Implant Success Part 1

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

00:00
You can’t be scared of anything that I haven’t been scared of. And I made some, when I started in 1984, not a of people were placed, especially general dentists, were not placing implants. And I made the bright decision to try to, my first implant was going to be number seven. We want the confidence to know that the verbal skills we’re giving our clients that lead to large case acceptance can be delivered confidently by our clinician. And I got to know.

00:29
what stands in your way of doing what you’re telling me you want to do.

00:36
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.

00:45
Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Eric Vickery, president of coaching All-Star Dental Academy, and I’m very excited to introduce our guest to you today, interview him. It’s Dr. James Sanderson, the one, the only. Some background on Dr. Sanderson. He graduated from the University of Alabama School in 1984, where he received the Joseph Lazansky Oral Surgery Award, as well as the Dentsply International Crown and Bridge Award. He practiced dentistry in Birmingham for 32 years.

01:15
where they practiced laser assisted microscope enhanced comprehensive dentistry. That is a mouthful right there. Obviously implants were a big focus for him, sleep apnea treatment. And then after retiring from practicing dentistry, he joined Steve Bogan, all right, to become a mentor for dentists as the clinical advisor for BioHorizons. He’s helped dentists all over the country implement dental implants in their practice successfully. And now,

01:45
He’s a coach for All-Star Dental Academy as our implant specialist coach. So today we’ll be introducing him. We’ll also be talking about how he helps practices implement all phases of dental implants. So please welcome Dr. James Sanderson. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you. I really do appreciate the opportunity. This has been a lot of fun getting to know you. Excited to finally have you on the team. So for everyone who knows the coaching tree here, my mentor, one of my mentors, Paula Harris.

02:14
is dear to both of us because you found Paula Harris. You found her and you helped create her. You have to say that, right? You helped make her who she is. There’s two ways to look at that. But she talked about focusing on, not focusing on the fruit necessarily in your practice to start with, to focus on what creates the fruit and the fruit will come.

02:44
Well, in a way, I’m here because of you. So if we think about it that way, it’s all part of the coaching tree. And you were part of a coaching tree even in college too, right? I was. Yes, I was. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to go to the University of Alabama to become an athletic trainer. I was there from 1974 to 78. We had a great run then. We thought we should have won two national championships. We won one.

03:16
And then as time progressed, Dr. Volcker, who was the first dean of the dental school when my dad was in the first class, by the time I was at Alabama, he was the chancellor. And through some conversations with him, I was preset on I’m going to be an athletic trainer. And he

03:43
um had a couple of conversations with me and one of the

03:49
end results of that conversation was it.

03:53
The thing that he missed about wet finger dentistry was that if his mind could see it, his hands could make it. And I was like, Dr. Orchard, that’s a problem. I know how to do that. I’m not sure exactly how that happens all the time, but I know how to do that. And I said, well, Dr. Orchard, here’s the problem. If I’m gonna go to dental school, I’ve got a lot of Cs.

04:23
that I’ve made so far. And he said, well, that’s the last one of them you’re going to make. Um, got in dental school and once I got in the clinic, um, I was really at home. Yeah. Yeah. You found your place. Yeah. Well, I’m so glad you did. We’re so glad that that has all of those things and more have led you to this place to be with us and that you’re willing to pour into others and mentor and be a part of the all-star dental academy team from a clinical standpoint.

04:53
You know, we’ve got a a few dentists on our team to coach and a few, a couple in the clinical world. And one of the areas you coach is in implants, successfully, you know, getting those into your practice in a healthy way and helping dentists not only launch them, but take it to the next level, which, really love. So today I want those listening thinking about, you know, why are we doing the level of implant?

05:21
dentistry that we’re doing, whether that’s zero, just finishing the crown delivery or just these surgeries or whatever that might be. And so I know there’s a list of questions that you take dentists through and I want to go through that with you today. How’d them get a feel for you and who you are and the level of credibility you bring in this world. Speaking about implants and implementing implants, you can’t be scared of anything that I haven’t been scared of.

05:51
And I made some, when I started in 1984, not a lot of people were placed, especially general dentists, were not placing implants. And I made the bright decision to try to, my first implant was gonna be number seven. Oh, right up there in the front, okay. Right up there in the front and no bone. I I thought I was, I won this oral surgery award, I gotta be good and all this kind of stuff. And that was a very humbling start. But we ended up.

06:20
with a great team and did the first all-all in four in the state, the first teeth and now in the state. Did some really, had a great team around me in every way. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, let’s jump into those questions and let’s see where it takes us today. And we’ll spend less than a half hour because we respect the listener’s time. We want you guys to get good value out of this in as short amount of time as possible. So.

06:49
Would you say you’re passionate about implants or why are you passionate about implants?

06:56
I’ve passed out implants for a number of reasons.

07:03
I had an ongoing kind of battle with Carl Misch that we never really spoke about, but in the beginning he talked about, look, when you lose a tooth, the first thing you should do is place a dental implant. And I’m following my dad’s practice of 25, 30 years at the time, and he’s got lots of three unit bridges out there, all doing well because he had been trained with Dr. Pankey and knew how to put stuff together. And I’m like…

07:33
Carl, I can take the tooth out, make a three-unit bridge, wait two weeks, take an impression for the soft tissue, and I’m done.

07:44
And not until I had a bridge that failed on me that my dad had done where I was missing a lower back cuspid. And the anterior abutment came loose. And so I called a friend, he re-prepped it, took impressions, and next morning I’m in the shower. And I’m like, and Carl Mosh is just all over me.

08:16
You think you’re this great dentist. Are you providing the best service possible?

08:28
and what happens to the teeth on either side once you cut them down.

08:33
what happens to teeth on either side if you don’t cut them down.

08:38
And I was just like, I called my technician and I said, hey, that impression you got of mine yesterday, throw it away. Throw it away. It’s no good. It’s not going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you, you realize some of that moment when it came to implants, did you end up, so I’m curious now, did you end up doing like a two, three unit implant supporter bridge? What’d you do there? No, I had teeth on either side and I, I just had one single missing tooth.

09:07
lower second bicoid and. Oh, so you did an implant in that abutment space and you crowned the two other teeth then. I gotcha. Okay. And how’s that implant doing now? It’s doing fine. The anterior abutment was a three quarter crown is a three quarter crown again. The back one was a regular crown and it was a regular crown again. And that should last. I’m 69 years old. That should last my lifetime. All right. I love it.

09:35
Well, so that created a realization for you that, implants is the way to go. Then you go down this path of implant studying and everything. So I think there’s a correlation here. love stories. I think people learn from them. I’m sure every dentist out there is like, where do I want to be? I’ve got clients I talk with, like, I just want to restore the implant part. I just want to do that. I’m doing extractions, but I’m not even placing the bone graft. I’ve got others that are like,

10:01
I love doing all in four, all in X, but I hate marketing it and I hate the expectation of it and everywhere in between. So the first question I think that we wanna have dentists asking is about do or not do when it comes to implants. So what would you say to that and what do want them thinking about first? What are you comfortable with? Where are you in your journey? mean, there is a clinical learning journey, but there’s also an implant learning journey.

10:30
You know, you, depending on what school you went to, where you were trained, if you’re a general dentist, you’ve had people tell you that you shouldn’t be placing dental implants and that’s fine. Make sure you’ve got a friend that does it really good. And regardless of your placement of implants or not, you need to have specialist friends for special times because they will come. But sort of figure out, okay,

11:00
Well, maybe at first I just want to restore implants and have somebody do that. And that’s where, how I, I didn’t do that. I kind of tried to jump in there the whole thing, but I also had friends that placed implants for me. part of the problem was in those early days, some of the oral surgeons, I’d get an implant back in the anterior and it would be sticking out the front.

11:30
And they were like, well, I put it where the bone is, James. And I’m like, yeah, but I can’t turn this corner. So I make this thing look like a tooth. And so that was the place where I said, OK, I’ve got to learn how to graft. And for me, I took two grafting courses about a year apart. I would come back. And this was just my learning.

11:59
This is my learning. I would come back from the course and, Ms. Jones, I’m so sorry, I can’t save your tooth. We’ve tried, we’ve done this, we’re gonna take it out. It’s gonna be X dollars to take the tooth out. And then you need this bone graft. It’s gonna be really great. And it’s gonna help you and we’ll be able to put an implant in there and all this. Well, I’m not sure I want an implant, Dr. Sanderson, where would I have it?

12:29
How much does that cost? Well, X plus. And nobody bought my graph. Nobody. For two years, I’ve taken another course. I mean, I’m slow. And same kind of thing happened though about two years into it. A patient came back and said, hey, I want one of those implants that you talked about. I was like, great. So I looked in the mouth and I was like,

13:00
We have no bone. The bone was very, very thin. And at the time, I didn’t know how to do an online graph. Today, I know how to teach you how to do an online graph. But at the time, I didn’t know how to do that. And so, sort of the same kind of thing the next day getting ready to go to work. And I’m feeling bad about it. And I’m like, you know, again, you’re this…

13:27
You think you’re doing the best you can for your patient, but shit, you’re not.

13:33
You you do gold working in Crown and Bridge or whatever the best is, you buy the best products and all that stuff, but you’re not.

13:45
And so I hit the place and I said, okay, well, I’m never asking somebody if they’re going to do a bone graft again.

13:55
And I said, right. said, you know, I’m sorry, Ms. Jones, we don’t have to take this tooth out. We’re going to take the tooth out. We’re going to graft it. And that’s going to be cost this. got to tell you, I was shocked the other day. I don’t know about shocked. I was surprised. I was talking with a client and this client, I I’ve worked with them for a long time, you know, 15 plus years. And he told me, yeah, he loves doing surgery, does extractions and not putting bone grafts in at all.

14:25
Cause I’m not a dentist. can’t speak to that. You I’m not like, well, why not? I just was trying to understand his perspective, but absolutely. I’m like, wait a second. I thought all dentists were putting bone grafts in after extractions, you know, and maybe they are, maybe he’s a little old school. I’m not sure, but he was like, you’re right. I need to do that. And I think there was a barrier to saying, would you like versus he was just wasn’t doing on all of them. I’m like, no, it’s all of them. guess then, then the dentist now listening to this is thinking, well,

14:54
Where am I in my journey? You’re talking about your journey of clinical training and they got to figure out where are they in their their their journey too as well and and what’s the next step how comfortable are they with what they’ve done right and where What’s the end goal? Where you know, what’s you can’t get somewhere if you don’t know where you want to go You know and it doesn’t matter I’m proof. It doesn’t matter how little you know

15:23
when you start. Yeah, we’re all there. and maybe I think sometimes I hear from clients, I’m going to take this course, I’m going to take this course. And it’s just this decision they’re making and maybe there’s some pros and cons of different courses they can go in the implant surgical world, I’m assuming. Well, there are tremendous numbers and there’s a wide variation of what you get. And based on what your vision is, it needs to be in alignment with that, right? Right.

15:52
Some places you go, you pay.

15:57
Before I started working for Steve Bogan and in Implant and spending time at Implant Pathway, the courses I took that were involved courses, you January, you’d go to lecture, you know, da da da, take a tooth out, it, wait three months, go back to lecture, put the implant in, lecture, lecture, wait three months.

16:25
come back, uncover it another month, come back. Yeah, well, yeah, did it work or not? And then, you know, and at the end of the year, you’ve placed one implant. Yeah. You know, and, so there are better ways to do that. There are better, uh, and, and for me, I’ve had the opportunity to sort of, uh, get to know most of all of them in the business. And, and, um, so depending on what you’re trying to do. Let’s get into that. So my next question is I’m, listening.

16:55
to this as a dentist or maybe this, my treatment coordinator is going, hey, my doctor needs to hear this. How does it work, you know, when an implant clinical coach is working with me, what are you doing for me as the implant clinical coach with my practice? I got to know what the mission and vision is. I got to know that first. And I got to know where you are currently.

17:24
And I got to know what stands in your way of doing what you’re telling me you want to do. And that’s sort of the same thing you do with patients that want treatment. It’s the same kind of process. And then we got to figure out, what are the things you got standing your way? Well, I got three kids in college, and I can’t afford to spend $20,000 on an implant course.

17:54
Okay, then let’s do something different. And maybe when you get the kids out of college and then go do that. But if you spend that money on a course, you’re gonna get that money back. mean, when you really implement dental implants into the practice, one of the things that happens when you really do it is the bottom line goes up really pretty.

18:23
significantly. And like today, you can place a single implant in 10 minutes. And I don’t know of anything from a fee perspective that I can do in 10 minutes other than place an implant. I think you need to repeat that. think that’s so powerful. I don’t think people understand this. Say to them, us, mean, put some numbers to it. Yeah. 10 minutes of a procedure.

18:51
where then you charge whatever, $1,500, $2,000, whatever the number is, you can’t, there’s not another procedure in dentistry. Start, finish in 10 minutes, you’re through and make that amount. And you’re providing probably the best care possible for the patient. Yes, and depending on what you’re doing with it, say, and I don’t want you to start here,

19:21
But say you do have an anterior tooth that you’re going to have to take out and you want to place the implant in today. Well, one of the things that you can do, you can have a doctor plan the case for you and do a guided case, place the implant through the guide, and then you have an abutment and a temporary crown to screw into that implant today. And now you’re forming the tissue like you need to form the tissue.

19:51
right now and you’re not worrying about cutting on teeth on either side of it or any of that other stuff. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re making your life easy. Yeah. Love it. Love it. So good. And so having, look, the reason we’re bringing this type of, of coach on our team is we want the confidence to know.

20:19
that the verbal skills we’re giving our clients that lead to large case acceptance can be delivered confidently by our clinician. And we want somebody to run alongside them so that last thing I want to do is, you know, teach someone how to sell something, to use that word sell, that they don’t know how to deliver. I don’t want to put anybody in a bad position. No one on our team does. We want have integrity with what we’re doing. And so we want Dr. James Sanderson here to help you, guide you in your clinical

20:49
training, adventures, journey to better implants. You don’t have to make the mistakes. I’ve told you two mistakes I’ve made already, you know, that were, you don’t have to make those mistakes, those same mistakes. And you can learn how to listen to the patient. And, you know, when I started, my case acceptance rate was around 25%.

21:19
maybe if I was fortunate. And some of the large implant companies working today that do these large cases, their case acceptance rate is around 18 to 25%. If I were still practicing or was able to go back, I’d find one of those and set up next door. But you can have, when we quit practicing,

21:50
Basically, I didn’t present care until I knew the patient wanted the care. And it wasn’t really a question of, I selling you or trying to manipulate you or trying to whatever. You know, we’re both getting to the place that you want to get. The patient and you. Yep. Yeah. You’re the guide. They’re the hero. You’re the guide. If you’ve been listening to us over the years, you know that we have a case presentation formula that that Dr. Sanderson.

22:20
comes from the same coaching family tree and understands that lingo that we teach. So if you’re wanting to jump in with this and be a part of what he’s been doing for a long time now and mentoring and coaching on the clinical side of implants, please reach out to us. In fact, yeah, send an email to Heather at allstardentalacademy.com. Heather Nottingham, she’s amazing. She’s our co-founder.

22:48
an incredible trainer herself. You guys know who she is. So just send her an email, just say, heard the podcast with Eric and Dr. Sanderson. I want to learn more about clinical coaching when it comes to implants. And I think we’re going to do another podcast on sleep apnea dentistry, right? Yes, that’s the plan. That’ll be the plan. So stay tuned for more of that. Thank you, Dr. Sanderson for joining me today. I really appreciate the time.

23:15
that you set aside for us to do this. Thank you. And I appreciate the honor very, very much. Thank So much more for us to say about this. We’re just literally scratching the surface. Hopefully it gives you some thoughts today. If you’ve stuck with us this long, please do me a favor. Make sure you’re following the show. Make sure you’re liking these things. We love a review on whatever platform you’re listening to us. That tells other people they should listen as well and share this with someone. And thank you so much. Again, send an email to heather at allstardalencademy.com.

23:44
She just sits down, talks with you, spend some time with you on what it is you’re looking for when it comes to helping support your practice. Thank you all for listening and until next time, go out there and be an All-Star.

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