though. ⁓ But you’re going to blink your eyes. It’s eight years and you’re going to be driving your daughter off to college. So no time like now to develop a plan. And I want to tell you, it is possible. It is possible to have a world class practice and an effective work life balance.

Brett Allen (37:04)

Yeah, well hey, look, yeah, that’s why I wear a hat. That’s why I wear a hat. And you know, the hair I do have is turning more more gray. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, 100%.

This has been phenomenal. guys, you, Gary has obviously walked the road of a successful practice. He’s helped in proving it, his process with over 1,800 we said practices. You know, a lot of times is we don’t know what we, we don’t know. And so we need a coach. We need somebody to walk that path of success with us. You guys got to reach out to Gary and, and, and find out more. What.

Gary Takacs (37:51)

Please know I’d love the opportunity

to work with you if that was your wish. Brett, I’ll provide some contact information. In ⁓ fact, one thing I’ll be happy to provide, I’ll provide my personal cell number. We can put that in the show notes. And I want any of your listeners to feel welcome to reach out to me. Text messaging works great for me. ⁓ It’s literally a cell phone I carry in my pocket. So feel welcome to reach out to me anytime. And Brett, I want to close this by thanking you. Thanks for all the work you’re doing.

Brett Allen (37:58)

Yeah.

Yes. Absolutely.

Okay.

Great.

Yeah.

Gary Takacs (38:20)

Marketing is

⁓ such an important ⁓ function in a dental office. ⁓ And you guys are mastering, you know it’s not just a matter of ⁓ attracting the right number of new patients, but also the right type of new patients as well. ⁓ And you guys are doing a fabulous job.

Brett Allen (38:37)

Absolutely. Let’s help you do that.

Thank you, think I’m trying to raise awareness on ethical marketing. There’s a lot of, you know, we get burned by marketing companies and there’s a lot of good ones out there. So let’s reward those that are doing it right and truly invested in the growth of your practice.

Gary Takacs (38:54)

Well,

and I appreciate how much you give back to our profession, this podcast and otherwise. ⁓ It’s wonderful to be around people that truly believe the rising tide raises all boats and you’re you’re part of that thinking for sure.

Brett Allen (39:06)

Thank you, Gary. This has been so great. And again, if you’re driving or whatever, we’ve got the show notes on our website, Marketing32.com. You can reach out to Gary. And ⁓ thanks for coming on again today, Gary. All right, everybody. Until next time on the Marketing32 show, have a great rest of your day.

Gary Takacs (39:17)

My pleasure.