Sometimes the best marketing angle is happened upon by accident. Today I just fell in love with the women of this dental practice because they were brave enough to post this “outtakes” video on their practice website. See what I mean:

Want an eye-opener for contrast? Go to the full website and browse through the “real” videos sprinkled along their page tops. I’m sorry, but they’re flat. Where did the real personalities go? Now they just look and sound like any other dental team that’s going all “flaming logo” with their online presence.

This is proof that we all can ditch some of the formality and instead take a side turn down spontaneous lane. If you have that spark of fun in your office, let it show. Big. Bigger. You are awesome, remember?

And save some of that high-end tech for your dental equipment.

I never trust faxes.

Except for the occasional antiquated piece of paper that requires a signature that can be penned and sent right back, most of the spam that dribbles out of our office fax machine is a waste of a phone number. And sometimes we’ll even get a fax from someone who is apparently trying to steal our money.

Like this one:

Did you get this fax today, too? Seems like a lot of dentists throughout the country were targeted by some idiot that has never watched TV. Like, duh, don’t you know that there are all sorts of safeguards in this country against scam artists? That sooner or later when you pick up any checks that were mailed to your post office box and then when you deposit one, don’t you think that someone will be watching you?

Okay, so unless the American Dental Association has outsourced its money handling to another part of the country (and they’re not asking for your state and local dues anymore!), it’s pretty safe just to ignore this fax. Or, if you’re feeling creative, you can use it to test the rat-smelling of your business manager, but I wouldn’t recommend the possibility of throwing away over $500 just to reinforce something you probably already know.

Thanks to Dr. Craig Harder for sending me this copy so that I can chuckle at the stupidity of its sender, and possibly warn a few of the less-savvy users of heavy office equipment that the faxes they receive may not always behave themselves.

You have been naughty, fax machine. Time to shut you down.

Jan 19, 2012 UPDATE:

The ADA sent out this eMEMO today:

On January 3, all ADA member dentists with an email address in our database received a special communication from the ADA to alert them about fraudulent invoices that were faxed to many dental offices. As follow-up, we are providing members with an update on what has occurred since our initial communications.

Background

On January 3, a number of member dentists contacted the ADA regarding the fraudulent invoices, prompting the Association to distribute an alert that afternoon to member and nonmember dentists, leadership and staff at state and local dental societies, recognized specialty organizations and other organizations and individuals within the dental community. A standby statement was also prepared for the media.

The alert stated that the ADA does not use fax communications to collect membership dues, and that the ADA does not sell, rent or publish in any way the fax numbers of current or former member dentists in our database. Additionally, all dues invoices for tripartite members are mailed from state or local dental societies, and invoices for other ADA “direct” membership categories are sent by mail as well.

The fraudulent fax appeared to be a standard invoice that asked the recipient to send a $575 payment to the American Dental Association/ADA Association, Membership Processing Dept., P.O. Box 1403, Brockton, MA 02303-1483.

Dentists whose offices were in receipt of a fax as described above were advised to not respond or send payment to the P.O. box.

In a statement from ADA Executive Director Dr. Kathleen O’Loughlin, “Getting the word out and taking steps to protect our members have been our top priorities,” adding that there was no breach of ADA information or member data.

Update on actions by the ADA
The ADA has continued to work closely with U.S. Postal Service authorities. The following is a brief summary of what has occurred to protect our members:

1. On Jan. 5, within 48 hours of hearing about this issue, the ADA filed a civil action in the Boston federal court that issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring that any mail sent to the P.O. box to be held by the U.S. Postal Service and not made available to the individual renting the P.O. box.
2. On January 17, the TRO issued previously was converted into a preliminary injunction, and the file has been unsealed.
3. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is considering instituting an investigation, and has also referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston for possible criminal prosecution.

What to do if you received one of the faxed invoices
Do not send a payment. Additionally, if you still have a copy of what you believe may be a fraudulent invoice, please forward it to Tom Elliott, deputy chief legal counsel, by email at “elliottt@ada.org” or by fax to 312.440.2562, along with your name and ADA number.

What to do if you sent a payment to the P.O. box
So far the Post Office in Brockton has received more than 170 pieces of mail to the P.O. box. It is hoped that the action the ADA took to seal the post office box occurred before any checks were received, as the box was empty when it was sealed on January 5.

•As a precaution, if your office has sent a check to the P.O. box, we encourage you to “stop payment” on the check. While there is normally a small cost associated with this, there is also the comfort of knowing your check cannot be cashed.
•We also ask that you contact the ADA Member Service Center at 800.621.8099. ADA staff is assembling a list of dentists known to have sent checks so we can communicate with and reconcile records with the U.S. Post Office. You will be asked to complete a release form that will allow us to verify if the P.O. box has received a check from you. Additionally, we are told the U.S. Postal Service plans to communicate directly with those individuals who have sent mail to the P.O. box.

Dentists are urged to share this information with all staff on their dental team and direct further questions or concerns to the ADA Member Service Center at 800.621.8099.

New patient marketing is all about finding clients that will bring repeat business, refer their friends and family, and basically spread good vibes about you to the surrounding community. But lately the social coupon craze has poured mud into the water, causing consumers and business owners alike to lose sight of these goals. The result is second-class service that most customers begrudgingly accept because, well, it’s a DEAL!

A few months ago I purchased one of these group coupons for 60 percent off of a full auto detail from a local car wash. Not only was I disappointed with the way I was treated once I redeemed my voucher, I realized that dentists often get stuck by the same traps that caught our car wash business owner when offering any sort of discount.

Rule 1: You should treat Groupon patients the same as your regular patients.

Two weeks ago I left my second voice mail message at the detailing center. The first phone call was never returned the week previous, but this time the owner called me back immediately. Maybe this was going to work out after all. Yes, he could reserve an appointment for me on the day I asked, but because a lot of people are trying to use their vouchers before they expire, he says the only time he can see me is for an early morning drop off. Not a problem.

So last Friday I drop the car off without incident. The owner assures me that the service will be superb, and I am like, hey, maybe these social coupon deals are worth my time. What a way to “kick the tires” and make sure that a business meets my needs, right?

Right? Ehh, not so much. Basically I got a $70 detailing for $70. If I’d paid the regular price of $179 and they’d called what they did to my car “detailing” I would have made them stay there another hour to go back over all the idiotic things that were missed, with me glaring over them for the inconvenience. And maybe I’d even ask for a HUGE discount.

But I was a pre-pay with my coupon. Instead, it was all I could do to get the heck out of there as quickly as I could. Don’t look back. And don’t go back.

Rule 2: Remember who you are trying to attract.

Out of the 150 auto detailing deals that were purchased during the offer period, only four were in the local area, according to the owner, and he seemed to think that those that traveled out of their way to visit his shop weren’t likely to come back. And then… as one of the four that lived locally, I got treated like one of the out-of-towners! Sheesh.

Not only do you want your marketing efforts to attract more repeat customers than one-timers, when you do have a “keeper” you need to make sure that they value not only your coupon offer but that they can see your Big Picture. In other words, why you signed on to be a Coupon Dentist in the first place. Many patients are hungry to understand your practice philosophy and your ethics. Make sure that you don’t compromise either when you decide to participate in a Daily Deal.

Rule 3: Create an offer with No Regrets.

The worst thing you can do is to go upside-down on a social coupon deal, where it actually costs you money to fulfill an offer. Forget prophys because of the perio thing – you don’t want to gnaw off more than you can occlusally manipulate. But then again, if you don’t make your deal enticing enough you won’t get anyone to purchase it.

You also have to be careful with the cuts you agree to share with the various coupon aggregators, and that you’re not ending up with the super-short end of the stick.

Above all, you don’t want your offer to be a Cheapie Freebie. Whitening kits are notorious for post-coupon exasperation in the dental practice. Take the whitening kit and run, say most of the Deal of the Day playbooks.

My suggestion for a Dental Deal that will attract new patients, enthuse your existing client base, and give your dental team a skip in their step, without tying up valuable chair time? Why not offer something that isn’t even dentistry? Try offering digital smile makeover photo shoots.

Maybe the offer reads like this:

“You want to look like a million bucks, but your teeth might be knocking a few zeroes off that last photo session. The smile designers at Dr. Chill’s Dental Practice can bring Photoshop magic to your mouth with this personalized production starring you and your potential.
What you’ll get (a $50 value):

 • A one-on-one review of your ideas for smile enhancement
• A 30 minute shoot at our own photo studio
• High-resolution professional headshots, including minor retouching and the smile design of your choice, emailed to you

And be prepared to change your LinkedIn photo soon.”

So you charge a small sum for this, say $15. Hopefully the coupon websites will let you do something for this low.  And even though you’ve heard this so much that it’s probably a cliche’ to you by now, keep in mind the most important rule of all:

Rule 4: Under-promise and over-deliver.

The bottom line is that you want to give buyers a reason to become patients.

You can make fun of yourself in your ad copy when you mention that you also want a person to come back as a dental patient. Because that’s like, duh. But you can’t say that “you’ll love us so much that you’ll want to get all that dental work done.” Whatever.

Or you can emphasize how at-home patients will feel in your practice if you have that sort of relaxed environment.  Send each purchaser a note about your practice before they redeem their coupons. But no baiting and switching with high-pressure sales pitches. Keep it real, keep it caring, and most importantly, build a relationship with each person that comes in with the coupon. Everyone knows that it costs money to get dental work done. You just want to be sure that patients have your number when they’re ready to commit.

Think of this deal that you’re building in the same way that you think of magazines. The only reason that publishers let a magazine subscription go out for $12 per year is to create value in the mind of the subscriber (who reads free trade magazines cover to cover? no offense, PennWell publishing!) The real dollars come from the ad revenue, of course.

In that sense, your Groupon (or LivingSocial deal, or whatever program you use) can provide a photo service that professionals are looking for to enhance their online profiles, while at the same time creating low-cost marketing for you that is all about WBID: Warm Bodies In the Door.

And those warm bodies won’t care how much you know how to fix their mouths until they know how much you care*. Sometimes it’s just that simple.

*thank you to Linda Zdanowicz for her dental blog tagline that I tried to paraphrase to fit this article.

by Trish Walraven

Photoshop is fun. You can use it to make a fake Yelp review to help illustrate a point that you’re trying to make about something else. Like a patient writing an online review of your dental practice:

Vindication, finally! Yelp lets me air the true story of this miserable experience, and no one can stop me. First off, I had total confidence in the way I cared for my car – had the tires rotated every six months, oil changes every 3000 miles, if it was in the manual, I had it done. About a year after I’d moved into town was when I began noticing a drift to the left (irrespective of the politics here *grin*) so I took my car into Dodgy’s Auto Clinic, which had the highest score on RateMechanics.com. Get this! As I’m filling out some paperwork, one of the forms they’ve handed me is a “Privacy Agreement” that asked me to transfer ownership of any public commentary I might write in the future to Dodgy’s. Like this review – supposedly they now own it. Did the red flag go up? Definitely. Did I heed the warning? Unfortunately not. This mechanic BUTCHERED my car. Nothing feels the same. There are rattles where none previously existed, the steering wheel shimmies when I make a turn, and whenever I drive I just feel like taking a bus instead, it’s THAT BAD. They did fix the drift though, only now it goes in the opposite direction. Just in case I was insane I took it to another shop to get an opinion about their repairs. The second place agreed that unneccessary “treatment” had happened and that it would be difficult and pricey to undo the damage. In the end Dodgy’s did refund my money and asked that I not rip them apart online. I bet! The last thing they did as I walked out was to wave that “agreement” at me. Like it has any authority to do anything except make me mad. I have a destroyed car, and people should know the truth about this “Auto Clinic.” So, Bring it, Dodgy’s. Bring your lawyers. I’ve got everything I need to defend my words. You want to own my words? Here. OWN EM. I now own YOU.

This is a frightening scenario for any service provider. We have a clearly upset individual that seems sincerely convinced her car was ruined by a repair shop. And just one of these unfavorable reviews can inflict massive online damage.

Now let’s take this to dentistry. You got some patients out there talking smack about the quality of your work. Not your chairside manner, not your front office person who was less than helpful about payment arrangements. We are in the heart of your business, a heart that could be ripped out by a singular disgruntled review.

The question appears in your mind: How can we protect ourselves against this sort of damage? Just do good dentistry and treat our patients with kindness, empathy, and respect? Then what? What if you’re doing everything right and a review like the one above comes up and bites you in the backside? It’s not going to go away easily.

There’s always prevention, right? A program called Dental Justice has gotten into the business of fighting Web anti-defamation. For about $1200/year you’ll have access to Online Reputation Management Contract Templates (and some other lawsuit deterrents because otherwise these are some PRICEY legal forms!). You’re supposed to have each patient sign a contract to give you control over any reviews they may post.

What I’ve noticed is that there are two problems inherent to this solution:

1. Patients don’t like legal waivers. They pretty much only end up making you look defensive, like you have something to hide.
   
2. Anyone can post a negative review about you. Even if they’ve never been to your office or work for your competition.
   

Essentially, you have no protection against fictitious posts because even if you are using these contracts they are useless against people who never signed them in the first place. Also if a patient did sign a contract and you “out” them publicly with a copyright takedown notice, you may be exposed to a counterclaim of privacy violation. One lawyer even ended up walking out of his dentist’s office when asked to sign a Dental Justice contract:

story: Doctors and dentists tell patients, “all your reviews are belong to us”

But wait, it gets better.

John Swapceinski, co-founder of RateMDs.com seems to have exposed a fair amount of “sock puppetry” on his website at the hands of Medical Justice, Dental Justice’s parent company. In other words, he is alleging that Medical Justice is planting false reviews, that they are doing exactly the thing that they are hired to protect against.

story: Medical Justice caught impersonating happy patients on Yelp, RateMDs

Over the course of five months there were 86 ratings submissions on the RateMDs website made from Medical Justice’s own IP addresses. Naturally, these were extremely favorable reviews, and John states that Medical Justice was doctoring the web as part of their “Review Builder Program” until the scheme was discovered and the IP addresses blocked.

Sadly, Medical Justice is not the only perpetrator here. Just look up “Online Reputation Management” in your search engine to find dozens of companies that plant favorable reviews for a fee.

Now lucky for you, patients are also wising up. Most of them realize that dentistry isn’t a commodity that is easy to rate, reviews should be taken with a grain of skepticism, and that unhappy people usually squeak louder than satisfied ones. So if you’re worried about your social media going dark, stop practicing in a bubble and give your enthusiastic patients the brushes they need to paint your practice in bold, beautiful colors. Add Yelp and RateMDs links to your followup emails to make it easy for patients to take their happy vibes online.

And please, please, don’t make them sign anything.

Alternative Ways You Can Help Your Husband’s Practice

by Eva Watson

Running a financially solvent and content dental practice is hard work. The challenges of keeping the schedule filled, placating unhappy patients, and ensuring the peace and tranquility between team members are constants that must be adhered to for the greater good of the practice.

None of these responsibilities are taken more seriously than that of the spouses of dentists. These individuals not only have a vested interest in the monetary success of their married dental partners but to better the daily operations and keep ‘the ship sailing smoothly’ as well.

With all of the positive traits and well-meaning leadership dental wives have in mind for their husbands’ offices, there are days, just a tad too many, actually, that your guidance and intentions seem to push the staff’s proverbial ‘button’, so to speak. May I dare say ‘lay the sauce a bit too thick’? If I may be so bold as to offer, ‘Make the employees want to ship you in a box to Africa’?

It’s a difficult pill to swallow, I agree, but I do have some various, and incredibly helpful options, to aid in your demanding role as dental spouse:

Pass out dental office brochures to businesses around a twenty square mile radius, three days a week.

Obviously this will take you away from the practice frequently. Think of it this way – you can hit Neiman Marcus, Restoration Hardware, and schedule appointments with contractors to remodel your kitchen. Just make sure our checks don’t bounce again, okay?

Visit local elementary schools dressed as ‘Rooty! The Giant, Friendly Root Canal Tooth’

I would totally do this myself, but I need to be in the practice so– have fun! There are holes for your arms, but walking may pose a challenge. Oh, and there’s the white stockings and black shoes you have to wear. The staff attached a huge endodontic file to the top of your costume so the little ones understand why root canals are completely awful. Now, the suit gets sweaty and stinky after an hour, so make certain you bring a change of clothes. Come to think of it, you may want to shake it out a few times before you put it on. I thought I saw something crawling in it.

Take some time off

The staff knows you’ve earned it. You come in here, day after day after day, talking and talking, mispronouncing patients’ names then laughing about it, and we just feel like all that hard work deserves some rest and relaxation. In fact, we spoke to the doctor about it at one of the staff meetings. (You were Rooty that day so you missed the meeting.) Anyway, he feels that sending you to a month-long spa getaway is a fantastic idea for your peace of mind and well-being. You’re going to be busy next month – we got a new practice mascot costume for you!

Say hello to ‘Gingie – The Awfully Bloody Gingiva’!

by Trish Walraven

To my last patient that wouldn’t get off the phone,

Hey, thanks for checking in at the front desk ten minutes late for your appointment. I needed that slowdown in my schedule so that I could stand here at the door and watch your world come dramatically crashing down around your shoulders. Yes, that’s what you made it seem like would happen if you didn’t get to finish that cell phone conversation.

The “I see you” hand signal and nodding of your head told me that your legs were ready to walk my way but that your brain still belonged to that employee yapping in your ear. She couldn’t figure out how to click on some stupid program? Please, I wanted you to fire her right then and for you to get your backside into my chair.

You teased me with an apology. I relaxed, thinking that the time crunch was relieved, draped a napkin over your shirt, put the chair in prone position, but then it was shattered by your obnoxious Justin Bieber ringtone yelling at me BABY BABY BABY NOOOOOOOO! I couldn’t believe that you had the nerve to put that phone right up to your ear and say “What.” You didn’t see me roll my eyes way back into the sockets and into the next operatory as I waited for you to finish moving your mouth so that I could get you to open wide.

Was I gentle to you today? Yes. Did I want to be mean with my dental equipment? I won’t tell you. Did you even see the signs posted all over this office that are written in big bold letters “NO CELL PHONES PLEASE”? Even when I pointed at one of them and glared at you in the nicest way possible, you STILL thought it would be okay to hold your phone up in the air and do a little texting. WHILE I WAS WORKING IN YOUR MOUTH.

Well that’s it. The signs are coming down because it’s always embarrassing when a courteous person will go out of their way to shut down their violating phone. Oxygen explosion? Equipment danger? Whatever. I’m not getting interrupted by the people who read signs. I’m getting interrupted by you, the rude person who probably also doesn’t stop talking on the phone in checkout lines.

So I won’t punish everyone with my threatening signs that just end up making me look intolerant. Next time, it’ll be all on you. If you’re on your phone, instead of wasting our time together, you will be asked to reschedule your appointment because you are just too occupied for the dental care that we are prepared to offer you.

Hello? The world is calling. It wants your attention back.

So why is hearing only one side of a phone conversation so annoying? Here’s what scientists have to say about that. And if you’re clueless, pretend to take this quiz to find out if you are also guilty of abusing your cell phone.

It’s cold out there, isn’t it? Well, here. Seek refuge from the frigid entrails of winter and sit your bottom down. Try to relax. There. Doesn’t that feel better? Of course, it does. I made a big pot of my split-pea soup. It is good, isn’t it? I’m glad you like it. Now… WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?!

Did it just float away somewhere into the abyss of dental folly? Was it poorly managed by a pack of flying wombats? Or, worse yet, was it engulfed by a colossal kettle of tiny nuns as they were shouting, “Sweet nectar of the gods! Give us more!”

Patients trusted you. Now they have to find another dentist, pay more money for uncompleted treatment, and take unpaid days off from their jobs to finish major dental work. Some of these patients may have to take out additional loans just to see a new dentist.

What are all those patients to do? What happened to their money? What new jobs will be waiting for the assistants and hygienists? What will the office managers micromanage? What are-would you put that bloody spoon down! The soup can wait!

I must ask; do you think you got a bit too greedy? Did the money just slip through your fingers when you thought to yourself, “Well, I could use another vehicle. No problem. I’ll just raise the fees.”? I hate to be the one to break this to you but the clearly obvious must be stated; never, ever handle money ever again. Ever.

Now, I hate to appear like a rotting, fetid peach but I’m going to have to ask that you finish your soup and march back home. The mess that has occurred due to the blatant negligence of monetary mismanagement is gonna be a doozy to clean up. That’s going to suck.

On second thought, stay here. This is your mess. You clean it up.

Eva Watson has been an RDH for five years.  She is a freelance writer who resides with her family in Highland Park, Illinois and enjoys making and eating soup.

Are the computers in your practice ready for Windows 7?  You are most likely still running Windows XP because  your practice management and digital radiography software/hardware was not compatible with Vista.

Now is a good time to look at some computer upgrades and prepare yourself for Windows 7. A good way to start this process is to look at refurbished equipment. While many of the top manufactures offer refurbished equipment none do it better than Dell. To help you get started we are including a few links and couple of newly minted coupon codes, but you better hurry the deals and codes won’t last forever.

www.delloutlet.com

15% off coupon on all refurbished Precision Workstations
(expires 10/14) ?MWG3ZLB4ST2T6

10% off coupon on all refurbished PowerEdge Servers
(expires 10/14) K10HLL96J1M$WZ

15% off coupon on all refurbished Laser Printers
(expires 10/14) 8XWXWHZHSKW522

15% off coupon on all refurbished Latitude and Tablet laptops
(expires 10/14) 8DVFH307$J?WWD

Just enter these codes in your cart to save your practice some money, and don’t forget that all refurbished equipment comes with the same warranty and support as new equipment. You can also follow them on Twitter.

Dental practices that have made the leap to Apple hardware and are running a copy of Windows XP in a virtual machine, things are going to get a little brighter. VMware the maker of Fusion for Mac announced today the availability of version 3.0 with Snow Leopard Support.

Highlights include:

• Optimized for Snow Leopard. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion 3 leverages Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s advanced architecture with a new 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel, delivering even better Windows on Mac performance.
  Ultimate Windows 7 Experience.  VMware Fusion 3 will be the first to enable the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D.
• Switching Made Easy. VMware Fusion 3 will make it easy for users to bring their entire PC to their Mac in a few easy steps – wirelessly or with a simple Ethernet cable – allowing customers to protect investments in existing Windows software, and to keep using the programs they still need.
• Best-in-Class 3D Graphics. Support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 will enable users to run their favorite 3D Windows games and applications – all without rebooting.

VMware Fusion 3 is now available for pre-order at at vmware.com/fusion at a suggested price of $79.99, with upgrade pricing of $39.99 available to current VMware Fusion users.

You’ve watched way too many movies.

If you’ve got images of Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge, nerdy sidekicks in 80′s new-wave glasses a la John Hughes’ teen films, or the horrors of Total Recall memory augmentation burned into your retinas, then please, let those prejudiced views slide gently outside of your peripheral vision and consider that Virtual Reality glasses may actually be good and cheap enough these days to make them part of your patient comfort collection.

We want to heavily discourage dentists from spending thousands of dollars in wall or ceiling-mounted screens just so that patients can have something to look at besides your ugly mug while you’re fixing their teeth.

We’re not kidding.

The problem with screens like that, during dentistry, is that your head keeps getting in the way while your patient is trying to remain distracted.

There’s lots of other details that can end up complicating the whole thing, so instead of making this a gripe session about overbloated dental amenities, we’ve created a few tracks that will make it inexpensive and easy for you to start using VR glasses in your practice.

Track One: I want it all (hey yeah) and I want it now.

Bank commercials and Queen music aside, you want to have this up and running in your practice immediately.  Here’s the easiest way to get everything you need. Tonight.

1. Find your nearest Brookstone store and call them to make sure that they have a pair of these Vuzix™ iWear® AV230 XL Video Glasses ($200, plus tax) in stock. Go get ‘em, tiger.
2. Look through your home collection of DVDs for those with the most appeal over a wide variety of patients. Don’t forget to grab a few of those TV series’ episodes for those shorter appointments as well.
3. Steal your children’s portable DVD player that they don’t watch in the car anymore because they all have video iPods now.
4. Buy a bunch of AA rechargable batteries and a recharger, plus alcohol wipes for infection control, and some sort of basket or nice box to keep it all together when moving it from room to room.
5. Hand over the box of video goodies to your assistant, who will take it all from there.

Cost: Less than $300, unless you have to purchase your own DVD player (around $100) and videos.

Track Two: Keep it simple.

Efficiency is key to this next setup. You want something simple for your team to implement, that will work consistently, and appeal to the broadest spectrum of patients possible, from the 30 minute appointment to the full-mouth rehab. Everything can be purchased online and delivered to your office within the next week.

1. Purchase these 3.5 ounce i-Theater Glasses ($179) direct from the manufacturer, i-O Display Systems. Be sure to add a set of hygienic earbud covers ($20 for 25 pairs) to your shopping cart. The rechargeable batteries are included, as is an AC power adapter.
2. Get the right kind of DVDs. This is so important. Nothing with a plot because your patients won’t ever want to leave, or worse yet, you’re such a generous dentist that you’ll let everyone take the movies home to finish and then it’s a pain to keep up a decent office library. We recommend instead that you purchase some relaxing, endlessly looping DVDvideos. Our favorites are the Waves Virtual Vacations™ ($10-20), but you may love the music and nature videos at TV Artscapes ($16 and up) just as much. Your patients will want to be in your chair just for the ambience. Seriously.
3. Oh yeah, you’ll need something to actually play those DVDs, and the ones with the their own screens make it easy for the assistant to get the system set up and running properly. Best Buy has the reliable Dynex® Portable DVD Player ($90) that seems to hold up to abuse and also holds a charge well. You can also simply keep it plugged in with its own AC adapter.
4. The Box. It is a bit unprofessional to drag the gear and their cords and from operatory to operatory, so we like the Faux Leather Milk Cartons ($34 for two) from Target. They will stay looking good for many years, and are easy to keep clean.

Cost: $400-$500, shipping and tax included.

Track 3: That’s what I pay you for.

Many of the virtual reality companies directly appeal to dentists to buy their products for patient relaxation and entertainment. MedPED Media has gone several steps further and created an entire package called InChair TV that allows you to relax instead, and leave everything to them.

They’ve taken the exact same Vusix™ glasses seen in Track One above and added a Walkman-type portable DVD player.

But then comes the cool part.

InChair TV has gone all Netflix over dentists and not only are they offering a monthly mail-in “rental” system, but inserted between the shows on each DVD are these cute little dental cartoons that advertise services you provide, like teeth whitening and veneers. Each monthly package comes with three 90-minute disks (Kids, Teens, Adults) and all content has been licensed for use in a place of business.

Cost: $518 for the first year (includes all hardware, shipping, and handling), $120 each year thereafter. 10% off when purchasing 3 or more.

_____________

The VR glasses can take a little getting used to if a clinician normally works from the 12:00 position, but otherwise they don’t seem to get in the way much at all. We recommend starting out with one set for the entire practice for a month or so, and if patients and assistants alike rave about your latest high-tech gadget, then go out and get a boatload of them.

This is real proof that slapping an extra zero at the end of a price doesn’t always happen just because a product is branded for the dental market. When there’s a will to make a good product at a fair price, there’s a way.

By the way, did you mean Will & Grace? Good Will Hunting? Or perhaps you’re more into There Will Be Blood?

Maybe you need a pair of VR glasses just for yourself.