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Practice Website: https://www.totalcaredental.com/

Living Well with Dr. Michelle Website: https://livingwellwithdrmichelle.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livingwellwithdrmichelle/

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Tools/Resources:

• IAOMT - The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology

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Companies/Brands:

• UPS
• Delta Dental
• MetLife
• NuCalm

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Terms:

• IVF - In Vitro Fertilization
• Chlorella

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Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

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What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• The real reason behind Dr. Jorgensen's transition from associate dentist to leading her own practice.
• How she navigated her mysterious health issues and the valuable lessons she learned along the way.
• The impact of her health journey on her approach to dentistry, in particular safe procedures for mercury filling removal.
• How unexpected challenges fueled her decision to shift to a fee-for-service model, and why this could be a game-changer for patient care.
• The power of joining trend topics in mommy groups on Facebook as a marketing strategy and how to optimize the promotion of your practice.

Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes!

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Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Michelle Jorgensen. Michelle, how's it

Michelle: going? Great. Thanks for having me today.

Michael: No, thank you so much for coming on and being part of the podcast. If you don't want me asking, tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are

Michelle: today?

Yeah, so mine's definitely an interesting story and I know you shared with me, you know, largely part of your audience are people who are starting out and I was a lot like them, you know, I was a lot like all of the, all of you who are listening right now. My father is actually a dentist. So I was an associate for four years in a practice where I learned a lot, but I wasn't a very good associate and that I really like to be in charge and I like to call the shots and I like to, you know, do my own thing.

And so. Uh, my father and I actually started a new practice together and all we had were a few patients that came from my associateship. So it was definitely, uh, um, you know, starting from ground zero and, and building it up from there with two practitioners. So we started building and our focus was really on extreme care.

That was, this was in the early two thousands and, uh, the kind of the spa dentistry and all those things were really the focus. And the practice group, it grew well and it grew quickly and people liked what we were doing. And thing was, things were great. You know, I, I just thought I would probably practice like that for my forever.

My father's still practicing in his seventies. And unfortunately, that's not what happened for me. So at about eight years or so in, I started getting really sick. And I didn't know what it was and I had, uh, really, I started looking for answers everywhere, everywhere, you know, doctors, chiropractors, MRIs, physical therapists, you know, I just went everywhere and my big ones, really, that was it. we're, uh, career ending, potentially, is my memory. I literally couldn't remember a patient's name from room to room. Didn't know why. I've always had a really good memory. And the second one was numbness. I had such numbness in my hands, I was actually not able to even change my burrs anymore. So I didn't have the dexterity to even push the back of the handpiece and pop a burr out.

I'd have to hand my handpiece to my assistant. She would change the burr out. And then I thought, Maybe I shouldn't be doing dentistry. You know, if I can't, I can't actually change a bird or perhaps I'm not doing my best work here. So I actually had the practice for sale, my portion of the practice for sale.

And I didn't know what I was going to do. I was in my mid thirties and I was the sole breadwinner for my family. My husband was actually working for the practice too, at the time. And we had four little kids and it just looked really bad about that time. So I started reaching out to a whole bunch of different practitioners and finding out You know, what else could I do in dentistry?

Could I coach or consult or, you know, all the different options. And finally, one of them just said, you know, have you ever, have you ever thought about mercury? Could it, could that be your problem? And I said, well, I don't know what you mean. I don't have any amalgam fillings. And he said, no, it's not the ones you have.

It's the ones you've been drilling out. For the last, you know, decade between dental school and practice, and I'd never given it a second thought ever had never been told that that could be a problem for a dentist ever, but I didn't have anything to lose at this point. You know, the practice was already for sale.

So I got tested and that's what it was. There's mercury toxicity off the charts. So all of a sudden, all of my symptoms made sense because mercury is a neurotoxin. And so all of a sudden, my brain issues, my memory issues, my nerve, my hands, everything. Made sense. And the doctors just said, listen, if you're going to keep being a dentist, you can't keep putting this in because it's what's making you sick.

Finally, we have an answer for you. You have to figure out, can you do it in a different way? So I had to find out, was there a different way? Was there a different way inside of dentistry? And I'm really glad I'm actually sharing this with young practitioners because I didn't know. That this could be a problem, that this could be a, you know, a hazard in this, in this profession, but it's a very, very real hazard and there's a certain genetic predisposition to not being able to detox things well, and I have that.

My dad has one. My mom has one. I have two. So how many of us have that? Well, research is showing 30 to 40 percent of the population. So 30 to 40 percent of the dentists that are listening could also have the same genetic variant that doesn't allow you to dump mercury very easily. So I figured out I could remove this with certain precautions.

There was an organization I found that was already doing this. I didn't even know they existed. And I just started doing it for my patient or for me, I started doing it for me, you know, for my own health. And, but patients started saying, What are you doing? Like, this is, you know, this is a little different here.

You've covered me up, and you're wearing a different mask, and we've got a big vacuum by my chin, and you know, what's happening here? And so I would share my story, and they were very intrigued, and started saying things like, you know, my doctor might be interested in that. So they started sharing what we were doing with doctors, and all of a sudden doctors started reaching out saying, You know, I've been looking for someone that does this, because I have patients that are looking for it.

Can I send them your way? So the practice started growing in a very unusual, unexpected way. All of a sudden, people were coming and asking for this procedure that I was doing just because of my own health. So then they started asking, well, if you do this, do you also do this? And they would ask me other things.

Do you do ozone? Do you do PRF? Do you do, you know, and they were asking things that I had never heard of. Again, these doctors were more educated than I was. So I would have to go to some course somewhere and find how to do the thing they were asking about. And then I could start saying, yeah, that's what we do now.

We do that now. And the practice continued to grow and continue to grow as we started offering more of these services. And now I have six doctors. And we're multi specialty. We have a full time periodontist, a full time sleep specialist, two full time restorative specialists, a pediatric dentist, all working under the same roof, providing care that's focused on how does the dentistry affect your health?

And the practice has grown exponentially because of this. We're one location, but we have Three kind of standalone offices all in one campus, we call it. So, uh, we have, uh, we're just working on building our 19th operatory right now. big location, big office, all focused on one thing. And it's basically a practice I never intended to have.

you know, I didn't come out of dental school thinking I would do this. And now I found that this is an incredible opportunity for dentists to talk about health. Yeah. All because

Michael: of Really interesting. Yeah, what, what happened? So look, if we could rewind a little bit, um, rewind a lot of it when you decide to be an associate, right?

And then you're like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm looking at it. And I'm like, I'm not a good associate. How did you know you weren't a good associate? How did you know you just didn't have to be consistent and stick with it?

Michelle: Because I was the one that was now doing all of the staff meetings. I was, uh, I was organizing the supply cabinet.

I was doing, I was like setting up all of our off site meetings. I was doing all of those things. I remember I was pregnant with twins and I was sitting in a staff meeting and had like this Big old belly out here and I'm the one running the show and I'm thinking, wait a minute, I don't even own this practice.

I should be home sitting in bed right now. Why am I, why do I have so much ownership in this when I don't have ownership in this? And that really was the, the answer for me. Like, all right, you're, you're, you're owning too much to not own here. And that's just my personality. You know, that's just who I am.

I'm super bossy. You know, I'm the oldest of five children. I have four younger brothers. I'm used to telling people what to do. it didn't work for me to, to not do, you know, to not be the one that was calling the shots. And I had grown up inside of dentistry too. In fact, I joke that, um, I knew all of only old timers are going to know this, but Linda miles and Paul homily were two practice consultants that were in the, in the eighties and I would ride to school with my dad.

And all the way on the way to school, he would listen to Paul Homily and Linda Miles on cassette tapes on my way to school, on my way to high school. And it was a half an hour drive, we lived a long way from the high school, so I could run a dental practice by the time I graduated from high school.

Because I had listened to all of those consultant cassette tapes for two years or three years, you know, driving to high school every morning. So I knew what should happen, and I was in this practice, and it wasn't. And it was really hard for me because I was always trying to change things and do things, but I wasn't the one that was really in charge.

So that's how I learned. That's how I figured it out.

Michael: Did they ever sign with you, like an agreement, like, Hey, stick around and you'll be a partner or anything like that? I don't know.

Michelle: No, wasn't something I wanted to do either. I knew that I would have my own practice. I knew that I wanted to be able to practice the way that I wanted to practice.

And I didn't see that practice ever going that direction.

Michael: Okay. And then we fast forward a little bit. You said, y'all, you and your dad wanted to focus on extreme care. Mm hmm. What, what is

Michelle: that? So, what we decided is we said, what are all of the reasons people don't like going to the dentist? Like, list them off.

So we just started listing them off. What are they all? Well, pain. Uh, it's expensive. It smells bad. You know, people will say, Oh gosh, it smells like a dental office in here. The noise. You know, all of these things. The chairs are uncomfortable. Our mouths are uncomfortable holding open. We listed off everything.

Your hair's messed up when you're done. I mean, even this. My makeup's all washed off when I'm done, you know. Even just little things like that. We listed everything and we said, okay, how can we reverse that? How can we reverse those concerns? So we did things like massage chair pads on the chairs. We had, you know, mouth props all the time for anybody.

We used all sorts of, uh, new columns called new calm, kind of a natural sedation. We had. Headphones, you know, noise canceling headphones. We had makeup and hairspray in the bathroom so that people could freshen up after. We had cookies, we were giving away cookies every single day, and fresh bread. We have, and we still have to this day, silver platters with hot towels and chapstick and a mint that goes to every single patient after care. just things like that, that you would get at a high end we're a high end restaurant or high end spa. We incorporated all of those pieces into the dental practice. And this is kind of cool. Actually, we applied or were nominated. I think we were nominated to, for something called best of state in the state that I live in, which is Utah.

And we were in the category, I think of healthcare and we actually won in the category of healthcare, which was really cool. But then we were invited to a, an awards banquet. It was televised. I mean, that was in the days when television was like a thing, you know, and, uh, you know, there was, there was a real like, like the newscaster that everybody knew because people watch the news, you know, they were the ones that were running the whole show and we were at this big banquet and it was so cool.

And we didn't know, but there were overall categories for also best of state things. So we were under the category of consumer services. So we're in the same category as hotels, um, car lots, like, you know, car sales place, hospitals, everything that served the consumer. So we didn't realize that we were going to get our, you know, our little healthcare award, but that we were also in the running for these bigger awards.

And we laughed when we looked on this, the program, because we saw we were against an enormous, very high end hotel in Salt Lake City. We were up against a huge car dealership, a huge hospital, like all these things, we were up against them. And we were like, well, we'll never win. We did. We won. We won the entire category for the state of Utah that year.

Because this was so revolutionary. Because this was something that no one was doing. No one was talking about it. No one had seen it before. It was so cool. And so, we really figured out that you can make a difference inside of your Inside of your profession by just being different, just saying, what do people want and how can we actually do it?

And so we did that and we have since carried on. We don't make cookies anymore. That's one thing we did give up, unfortunately. But, um, we, we, we went through, I can't even tell you, probably hundreds of thousands of cookies over the, over the span of time that we were making cookies. Even, you know, the UPS guy would pick up his cookie on the, on the drop off his boxes.

But, um, we've kept a lot of those high touch services in the practice. And it enabled us, this is a whole different thing. I never even talk about it enabled us to go fee for service about five years into that practice, into that startup practice, we completely went off all insurance, everything. And it's because people were coming to us for a reason and it wasn't because we were on their plan.

So years and years ago, that was a long time ago. We made that switch because there was a reason to come a reason other than we were just on their list. And we've continued that way. We're still fee for service today. So we've been that way for about 15 years.

Michael: Interesting. So when you went into fee for service, did you have that?

Like, okay, we're going to drop Delta now. And then we're going to drop next. Or were you more like, we got it. We can drop it all at once if we wanted

Michelle: to. No, we took out the worst ones first, but you know, there was a day when I realized I had to do this. I'll always remember this day. I was treatment planning on a woman, and she wanted some cosmetic work.

Well, I, at the time, and it probably still to this day, I don't know, MetLife, even if it wasn't a covered service, so Veneer wasn't a covered service under MetLife, but even if it wasn't a covered service, I was still required to adjust my feet. And I knew that. So even though, you know, let's say 1, 000, you know, it was 1, 000, I had to adjust my fee down to 700, even though they paid 0.

So, I was treatment planning this woman, she wanted some veneers, and I knew she had MetLife insurance. And I was hesitant to actually treatment plan her. And that day I said, I cannot. Be true to who I am. I cannot be honest with my patients and myself if I'm treatment planning based on the dollar. I will not do this anymore.

So that day was the day we decided we're going to start taking these down one at a time. So, you know, we took the one that we had the fewest patients on or was the worst compensation, you know, had the lowest compensation. That one went first. We kept building up everything, like everything we increased, we increased our service.

We increased our high touch. We increased the, you know, we real huge focus on the way we cared for patients in the reception room, on the phone and everywhere. We just really ramped up the service as we started dropping those. And did we lose patients? Absolutely. But you know what? We kept the large majority.

So we just started dropping them. And there's some studies, really interesting studies that show that. If you are adjusting off a certain amount, you know, of the fee, let's say you adjust off 30 percent of your fee and I don't, I'm going to just make up the numbers, but it's something like you can actually do like 40 percent less work and make the exact same dollar amount if you get full fee.

So we could lose like 40 percent of our patients and not see one drop in our bottom line because we weren't giving the money to the insurance company. You know, we were giving the money to the insurance company at this point, and then we decided, well, let's just, like, give money to our patients instead, or give, you know, money to our team, and let's give it to somebody else.

We could see a significantly fewer number of patients and make the same amount because we weren't writing off for every procedure. These are just things that we realized, and it was, it was really a practice changing thing for us.

Michael: How did you, I guess, how did you tell your patients, and then how did you increase your high touch points at the same time?

So for example, I know you said you dropped off the cookies, right? But like, what

Michelle: else? Then we have the cookies.

Michael: Yeah. Like right there, you up the cookies, which I was thinking like, it's pretty brilliant because it covers the smell too, you know what I mean? It's absolutely

Michelle: right. That's exactly

Michael: right. Yep.

So what were you turning the knob on drastically? And then while you were kind of like turning the knob down on, or how were you telling your patients?

Michelle: Yep, so we weren't telling them through a letter. We were just telling them as they would come in. And so it was a real honest conversation and I've really prided myself on just having those real honest conversations.

I just say to the patient, you know what? I care about you. You're the one that I care for. And unfortunately, the way the insurance company has, has set themselves up as they are between you and I, and I don't want anything between you and I. I want to be your care provider. And so in order to do that, what we're going to do is be a out of network provider for your plan.

So we didn't say we're dropping it. You can't come. You know, we just said you were an out of network provider for your plan. What does that mean for you? It means that if we were writing off previously to provide the care that we're going to provide for you. Then that will now be a charge that you will have.

We're going to explain it ahead of time. We will help you know what that means. We're going to offer discounts, cash discounts, that sometimes it's all going to come out in the wash for you. So we'll give you a discount at the time of, you know, paying at the time of service and. We want to be the place you want to come for forever.

So in order to be able to provide the kind of care that you've come to know and love, this is something that's going to be really important for us to do. So I just have that conversation, need a new patient. And you know, one of the things that I've really stood by is in this world, there are wanters and needers.

This is kind of an interesting concept. So wanters and needers, and if you need this patient, they will feel it and it repels them. So if you need them to stay, you're going to, you're going to phrase it differently. You're going to come off differently, your energy is going to be different, you're going to feel very desperate.

And typically patients are going to be like, I don't know why they're so desperate and so clingy and needy, or you know, I'm going to leave. So, versus wanters. A wanter is what do you want for your practice and what do you want for your patient? I wanted to be able to do better care for them. And that's how it came across.

I don't need you to stay. I want you to stay you're not going to get better care than what you get here. So we, that was what we communicated is I want you to stay. So what are we going to do? Well, we are going to do some pretty dang cool things around here. If you haven't noticed, we're already pretty cool as it is, but we are even going to take better, you know, and so we would do things like every time a patient would leave, we would write a quick little note.

They're going to Hawaii next week or, you know, whatever it is, and every patient before they got seated, the team member would check that note. They would sit them down. How was your trip to Hawaii? I'm sorry. But if you remember that next time they come, that 20 they have to pay in your office versus the guy down the street doesn't really matter as much anymore, because especially today, like this was, this was 15 years ago, especially today, who gives you customer service?

Mm hmm. No one. Yeah, you're right. Like, it's AI anymore, you know, I mean, that's like, it's, nobody cares for you. Nobody gives you extraordinary service. If you do extraordinary service today, nobody, you have no competition. Zero.

Michael: No, that's true. That's true. When, now, that's an interesting, uh, concept, the wanters and needers, because. I feel like especially at the beginning phase you're in so much debt and then you're like I need to break even I Need to do all these things right and so you're even Major discounting sometimes like your services and all these things. How do we fight that I guess, and change our mindset because waking up the next day, you're like, Oh crap, I need money.

Right? Like I need income here coming in.

Michelle: Have you ever heard the quote that says that those that have get more? Yeah. Why? Because they don't need it. Needing is a very negative emotion. And you know how when you walk into a room and you can tell somebody's been talking about you? You know how you can just feel like the energy?

You're like, somebody's been talking about me. Or, you know, what's going on in this room? You can just tell. There's energy based around the way that we present ourselves to the world as well. If you present yourself as a needy person, you know, have you ever met a needy person? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to hang with them?

No. No. Do want to give them what they want? Not really. So if you present yourself as needy, it's actually going to repel patients. So how do you avoid this? Do you need them? Change it to a want. What do you want for them? For them, not for you, for them. What do you want for them? Man, I want to provide the best crown I can get anywhere.

Guess what patient, I am so excited you're here because that tooth is cracked and I do not want that happening when you are on a cruise. So the cool thing is, is we have the most amazing lab you're going to absolutely love. The crown that we're able to provide for you because no more emergencies on a, on a cruise.

You don't have to worry about it anymore. So excited you're going to get scheduled for this. You know what? If you can get this in next week, that would be great. Does that sound needy? No, that's not. I want something for them.

Michael: Yeah. It sounds very like nonchalant. Like you're like, okay, yeah, yeah. Thank you for thinking of my cruise.

Right.

Michelle: Kind of thing. Yep. You're wanting something for them. You're not needy. It's not about you. It's about them. You have to phrase things in a way that's wanting instead of needing.

Michael: Okay. That's really good to keep in mind. Every time we're like treatment except, you know what I mean? Like planning and talking and checking out, handing off all that stuff.

Awesome. Okay. Then if we fast forward a little bit more, the symptoms and how you got sick. So starting off here. And I'm sure like this can go real interesting, real quick, but like, how did you start realizing? Because I feel like we all kind of experienced that sometimes, Michelle, where we're like, Oh, I forgot.

Oh, I don't know. I forgot. And you don't think about it. Right. But, and it can be something real quick. Like, okay, I got to remember the license plate. L2, And then you look at it and you're like, Oh, what was it again? What

Michelle: was it? And I never

Michael: think about it like it's, if it's a memory issue, numbness maybe, but anyway, so how did the symptoms, when did it start becoming alarming for you?

Yeah.

Michelle: So, again, good old days, we would have, traditional film x rays. And on occasion, in our charts, you new guys don't even have charts or film x rays, but in those days we did. I'm so, I sound so old, don't I? Uh, so we would have a real chart, and occasionally those film x rays would fall on the ground.

And so you'd see a film x ray falling on the ground. My team would always bring it to me because they would say, who is this? I could look at that film and I would know which patient it was, like nine times out of 10. And they'd be like, what? How do you know? You're right. How do you know this patient? How do you know?

Cause they didn't know which chart to put it back into. But I just had that kind of a memory. I have a very visual memory. If I see something, if I read it on a page, I know exactly where it is. If you know, that's just the way my brain works, which is I think why I'm a dentist. And I think a lot of dentists have the same gift.

We're very visual, which is why we're good at what we do. We can reproduce. Something visually, you know, so I had a very good memory. I've always had a good memory and it got to the point where I would see a patient. I would go to a next room and somebody would come back and say, um, what do you want to do for the lab?

You know how they come. Oh yeah. By the way, you know, what did you want to, what did you want to do for that crown? And I'd say what crown? I didn't even remember that. I just done a crown. Like it was bad. Yeah. So I got from, I could identify any x ray on the ground too. I couldn't even remember the procedure.

I just did 10 minutes ago, but those were the bad, bad days. The semi bad days were just why can't I think, you know, and people use words like brain fog and, you know, in fact, or brain fart, you know, brain, but, you know, did you, or is your brain actually not working as well as it should. So I really do want to go to the mercury piece just for a minute because I didn't know.

And I wish someone had told me when I was five years out of school. You know, I wish someone had told me we learn in dental materials, right? We learn that those fillings are 50 percent mercury. Well, they are. So when we drill them out, what you're doing is releasing mercury vapor. Well, where's your head?

Right? Smack over the vapors, right? Vapors go up. So, mercury deposits, I like to think of it in neighborhoods. It goes to different neighborhoods. One of its favorite neighborhoods to go live in is the brain. So when you have mercury in the brain, I mean, when you, if you break a thermometer, you got a hazmat team coming to your house, right?

We have mercury separators. We can't throw those away in just normal old places. But yet we can breathe it in just fine. They have no issues with us doing that. But you can't get rid of it when it goes down your suction. You can't just throw that away. That'd be terrible. It doesn't make sense. That we don't think of mercury the same way as it's being thrown up into the air and splattered all over.

I mean, you know, when you've been doing dentistry, you're like, covered in your mask. I mean, you're gross when you're done. Why don't we think of it the same way? Why do we need a hazmat suit when we break a thermometer? But yeah, we can breathe it in all day long and it's not, no problem. There's no problem with that.

There's no way that can make us sick. It makes no sense. So I think a lot of this comes from years ago when doctors were telling people, I'm going to be able to cure your MS. If I take out your mercury fillings, this was the talk I got in dental school was if you tell a patient that you'll lose your license.

And that was the truth. Well, I don't tell people that I don't tell them that, you know, I'm going to cure their MS because I take out their mercury fillings. What I say is that those have fillings have mercury. Do you still want them? Well, no, I don't know. People know about mercury. They're not supposed to eat fish anymore, you know, because it could have mercury, but you're at, you're walking around with big old hunks of it sitting in your mouth.

Really? So then. Do you really want to be breathing that in? I mean, really, do you want to really sacrifice your brain for that? I don't want to sacrifice my brain for that. And there's an interesting statistic that you've probably heard that dentists have one of the highest rates of suicide in any profession.

Guess why I think it is? Because our brains are being fried by mercury. So we're not thinking right anymore. Really? I mean, is dentistry that much worse than other jobs? I can think of some other jobs that are way worse. Yeah. Why are we, you know, so why are we committing suicide over other people? Why are we doing it?

Because our brains are fried. They're filled with a toxic neurotoxic substance. That's Michelle 101, but I lived through it, so I don't want anybody not to even have this little inkling of a thought in their head like, Oh wow, could that, could she be right?

Michael: No, it's good. It's good that they're interesting because you're right.

All that stuff is true in the sense of like you are over it, you are breathing it, there is precautions for everything else but that. Yep, and

Michelle: guess what else? I never had a baby, naturally, never, in all my years. I was, I was able to have twins through in vitro and then I adopted two more children because I went through multiple, I mean years and years and years and years of fertility treatment.

Guess what I think it was? Mercury. And how many women are sitting in our dental offices? Between the dentists, the dental assistants, the receptionists, the hygienists, and if mercury could potentially affect fertility. So my, partner, also a woman, she went for years without being able to have a baby. And she changed practices, stopped removing mercury fillings, was doing other, just other procedures, and was able to get pregnant.

Then got back in, started removing a bunch of mercury, then she came to my practice, and, surprise, surprise, was able to get pregnant! Every single time she removed herself from mercury, all of a sudden, even though she'd had years. Uh, fertility issues. In fact, she just got pregnant again for the third time.

Her baby's only a year old. She thought it would take forever, but because she has no mercury exposure anymore, surprise, real surprise. She's going to have babies a year apart now because she did not expect. That she would be able to get pregnant like that, but I strongly believe it was because she didn't, doesn't have mercury exposure anymore.

So these are just little nuggets that I like to throw out to say, just think about it.

Michael: That's so crazy you're talking about that right now. Literally two hours ago, I was talking to a friend about that, how they have to go through another version of a IVF because they All right. You know what I mean?

They're just like trying and

Michelle: I went three, one to get twins, two more failed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The money, the emotion, the toll on your body, all of the above, it's not worth it. Especially because removing mercury safely, all you have to do is use that big vacuum you bought for, for COVID, you know, everybody bought the vacuum.

Good. That's, that's what you're going to do. You're going to put that thing in front of you and all you're going to do is just put a few barriers and you're just going to put a higher filtration mask. Like it's nothing hard, literally it costs almost nothing to do this. Why would you risk it?

Michael: So then let me ask you, Michelle, from the moment you started doing that.

I guess from the moment you realized, Oh my God, it's mercury. And then the moment you started implementing all the procedures and protocols and right, like the vacuum and everything. How quickly did you see a

Michelle: change? Oh, it took for a while. It took a long time to get a hundred percent back. Like it was like eight years before I went, I think my brain's back.

But I started noticing incremental change immediately. You know, immediately I would, okay. You know, the numbness is a little better. Numbness is a little better. I'm able to, you know, do a little bit more fine detail work here now. And, and I was just so conscious about it as well. So if I was going to be removing mercury, we were like, man, we, you know, everything precautions.

And I was working really hard systemically with my system to detox as well. So I was doing two things, making sure nothing was coming in, but also getting things out very, very, you know, vigorously. And I also think that's important for dentists to know is we are around, think of the, think of the toxins we are around, you know, it's not just mercury radiation.

How much radiation? How many times do we just hold that x ray? Yeah, go ahead. Just go ahead. You know, how many times? All the time. Holding that x ray. Just go ahead. Yeah, just go ahead. Take it. It's fine. Um, you know, so radiation, mercury, nitrous. All the BPA stuff, all those chemicals, I mean, nothing stinks that we're using, does it at all?

I mean, have you ever smelled porcelain etchant? My gosh. You know, any of those things. So all of those toxins are just swimming around in the world we're living in. Yeah, you ought to be probably working to get all that junk out.

Michael: Interesting. Okay. So then, and now, does that, when you say getting it all out, does that also mean like, so for example, are you still eating fish and stuff like that or

Michelle: no?

Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I'm conscious about it. You know, obviously I'm not going to eat all the, they talk about, you don't eat the big ones, you know, you don't eat the tuna very often. You eat the other stuff. So we, you know, salmon, we eat halibut. Yeah, we absolutely do. But getting it out is more about giving your body.

So there's two things that you need. You need a grabber. It's called a chelator. That's the word that medicine uses. But it's basically a substance that'll go in and grab the toxin. Then you need somebody that escorts it out of the system. So really the detox component is those two things. So there's some chelators that are very simple.

Chlorella, which is just like a little single cell green, you know, thing. You can throw it in a smoothie. Um, cilantro. Is a great one is a great help for detoxing. Mercury. Um, pectin, pectin is an apples. So apples and dates are phenomenal for helping to detox, you know, so there's just little things like this that I'm just real conscious pumpkin seeds that I'm just conscious about throwing into my diet and adding extra up.

Now, actually, interestingly, when I was going through this, the doctor said, you need to have 97 Ivy chelation treatments, And I said, I don't have time. I've got four little kids. I've got to practice. It's like slowly sinking into the, into the, you know, the, the black sea right now because my health is suffering.

And I don't have time to sit here for an hour, 97 times in a row. So you're going to have to give me another option. So there were other options that I took mostly oral, you know, pills and things that I was taking. I've since learned that those IV chelations didn't do what we thought they did. So I'm really glad I didn't get 97 hours of my life away.

I'm actually quite, quite happy about that, but there are things to do. And I really recommend that you work with a functional medicine practitioner because they're going to find out, okay, are your elimination systems working? Basically, are your kidneys and your liver and your gut? Are they operating as they should be?

Because that needs to happen first. Otherwise you're going to grab all this stuff and just dump it there and it's not going to go anywhere. And then you're just going to get sick in a different way. So they need to make sure everything's moving first and then they can help give you the supplements to actually grab and move it out.

Michael: Gotcha. Interesting. Okay. So right now, if we're in year one to year five of our practice ownership, what precautions would you coach us with? It's

Michelle: easy stuff, easy stuff. So that big COVID vacuum. You know what I'm talking about? The big like the elephant nose thingy. Yep, stick that in front of the patient's nose or patient's mouth.

Why? It's just gonna suck the vapors, right? It's just gonna pull everything their direction. You can get a very simple mercury filtration mask and I can give you, uh, I'll give you the sites that you can put on show notes so people can check it out. But the I, I'll say it fast, they'll have to look it up probably, I A O M T.

is the organization that I went and found. So I a o m t. org. That's the organization. If you go on there, they have so many resources for dentists. They have entire kits. You can buy, they have mercury filtration masks. I started out with like these giant crazy talk masks. I couldn't fit my loops over them.

I couldn't even like get close enough to a patient to actually like. See what I was doing. It was terrible. So I, I backed off that. And so I wear a regular mask with this special mercury filter mask over the top. And it's just a cloth mask that fits right over the top, but it has, it has added filtration for mercury.

Absolutely. Do that for the patient. Then that's really big one for those. Those are the two for you. Big vacuum mask. For the patient, use some coverings. do something to cover their body. Make sure you're using either an isolator or a rubber dam. Keep it out of their mouth. Make sure you're suctioning.

Your assistants know, suction every single last bit of that junk when you're drilling those babies out of there. You know, just make sure that everybody's very, very conscious about what they're doing. It's easy. But here's the other thing I would do. I would talk about it. Because when you're year one to five, guess what?

You need a market differentiator. You need a reason that people are going to find you because they're not going to find you because you have experience. They're not going to find you because you have, you know, 10, 000 Google reviews. They're not going to find you because, you know, they've been seeing you for 10 years.

They're not going to find you for those reasons. So you have to find a reason. You have to create a reason that they can find you. There is an entire Subset of the population that's huge, that's looking for a more natural health focus in all of medicine. You know, you're probably talking about it too.

Every single person on here has probably been hearing or thinking about this also. COVID switched this narrative. They switched this narrative where all of a sudden we all start questioning. Maybe everything that people tell us isn't exactly as it really is. And, um, are there things I could do to keep myself safe that wasn't?

The vaccine or wasn't a pill or what? You know, people started looking and started asking these questions and A large portion of the population are still doing that saying, I kind of like that approach. Not just taking everything at face value that the medical, you know, world tells me. So what else could I be doing natural?

This is why all these Instagram or influencers are taken off like crazy because they're all selling all this information and these products. You know, they're selling the natural, the no dyes, the no chemicals. I guarantee you, you know, it's. Mostly driven by women. I'll tell you that. So most women listening or most men listening have a wife that's also in this thing, you know, and women make health care decisions, right? You've probably been told this. Women make health care decisions and guess the health care, the health care decisions they're making right now are those that are better for their body. So if you can say we have health focused treatments here at our practice, then all of a sudden you're different than the guy down the road.

There's a reason to come see you. Interesting.

Michael: Okay. And is that what you're kind of, cause I know your Instagram Pretty big, or actually all your social medias are pretty big, well like your Instagram I want to say you're at over 100, 000, right?

Michelle: Yeah, 146, 000 actually, as of yesterday. I know this. Yeah,

Michael: do you just handle that or does that, you have a team

Michelle: who handles that or how does that work?

I did for a long time. I now have a social media coordinator that answers most of the things on there because it's a lot, all day long.

Michael: Yeah, and what was the strategy behind that, I guess, to grow it that way?

Michelle: I started talking about things that people were talking about. And for me, that's all marketing has been.

So if you look even through my career, all of a sudden, you know, clear back at the very beginning, this high touch environment, people were talking about that. They were talking about why they hated dentists. Well, let's join the conversation. Then when the economy fell out of everything in 2008, all of a sudden, cosmetic dentistry was not the thing anymore, right?

Because nobody had extra dollars. So what was the thing? We turned to disaster dentistry. So I said, well, gosh, if people don't want their teeth to be pretty, they at least want teeth. So let's start taking care of all these people who have a bombed out mouth because they will put their dollars towards that because they can't chew.

So then we started, we joined that conversation. Now we've joined the conversation of health because it started in 2020, March of 2020, that conversation started. So we said, well, if that's the conversation, let's join. Let's be part of it. Let's say we can contribute. So that's what I do on my Instagram.

That's what I do on all my social sites is I just contribute to what People are already talking about. If they're talking about health, I talk about how dentistry contributes to their health, either in a detrimental way or in a positive way. So I talk about all sorts of things. We talk about procedures, we talk about materials, um, we talk about, you know, things as far as growth and development and ways you can prevent things. all the crazy talk questions that, you know, dentists roll their eyes at, like, can you heal a tooth? You know, can you, can you, you can regrow, you can regrow a tooth. People roll their eyes and I'll say. Yeah, you can actually depends on the size of the cavity, but absolutely let's talk about how and let's talk about this product that you should use that I can sell to you that will help you do it.

Yeah. Just join the conversation.

Michael: Okay. So then how are you finding these conversations? Cause I feel like sometimes we, we, you know what I mean? Where you started up and you're like, should I just post a new patient special? Right? Like, or something like that. And then

Michelle: what's different about that? That's so boring.

Yeah. Everybody does that. So instead of a new patient special, what you should post instead is, did you know the mercury is a neurotoxin and that there's mercury in those fillings and here in our dental office of X, Y, Z, we know how to remove that safely. We'd love to talk to you, talk to you about it. And by the way, if you come in today, we will throw in that mercury removal fee for free. this is a huge one too, huge one. Don't discount your procedure, discount a thing. If you discount a procedure, they're never going to want to pay full fee for the procedure ever again. It's just like when you go to a restaurant and you use a coupon. You get 20 percent off to that, to that restaurant.

Well, you don't ever want to pay full fee at that restaurant again. Cause it's like, Oh, I've got 20 percent off last time. I don't want to come unless I, it's 20 percent off. So don't discount your procedure discount a thing. So I'll say you get a free tube of toothpaste when you come in for your new patient appointment, or you get the mercury removal fee.

That's like 25 bucks a tooth for free. If you come in on this, because they're not going to need that again. They're going to need a cleaning again. They're going to need an x ray again. And I don't want them to keep wanting a discount. I want them to pay the full price the first time. And I want them to keep paying the full price.

I'll give them the free stuff. Come in and get free cookies. Get, you know, whatever. So discount a thing. Don't discount a procedure. That's always been my philosophy.

Michael: Yeah. No, I love that. That's fantastic. And so I see now for you, especially on Instagram or on your social media, you're, you're starting a lot of these conversations, right?

Uh, with that. But when you're starting out, how can, when nobody's watching or anybody's listening really, where do you find these conversations and how do you become like a part of it so where you start gaining traction? Mommy

Michelle: groups, mommy Facebook groups, because remember we talked about the mommies are the ones that are talking about this.

So mommies are talking about BPAs and sealants. What would you say if somebody came and said, do you have sealants? They're talking about it on their forums. So you go and join their forum, you find out what they're talking about, and then you comment now and then. You go, oh my gosh, we just found out that BPA, the sealant material we were using, did have BPAs.

Good news, here at XXY Dental Office, we now have BPA free filling material. It is a low impact ad. Do you know what I mean? It's a free ad, basically. You're, you're doing a service. But you're also advertising your service. So get team members on those mommy Facebook groups. There's gonna be some in your, in your community, I guarantee.

But also, if you just start talking about things on social media. So just put a camera in front of your face, or if you're not good at it. Somebody on your team is I guarantee you there's someone on your team who's on Instagram way too much. That's the person you want. That's the person you want. You say, okay, guess what?

You're already on Instagram way too much. So I'm going to utilize that skill you've got right there. And what should we be talking about? Have them put it on Instagram. Is it, nobody's going to see it at the beginning, but that's when you use hashtags. So if you put hashtag BPA free sealant, dental sealants, kids dentistry, now when somebody searches that in your area, it's going to pop up.

Michael: Interesting. So mommy Facebook groups, but have your team involved in it and so forth. I like that a lot. Okay.

Michelle: They know how to use it. You don't know how to use it, but they do.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, like, it's good to always chime in, right? And

Michelle: in the comments.

You should be on there. You should be doing it. But they are the ones who are going to tell you what to do. Because they know way better than you do. So they're going to tell you, you're going to talk about this. Yeah.

Michael: Interesting. And then did your practice ever sell or no, you never decided because you said you put it up.

I didn't

Michelle: sell it. I stayed with it. So I stayed with it. Yep.

Michael: Were you, were there buyers where you're like, I think I'm about

Michelle: to or no? Yep. I actually had my practice for sale three times. That was time. Number one, time. Number two was when my dad sold his portion of the practice and I was going to just exit at that point as well.

And again, didn't know what I was going to do. Third time is I had a DSO buyer. And we were a week away from sale and it fell through and it was the best thing that could have happened because the practice then doubled that next year and doubled again, the next.

Michael: Wow. So the moments where you decided that you were thinking to sell, why?

Michelle: This is actually a really important point, I think. And I love to talk to new dentists about this because a lot of times there's different personalities obviously in the world, but my personality is one that's a fast start, quick start. So I like to start stuff. I love to start stuff, new stuff. And um, when you do personality profiles and things, you can find, is this you?

Well, quick starts. Aren't very good at finishing stuff. we typically would get to the point where I'd be real dissatisfied and I thought I was just dissatisfied with the practice. Like just dentistry in general. I just hate it. You know, I just hate this. I just want to get out. I'm so tired of it. I'm so burned out.

You know, nobody's ever used any of those words before. You know what I found every single time? Is that it was because it wasn't anymore. It wasn't exciting anymore. I had nothing to start. Like it was so done and over. So, really for me now, this is a really interesting evolution that's happened inside of practice.

I, I would go all in on something. So I would say, okay, I'm gonna bring Clear aligners into the practice, you know, whatever it might be. And I'm going to go all in and I'm going to learn all about this. And now all of a sudden, every single patient you see needs clear aligners. You didn't realize before you took the course, now they all need clear aligners, but that's exciting.

And that's something new. And it's something that the whole team can get behind and change is good. And then you do that for a year or two or whatever it is. And then you need something else to kind of give you that little bit of a rocket boost, a little bit of, you know, to, to get you excited again.

Where am I now? I'm at an entirely different place. I am only in the practice one and a half days a week now. All I do is see new patients and I have two businesses that I'm building on the outside of dentistry. They're still integrated, but they're really on the outside of dentistry. I still contribute and I still have a ton that I bring to my practice, but it had to be something new for me.

So we finally realized that I didn't need to sell the practice to find my new, I could find it in practice. I could also find it affiliated with practice. You know, something to having to do with dentistry, because there are very few things that are as good to you as dentistry is. Mm hmm. Very few things.

Very few professions that are as good to you as dentistry is. So, I had to figure out dentistry wasn't my enemy. Dentistry wasn't my problem. My problem was me, and boredom, you know, whatever it might be. When I finally figured that out, I realized, okay, I know how to fix this thing. I just need to do something different and new inside of dentistry.

And make it fun again, make it exciting again. Now, a lot of people will go and they'll buy a new practice. I think that's super dangerous. The reason I think it's dangerous is because you've just created a whole bunch of work. Did you really want a whole bunch of work or did you just want something new?

What do you really want? You've just divided your effort. You've just divided your unique ability. You've just divided your magic rather than amplifying it somehow. So instead of multiple, multiple locations for what we have, we just have spread where we're at. So I just grow bigger where I'm at rather than having multiple locations that way I don't divide my magic I just amplify it right where I'm at.

So, you know, just think of these things There are a lot of dentists go outside of dentistry entirely, you know There's a joke that you buy car washes and gyms when you get to this point. Well, what have you done? You just divided your magic now You have a whole lot of work has nothing to do with your primary occupation and your primary source of income you divided yourself Instead of just finding something inside of dentistry to amplify what you're already doing.

Michael: Interesting. So is that what you're doing right now? You're amplifying like your other two?

Michelle: Yep. Amplify everything will, everything supports back. So I have an outreach that's a, um, it's called living well with Dr. Michelle, as a marketer, you could appreciate the rhyme people can recognize that and remember it very well.

Um, so living well with Dr. Michelle, I have product product that of course I talk about all the time. And I also have a whole bunch of classes and courses and things online that people can do. So that's one business. The other businesses I teach dentists, what I've been talking to you about, and that's the other business.

So those can be excited. And I love doing them, but they're very much intertwined with dentistry. It's what I'm already doing. It's just amplifying what I already have and taking it to a different place, rather than completely separate, saying, Ah, dentistry is not really what I love to do anymore. And now I'm going to go spend all my time and energy and money over here.

Oh, actually, well, I still am at practice. Oh, no, it's not that. It's this is all just building. So everything that I do in my teaching. My teaching center and the area that I'm teaching in, I then bring back to the practice and we teach new team members or vice versa. Everything that I used to teach new team members, I then teach dentists how to teach their team members.

So it's using my effort and using it in multiple ways. So I'm amplifying or multiplying versus dividing my effort. Yeah.

Michael: No, I appreciate that. I appreciate how you do that too. You found creativity and boredom. I feel like every time we feel we hit that phase of being bored, we have to do something instead of like sitting there.

You know what I mean? And actually like appreciating it, knowing that this is the time to use our thinking ability and maybe do something right. Like, and then that's when it starts happening instead of, Oh my God, I'm bored. I got to go find something else to do real quick. And then you do something, like you say, you divide your attention and then you're just everything suffers.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Any final pieces of word or advice that you'd like to give to our listeners?

Michelle: Just basically dentistry is a great profession. there are so many ways to do it. And I feel like, especially when you're new, you only see one path and that's not true. If you're not happy on the path you're on, there's so many other ways.

You don't have to just completely leave dentistry in order to reap the benefit of dentistry, but yet be happy as well because you shouldn't be unhappy inside of it. There are ways there are multiple different ways and check your own health. Check your own health. Make sure that that's not one of the reasons that things aren't feeling so great about what you're doing.

And maybe that there's some things that can come from dentistry that are helping you making you not feel great. That was definitely my issue. So I love talking with, with young dentists because I love to see them being able to leapfrog challenges. You know, I think sometimes learning comes through doing it wrong the first time, but We can shortcut the learning.

Did the doing it wrong? Yeah. That's great. You know, let's make it, let's make it a, you know, a month instead of five years. And then, uh, you can move faster to where you're wanting to go. So I just love working with, with a new dentist. And if anybody ever wants to know anything, check out living well with Dr.

Michelle, we have a whole professional side in there where we have courses and everything else, and just teach all of this.

Michael: Nice. Awesome. So guys, that's all going to be in the show notes below. So feel free to reach out to Michelle and Michelle. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you

Michelle: soon.

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