Laser Dentistry That Actually Grows Your Practice

Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.

00:00
I never charged for the use of the laser. I charged for the procedure we did, whatever the procedure was. The biggest problem with root canals is you don’t really get all the infection out. If you’re not in crowing, you’re declining. This might be a growth area for you.

00:17
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.

00:26
Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Eric Vickery, President of Coaching at All-Star Dental Academy, and I’m very excited to interview our guest today, Dr. James Sanderson, second go around. He graduated from the University of Alabama School in 1984, where he received the Joseph Lizansky Oral Surgery Award and also the DentSupply International Crown and Bridge Award. He practiced dentistry in Birmingham for 32 years.

00:53
where they practice laser assisted microscope enhanced comprehensive dentistry and sleep apnea treatment. Now that is a mouthful. After retiring from dentistry, he joined uh Steve Boggan to become a mentor for dentists as the clinical advisor for BioHorizons. He has also helped dentists all over the country implement dental implants in their practice successfully. We talked about dental implants at our last podcast interview.

01:19
He’s now a clinical coach for us at All-Star Dillon Academy as our implant and laser specialist coach. He looks at treatment plans and CBCTs with clients and is really hands-on with you from a clinical aspect as well as verbal skills. And today we’re going to be introducing how he helps practices implement all phases of laser dentistry. So welcome Dr. James Sanderson. afternoon. Great to be here. Yes. I’m so glad that you are here.

01:48
Thank you for joining me again. Yes. Yeah. And you sound great. You got your microphone, you got your headset on, you’re jamming right now. Everything is, everything is rocking and roll. You’re so techie. You’re so techie. All right. So today I want to get right into it. We’ll spend about less than a half hour and we’re going to give some, just some, nice power punch effort into the world of lasers and dentistry. I’ve got lots of questions. As everyone knows, I’m not clinical. And so I think I can come at this from a fresh perspective of someone who’s thinking,

02:17
You I want to grow my practice. I want to enhance what it is I’m already doing. And I’ve never tapped into laser. I’ve always thought about doing laser or maybe I have this laser sitting over there in the corner. What do I do with it? I’ve got offices where the doctor loves to buy new toys, but there’s not a lot of implementation. So today we’ll be focused on how does, how does laser dentistry not only help your patients, but grow your practice? Does that sound fair? Fantastic. All right, let’s do it. So.

02:43
What in the world is laser dentistry? It’s like laser shows when you’re, you know, in the practice, what’s happening. you use a laser that you can either work on hard tissue or soft tissue. Some lasers are theoretically designed to work on hard tissue and soft tissue, but, um, certain lasers and certain wavelengths, um, lend themselves to working in hard tissue or soft tissue more than others. Got it.

03:12
Do you, when you were practicing, when you’re coaching offices, you coach on either, whether it’s perio, soft tissue, or it’s using a laser to treat decay, you do both? Can do both, where I really started. oh My oldest daughter went through two rounds of ortho ah with guy named David Sarver that a lot of people know. And she ended up with a unilateral gummy smile. uh

03:42
And I looked at David one afternoon and he and I did like the first orthinathic case done in anywhere. Long going far away. And I said, you know, this is not an orthinathic case, but she’s got a unilateral gummy smile. And I told him, I said, the only way I know to fix that is really with a laser. But I don’t know anybody that owns one and knows how to use one. Why don’t I get one? Let’s go for it.

04:11
That was like a great idea, you know, and so we did. I got a soft tissue laser and uh the idea with that was to re-contour her soft tissue in her smile to give her uh more of an ideal smile that wasn’t gummy on one side. And that really sort of started it. ah

04:35
David calling this day. Those before and after pictures you have a foreign after pictures of that. Yes. We got love to see those. Oh, you got to send me those. Okay. I want those. right. But anybody wants to see him, Eric at all started on county.com. four.

04:54
We got her in and did it and he, um, lectured a lot in ortho and showed a lot of that. And that’s how that really got started from the ortho standpoint, standpoint with the soft tissue and laser, re-contouring around brackets and all kinds of other stuff. Yeah, beautiful. Now I have some people in my own life that I think of right away when I think of that procedure. What’s the difference between that?

05:21
with a laser and that with a scalpel. Cause I know there’s periodontists out there listening. They’re going, okay, I use a scalpel and there’s others saying, I only use a laser. mean, what’s the, why is there such a difference and why is there two sides of this? Well, there’s this thing called biological width that you don’t know a lot of blood, a lot about, it’s the, but it’s the amount of space that there is between the bone and soft tissue and where you want that soft tissue to be. It’s your working space then. You’re not going to in the space.

05:50
And so if your bone is, um, encroaching on where you want the soft tissue, you’ve got to move that bone. And so a paradigmist would say, okay, well, I’ve got to lay a flat to do that. And that’s the only way to realistically do that. Um, there are other people in the industry that say otherwise and I’ve done it both ways. Uh, it works the laser.

06:20
Uh, if I moved the bone with a hard tissue laser, uh, and then re-contour the soft tissue as well with that, um, you can have fantastic results. the really interesting thing is post-op pain, there’s none. And your treatment time is like, it’s time to go. Um, cause when you, if, if you do it correctly, when you.

06:48
put these species together, you can take the impression today. If you, if I send you to the paradise and they re-contour the bone or re-contour your gum and all this kind of stuff, it may be three or four or five months before you can come back and have the treatment done. it. This is where I see your coaching coming into play. Cause you can have a client come in and say, Hey, I got this case, Dr. Sanderson, is this a refer out case? This is an in-house case. And how do I approach this? I, I’m already starting to think of like how dentists

07:17
this is another set of eyes sometimes to look at it see what you do just to get going on something like this or they haven’t. many? Let me ask you this. We get into hard tissue. I’ve worked with several clients in the past and their brag was no needles. I don’t need to inject you with a needle on this procedure. I’m going to use a hard tissue laser. Is that realistic? Like you’re not going to have to numb the patient and get rid of decay with a laser.

07:45
Uh, there were days I did not use a needle. um Yeah. Wow. So, I mean, it, it’s impressive. And initially I bought a soft tissue laser first, and then I bought a hard tissue laser and a CO2 laser. I mean, there’s all kinds of different lasers to get. And depending on who the salesman is, he’s going to tell you to get this one or that one or the other one. But you really need to learn about lasers before you start.

08:13
purchasing laser so you know, okay, this is what I want to accomplish. Okay, this is the laser that’s going to help me accomplish that. Again, I think another opportunity for someone to meet with you and say, you you know, what’s out there, you know, what’s out in the industry and, and support me in the doing the re you’ve already done the research or I know what the right, you know, laser to buy for right situation. So, okay. I love that too. All right. Now, so, so potentially start with soft tissue.

08:42
get that down, then you would buy a separate laser for hard tissue. If you wanted to, that could be an additional option to this where you’re doing pain-free dentistry with no needles. That sounds like a great selling point to market this practice and grow your practice. And the newer hard tissue lasers really will do both, but there was one company that wanted me to do a video of using hard tissue lasers to do a phrenectomy.

09:11
Happy to do it. I was showing off. hadn’t done the patient up. I’d, you know, all this stuff. And on my last cut, I got a blood vessel and he started squirting. Not good. And I said, turn the video off. Yeah. Yeah. Cut. And I put pressure, put pressure, put pressure. said, okay, get me, you know, give me, let me know. Give me a suture and let’s sew this up. Yeah. And then I thought, wait a minute.

09:40
It’s a soft tissue. have a diode laser sitting right behind me. Yeah. Turn the video back on. Here we go. Yeah. And finished it with the diode laser, which is the laser designed for that. Yeah. And the company really didn’t like the fact that it turned out that way. But a lot of times I would use that video to end laser show, laser talk shows, because that’s the point. Yeah. Let’s use the right laser for the right thing. Yeah.

10:10
And that might mean you have two different types of lasers in your practice if you’re going to make that advance. Totally. I totally get that. What do you think, you know, for a patient experience, post-op, during the procedure, all of that, do you think this is a good marketing tool? Do you think it creates rave reviews? Do you think patients know the difference from a patient experience? Speak to that. Patients definitely know the difference. From my perspective, I used it to

10:38
separate myself from a lot of other people. If I’m, wasn’t taking insurance and so I needed a way to separate myself. so service and technology was part of that for me. And so, I never charged for the use of the laser. I charged for the procedure we did, whatever the procedure was. And just,

11:05
the laser was happened to be an instrument. I do just like a handpiece from just like you wouldn’t charge for electric hand piece or something. Yeah. Yeah. Totally get that. makes sense. So do you think, uh, I mean, gosh, they must’ve had some, like a filling or cavity before done the old fashioned way. And now they had this done. They leave you reviews. They talk about it. They tell people about it where they, you know, appreciate it from the rooftops. mean, did it really have an effect or was it like just kind of under the, under the.

11:33
the current and it just was something you did and people didn’t really know any different. So the local radio stations, you know, in every major town, they’re always looking for something to do. They would love to get me about every two, three months and come talk about some of this kind of stuff. And they would come in the office and video be pre-in a patient and ask them patient, you know, all that kind of stuff. It’s a fantastic way to get your, get your name out there. Yeah.

12:00
We’ve seen other kinds of stuff. I think there’s a huge vantage point here for the practices. I know that I’ve worked with that do it. It’s amazing. So I think there’s a benefit to the practice. I think there’s a benefit to the patient. I, it seems like a win-win all the way around. What would you say is the danger zone here? I mean, you mentioned one using a hard tissue in the wrong areas, but what’s, is there a downside? What’s the downside to, to bringing lasers into your practice? What would you say?

12:28
They can be expensive. The diodes are lot less expensive today than they were when I started it. Um, you need the education. need to join the American Academy of laser dentistry and go through their process and be trained on how to use it and have everybody in your office. Well-trained. You need a laser safety officer in your office. Uh, somebody that can turn the laser off if things are not right in the setting that you’re in and you’re not going to get mad at them.

12:57
Um, and it also helps.

13:03
When you’re using a laser, I don’t need a whole lot of people in the room, um, because you can get reflective things and other things. I never had a problem with it, but that’s a neat way to keep, um, just me and the patient and my assistant in the room. If it’s a child or whatever. And then that way, I felt like I had better control over, you know, if I got a relationship with me and that kid, we’re going to be fine.

13:32
You know, but sometimes depending on how it’s set up and everybody’s all upset. Well, that’s, we’re not going to be fine. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. I, I love this as an opportunity. We’re really focused right now on what are new ways, new procedures, uh, new parts of your practice or old ways that,

13:55
work, I laser has been around for a long time. It’s funny that we’re doing a podcast talking about it, but I think for a lot of practices, they’ve just not touched it. They just not picked it up and said, Hey, I’m going to add this in. What would you say for a practice that, you know, is willing to invest in a soft tissue laser? What’s, is there a percentage of growth? Is there an absolute growth? mean, is this really, is there a role? You’re going to start doing things you didn’t used to do. I mean, like, um,

14:24
Phrenectomy is on babies or babies that are tongue tied and they can’t get their mother’s milk and all that kind of stuff. know, if you go to the physician, that’s a big procedure. Come to me, lay the baby down on mom’s chest. Everybody’s talking. I grabbed the tongue. The baby screams and I grabbed the baby and then mom agrees ahead of time, I’m going to take the baby.

14:53
I’m going to walk out of the room, I’m going to the baby, all of us, you know, and then let mom come get the baby and everybody could be happy. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So from that to what about like crown lengthening? Crown lengthening either again, depends on where that bone is in relation to where that soft tissue is. So that’s a soft tissue or a hard tissue laser. might be both. Right. Do you to move the bone? Do you need a scalpel to move the bone? Do you need, you know, what are those things that you need?

15:22
Um, because if you violate the biologic with it, then all of sudden you get this big old puffy tissue. That’s all a place that never gets healthy and it’s just. Yeah. So we need a mentor here for sure to do this. What would you say is a good place for someone who wants to add this, their practice of thinking about doing this? What’s a good place to start? What would be like laser 101? Where, what? It sounded like a disco. No laser dentistry 101.

15:50
I think it’d just be a conversation with me and them. You know, what, what are you wanting to accomplish? Yeah. And then you have some different ideas and avenues like you go based upon their goals for practice. Okay. So probably a cosmetic they want to do because it’s not one way to do it. Yeah. If someone’s doing a lot of cosmetic dentistry, is there a conversation to be had there? When, before I got to laser.

16:20
If I wanted to recontour the soft tissue, I would send it to the paradigmist. would have an agreement with the paradise. Okay, this is how much it’s going to cost. They would walk into the paradise, knowing all this stuff. And they came back to my office about half the time with it done. I mean, it’s just. Yeah. And then when it was did work, then not every paradise understands where the zines is supposed to be in.

16:51
that arc above the tooth.

16:54
And so now I’ve got these crowns that kind of look, that don’t really look great. don’t, they don’t look like teeth. They look like butter beans. who’s the patient going to blame too, in that scenario? Yeah. So you want to have all that and in control, you want to be in control of that yourself. But if I, so once I gain control of the ginger contour and the incisal edge, now I have control and I can make the smile.

17:23
be where I want it to be. Yep. Okay. So I love where this is going and you know, we’ve been talking about the differences in the types of laser dentistry out there. Should I break it down? Is there any differences? We talked about phrenectomies, we talked about cryo-lengthening, we talked about cosmetic. What about, I mean, I don’t even know. Is there a place in implant dentistry where lasers play a role? Sometimes in uncovering implants, you can use a laser to do that really, really well.

17:53
Um, some people, uh, did primary osteotomies with lasers, um, for implants. Um, I’d rather use a burr for that because I’m, uh I just, yeah, no one better. Uh, in endo there’s something you can really, really, really clean out the canal really well with a heart tissue laser. it just, I mean,

18:22
The thing about the laser is it sterilizes whatever it touches. em And so the biggest problem with root canals is you don’t really get all the infection out. may think you did.

18:39
you may not have. And so the laser gives me one extra bump to really clean that out. And when you look at the inside of that canal under a microscope, after you’ve used the laser in it, it is shiny white. Love it. It feels like it feels like it’s, it’s all sorts of opportunities for people here to make sure if you’re not doing this to see about, this the right thing for me to do? All right. Is there anything

19:07
that you’re thinking about right now that someone that’s listens podcast is probably wondering that we haven’t touched on yet when it comes to just starting laser dentistry. What do we need to note to this point, Dr. Sanderson, that we haven’t already talked about?

19:22
I think we’ve talked about most of it. know, mean, they’re there, you know, the Academy of Laser Dentistry is a great organization. They’ve got a great education processes through that. Um, with everything that you do, you know, and I, we’ve talked about, you know, you, from an educational standpoint, you gotta be on a journey. You gotta be on a path, whether it’s occlusion, whether it’s, you gotta be on a path and you gotta have a way of addressing.

19:51
Every case. And, um, that’s hard to learn in dental school. Yeah. I’m hearing a couple of things. One, start doing your research, get on your AI platform and start saying, I’m think I’m a dentist thinking about laser, you know, reach out to us, get it, get a meeting schedule with Dr. Sanderson. Uh, why, guess the question is, why aren’t you doing laser dentistry at this point? It feels like it’s almost a standard of care now.

20:21
Uh, with a lot of practices, a lot of dentistry. Well, dentistry, just made things easier for me. know, um, things that I would do like apicoectomies. If I did an apico with a scalpel and a burr, you’re going to hurt. You’re going to be swollen up. It’s not going to feel good for several days. I do that same thing with a laser.

20:52
And it’s just not a big deal. Interesting. Yeah. I love it. I love the sound of it. I think it’s got to be on every dentist radar. It’s gotta be something that you’re at least considering getting it in your vision, talking to your team about it. What are you willing to do? And if you’re not growing, you’re declining. This might be a growth area for you. We would love to support you with that with Dr. Sanderson. Of course, we’re here for you. If you think that’s the right move for you, you’re welcome to email us. Send an email to

21:20
our co-founder, one of our leaders, Heather Nottingham. Send it to Heather at allstardentalcancerby.com. She’ll talk with you, she’ll get you scheduled, she’ll meet with you, and then we’ll see about getting you with Dr. Sanderson next. And we’d love to just help any way we can. Thank you guys so much for joining us and listening to up to this point. If there’s other, if you have a study club, if you have a dentist that needs to hear this, please forward this message to them. We love it when you share this. And of course, subscribe, follow, like.

21:50
the channels that you’re listening to us on, whether that’s YouTube or Spotify or on Apple podcasts. And thank you again, Dr. Sanderson for joining us again. Appreciate it. So for all of you listening, thank you so much again. And until next time, go out there and be an All-Star.

22:11
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com. oh