Insurance Manipulation + Membership Economics

Welcome to the navigating dental insurance podcast where we don't [music] take from insurance companies. Here are your hosts, Mr. Jordan Comstock and Mr. Ben Tuinei. >> [music] >> This podcast is sponsored by BoomCloud Dental Membership Software www.boomcloudapps.com [music] and Veritas Dental [music] Resources www.veritasdentalresources.com. Enjoy the [music] show. >> What's up everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of the navigating dental insurance podcast. I am your co-host today Jordan Comstock with me as usual Mr. Ben Tuinei. What is up dog? >> What's up Jordan? Hey, this

is the reunited remake, right? >> Yes. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, we're we're back. We're doing another series I guess together and I couldn't be more excited dude because you're my homie. >> Dude, [laughter] likewise. You know, it's funny cuz you're big into music, my son's big into music and we went to this festival in Tempe, Arizona last month. >> Okay. >> And I think it I can't remember the names of the bands, but they're the bands that break up and they get back together and they

break up. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. >> I just want to let the listeners know that there was not a breakup here. >> [laughter] >> No breakup. We just got busy. >> We just got busy. We're busy individuals and the timing just worked out again to just pick up the podcast and start recording again. So, dude, I'm so pumped that we're doing this again. >> Likewise, man. And love the theme there in the background. You know, we kind of both have the island theme

going cuz Jordan is now Polynesian. >> Yeah, I'm half Polynesian, yep. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Half Polynesian and half German, I guess. >> Hey, same here. I'm half German, too. >> Are you too? >> It's part of the the world dominance bloodline. You should watch You need to watch Nuremberg. The one with Russell Crowe and um oh gosh, what's his name? The guy that played Fred- Freddy Mercury. >> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know his name, but I know who you're talking

about. >> But the Germans almost took over the world, so there's something to be said about that. >> Probably, yeah. >> [laughter] >> Uh this is awesome, dude. So, today we're going to be talking about just industry updates. We're in the year 2026. There is a lot happening everywhere uh from insurance to negotiations to membership plans dropping PPOs and AI. AI's everywhere, and I've been following that uh hand like my hands are dirty and in in AI every day building things and understanding how it works

and how we can use it in our practices. So, that's what we're going to be talking about today uh and Ben, I'll let you start because insurance. What's going on? >> [laughter] >> You know what's really funny, Jordan, is um in the last 5 years, so many doctors have been going out of network with insurance plans, and as a result, the insurance industry, every insurance company has been creating new recredentialing language cuz they know doctors sign recredentialing without reading them. And in those agreements, they're saying,

"Oh yeah, by accepting recredentialing, you agree to not negotiate for 3 to 5 years." >> Oh yeah. >> And you also agree to not terminate for 3 to 5 years. >> Sneaky. So, they're doing Okay, so they're doing longer term type longer terms in their uh contracts because they see they're having churn. That's churn, right? Attrition. So, they're trying to solve that. Okay, interesting. >> And they're And they're playing on the feedback that they already know is very few few actually read their agreements. Uh most

sign them because it's a patient uh retention measure. And most don't even know that these insurance contracts are I'm sorry, they're bilateral. They're they're not unilateral, which is one-sided. Bilateral, both parties get to agree to the get to negotiate the terms. So, that's that that's the biggest thing that I wanted to point out is that don't get bullied by these insurance companies. Read those agreements. >> Read. Well, you probably can you probably can upload those agreements into like ChatGPT and get like a summary and like

risks and all that stuff. And then take that to an attorney be like, "What's what's going on here, right?" >> Yes. >> Is what I That's what I would do at least. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. And along those lines, Jordan, um I actually had um I don't know if you know John Christensen. He's he's owner of Chris Add. >> Oh, yes, I do. >> He's so kind enough to come out straight out to my house and he was here yesterday and we had a super nice

collaborative chat. I had no idea that ChatGPT is own it it's partially owned by a bunch of insurance companies. >> Interesting. >> which which makes sense because yeah, when you look at when you research insurance-related stuff, it is very heavily one-sided towards insurance. So, I guess on the >> Yeah, with if you if you open it up like just without guardrails or or uh data, it yeah, you're probably right. It may just be open generic stuff about insurance companies. >> Yes, I I watched Greg Grubbsmeyer's

Dr. Grubbsmeyer's post. He's um you know, he he's the predecessor of Dr. Charles Blair. >> Oh, cool. >> And he he is just blasting out there that look, you got to be careful with ChatGPT is great for contract review. So, your your your recommendation there is solid. But, it's so funny that um the uh AI technology that everybody uses these days like chat GPT when it comes to insurance it's very heavily leaning towards the insurance opinions of things, you know. >> [laughter] >> So I just

wanted to throw that out there so that people know why they're getting the wrong answers. >> [laughter] >> The workaround for that is you can be and this I'm going to be techy here. You build a custom GPT or a custom Claude project. I like Claude is another chat GPT type >> Yeah. >> solution. And then you upload instructions into it on who you are and what you're wanting it to do. Give it a job role essentially. Now that's the proper way to use AI today.

If you use it broadly then it there's some danger like what you're saying Ben. >> Yeah. >> So typically what I what I'll I'll do is I'll upload like this is your role chat GPT. Give it instructions. Here's the data that I want you to pull from my data about you my practice or whatever it may be. Upload that into a custom GPT and then start asking it certain questions. And then you get a refined more focused versus a broad >> Right. >> approach to the

answers, right? So that that there's there's ways to use it today that most people don't. We do trainings >> Yeah. >> Blue Cloud for our our team members cuz everyone's using AI for answers and and one thing that I've noticed to your point Ben is yeah when you use it broadly like that without context or without guardrails it can go you can get a wacky town. >> [laughter] >> That makes sense. >> Build a custom GPT which is geeky stuff but you can YouTube it. >>

No, I love that cuz I have a great friend of mine who's teaching me how to create he has he's using chat GPT and has taught it to give the Kai answers. His name's Kai. >> Okay. >> it's it's ask Kai. So his people go to the ask Kai tab and they ask any question about the practice and it always gives Kaizen he's taught it to give Kaizen answers. >> Yeah. [laughter] We We do the same thing here. Like I have a CEO GPT Boom Cloud

CEO GPT that people can like, "Hey, how do I How do I talk to Jordan? Like what's his personality like?" You know, it has my personality data in it. It says what's or some of it, not all of it cuz I don't want to expose all of my personality. I don't want them manipulating me. >> [laughter] >> I have guardrails for that. Um but I do want them knowing how to talk to me, right? So it teaches my employees how to talk to me on if

they have an idea and how how to think about it and position it uh in regards to the business. So yeah, you can be you can use AI to be really powerful and we're kind of jumping to this, but um that's how I recommend using these tools is is is building basically your own brain within chat GPT so it it does is not taking the broad uh biased information that the insurance companies may be putting out there. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. >> I love

it, man. You know I love it. I got I have so much to learn from you with uh the AI technology here because wh- I'm convinced that what you said is right. When you have guardrails and parameters on how it should serve you, especially when you're paying for it. >> Yes. >> You know, everybody that I know that has your brain for tech, they love systems like that because it creates efficiencies. Doesn't necessarily replace people. It makes your people better because it's streamlines >> Yeah. >>

[laughter] >> That's true. >> Depending on what you needed to do Yeah, which I can share more of that down down the line here. It's [laughter] really interesting what you can do. But you know, insurance companies are using it too, Ben. I mean, I've read several articles recently that they're using AI to like deny and decline deny and and >> Yes. >> What's the other word? Uh I just forgot it. Deny and >> adjudicate >> Yeah, just just mess up the process, right? I don't know

if there's been any other updates on that, but have you heard anything like that recently? >> Oh, yeah, the denying delay culture here in the United States. >> what I was thinking of. And deny >> that other word? >> [laughter] >> I couldn't think of delay. Geez. >> It's all good. [laughter] >> Yeah, so it's it's always been an issue, but now with the AI is that is that becoming a bigger issue? What are you seeing? >> Yes. So, um it is you're absolutely correct. The

rate of denials are getting out of control. >> Yeah. >> And it is entirely based upon the fact that these insurance companies are using AI to automatically deny claims and then send notices to the providers or doctors as to why the claims were denied in a way that kind of sounds legit. >> Please. >> it's 100% inappropriate for claims review to be performed by a non like a like a computer system, right? So >> computer system. But there's I'm sure they're finding ways around it loopholes

around it even though it you know, there may be some laws or whatever that protect that, you know. >> The loophole is that the the doctors um don't know how to fight those things and like >> Interesting. >> Like the the best way to fight that, like when you're getting a consistency of denials and it's like wow, the treatment is sound and we verified that benefits are covered. You have to call the insurance companies and do it do a HIPAA request and request the names and

credentials of every person that accessed the claim, especially who denied it. And HIPAA requires you to disclose the insurance companies to disclose that information when it's requested. Otherwise, the insurance that insurance company would carry very steep fines from the federal government if they violated those. But when when whenever you make that request on a specific claim, um if it is AI an AI denial, 100% of the time they reverse the claim cuz they don't want these insurances don't want to fess up >> Yeah. >> that

they're auto adjudicating and they're denying and delaying based around based upon a computer algorithm, not necessarily a licensed human being that can see what the diagnosis is and read the records. >> Interesting. Yeah, that's an interesting problem that probably will continue to evolve and be complicated and messy for practice owners. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's >> It's It's getting worse. But the funny thing is Jordan is that there are laws and there are regulations to prevent things like this from happening. >> Okay. >> And I

think the reason why the insurance industry is beefing up their efforts here is because most doctors have no clue what their rights are, you know? >> Yeah. >> So, it's kind of like getting arrested and, you know, even though you have nothing to hide and you say yes to somebody searching your vehicle, you could say no. >> Yeah. >> If they If they don't have probable cause, you could say no, right? >> Exactly. Yes. >> It's a function of knowing what your rights are. And with

With all that dentists have to focus on these days, it's it's it's to me, it is the insurance companies taking advantage of the fact that doctors are so busy. >> Yes. >> That's Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And they bank on the fact that you're not going to research or figure out what your rights actually are. But that's what it To me, that's what it boils down to is once you understand your rights, it's so much easier to deal with these insurance companies cuz you can you

can fight them with a whole lot of gold teeth. >> [laughter] >> Sweet. >> Yeah. >> I'm trying to find this article on the on my site that I'm I've uh we wrote a while ago about this topic um cuz I think I have some sources, but if if I don't find it on the on the recording, I'll try and post it in the show notes on some of the news articles that I found that are quoting sources for the AI claims all that all that

>> [laughter] >> As sad as it is, right? Um you know >> It's what it is. >> [laughter] >> So, I Yeah, I'm trying to search cuz I have a We have a massive database of these articles here, but I just have too many. So, I will I'll post it here in the show notes because that is a really interesting article that we wrote maybe a few months back um all about these AI uh AI claim denials and delays. I'll find it. But, it would be

interesting. I'll share it with you, too, Ben, cuz it's it's an interesting little read >> Yeah. >> uh for this for this topic. Any any anything else in in the insurance landscape? What What else is happening? Man, it's been a while since I've heard an update from your viewpoint of what you're seeing daily. Um like what is the biggest pain point right now that practices are having? >> Yes, so the final two that I'll mention cuz I really want to hear your thoughts, too, on the

membership plan space and AI space further is um the insurance industry is they're consolidating dental. Um they're buying >> Yeah. >> vendors. They're buying companies like yours. They're buying dental practices. >> Sure. >> And I mean >> acting like a giant private equity, I I would imagine. >> Yes. I mean, we've all heard that Delta Dental in Wisconsin purchased Cherry Tree Dental. The big DSO out there. But, the funny thing is is that Guardian and Carrington and a bunch of these other insurance plans have They've

been own They've owned practices for more than 15 years, you know. >> Sure. Yeah. >> And then in addition to that I I have to be careful not to mention the names of the companies, but I have direct knowledge that these bigger insurance companies own some of the biggest vendors in dentistry. >> Oh, sure. Yeah, I've heard that. I'm sure there's a lot that that you can research and and try to tie it all together. That's a big That's a big nest. >> Yeah, in fact,

the biggest vendor in dentistry, um they're owned in large part by the the insurance companies, you know, the publicly traded dental companies, especially, are gobbled up by the insurance industry. And that's designed to control, right? The The insurance industry wants control. >> We're now on your board. >> [laughter] >> In fact, I know that you were approached by Delta. And and same with me. I've been approached by Yeah, we and and many companies in dental, as I'm learning these days, are all being approached by these

insurance companies. Cuz I think the writing's on the wall that the insurance profitability is going to start to diminish because the doctors are fed up. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, well, they they operate like a multi It's a multi-sided market, right? So, as if if, you know, the the average practice owner population starts, you know, going out of network and moving that way, it does it changes the the landscape pretty quickly, you know, if if if the nation of dentists do that. Um Cuz then it's a

lopsided market for them, and they got to figure out how to how to uh compensate for that the lopsidedness, right? That's kind of how multi-sided markets work. Google is a multi-sided market. Um there's a lot of them around, so one side gets wonky, then it really messes up the business model of that So, no, that's really interesting. Um That's interesting that they're they're just getting their hands in in things, right? Purchasing businesses. It's it literally is they're almost like they're a private equity firm that's now

gobbling up business practices and vendors in this space. That's really interesting. You know, not a bad strategy. Like it's you know, it's a good strategy. >> [laughter] >> But it's from a practice owner's standpoint, it's like, okay, there's there's there's some lines maybe being crossed. Because now it's like, oh, you own this and this and this. What about me as a practice owner? Now it's it it can cause some issues there. Big time. >> Yeah, as that evolves, right? Oh, yeah, big time. Unfortunately, it's not

it's not too far deep into the component where insurance companies own everything yet. >> Well, that's that's just in general, like insurance is a massive industry, not just in dental, but outside of dental. And they do have capital, right? That and it's a financial product, so they they know what to do with money, meaning like, well, let's [clears throat] let's take just this is insurance in general, no matter what industry that has insurance. It's like, okay, it's really brilliant business model. Let's take doesn't mean it's

it's good for the the customer though. >> [laughter] >> Let's take, you know, millions of people monthly payments. We'll suck them into our organization, we'll put it we'll delay it, deny it, put it into the market and another assets, scale, you know, grow grow the income. It's an investment strategy. That's what insurance is. It's just an investment strategy. It's not really a true product. If you think about it, right? Even even medical insurance, like it's not really a true product. It's an investment strategy when you

boil it down and like look at how how the money flows, it's like, oh, this is a financial product. Most financial products are investment strategies for the board and the people involved. And maybe they're public. I don't know how many insurance companies are public, but I would imagine there's a good chunk of them. But it's an investment strategy, not a true product that solves the problem in our uh nation. That's kind of how I look at it. So, >> Yeah. >> That's really interesting, Ben. Very

interesting stuff going on with insurance. >> I know. And I'm curious to hear about your take on where like the membership plan space is, you know, cuz I It's funny. I I keep hearing about more and more insurance companies developing new discount plans, which are >> Yes. >> sort of same design as a membership plan. And it to me it's like >> Yes, yeah, they're close sister, cousin, yeah. >> I think there's they're they're trying to compete at that level. But what's what's going on that

there in that space? >> Yeah, so I mean, I work on that with the with practices mostly well, all 100%. I don't work out with the discount plan providers out there. Um you know, like I think what there's a few of them out there. I don't remember all their names. But if you you think about like the discount only plans that are out there that exist, it's it's really just a membership type model. Um but it's it's different because it's not offered by a practice. It's

offered by a third party, where like when a practice uses Boom Cloud, for example, it's their plan. It's not like it's not offered by me and my entity as a third party, right? There's some nuance there. So, yeah, you are seeing discount plans open up and and it's really interesting. But um it's still the same problem. It's like, "Okay, we're going to We're just going to negotiate hard the dentist here and then just collect the fees on our end and and with the discount plans, there's

no uh typically there's not um submissions. It's just a forced discount, right? Um to the to the practice. But what we're what we're seeing is I'm seeing more and more practices across the nation um fully remove themselves from PPOs and offer more and more membership plans, which is one of the reasons why I started BoomCloud is to help with that movement that's been a very long time coming, right? So, it's taking a long time. But, I'm seeing more and more practices do that. We just had

one of our top practices Well, all of our top practices that are scaling their membership plans have dropped all of their their PPO contracts. Um and are now out of network and and running a membership-only practice, which is really cool. >> Yeah. >> And typically what I see like the the practices that do that, they get around a thousand plus active members and it gives them the ability to It gives them the cash flow to then say, "Okay. All right, we can start cutting um and

have cash flow coming in um and and build the build the the the financial base up before we start cutting these these membership plans." I got some data here on this topic. So, we I analyzed a couple of our top a handful of our top practices um that we looked at three cohorts, three patient types. PPO patients, cash patients, and membership patients. Um and this is the data that led them to then say, "Well, let's just drop the other two types and convert everything to to

membership, right?" So, uh practices, you know, the average that we saw like annual revenue per patient in these three three cohorts, we got PPO patients, which was like $950 in revenue in a year's time is where we're looking at. So, the average PPO patient was spending $950 in a year's time. Cash-only patients surprisingly were a little less, about like 800 and and a little over $800. Right? And then uh membership patients ranged from anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 dollars in the same year. So, if you

do if you look at those numbers, uh just to recap, 950 in annual revenue per patient for a PPO, uh a little over 800 for cash patients. So, slightly worse. And then uh between 1,500 and 2,500 dollars in annual uh revenue produced per patient uh in those three cohorts, which is really really interesting data, right? Cuz then it's like if you're a business operator, then you're like, "Oh, why are we investing more? Why are we investing more into lower value uh patients? I hate to say

the patients that don't produce enough revenue. Cost We know that there's a cost to acquire patients. We know there's a cost to manage patients, right? So, why are we go Why are most dentists, you know, ha choosing the least uh the least productive patient type to scale their businesses, right? So, like Wood River Dental, for example, started looking at this data and they're like, "Why are we doing this, right?" And we noticed too the average retention for PPO patients ranged from 3 to 5 years. Cash

only was 2 to 4 years in in patient retention. Which is surprising cuz everybody idolizes the cash patient, right, in dentistry. But when we actually put a microscope over and be like, "What's the data say?" This is really interesting data, right? And then the the members uh ranged from 5 to 8 years with this particular with this practice, right? And then lifetime lifetime value revenue value, so which is a really important business metric, PPO patients was uh 3,800 bucks. Cash only, 2,700 bucks, so less. >>

Wow. >> And membership patient, 15,275. Drastically more. So, that's a lifetime value over the the the life of a membership patient and the the other types, right? And the last one I have here is the Let's see. Cost to acquire. It's all pretty pretty much the same. Cost to acquire a PPO patient ranges from 1 to 300. They're all the same, actually. The cost to acquire is all about the same. But, the revenue economics post are drastically different, right? So, that's from several case studies that

we looked at of practices that that were on the verge of dropping all their PPOs, right? Now, I I'm doing a series with one of my top customers on how they looked at this type of data and then how they dropped all PPOs and how they're operating today, which is and we should bring is Dr. Dan Nelson. Bring him on to this podcast and interview him because it's really interesting on his on his viewpoints as a practice owner and what he did to combat the the

pain point he was having The biggest pain point he's having is we're writing 50% off of of of our production. And that's massive when you got inflation still wacky. Everything's wacky still in the finance world, right? It's so wacky. >> [laughter] >> So, that's kind of that's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing more practices doing that and just strategically instead of like years ago you would you I would get a call and and hear a bunch of practices being you know, they they call all angry about

insurance and they'd be like, "We're just dropping tomorrow." It's like, "Whoa, slow down there, turbo." >> [laughter] >> You I heard more stories like that several years back. Today, I'm seeing more strategy behind it, which is really, really good. That's the right way to do it, right? And And Wood River Dental, for example, they did this over the course of 2 years after they built up a good patient base of members that were paying monthly and yearly, that they then started chipping away. And I I

know you've talked about this for a long time. They started chipping away one insurance at a time until this year they they dropped the big boy, right? And they're doing great. They're They're You know, I need to go fly fly up there and take them out to dinner and have a party because that's a that's a pretty cool achievement that they hit there. But that's that's kind of what I'm seeing more and more. And then today, using technology like AI to help you become the like

your business strategist. If you give it the right data around this topic, you could be you could be dangerous in a good way um in reducing your your dependence on on PPOs, right? So, that's what I'm seeing more of. And we're we're building more and more tools around this topic, AI tools that will help them analyze their PPO strategy and help them more systematically reduce dependence on PPOs and increase patient uh um members. Cuz that's what they're really high-quality type of patient. And one thing I

talk a lot about with with several of our practices is understanding every business, whether it's you, Ben, or my business, or or a practice, has something what we call ideal customer profile or ideal patient profile. If you're a practice owner and you just market to the masses, you're going to get a a lot of low value patients that don't that don't uh help sustain the economics of your of your business. Right? And I've done this with my own business where I've invested into like startups, for

example. BoomCloud doesn't do well with startups because it costs a lot of money to get a practice set up on a membership plan and launched and going. Like I there's a there's a period of where we are investing with our team into that and there's um I don't make money right away, right? When I'm helping a practice initially, especially startup. So, the same thing with practice ownership is okay, who are your ideal customer profile or types? And focus on attracting more of them versus just the

masses, you know? And I'm seeing more practices be a little more conscious of that. And if you're not conscious of that, start researching ideal uh patient profile or ideal customer profile. It's a marketing term. But it's a it's a way to identify who your best patient is or patient type and attracting more of those. And that's that's another interesting thing that I see shifting in the space, especially for those that are dropping PPOs. So, that's kind of my viewpoints, Ben, on what what I'm seeing uh

in my day-to-day and talking to you know, the group of uh practices that are doing really well with their membership plans. Um at least on my platform. So, kind of interesting. Um I think uh you know, moving into the tech side of things with AI, like AI could be used against you and it could be used for you, right? With your >> Right. >> So, if if you're using it the right way and there's many there's many wrong ways to use it, like we initially talked

about, like just going in, opening up ChatGPT and just having it open broad conversation. That's really risky cuz then it's like who's controlling the algorithm? Is yeah, is it owned by insurance companies and and are they feeding the the knowledge of the AI to it, right? So, it's like that's why I always say if if you have a chat GPT or Claude, create a custom Claude or custom GPT with with instructions on how you want it to work. And then it'll follow it'll follow it. That's

the prop- the prop- the appropriate way to use um AI and and as a as a practice owner or business owner. So, yeah, Ben, that's that's >> I love it, man. >> top of mind right now. >> No, I love it. I was most impressed at the statistics regarding lifetime patient value, you know? >> Yeah. >> like three over 3,000 for PPO patient, but 15,000 for >> 15,000, yeah, and for cuz they say they say Oh, and I do have case acceptance rates in that So,

I read it just off of an article that our team put together on these case studies and case acceptance rates actually increase. Uh PPO case acceptance was pretty decent on average. I think it was like 30% little over 30%. Cash patients actually were the worst case acceptance. >> Really? >> Yeah, cuz if you think about it, they don't have any financial programs incentivizing the patient to say yes, a cash patient. Maybe they have like a 10% off, but it's not really uh it's not very strong

um uh incentive for most patients. So, when we analyzed, it was like 20 it was like 26% case acceptance on average for cash cash patients. So, PPO patients actually have a better case acceptance rates rate than cash patients, right? Um and then membership patients were above 40% case acceptance cuz it was like a program that And it was a it's a clear program that incentivizes the patient to say yes, right? Which is really interesting. So, um that's a metric I did not read out of the

case study, but that is um I'll I'll link the article cuz it goes into all the all the depth. Um >> Yeah, man. >> that I won't do. So, it's really interesting when you like put a microscope and look at the data and say, "What does the data say?" You know, which is something like that's how my mind works is like works is like "What is the data saying? And how should I utilize that data to make a business decision for my practice?" So, that and

that's one thing one amazing thing about, you know, Claude or ChatGPT or whatever AI tool you're using is you can give it data and and and basically have it be your business strategist, right? As long as you set it up correctly, like I've said. Um that's one thing that you can do for your practice and say, "You know, how can I drop these PPOs? Or how can I find better patients?" And use it for strategy. Uh that's one thing that I use it daily and it's

it's been really helpful. But >> Yeah. >> you got to build build the brain of how you want it to work. >> That's That's amazing. >> You know. >> You know, I think I think the big the big takeaway that I'm hearing is that uh if you don't have a membership plan and if you're not Well, if you and if you actually do have a membership plan, but you're not seeing that conversion of those patients converting into treatment, then naturally the system itself that you have

is probably not working the way it should for you, right? There's more strategy behind It's not just like putting up your shingles and expecting people to come in. That doesn't work anymore, you know? >> No, it's it's actually never worked. Uh GTM [clears throat] or go-to-market has always been, no matter what industry you're in, uh marketing is always the thing that gets thing that gets industries to move, right? So, if you think like even um years ago when digital marketing wasn't a thing, businesses still had

to do marketing. Even even practices did it. It could have been just a billboard in front of their office, right? Like a a big sign. That as the traffic the traffic that was driving down the street, saw the sign, like, oh, there's a dentist there, right? Like in the '80s and '90s. Right? That was That's marketing. >> [laughter] >> It's just not digital, right? Today, you got traffic, uh, digital traffic coming through Google search, coming through social media, TikTok, all this stuff. Uh, it's just evolved,

right? So, marketing has always been something that's really important in any business, in software businesses, in in your business, Ben, in practices. It's It's always It's really, really important. That's another thing that AI is disrupting for for all of us, for practice owners, for just any business owner, is the marketing function. It's like, okay, so, now patients, they do get on to ChatGPT, and they're like, oh, my tooth hurts. Where should I go? >> Yeah. >> And what does ChatGPT do? ChatGPT goes to Google, or

Bing, or whatever, and then it goes, and it finds dozens of sources fast and systematically, versus if you're scrolling, you know, with your thumb. >> [laughter] >> You're slowly looking You're slowly looking at one by one, right? It's very slow process, which is crazy. That was the fastest process up until now, right? >> Mhm. >> So, like, as a practice, and you're you're Let's say you're trying to attract more patients, um, and and let's say your website's not built in a way that AI will read

it. That's another thing that's happening today, uh, but the beautiful thing about all that is you can get AI to help you, you know, set up your website the right way, without having to hire all these marketing agencies that They can They can be really costly to practices, right? Now, of course, I'm a marketing guy. I'm a That's my background. So, it marketing comes easier to me than than it would a dentist, right? It's almost like I should do a course on how to how to

build your marketing team with AI, because you can. That is one job role, Ben, you mentioned earlier. That's one job role that I have completely automated through AI is my marketing team. My marketing team today is a they're AI workers. >> Yeah. Wow. >> I made them a break room though, Ben. You know, they have a break room. They can play They play video games after they make their quota. [laughter] But no, you you today you can build some digital AI workers or AI employees to

help you do certain things. Um like like marketing functions. I feel like I can do a whole course on this cuz that's that's kind of where my where where my focus has been lately is how do I use AI to now not just search and and get strategy, but how do I actually use it to produce something of value for my business, right? And that's kind of where it's shifting today with agentic AI is coming into all industries, not just the tech industry. It's coming into

all industries. There's a tool out there called Open Claw. Have you heard of this, Ben? >> I I have. >> This is deep tech now. Yeah, this is deep tech. Open Claw is a first agentic AI. Meaning you put it onto your computer and it's autonomous. If you don't give the right instructions, it it's going to do some wacky things, right? So, it's literally an auto >> It runs wild. >> It will run wild, yeah. So, if you don't if you don't learn how to give

just AI guardrails today even in your chat GPT, that's like the basic thing that you need to do. But agentic AI is coming and it's it's developing at a rate that I've never seen before in tech. I've been in tech 10 years now, Ben, this year. Um a little bit longer, but Boom Cloud for 10 years this year and I have never seen anything like this in the technology industry, how it's disrupting every industry in good and bad ways, right? Depending on how you use it

or who uses it. >> [laughter] >> Right. >> Right? So, but agentic AI is another thing that's that's coming and it's literally AI that automatically does things for you, right? And I think then then you get the robots and then the world's over. >> [laughter] >> Oh, man, yeah. No, I'm with you. We've been developing our AI right now and I'm actually quite impressed cuz I I'm looking at my screen here. Um the AI system that I'm using has worked 86 hours this month so far.

That's on things that I was supposed to do, but it did it for me. >> Yes. Yeah. >> a as as a owner of a company, it's like, man, where else am where where else am I going to get another 86 hours? You know what I mean? >> Exactly, right? And like some of the easiest the easiest task today is like, hey, we can we can automate marketing tasks really easy with AI. We can automate like customer like you can you can literally for all your

practices out there that have websites, you can create like a a an automated chat system for your website or hire somebody to do it cuz I know you're busy. >> [laughter] >> Um but then you can you can say as a doctor you can give it all your knowledge, right? And say, of course, you can't diagnose all the all that stuff, right? But you can but you can, you know, talk in a certain way that gets them to book a an appointment through your website or

whatever the the call to action is. So, that's that's typically where you want to start is through marketing or customer patient experience online. You can build tools like that for your your practice and it's really I mean, I'm in tech and in marketing I want to say it's not that hard, but it it might be hard for >> Oh, yeah. >> you're not in AI every day like I am, right? >> Right. >> Um but but no matter what, you can find somebody that can help

you do that. That's the point, right? So, that's kind of what I'm seeing with agentic AI is coming, it's developing really fast and it's it's in every industry now. So, there's also there's risks to that, too. There's HIPAA risks, there's security risks if you don't control it, right? Which you know, you have to control it with guardrails. So, that's I mean, that's what I'm seeing, Ben. So, hopefully that's that's helpful for everybody in understanding kind of the world of insurance negotiations, membership plans, and and AI.

>> [laughter] >> I love it. I love it. Super super helpful information. I mean, just even as me as a business owner hearing what you're saying and my nifty AI note-taker here that's listening to us is >> Yeah, exactly. >> I already built guardrails on what to listen for on things that we're interested in and it's already writing right now like this thing the things that you're saying in terms of AI technology. >> Yeah. >> But I I think that every business owner needs to take

that seriously because >> Yes, they do. >> getting so many extra hours given back to you, right? Where you you invest in these tools that perform in a way that doesn't require you to spend another $5,000 on an employee, right? >> Yes, exactly. Or or vendor, yeah. >> Right, or vendor, exactly. You know, so it's a 10-time benefit. >> Especially in marketing, that's being that industry's being disrupted a ton. Um but no, it's really beneficial, but it it's still there's still learning curve curve for us

and like I'm in it every day, Ben, and I'm like I'm having a hard time keeping up and I'm in it every day. It's insane. So, no, I think it's really important and important talk topic moving forward as it evolves because it's evolving faster than anything I've seen, which is cool and a little bit scary, but mostly cool. >> Right. >> [laughter] >> You know, as side note, Ben, I I built You know I'm into music. I built an AI band Rock hard rock band and

it's scaling at a rate >> [laughter] >> Um I get like I get like 4,000 followers a month on Spotify and I've hit like I've hit uh almost 4 million streams and I'm those royalties are coming in uh cuz music creates royalties, you know. >> Um and that's one thing I'm investing in so I say, "Okay, um how do I use AI to build my dream of having a hard rock band?" >> [laughter] >> And uh the hard rock band is called Machine Six if anyone's

interested. Uh so go check it out. Listen to some of the tunes, but I built all that with AI with AI marketing, AI band, all of it. Uh that's the power of it. You can do a lot with it in it any industry. You know what I mean? So, anyways, Ben, any last thoughts? >> Well, I'm my I put that Machine Six down cuz my son's building a band here. I'm going to plug him into that follow. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let him Let him Yeah.

Head bang a little bit. >> [laughter] >> Nothing else for me. I I love what you have to say here on on AI tech. It's definitely something that I'm like knee-deep into now. I wish I started this journey a long time ago though because technology is one of those things that could make your life significantly easier >> Yes. >> if you work at it. >> Well, you can even build like a uh if you get a denial or whatever like AI that helps you um fight

those denials. Like I I built something the other day to help me >> Yeah. >> fight an issue that uh uh that I was having and it's like doing an excellent job at at winning. So, I'm like, "Okay, cool. This is really awesome." But again, you got to give it the right information and give it guardrails. So, >> That's >> anyways, Ben, with that being said, brother, we'll put this episode live so all of our uh audience members can listen to it and hopefully you find

some value and until then we will see you uh next episode and we hope everyone has a rocking day. >> Rocking day. Take care everybody. >> [laughter] >> Love it man. Hey I got to run.