The My Practice My Business Dental Podcast Robert Thorup, DDS

When is the last time you tested for leaks in your nitrous system? What is the danger level with leaks of nitrous when it comes to the child bearing years with our wonderful female employees? Check your system often!
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I was asked to write an article on how to be profitable with PPO Plans, because that is our specialty here at My Practice My Business (MPMB). It’s honestly such a loaded request, as all of you who have been through our training here at MPMB understand, that I simply didn’t know where to start at first. However, I will be so bold in my old age as to state this: those who tell you to dump PPO Plans, or even a part of them, have no business clue what they are talking about. Put in other words, those who go through our training here at MPMB on how to be profitable with PPO Plans, and even experience “real” profitability with their own fee-for-service fees as most are not, would never drop their PPO Plans they take. After our trained dental teams understand the PPO contracts and state laws, they realize that it’s not the dental insurance companies fault they’re not profitable with them, it’s their own darn fault for not understanding the latitudes they have in those contracts, and how state laws protect them from doing “free” dentistry when they should be paid for their dental services they provide to their patients.
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What I want to address is what one doc said to one of our team members at our booth. When our team member asked the doc if he had heard about My Practice My Business, he said, “Oh yes, I’ve heard about MPMB, both good and bad.” Now I understand I might offend some people, truth always does. But my team member wanted to know what “bad” he has heard about our company, because he has only experienced happy clients and non-clients alike with his interactions. The “bad” the doc referred to when asked was that we teach “upselling” and he feels dentistry should not be “upsold.”
 
I was in hopes that he just didn’t like me. That would have been acceptable in my book. But when one of our colleagues openly admits, whether directly or indirectly, that they make business decisions that are not grounded in business, that really pisses me off. They spread that ignorance to others, and lead people into misinformative thought that costs dentists thousands of dollars in revenue each month. 
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After all that Tracy and I have seen, from the good to the ugly, it all comes down to one thing in dentistry: leadership! Here's to a fantastic 2024!
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Before I start, let me be clear with what I do and why it matters to you. My husband and I work with dental insurance companies, insurance commissioners, state legislators, state dental associations, and representatives of the American Dental Association to ensure that both patients and their dental providers are protected against unfair and unethical practices by dental insurance companies. Why do we do this? Because there is no private entity in the US that exists simply to protect the quality of dental care with both the dentists and the patients they serve. There's a definite need, and we're here to fill it. My Practice My Business has been around since 2006, and we intend to remain practice advocates for years to come...
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Titles and profits channel, or front-line advocacy channel? It’s time for the rose-colored glasses to come off, and either hold your state and national associations accountable to reality, or stop wasting your money on annual dues. May I suggest all of us stop taking a back seat, and put some pressure, a lot of pressure, on the ADA and your state dental association executives. Tell them to stop feeding us with platitudes of topics that have little action on what we do as dentists each day, and focus on legislation that protects us from the evil designs of third-party payers, like we did here in Utah. 
Tracy and I were doing some research on the ADA, looking for some statistical data, and just happened to find a very interesting article by Dr. Mike Barr, the content of which I have echoed many times, and deserves new coverage and commentary by Tracy and I. 
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