Ep. 71 - Scaling Smart with KLOwen: Digital Bonding That Reduces Doctor Time with Dr. Brandon Owen

What if you could cut appointment times nearly in half and reduce total visits without sacrificing results? On this episode of The Golden Age of Orthodontics, Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein talk with Dr. Brandon Owen, founder of KLOwen, about the power of digital customization, indirect bonding, and how to ease your practice into next-gen efficiency. Don’t miss this conversation to explore how tech changes the game for patients and doctors, direct-printed brackets, and self-ligating systems. Remember, there has never been a better time to be an orthodontist! 

IN THIS EPISODE: 

• (00:00) Introduction

• (05:43) Dr. Owen shares his experience with digital customization and indirect bonding

• (13:27) How do you customize if you are not printing a bracket

• (18:55) Easing a practice into accepting this workload shift as advantageous

• (26:33) Dr. Owen talks about two different pathways of implementation 

• (33:48) The system cuts the number of visits from 18 to 10 

• (38:50) Discussion of the self-ligating (SL) bracket

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• Combining customized appliances with digital indirect bonding dramatically streamlines treatment. By digitally planning bracket placement and tailoring prescriptions to individual tooth morphology, orthodontists can reduce treatment time, save visits (up to seven in some cases), and minimize chair time and adjustments—ultimately improving patient and doctor experiences.

• Instead of printing custom brackets, KLOwen’s system is customized using advanced digital planning tools. This allows orthodontists to reverse engineer ideal outcomes and apply precise bracket positioning and prescriptions without expensive manufacturing, making the technology more accessible for every patient, not just those willing to pay a premium.

• The real value in custom fixed appliances and aligner technology isn’t just about faster treatment; it’s about easier and more efficient appointments. By minimizing hands-on doctor time and leveraging remote monitoring, orthodontists can drastically reduce unnecessary in-office visits and reduce their own clinical burden.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for watching the video.

Ep 71 - Brandon Owen, DDS, MS - Owner and Founder of KLOwen - Audio Transcript

(00:00:00) Dr. Keon Klempner: For those of you looking to elevate the patient and team experience in your practice, custom digital appliances and indirect bonding can offer greater precision and reduce the doctor intensive appointments in your schedule. Stay with me as we break it down with Dr. Brandon Owen. I. Founder of KLON Orthodontics, our Golden Age of Orthodontics podcast sponsors make it possible for us to bring you new episodes.

(00:00:28) KLOwen is revolutionizing orthodontics by turning the chaos of conventional braces into custom control, their custom digital solution. Helps you achieve consistent results while saving on average, over seven appointments per patient. It's custom done right so you can focus on delivering amazing smiles.

(00:00:50) Find out how KLOwen can modernize your practice. Book a demo today and get $250 off when you mention people in practice to your (00:01:00) representative. Created by an orthodontist grin is redefining remote monitoring with a cost-effective solution. That boosts practice efficiency while delivering personalized care for each patient.

(00:01:12) Grin provides you with dedicated assistance, enabling you to focus on providing exceptional care, all while saving valuable time for you and your patients. New customers can save up to 35% on their starter package. Transform your practice better Care begins with grin. To find out more about our podcast sponsors, visit ppl practice.com/partners.

(00:01:40) Narrator: The future of orthodontics is evolving and changing every day, but although the way to achieve practice growth has changed, there's never been a better time to be an orthodontist. Let's get into the minds of industry leaders, forward-thinking, orthodontists and technology insiders to learn how they see the future of the orthodontic specialty.(00:02:00) 

(00:02:00) How will digital orthodontics, artificial intelligence, clear aligner therapy, remote monitoring, in-house printing, and other innovations change the way you practice? Join your host, Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein each month as they bring you insights, tips, and guest interviews focused on helping you capitalize on the opportunities for practice growth.

(00:02:20) And now welcome to the Golden Age of Orthodontics with the co-founders of People and practice, Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein.

(00:02:32) Dr. Keon Klempner: Welcome to the Golden Age of Orthodontics. I'm Dr. Leon Klempner, a retired board certified orthodontist, director of orthodontics at Mount Sinai Hospital here in New York. Part-time faculty at the Graduate Orthodontic Program at Harvard and the CEO of People in practice. I'm joined as usual by the Brains Behind People in Practice Marketing and my lovely (00:03:00) daughter, Amy Epstein.

(00:03:02) Hi Amy. 

(00:03:03) Amy Epstein: Hello. Thank you for that lovely intro. I am Amy Epstein. I have 20 years of marketing and public relations experience, and, uh, together my dad and I co-founded people in practice so that we could bring the branding and marketing strategies that I was implementing for companies, both large and small, um, multinational and domestic.

(00:03:25) To the orthodontic industry. On that note, uh, we're both going to be giving talks pretty soon and you can come see us and, and hear about them at the a a o, um, mine is about using marketing and strategic communications to capitalize on opportunities. Minimize risk during practice transitions. There are a lot of transitions happening right now, so you can come and hear more about that on the first day, bright and early Friday, the 25th at 8:00 AM And Dad, you're giving a talk too, right?

(00:03:55) Saturday morning. 

(00:03:57) Dr. Keon Klempner: Saturday morning, uh, 9:00 AM (00:04:00) uh, entitled A AI won't Replace You, but your competition with AI will. So I'll dig into how orthodontists are leveraging AI to be, uh, more competitive in this environment. 

(00:04:14) Amy Epstein: That's right. Yep. So we hope to see there. We're also going to be exhibiting, our booth is, uh, 31 20 and we'd love to meet you.

(00:04:20) Uh, if you're interested in talking with us, uh, let us know. So. Today we're going to talk a little bit more about, uh, custom appliances, and we're lucky enough to be joined by KLOwen's, president and founder Dr. Brandon Owen. He is a board certified orthodontist and a passionate tech enthusiast. I know a few of these.

(00:04:44) On this podcast today, uh, he's on a mission to advance custom digital orthodontics. He founded KLO and to bridge the gap between clinical expertise and modern technology and to create a platform that merges customized (00:05:00) appliances with cutting edge digital treatment to elevate not only the doctor experience, but also the patient experience, which we're very interested in as marketers to patients.

(00:05:11) With over 18 years in practice and as the recipient of the aaos inaugural Ortho Innovator Award, Dr. Owen is recognized not only for founding KLOwen, but al also for his patents in the field. He's a member of the Angle Society serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Alberta, and he consults for more than a dozen digital orthodontic companies.

(00:05:34) He's very accomplished, and we're very happy to have him here today. Brandon, thank you so much for being with us. 

(00:05:40) Brandon Owen: Thanks so much for having me. This is awesome. 

(00:05:43) Dr. Keon Klempner: Great. So, um, Brandon, let's get right to it. There, there are a lot of options that orthodontists have with regard to indirect bonding. Um, anecdotally, when I was in practice, you know, I be, I did some indirect bonding and the way I (00:06:00) did it was with, uh, uh.

(00:06:02) Tootsie Roll and, uh, a hot number seven wax instrument. And I'd put 'em on models and, and I didn't find any real great savings and, and time or energy than just putting the brackets on. Um, uh, however, I know that you have now. Have developed not only indirect bonding, but you've, you've coupled that with customized prescriptions, which from my understanding, um, adds a little bit of, um, uh, more detail and, and, and options for orthodontists.

(00:06:39) Could you talk to us a little bit about how it works and, and how you can have customized prescription without direct printing a bracket? 

(00:06:51) Brandon Owen: That's, I, I think I had a similar evolution, um, indirect bonding for me in residency because I came out where I was (00:07:00) learning like half of my cases with di direct and then half of were indirect.

(00:07:04) And when you're new and a novice being able to like, manipulate the models and, and see them in three dimensions, I was so much better starting out, you know, as, as someone who's a novice, it did gimme a leg up. And so when I got out into practice, uh, because of that experience with me. I just went straight in with, uh, analog and direct bonding using stone models as well.

(00:07:25) And we tried a whole bunch of different techniques and it was really great be, but it was a lot of, I had a small practice when I started, so I had to do all the labor myself. And then as we started dialing in the systems that I brought in a couple of my assistants, and then they did most of this, the setup work to where I only had the models in a dark box for that day.

(00:07:44) And then I would come in and, and manipulate them quickly. And so. I think if I would've been a great direct bond orthodontist, I would've probably had the similar experience to you. But because I was new, that that ability to kind of manipulate in three (00:08:00) dimensions really helped me try and vie for kind of, i, I always wanted to be the most efficient for the patient.

(00:08:06) That's always kind of been my drive, uh, outta residency. And so with indirect bonding, I mean, we were getting our, our case finished times to 14 to 15 months for average comp cases, which. Was pretty good for someone who wasn't that long outta school. Uh, lots of wire bending. Still lots of other things as I evolved and went from manual indirect bonding into digital indirect bonding with a lot of experience, obviously doing it in manual, I didn't see that significant a difference for me in reduction in treatment time or office visits going from manual IDB into digital IDB.

(00:08:43) But I think the big benefit to me was. I didn't have to train a new staff member. The, the digital work can basically let you go from zero to 60 without having to manually show every step. Because I always like to ask the residents or people when I lecture, what's the (00:09:00) most important step in indirect bonding?

(00:09:02) Do you guys know the answer? Uh, I would say the setup. It's all of them. If you mess up uhhuh, one step in indirect bonding, the brackets don't stick, they fall off. It's a disaster. Everybody hates it. And that's, I think, why you see, unless you have that system built, um, it, it just all falls apart. And that's where people will try it.

(00:09:22) They hate it, they stop using it. Uh, but digital's let us get most of those steps dialed in. So it is just the final few that you really have to focus on. And so I think digital indirect bonding's really allowed us to. Bridge the implementation gap. And so that's where I think the success of it is. And so I think you're seeing more people successfully implementing the process of indirect bonding into the office.

(00:09:45) And I do, I think if you look at all the research out there, uh, di dibs AI just had a great study where they showed two saved visits around two saved visits from going from direct to indirect. I found some similar things in my office. I know lots of other offices, uh, Paul (00:10:00) Trotter, uh, had a great study that he did using gauge data in our stuff versus a digital indirect bonding solution.

(00:10:06) His findings were that he saved about two to three visits, converting from direct bonding to indirect bonding. The, the biggest difference really when you look at custom is. Indirect bonding or direct bonding, either one. Even if you are the best bracket positioner in the world, you're using a one size fits all solution.

(00:10:26) And so if you're an 18 slot doctor, you're gonna finish in a smaller. Dimension wire because you don't want teeth to move outta the bone or, you know, create these plunging lingual cusp, but now through off the occlusion. And so you can't use slot filling mechanics. And if you do, you actually create more problems than you solve oftentimes.

(00:10:45) But the problem with that is you have these teeth that even if you get the brackets right, you have an infinite number of possibilities of where each tooth might end up. The doctor now has to reposition or wire bend their way out of it to (00:11:00) get to the optimal goal. And so what I love about, uh, the aligner workflow.

(00:11:05) Is it digitize the process, which is part of it, but it's a small part of it because imagine your only digital solution for every patient was an MBT prescription or a Roth prescription, and you had to get that full expression and you're not gonna see a. Idealized occlusion if you just offer digital alone.

(00:11:25) And so what prescription does someone who gets aligners get? Is it a Roth? Is it an MBT? And the answer is it's whatever prescription they need. It's, it's really reverse engineering that final occlusion based on the individual morphology. You have this tooth versus this tooth and this side of the mouth versus the other side of the mouth.

(00:11:43) And so with customization, it lets us kind of set teeth to ideal and then reverse engineer the brackets to actually be able to fill the slot completely. So when I put in that last wire. I know exactly where the teeth are gonna end up. It's not this guesswork anymore. And so we're so (00:12:00) close to the bullseye now just with you letting the brackets and the wires do the work, that it really de-stresses the office because the doctor intensive visits, all the extra months of treatment, all the extra visits of treatment where it's detailing, repositioning, detailing, that's what slows our office down.

(00:12:17) And so I think there's gonna be a whole bunch of custom platforms out there. But the revenue per visit, the, the amount of doctor time per visit, when you look at the aligner workflow is really trickling in, and we're seeing it as well with the custom orthodontic fixed appliance workflow as well. And so rather than two to three saved visits, I.

(00:12:38) What we're finding across the board, and we've done this with a few offices now and four at the beginning, and we've done a couple follow up studies, is custom is seeming to save more like seven office visits. And a lot of the visits saved are the ones, the detailing, the the, the kind of the ones that throw the schedule off the rail, right?

(00:12:55) Where the doctors, the bottleneck. 'cause a wire change is easy to recover from, but it's (00:13:00) the. Repairing loose brackets, wire bending and repositioning. The doctor kind of has to drop everything and the office slows down. And so I really think it's gonna be the future. 

(00:13:13) Dr. Keon Klempner: So, so just to follow up, um, how, how do you customize if you're not, you know, printing a bracket?

(00:13:22) How do you Yeah, you could, you know, how do you do that 

(00:13:25) Brandon Owen: and that, and that's a great question. So I. When I started this whole process, I was trying to find a way to make customization actually affordable. So you could actually do that for everybody, not just for the patients who are willing to pay an extra six or $800.

(00:13:40) Um, because I was using a lot of those systems, lingual systems, um, the labial system that you'd see and see milling. The problem with those is they, they took forever to manufacture and they were really expensive to manufacture. And so when I kind of tried to tackle this as, as a way to hit the masses.

(00:13:57) The shoe industry is the one that I kind of came (00:14:00) up with that matches and mirrors orthodontics pretty closely. And what I like to tell people who are outside the industry is imagine conventional orthodontics is like walking into a shoe store and they say All we have is a size 15 wide. I. That's all we stock and carry.

(00:14:17) It's super, it's like a clown shoe on you, but we're gonna spend three or four hours sculpting some foam to serve as kind of an interface between that one size fits all offering that we off, that we could have in the office and your foot. So you'll walk out with, with something that at least gives you protection from the gravel and everything on the, on the surface.

(00:14:36) But by no means is it, is it well adapted, right? So it's a one size fits all and it requires a lot of manipulation by the technician. I. On the other end of the scale, what I was seeing back then and what we have some other offerings where it is a custom manufactured bracket. That'd be like walking into a shoe store that said.

(00:14:56) I am gonna measure your right foot, measure your left foot, and over the next (00:15:00) six weeks I'm going to make from scratch a right shoe and a left shoe just for you. And I dunno how many shoe stores you guys have been to over the last few years, but I, I haven't seen one that operates with that methodology.

(00:15:12) And so to me it was right sizing and kind of optimal engineering from a more of a industrial mass production scale. And so I can walk into a shoe store and pick up a narrow, a medium, and a wide. And that's what we kind of analog use the analysis as. Like our first order variations is we have kind of a near a low profile, medium profile, high profile, and then we have a size 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, whatever size you need.

(00:15:37) So the brackets get thicker and they also have. Torque angle switching. And so if you need a seven degree prescription, the software will pick the negative five degree bracket and hold it with a two degree orientation in the indirect bonding trace. So when you glue the bracket to the tooth, you get exactly seven degrees.

(00:15:57) So I like to say we do five 95% of (00:16:00) the customization by choosing the right shoe. So we've got enough parts and pieces and shapes that you can get a really close fit. You can tighten the laces to get the last little bit of customization. So if I walk into a shoe store and buy a $90 pair of shoes and my brother walks into a shoe store in Las Vegas, can buy that same pair of nine and a half shoes, and we get a little bit of custom fit different from one another when we tighten the lace and even the right shoe versus the left shoe, you may have to tighten the laces a little bit more on one versus the other.

(00:16:30) But to me, what I love about it is you give the custom experience. With conventional pricing. And so that's, to me, the best way to deliver this to the masses is you don't need to have. A perfect fit bracket, you just need to have it fit well enough that the bracket doesn't fall off continually during treatment and in our white paper studies, we actually found a 50% reduction in loose brackets, so we know we have enough of a fit there where we're getting as good, if not better (00:17:00) delivery on retention on the tooth.

(00:17:02) So that's, that's kind of the, the value that we add is that we can be there at way lower price point and way faster turnaround time. Yeah. 

(00:17:10) Amy Epstein: I mean, that's a, that's a significant value proposition I would imagine, to orthodontists who, um, are in traditional brackets and wires right now. Um, you know, I, I hinted earlier in the podcast that I had two tech enthusiasts on the, actually three, if I, 'cause I grew up with a tech enthusiast, so we always kind of had the.

(00:17:35) Newest, whatever was out. I had an Apple two C with a joystick in the early eighties and, you know, a IM growing up as a early teenager anyway. Um, and I know that in my dad's practice, he also had, you know, he was a first mover on a lot of things, and he used to tell us at home, um, you know, about all the cool stuff he saw at the a a o or wherever he (00:18:00) was going, and, you know, obviously wants to bring it.

(00:18:03) Bring it into his practice. Um, and it, you know, sometimes wasn't as he, his team members maybe weren't as excited as he was at the end of the a a o, um, just because they knew that change was afoot and, and that it wasn't always super, super well received, um, by the staff. So, um. What kind of resources do you afford?

(00:18:29) Practices who wanna get on board, but even, you know, in this current climate with staffing challenges, don't kind of wanna upset the apple cart. Um, so how do you ease those practices in, um, and get them to accept this ch because it's a workflow shift, I'm sure. Um, to a large degree. 

(00:18:48) Brandon Owen: Yes, absolutely. And I think you kinda hit the nail on the head a little bit that, um.

(00:18:55) Most orthodontists when they really understand custom to the core, whether it's our system or someone (00:19:00) else's solution, is that it makes sense. It's a better, it's a better path forward for them, for the, for the office, for the patient. Um, but change management is the Achilles heel of everything and. You know, I, 10 years ago in practice, if I had a assistant that said, Hey, I'm not coming to work tomorrow.

(00:19:20) I'm going out partying with my friends tonight. I would've said, you don't show up tomorrow. You're fired. Uh, it's a different thing today because the leverage that they have over us, because the, the challenge to replace that person is so profound that, um. Where we used to, you know, you think about, I, I, I like to use the analogy to staff when we're going in is the process of digital and direct bonding.

(00:19:42) You already know how to do every single step necessary. It's exactly the same as putting attachments on for aligners. Every single step is exactly the same, and you just have brackets on the teeth instead of the little bumps in, in. But every step's exactly the same. And when I think back (00:20:00) to training my staff to do attachments, even me having to put attachments on myself the first few times it sucked.

(00:20:07) I mean, I had 'em all stick, the trays were sticking, they were falling off. I had to redo individual ones. And, and then you get five or six under your belt and then it's SM sealing. And if we had the same leverage of staff today that the, the staff has over us today, back. As we do. Back then, I don't think we, and the liners would've taken off because they would've all revolted just like mine revolted back in the office.

(00:20:30) But back then we could say, no, we're doing this. Um, it's do or die. You have to learn this or you're not gonna work here anymore, and I'm gonna find someone who will come in and work here. So we live in a different era and. Because of that, you know, we really try and coach the staff on the front end that this will make their life so much better.

(00:20:51) You know, you think about the offices because of the staffing shortages that they're working through lunch, they end up leaving the office at five 30 or six o'clock. The (00:21:00) office is always behind, so patients are upset and they're having to like put out fires, just emotional fires. Minute after minute throughout their day.

(00:21:08) And so to be able to say that if you can get through this learning curve through the onboarding process, your life will be so much better. It's the shangrila and you'll, you leave work on time. You'll have happier patients. You'll be able to see more patients with fewer team members. So if you have some that maybe aren't.

(00:21:26) Contributing as much or or driving friction in the office, you might be able to still manage the schedule without some of them. Um, I think that's, that's what we really have to plant as the, the carrot at the front end of this. And then we have to be very honest with them that it is gonna suck. The first three or four times, you may have failures and you may feel bad about yourself and your skill.

(00:21:46) And if that's not what we want you to feel, it's the, just the realizing that. Getting a few cases under your belt, doing it consistently. So not once every three months, but once or twice a week at least, to where you can (00:22:00) start building the muscle memory because it will pay dividends in the long run. Um, so that's kind of the, even though it's not just a service that we offer, I think.

(00:22:10) Setting the psychological and mental landscape for why are we willing to do the painful things to, to actually make this be part of the practice is, is really the core foundation. But on top of that, we have a 12 month kind of onboarding process that really we've, we've really started focusing a lot more on the treatment coordinator and how they communicate to patients and how they schedule those.

(00:22:34) A lot more resources around the treatment coordinator. Uh, we have an indirect bonding team, um, a clinical assisting team that comes out and does the first bondings with the office. And we have remote ability to do remote training as well, so we always wanna keep them in the loop of that. We do, uh, we've built out a really robust, uh, learning management software system and it's mobile enabled.

(00:22:57) So if you're trying to figure out a quick (00:23:00) resource, but there's a curriculum that we actually ask everybody to follow so you can build the score, the, the key. Foundational, um, didactic elements, but it's also a great quick search guide to how do I fix a loose bracket? And you can pull up a video that shows you in 90 seconds, because I think that's what the assistants don't want to feel like is okay.

(00:23:19) We, we have a trainer come in, they learned how to put the brackets on, a bracket falls off, and they're like, oh yeah, I know I learned this. But to be able to kinda reference that quickly and have that support, I think is that safety net that they kind of need. But on top of that. Even the doctor needs to change their mindset and so we have courses for a curriculum for the doctor, because what I don't want anybody to do with custom is submit cases and you still keep seeing the patient every four or five weeks and you still keep taking the wires out every visit and you're still doing 24 visits or 18 visits, I think is the gauge data from from last year.

(00:23:59) (00:24:00) If you're not trying to make yourself more efficient and you're gonna just do the things the same way that you've always done them, don't do it. You need to also have a mind shift as the doctor of learning about how am I gonna strategically reallocate my scheduling? How am I gonna strategically learn the new clinical protocols to optimize this?

(00:24:19) Because if we're, if we're really going from kind of, um. You know, a, a minivan to a Ferrari, you've gotta actually spend some time learning how to drive the Ferrari as well. Is is the one that's in the car. 

(00:24:31) Amy Epstein: Yeah. 

(00:24:31) Brandon Owen: So, um, long, long answer to basically say that it's also important. It's not just one little element.

(00:24:38) Change management is really hard. Yeah. And the other thing I'll say is that. We love to my, my vision for this is that it totally transforms the patient delivery experience to where I know my office, I treat cases, our comp case average is 10 months, so I know that one year in braces is possible. I. Do I think offices should (00:25:00) do that?

(00:25:00) Absolutely not because I'd rather you learn wire sequence, appointment scheduling interval that get the clinical team up to speed on indirect bonding before we start tackling all the nuance that goes into payment and payment plans and how treatment time lengths and all those other things. 

(00:25:17) Dr. Keon Klempner: Yep. You know, Brandon, you know, when I, when I listened to you and I think back to when I was in practice and when I looked at the day sheet, let's say when I came in in the morning, had my cup of coffee, you know, I looked day sheet, you'd see certain patients that you didn't want to see and they were coming in and, but when I saw a lot of aligner cases, I said, oh, this is gonna be an easy day.

(00:25:39) And when I hear you speaking, um, to me, it. It's less about how long it's gonna take and more about easy appointments that require less of my attention. So I, I don't have to, I don't have to sit down and bend a rectangular wire with a lot of step in step outs. You know, I, I, that's an easy day for me. (00:26:00) So, adapting new technology.

(00:26:02) It cost money. I, I just, uh, yesterday got a text on the gauge Q1 data and you know, exams are down, production collection starts, you know, one to 2% up year over year, but basically flat. So ortho's a feeling, the squeeze right. Now. I wondered if you could walk us through, if you don't mind sharing this, your price structure, you know, what does it cost for somebody to.

(00:26:29) To, to adopt this technology with 

(00:26:32) Brandon Owen: you? Yeah, that's a great question. And so we have two different pathways. When somebody signs up with us, we have something called the Unlock, where you basically can just do one case if you want to, we'll give you the training support. And so that one has kind of a. A little bit of a front load of costs just for the supplies.

(00:26:49) You need the backup bracket so you can fix a loose bracket, same day in your office. The type it on to be able to show off to patients, um, the training time. So we, that's a, it's a lost leader for us. We lose money (00:27:00) at the price point for doing that, but we also wanted to make the barrier low enough that people could just get in and try one or two cases.

(00:27:07) I'll tell you, I don't recommend it because if you're going to do one or two cases here and there. Your staff's never gonna learn it. Every time those patients come in, you're not gonna feel the efficiency gain. Um, but you'll feel a lot of the training burden and your staff will be very vocal about it.

(00:27:24) Um, but, but we wanna offer, we have that as an offering. Uh, and then we also have another onboarding pathway, which is usually the one we suggest, which is if you do a certain number of cases per month, you get a massive, uh, discount. At the front end of the contract because we just are trying to get you through that learning curve, do enough muscle memory for your team members to be able to kind of start really assessing.

(00:27:45) Is, is the value of this system there in your office or is it not there? Um, Scott Fry had a really interesting post, uh, last year sometime on. How he thinks that the structure going forward is gonna look more at (00:28:00) the lab bill, plus the staff costs being kind of the new metric of, of that staffing overhead.

(00:28:06) Because the reality is that if you had an align only aligner practice, this is exact, I I like, I love to use your analogy, Leon, of like the aligner day being the easy day. If, if I had a schedule where all I was doing is aligner checks all day, I'm like gonna get caught up on everything. I'm like high fiving myself even before the days begun because.

(00:28:26) With an aligner, even if the case is going off track, all I have to do is tell my staff, I delegate this to my staff. Hey, let's do a new scan for refinement. Right? I, I get to punt that off to them, so I'm still gonna run on time. The whole rest of the day. There's nothing that could come up where I'm like, oh, great, now I've gotta drop everything for 45 minutes and, and get back on track.

(00:28:46) Versus with fixed appliances, it's there. And so with custom, what I love about it is it gets you back to that more. Kind of Okay. I might only have to sit down. I, I like to tell, you know, I look at my (00:29:00) cases now from a perspective of not only total office visits, but wet, wet doctor glove time, and I only have two appointments or less on average per patient, where I actually even put gloves on.

(00:29:14) Uh, everything else is, I can look at. The remote monitoring, we say, oh, this, we're looking great, we're doing this. I can check cr uh, just to make sure we don't have any weird functional slides, but I can say, oh, the, this is what your teeth started, like this is what they look like today. And we're gonna put these wires, these ties, and these rubber bands.

(00:29:32) Uh, and I, so I'm not actually doing anything. And I can see that patient at the beginning of the appointment, the middle of the appointment, the end of the, there's no bottleneck, right? I'm not gonna have that chair be. Stuck in production and throughput, uh, because I can just bounce pretty fluidly from one thing to the next.

(00:29:48) But if it's a, oh, we're gonna repo 20 brackets, or I've gotta put a whole bunch of wire bins in and I've got three of those stacked up right next to each other, and we have a new patient exam and we have an ec, all of those things (00:30:00) are me. Right? And so I'm the problem, it's not, it's not anything other than me, it being the problem.

(00:30:06) And so with aligners. You really deflect those kind of painful appointments that can throw things off the rails, and that's what we're seeing with custom fixed appliances as well as you eliminate those appointments as well. And so just being really strategic about, for instance, one thing that I did early on was I'd start detailing as soon as I got to my finishing wire, and now I've realized that I'd rather get them to class one before I do my detailing because I had.

(00:30:33) I could have done it in one detailing appointment, but I did it in two or three because they weren't quite class one yet, and I needed to see canines. And so just even trying to optimize and look at your own office, what you're doing at the Dand analysis and say, could I have done better? Could I have shaved out a visit here or there, or could I have done less doctor time, less of chair time, have not brought the patient in for an appointment where.

(00:30:57) Hey, things look great. We're gonna change your colors today, right? How many (00:31:00) appointments, um, can you think of back in the day where the parent leaves work, drives to the school, waits in the principal's office for their kid drives to your office. Hopefully you're running on time, but you may not be. I, in my office in Colorado, we're behind some, so you're an hour in the office, then back to the school, then back to work.

(00:31:20) And so to have all of that for the parent. Just at the end of the day to say, oh, we really don't need to do anything. Things look pretty good. Um, and for you as the orthodontist to incur the overhead of that right, is every time a patient walks through your front door, you're gonna have fixed and variable overhead costs that basically are impeding your ability to, to maximally produce, right?

(00:31:44) If you, those are wasted visits on my eyes as I could have had somebody that had to be there during that shared time. Versus having someone where it is just a, and think of the number of patients per day, where, where all you're saying is, oh yeah, let's keep the same rubber bands and let's just change the ties today.

(00:31:58) Amy Epstein: Yeah. 

(00:31:58) Brandon Owen: And so that's break (00:32:00) the mold, right? Is how do we get better? 

(00:32:02) Amy Epstein: Well, I mean, you're, it's a perfect segue, um, into something that has been on my mind, but just to, to frame up my, my, uh. Question. I am the parent of a 10-year-old girl who, um, you know, her, her first consult with an orthodontist is coming up.

(00:32:21) She has all her adult teeth, and she's, my dad says she's ready for a consult. So we're, we're doing that. Now I know about the industry and I know about recall and odds and you know, I may come in and she's ready, she's not ready, or, um. But, and once she's in treatment, my, my friend's kids are in treatment.

(00:32:41) They complain about this very thing. They go into their appointment and they're doing everything you just said. They're pulling them out midday because they're so precious. Few after school appointments, um, they're missing math and they, you know, the kid's missing math. The parent is missing work and they go in and there's not much to (00:33:00) be done.

(00:33:00) And that is infuriating. So there that there's an obvious benefit there. But my question is about from the, from the patient's perspective or the benefit to the patient. What you just described is a pain point that exists when a patient goes somewhere else, it's a pain that they will never feel. I. If they come to you, right?

(00:33:22) Yeah. Yeah. So how do you articulate the benefit to them when they don't realize necessarily, unless you say like, well, if you go for traditional, you might have these problems, but with us you don't. How do you flip that script to all positives so that you can market to parents in, in your community the benefits of what you provide to, to patients?

(00:33:48) Brandon Owen: I, I think that that's a great, per great point, and I think it's really fun when you can say that our office strives to see a patient and not. (00:34:00) Not compromise on the quality of the outcome, but where if you can get your office average visits down to like 10 appointments or less, which is very doable with custom and remote monitoring, it's, it's very, very achievable to do that.

(00:34:13) Um, versus we know the US average is 18 months for kind of a comprehensive fixed appliance case. So boy, if we can save eight trips to the office for you, how valuable is that for you as a commuting parent? I can tell you because I set my office up because I, it's always just been a passion of mine to see how, how quickly can I get a high quality finish on a patient, even when I was using conventional.

(00:34:36) So when you actually set up the office systems to where you're talking about reduced treatment time, then it gets really, really fun. I mean, I can tell you all the time when I just, last week I took off one kid, one little boy's braces, he was in braces for seven months. Another girl that came in and she finished an eight and.

(00:34:54) The comments from the parents are all their friends are still in braces, and they got 'em on a year before. (00:35:00) They, they even started. And so you start seeing this internal marketing when you go for that. But it requires, like I said, a scripting in the office at the, at the consult payment plans. We have a whole bunch of things.

(00:35:11) If you ever want to get there, that's when it really unlocks. But I. Because it's very obvious as eight months versus 18 or 20, 26 or whatever the US average with gauge from last year was. Um, that's an obvious thing, but you can still sell eight visits to you and think about how much time you have to miss at work and how busy it is.

(00:35:30) And so I think both are very sellable. I also want to answer Leon's question 'cause I, I, on the last one, basically, the way I like to talk about our pricing point is if you look at just fixed direct bonding, uh, uh. Practice to do digital indirect bonding. You basically have to save about one visit to hit break even, you know, office overhead being between 150, maybe $220.

(00:35:53) So, so you really, it's about that much more. Somewhere in that ballpark to go from direct bonding to indirect (00:36:00) bonding, so you better at least save a visit. And it looks like, if you look at most of the stuff I've seen, you're probably getting a two XROI, or maybe even a little bit better than that on that investment.

(00:36:10) For custom, at least at our price point, you basically have to save two office visits. So if you can save two office visits, then it justifies the expense of. The appliance, just in terms that, the only metric I'm talking about though is office visits. I'm not talking about all the intangibles we talked about where doctor intensive throwing off the schedule and all those other things.

(00:36:31) And so if you look at our data now, we've got six offices that we've really done a pretty big. Segment on, uh, we save on average over seven visits. And so again, you still have that three plus ROI on the investment. And if you're not seeing it, stop using it. Um, so, so I think that that's the bigger thing is when I tell a patient I need to see you 10 visits or less, not 18 visits or less, we're not moving your teeth any faster.

(00:36:59) 'cause (00:37:00) I think a lot of people are worried about root resorption and some of these other things is. If you think about flying across the country with a direct flight that's custom, right, is we're going exactly from where you are to where you want to be with the fewest number of detours possible versus with conventional.

(00:37:19) I'm gonna have to keep reacting to where the teeth are each month to and repo. Wire band, repo, wire band, whatever it is, I'm gonna have probably six to eight of those appointments. And so I think that's the value add is wouldn't you rather take a direct flight? Wouldn't you rather see me 10 times versus the 18?

(00:37:35) Or do you wanna do all of those adjustments and everything else? 

(00:37:39) Dr. Keon Klempner: Yeah, makes sense. And, and for, you know, for all the residents that are listening right now, or orthos that are thinking of a startup, um, the, you know, having this, this, this technology available to you at this point in time gives you a, a huge advantage.

(00:37:57) You don't need as large a footprint when you're starting (00:38:00) out. You don't need those 10 chairs. You don't need a huge staff. If you think about incorporating. Um, some sort of remote monitoring and digital customized, uh, appliances into your workflow right from the beginning. You could, you have an advantage.

(00:38:16) It's much harder for established practices to flip the switch and, and, and transfer where you can start out this way. So just, uh, keep that in mind. Uh, Brandon, before we let you go, um. A a o is coming up, everybody usually has some sort of secret release or something coming out for the a A o. I don't want you to, you know, give us any secrets ahead of time, but could you give us a hint?

(00:38:45) Is there anything that you're featuring this year at the A A O? 

(00:38:50) Brandon Owen: The, the main thing is still just in, in October, we launched the self ligating bracket, and that, to me it's the Ferrari of all of the braces because I'm now down (00:39:00) to a three wire sequence and one to two detailing bends. Braces are coming off.

(00:39:06) I, I know self ligating brackets are, you know, something that not everybody uses. I think the, the problem I found with them early on was that they had, um. Play the, the slop at the beginning was so advantageous in getting on the unraveling and I, and it, it is incredible with Twin versus sl, how much you can unravel that initial alignment.

(00:39:27) Uh, the hard part was. Because of that slot at the end, sometimes it was really tough to finish the case. And so with this bracket, the tolerances are just so tight when you put in that finishing wire, you get full slot filling. And so, um, it's, it's more than just a custom SL bracket. It's really having such tight tolerances in that finishing.

(00:39:46) And we prop, we have the tightest tolerances of any metal bracket that's ever been made because it matters when you put that finishing wire in. And so I would say that that's the swan song is if you want the most efficient bracket. Uh, from my opinion on (00:40:00) the, on the planet right now, it's the SL bracket.

(00:40:02) The other big one is, uh, cone beam ct. I think being able to visualize the roots as is the start of treatment instead of, you know, just as a diagnosis tool to me actually using as a treatment, um, a treatment. Augmenting, uh, kind of the ability to do that for me makes CBCT three times more valuable than it was before because now, you know.

(00:40:26) Where the roots are in the bone, you know where the roots are relative to one another. And so where I might have, on the rare occasion, some distal rip tip that I need to add to the wire. Now with our setup, it, it really takes that, that one element out of the equation altogether. So that's, I think, the big stuff.

(00:40:43) But just now that we have that cloud-based software, it's easier I think for. For doctors that have busier practices to do the, the approval, you know, our, our goal is six minutes or less. That's what we're trying to strive for, is we don't want your digital homework to outweigh what you would've been doing wire bending.

(00:40:59) We (00:41:00) want you to be able to approve cases like this. And so, um, being able to have that and being able to innovate on that software, it's, it's already, it gets better every month. That's the fun thing now that we kind of control our own destiny. Um, so I think the software, CVCT, the SL bracket, those are the big things that I'm excited about.

(00:41:19) Great. 

(00:41:20) Amy Epstein: Yeah, we look forward to, uh, visiting the booth and learning more, and, uh, visiting with you at the a a O. Listen, thank you so much for being with us today. Um, it, this has been a great episode. We, we appreciate your time, have learned a lot. If our listeners would like to learn more, connect with you, have a question, what's the best way that they might be able to reach out?

(00:41:41) Brandon Owen: So they just want more information about the, the company or the products themselves. Uh, I would kinda refer them to the website. Mm-hmm. At, uh, k oan ortho.com. If you want to email me directly, it's just Brandon at KLON ortho ortho.com. So feel free to reach out and then we'll be at the AO as (00:42:00) well on the Tech Select kind of front and center in the middle of everything.

(00:42:03) So, super excited to see you guys in person. Yeah. And uh, anyone else who's listening, this should be a great show. 

(00:42:09) Amy Epstein: Definitely. So if you enjoyed our episode, we would appreciate it if you told a colleague and you can subscribe to download other episodes on Apple Podcast, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast.

(00:42:28) Another thank you Brandon for joining us. We hope to have you on again soon and we will see you at the A A O. 

(00:42:35) Dr. Keon Klempner: Thanks so much. And I wanna thank everybody for watching and listening. Uh, Amy and I really appreciate it. If there's a like button there, click that, uh, to subscribe. Um, you, if you want to, um, try KLO.

(00:42:51) Um, there's an opportunity on our website, ppl practice.com. We have a partner page and there is a special offer there for our (00:43:00) podcast listeners. So you can book a demo and if you mention people in practice, you get $250 off KOL system. So, um, you can link there and we'll put the link in the, uh, in the show notes as well.

(00:43:13) Mm-hmm. Um. If your issue is not having enough patients coming to your practice, people in practice are a marketing company. That's what we do. So, uh, shoot me an email [email protected] if you want to talk. And always remember that for forward-thinking Orthodontists, it's never been a better time to be an orthodontist.

(00:43:36) We currently are in the golden Age. Take advantage of it. Bye for now.

(00:43:45) Narrator: Thank you for tuning in to the Golden Age of Orthodontics. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or visit our website at the golden age of orthodontics.com for direct links to both the audio and video versions of this (00:44:00) episode.