Membership plans: DentalHQ, Dr. Brett Wells
Episode Description
In this episode of Simplify Dentistry, host Dr. Richard Offutt sits down with Dr. Brett Wells of Wells Family Dental Group. Brett shares his journey of building a patient-centered, multi-location practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, while balancing growth, leadership, and family life. From creating trust-based relationships to navigating the challenges of expansion, Brett offers wisdom for dentists who want to grow without losing sight of their values.
Episode Navigation
00:00 – Welcome and introduction
01:25 –Brett’s journey into dentistry and building his practice
05:40 – Why trust is the foundation of patient care
09:10 – Balancing growth with personal and professional life
14:20 – Expanding into multiple locations
20:05 – Leadership lessons from practice ownership
26:15 – Family, faith, and finding perspective
31:50 – Advice for young dentists and practice owners
36:10 – Final reflections and where to connect
Key Takeaways
Building a Patient-Centered Practice
Trust is the foundation of long-term patient relationships
Growth should align with values, not just numbers
Communication and consistency are key to building loyalty
Leadership & Growth
Expansion requires clarity of vision and the right team
Balance comes from setting boundaries and priorities
Success isn’t just about growth—it’s about purpose and impact
Featured Discussion Topics
Patient-centered dentistry
Building multi-location practices
Leadership lessons in ownership
Work-life balance for dentists
Values-based growth strategies
Meet Our Guest
Dr. Brett Wells is the owner of Wells Family Dental Group in Raleigh, NC. With a focus on patient trust, team culture, and values-based leadership, Brett has grown his practice into a thriving multi-location group while maintaining a strong balance between work, family, and community.
Connect With Simplify Dentistry
Website: simplifydds.com Podcast: Available on all major platforms
Topics: patient-centered dentistry, leadership, practice growth, multi-location practices, work-life balance, values-based leadership, dental entrepreneurship, dental practice management
Transcript
00;00;01;25 – 00;00;15;28
Intro
Welcome to the Simplify Dentistry Podcast. Join us as we discuss clinical, operational and financial aspects of your practice. Hope you enjoy life and dare to simplify dentistry.
00;00;16;01 – 00;00;38;09
Dr. Richard Offutt
Our guest today is Doctor Brett Wells. Doctor Wells went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been a practicing dentist for 15 years. He is the chief clinical officer of a doctor, owned seven location DSO, and he is the CEO and founder of dental HQ, a dental patient membership organization. We’d like to thank our sponsor, Komet USA. Komet eclipse the people behind. Every beautiful smile. They provide thoughtfully innovative and high performance instruments you can trust to deliver care you’re proud of and results your patients will never forget. Comet burns are the only burns that I use in my office. Learn more and shop online at comet usa.com. Welcome, Doctor Wells to Simplify Dentistry podcast. I’m Richard Offit. We have special thanks to comet USA and provide Bank for supporting this podcast.
00;01;07;15 – 00;01;26;28
Dr. Richard Offutt
Doctor Wells, let’s get right into this. You have done a lot of business in dentistry. You’re a dentist, but you’re also an entrepreneurial person. Talk to me a little bit about the entrepreneurial mindset. What what was in your head when you decided to do these things?
00;01;27;01 – 00;01;48;17
Dr. Brett Wells
Yeah, I like to I like to call myself kind of a dentist by trade and entrepreneur by passion. So, you know, I, I’ve always loved building things, solving problems, some kind of creative. And I’m very persistent. You know, I don’t give up very easily, which I think, you know, some of the qualities that I have are just kind of a natural flow into becoming an entrepreneur.
00;01;48;20 – 00;02;10;13
Dr. Brett Wells
Versus just, you know, a standalone, dentist running my dental office. So, you know, I’ve, I’ve looked at different entrepreneurial, passions in the past. I’ve tried different things that have worked, that haven’t worked. So I’m still seeing if what I am doing is working. But things seem to be going all right right now. But, you know, I would say I’m also a bit ADHD.
00;02;10;13 – 00;02;20;06
Dr. Brett Wells
So as I build something, even my first dental office, I got it built and it was running really well and very profitable. And it’s just like, okay, what now? Like, what do I do next? Like it’s it’s there, it’s done.
00;02;20;07 – 00;02;22;14
Dr. Richard Offutt
Kind of the kind of the junkie mindset.
00;02;22;16 – 00;02;40;28
Dr. Brett Wells
Yes. It’s the junkie. This is, you know, I feel like sometimes entrepreneurs and whatever get like a bad rap for, like, you know, you just want to make money. Like, the money means nothing to me. It’s just. And I haven’t made it yet, right? I’m just building stuff. It’s really just about building things, solving problems. I love building things.
00;02;40;28 – 00;02;59;15
Dr. Brett Wells
Like, every time we have a new practice and seeing it open and tweaking how it looks and what we’re doing, like, I’m still involved in that level because I just like building things and solving and solving these problems and and seeing what a difference you can make and twisting the knobs of, of running the business. And I don’t know, it’s a passion of mine.
00;02;59;17 – 00;03;03;01
Dr. Brett Wells
And so, you know, I just continue to do it and I think I always will.
00;03;03;07 – 00;03;19;26
Dr. Richard Offutt
Yeah. You know, it is funny when, when you, when I talk to, I talk to a lot of dentists, and I talk to a lot of people in the industry, and and it is a very definite mindset set to liking to build things. And, you know, sometimes, sometimes you start out east and you go, hey, yeah, that’s a bad direction.
00;03;20;03 – 00;03;43;20
Dr. Richard Offutt
And you have to turn to, to west or you have to turn to southwest or something. And I think that that there’s, there’s a certain amount of resiliency, in an entrepreneurial person, especially in health care, because because of the things that you’re saying, you know, and dentists are a little bit funny dealing with other dentist that are entrepreneurial by nature because they’re not.
00;03;43;27 – 00;04;02;02
Dr. Richard Offutt
Okay. So all of a sudden they look at you as the one off, which you are, as a little unusual, you know, so you kind of have to fight your way through that. Well, as an entrepreneur and, and, and I would tell our listeners that that Doctor Wells has built a doctor owned DSO, he has built dental HQ.
00;04;02;04 – 00;04;27;17
Dr. Richard Offutt
And we’ll get into more of the both of those in a minute. But you in in any business there, you have to be a leader. I mean, you do have to set the direction whether whether whether it’s east and it fails. And then you go west or whether whatever it is, you have to set the direction. Talk to me a little bit about leadership and, and, and, and then I would say, did y’all ask you this?
00;04;27;19 – 00;04;38;16
Dr. Richard Offutt
Did you have a mentor? Did you have someone that you could talk to? You know, or was it just a trial and error thing? Doctor Wells by himself?
00;04;38;18 – 00;04;58;08
Dr. Brett Wells
Yeah. I think you always just to take that part first. You always have to take every opportunity to get advice from those who have been there, done that, or have more experience. And you, and I’ve taken every opportunity to get advice from several, many different individuals over my career. Some I still connect with, some of them I don’t as much anymore.
00;04;58;11 – 00;05;04;11
Dr. Brett Wells
But absolutely, you know, I am not one to reinvent the wheel. Well, that the the wheel.
00;05;04;14 – 00;05;06;01
Dr. Richard Offutt
That’s right. Well.
00;05;06;03 – 00;05;22;03
Dr. Brett Wells
Yeah. Or, you know, whatever. I do like to take kind of what’s working and see how I can tweak it to make it new or different. But I’m not one to just try something completely new. I want to hear how other people have done or what success or failure they’ve had. And I’ve I’ve kind of leveraged some of that advice over the years.
00;05;22;05 – 00;05;38;05
Dr. Brett Wells
I would say, you know, being a leader, we don’t get a lot of training of that in dental school. Some of it you just kind of built with or not. I mean, you know, all of us as dentists, practice centers. And even if you’re not a price owner, as a dentist, as an associate, you’re going to be a leader in a practice.
00;05;38;05 – 00;05;55;24
Dr. Brett Wells
You’re kind of thrust in that position, and some of us are better than others. You can certainly learn to become better at it. I would say, you know what I have learned about leadership, in running multiple business over the past is, you know, you’re going to be the last one to get credit and the first one to blame.
00;05;55;24 – 00;06;13;14
Dr. Brett Wells
Right? And you need to take that, on your chest and accept it. You’re going to make the tough decisions. You should be proud of making the tough decisions, even if they’re not the right decisions. Always. But, you know, you’re going to be the one who has to be able to step up and make the decision.
00;06;13;14 – 00;06;34;15
Dr. Brett Wells
I’ve got a company now, you know, let’s say my, my DSO, seven locations, we got over 100 employees. I’ve got a leadership team. Sometimes there’s a lot of debate and some a dramatic debate, about a decision, controversial decision. And and those it has to come down to what, typically one person is going to make the decision.
00;06;34;15 – 00;07;06;19
Dr. Brett Wells
Now, I know that there’s organizations that have partnerships, and multiple people make the decision to have to come to an agreement. You know, the way I run mine is I have majority ownership. So it’s all in there self decision. It lays in my at my lap and I like to call it kind of a benevolent monarchy. And one of my mentors actually gave me that term, which is I listen to everyone, I take everyone’s opinion, I do sometimes I change my decision based on those opinions, but ultimately I’ve got to take all the information I have and make a decision, right or wrong, and I’ve got to stick to that decision and take responsibility
00;07;06;19 – 00;07;29;06
Dr. Brett Wells
for it. Most times it’s right. Or, you know, with a true entrepreneur, you make the decision, right? Right. You know, even if it starts off wrong, you figure out how do you adjust it and hit it and make it right. But, you know, you just take the best information you can. You make the decision, you know, but being a leader is leading by example, showing everybody, you know how to how to work, how hard to work.
00;07;29;06 – 00;07;51;23
Dr. Brett Wells
You’re typically going to be not always, but working harder than everybody, and you’re going to be responsible for making those decisions that most people don’t want to make. And, and having those conversations that a lot of people don’t want to have. So it’s not an easy road. It’s a lonely road. A lot of times. But that’s where mentors come in to come into play, because they’ve been there and they’re on that journey with you.
00;07;51;23 – 00;08;09;09
Dr. Brett Wells
And so, you know, it’s not as sexy as it sounds. But it is something that, you know, I would say I’m kind of naturally more inclined to, just do my life that, you know, I actually appreciate and enjoy doing. And I’m much better at it now than I was 20 years ago when I first got into practice.
00;08;09;12 – 00;08;12;26
Dr. Brett Wells
And I think I’ll be much better at 20 years from now than I am now. I still have a lot to learn.
00;08;12;27 – 00;08;35;28
Dr. Richard Offutt
Isn’t that the thing, though? You know, it’s it’s it. You know, I think you you put your hand right on a very, very important topic for most of us and that, that if you that we all need a mentor or a coach, if you will, and, and, and you have to have the personal resiliency and I that you said and be able to make adjustments.
00;08;35;28 – 00;08;50;08
Dr. Richard Offutt
It’s kind of like sailing a boat. I don’t know if you’ve ever sailed a boat, but, you know, you think you’ve got the wind right, and you make these adjustments because you really need the wind, the wind at your back. Right. And so the you can make these adjustments too, to help you get that wind at your back.
00;08;50;08 – 00;09;18;13
Dr. Richard Offutt
And, and I think I think you said it, I think I think you said it, I mean, I, I, I, I want to be quiet because I think that you said it perfectly. So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about you’ve been a dentist for 15 years. You came out of school and you started practicing. Yeah. And, and and then now you’ve built, 7 or 8 office doctor own DSO, which is totally different than a DSO that’s corporately owned.
00;09;18;13 – 00;09;35;14
Dr. Richard Offutt
I think that’s a big distinction for our listeners. So how did you get started? When did you. Well, yeah, you you you kind of said it already that you like to build stuff, but how did you get started in the, in saying, you know, I’m going to make this thing really great and go with it? Well, how did how did you start that.
00;09;35;17 – 00;09;56;19
Dr. Brett Wells
Yeah. So I you know, I graduated from the University of North Carolina back in 2006, did a one year residency through University of Florida that was absolutely exceptional. When I finished that, I felt like I had a really and I did I had a really, really strong clinical, foundation that allowed me to really focus on the business side of dentistry.
00;09;56;22 – 00;10;21;02
Dr. Brett Wells
And I knew early on, very quickly I wanted to own, either acquire or start from scratch in the Raleigh area when I got out of school. And maybe I just wasn’t the no, I don’t know, but I couldn’t find any good dental practices or even okay, dental practices that were for sale that could acquire. And so I started the process to look to, to start my, to build on from scratch back to back then and still somewhat to this day, it was dental town.
00;10;21;02 – 00;10;47;22
Dr. Brett Wells
So I just spent hours and hours and hours on dental town, reading and reading or reading when everyone else did. And finally, in April of 2008, opened up my first practice. It was in kind of a growing developing area of, of the triangle. And it was one of those deals where, you know, lucky, I guess, but 2 or 3 months and all of a sudden I’m getting a swarm of 150 new patients a month and just floating and growing really, really quickly.
00;10;47;24 – 00;11;04;22
Dr. Brett Wells
And so just continue to kind of hone my skill and grow that and, continue to develop that until about 2012. A friend of mine, who lived in downtown Raleigh, had always wanted to start a practice in downtown Raleigh, and I had moved to downtown Raleigh. I was like, well, I think it would be cool to have a practice down here.
00;11;04;24 – 00;11;24;07
Dr. Brett Wells
Let’s do it together. And so there’s practice number two, I think we launched in I think it was 2012, launch practice number two. And then I had no desire to go multi-location after that, I had several friends who are dentists, entrepreneurs who have multi-location some very big, multiple locations in this market. I didn’t want to go head to head with them.
00;11;24;10 – 00;11;39;13
Dr. Brett Wells
And so I just said, you know, you guys do that. I’m going to go look at other ways to grow my entrepreneurial, to get my internal passion out of me. And, you know, the first thing I did, which was, you know, it’s almost like a cliche now at this point for dentists. But like, I went so I wanted to start a fast casual restaurant.
00;11;39;13 – 00;11;56;20
Dr. Brett Wells
I wanted to build something that I could franchise across the country. And at the time there were, you know, that was a gourmet hot dog. I mean, burger chains were starting like, five guys. There were several of them that were hidden, and they were they were growing like crazy. And I was like, well, why is there going to be a hot dog restaurant out there?
00;11;56;23 – 00;12;18;01
Dr. Brett Wells
And so I started this really cool, hip, concept in downtown Raleigh called Tasty Gourmet Hot Company. And it was like eight different dogs, like gourmet, like certified Angus beef. I mean, these are beautiful, delicious dogs. We made homemade French fries, eight dipping sauces, eight milkshakes. I mean, the food was really good. The problem with the restaurant business, is it didn’t matter how good your concept.
00;12;18;01 – 00;12;42;09
Dr. Brett Wells
I mean, really is everything. It doesn’t matter how good your concept is. If operationally, I mean, operationally, you’re pretty good. But in that business, I couldn’t be there every day. And that’s one where, you know, you don’t have much margin, you got food waste, you got sticky fingers, and you start losing money real quick in that business. And so because I couldn’t be there every day, you know, I realized quickly that I couldn’t get the margins on point where I could franchise it.
00;12;42;09 – 00;12;54;29
Dr. Brett Wells
And so it wasn’t really a viable solution for me, because one location of a fast casual restaurant just doesn’t make you know it. It’s not worth it near the amount of revenue that we can make as dentist in that same amount of time and effort.
00;12;55;02 – 00;13;09;18
Dr. Richard Offutt
You know, the whole thing about the concept, you know, is, is so important. And, and I didn’t realize that that that restaurant tour was also one of the things I should say in your history. Or maybe not. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’ll take a pass on that.
00;13;09;21 – 00;13;27;12
Dr. Brett Wells
What I learned. So, you know, I try to always learn from my failures. And I’ve certainly failed plenty of times. And what I was like, what am I going to take out of this? Well, one thing in the restaurant business, you had to be really good as as your inventory and supply management, you know, you can’t have be heavy on that because that’s a third of your cost.
00;13;27;15 – 00;13;42;24
Dr. Brett Wells
And so I got really good at inventory and supply management, and I was like, okay, I’m going to bring that over my dental world and get much better at how we inventory and order supplies. So I did kind of pull that out. You know, we did run a profitable business there for a while when I was much more locked in.
00;13;42;27 – 00;14;01;21
Dr. Brett Wells
And so the operational, you know, scheduling and whatnot, a lot of that stuff I brought with me over to dental, even when I sold the business. But the reason why I sold it was because I think it was around 2016. So four years in, I had gone to a, had gone a couple years before to see Charles Blair speak.
00;14;01;21 – 00;14;21;02
Dr. Brett Wells
And at the Hinman is one of my mentors, unfortunately, you know, he passed away. Right. And he starts speaking about these membership programs, and it was one of those I had never heard anything like it before. And that was one of those moments for me. It’s like, okay, we can package up our services, go outside of our practices and sell it, you know, to patients that insurance.
00;14;21;02 – 00;14;44;12
Dr. Brett Wells
I could hire a whole sales team. I could make up these cards. And I just got super excited about it. There weren’t any, you know, we were doing annual memberships at the time about this cool printer, like, print out little cards for patients. And I tried to hire a little sales team to go sell it. So, my memberships, but, you know, trying to cold sell a $400 membership to somebody who had no idea who your practice was, just wasn’t very viable.
00;14;44;15 – 00;15;04;10
Dr. Brett Wells
And that’s when I got the idea of, dental HQ to break it up into monthly memberships, make it more automated, add it to my website, and just make it much easier for consumers to, to buy my subscription program and really build that uninsured side of my business. So, you know, launched that 2016, sold out of the, sold my restaurant.
00;15;04;10 – 00;15;29;18
Dr. Brett Wells
That was just at this point, like a bleeding entity for me that was not only bleeding cash, but bleed you my time. So got out of that business, launched into HQ 2017, 2018. I kind of was like, well, all my friends who have been doing these multi-location dental offices are really there now at this point, starting to sell their businesses to these private equity backed groups and, and doing really well on the exit.
00;15;29;18 – 00;15;43;06
Dr. Brett Wells
And then a few of them, I had kind of mentored on how to run a dental office and how to grow. And I was like, well, they’re now built all these. They’ve built their empires and now they’re selling it. And I taught them a lot of what they know. Why? Why can’t I think, you know, why.
00;15;43;06 – 00;15;44;22
Dr. Richard Offutt
Can’t I do that? Right. Yeah.
00;15;44;25 – 00;16;07;03
Dr. Brett Wells
Yeah, exactly. I was like, you know, I can and I’m not going to worry about, you know, not, impinging on their territories anymore. And so in 2018, I launched my third location, all turnovers, 20. What was it? And I expanded my first one, which needed to be expanded years before that. That’s the mistake I made.
00;16;07;03 – 00;16;33;12
Dr. Brett Wells
We can always talk about later. And 21 opened up to more, what was it? Probably 23. What? We are now. Five. Oh, no. And then a year ago, I did six, and then we just did our very first acquisition to get at seven. So and then, you know, really healthy growth along all along the way, probably 20, 30% year over year.
00;16;33;14 – 00;16;50;08
Dr. Brett Wells
So you know, we’ve done it the right way. We haven’t taken any private capital. I do sell equity to my associates who want to be partners. Right? I make them a real partner in the business. And, you know, obviously we get, offers all the time to purchase us and to come in and be capital partners. You know, we can do this.
00;16;50;08 – 00;17;12;27
Dr. Brett Wells
So much better than you. And, I don’t believe that they can. And, you know, luckily, the one benefit of growing my DSO slowly over many years is I haven’t over leveraged myself. And so I still have plenty of debt runway to go grow this stuff myself. We’ve hired the right people over the years to take a lot of the burden off of me to have to do everything, and so it’s it’s fun for me.
00;17;12;27 – 00;17;26;13
Dr. Brett Wells
You know, there is stress that I have to deal with making tough decisions. And, you know, when our labor costs get high and we gotta figure it out. So there’s definitely stress. But I’ve got a great team around me that makes running that business as well. So I it’s you a lot of fun for me.
00;17;26;16 – 00;17;46;16
Dr. Richard Offutt
You know, that all comes back to the thing that you were saying is, is is the leadership to be able to make those decisions. But you know what? I think the for our listeners, the beautiful thing about this is, is that you talk openly about learning from your experiences, right? You know, so from your restaurant business, you learned procurement.
00;17;46;18 – 00;18;07;25
Dr. Richard Offutt
Hey. Yeah. You know, and so then all of a sudden when when you start expanding your dental practices, you, you have it, you have an inside track on procurement. You know, somebody isn’t going to sell you four years worth of stuff that’s going to, you know, time out on the shelf, you know, exactly how do you how how to order, when to order, what to do and how.
00;18;07;28 – 00;18;10;26
Dr. Brett Wells
To each other. You know, I learned that whole that whole game.
00;18;10;28 – 00;18;37;17
Dr. Richard Offutt
Oh, no. No. You know, it’s it’s it’s interesting and, and I wrote a piece this last week that on, on the, simplify. I, Facebook thing about about building a sustainable business. Each entity has to be sustainable. You can’t you can’t me just try to stack EBITDA and and have it be successful. When I built the DSO that I had, we it was a lot more focused on stacking EBITDA.
00;18;37;18 – 00;19;10;03
Dr. Richard Offutt
Yes. You wanted organic growth and you wanted enough space for organic growth. And you touched on that on not having expanded your first office early enough. But but being able to do that, is is is I, I’m very impressed with everything you’ve just told me. And I hope our our hope, our listeners. Take, take take that to heart because the way you did it, the the recapitalization of Asos has no impact on you.
00;19;10;05 – 00;19;27;09
Dr. Richard Offutt
Other words, you know, a lot of doctors that have sold their practices to SOS and they took equity in the in the whole holding company. You know, if that if that deal doesn’t recapitalize they their, their value what they got for their practices is not really not.
00;19;27;09 – 00;19;28;09
Dr. Brett Wells
Nearly as exciting.
00;19;28;09 – 00;19;39;24
Dr. Richard Offutt
Yeah. Yeah. So so you’ve built a beautiful thing and I hope all of our listeners will I mean, just if they listened to the last eight minutes of what you just said, they they’ll all be so, so much better.
00;19;40;00 – 00;20;00;05
Dr. Brett Wells
With. There’s nothing wrong with going slow with it. Right. Everything’s like now, how quick can I stack it? How many locations can I open? There’s nothing wrong with going slow, building up cash flow, creating a good life for yourself, building a good team around yourself. And that’s in everything. You know, with dental HQ, we launch, we bootstrapped it.
00;20;00;08 – 00;20;30;04
Dr. Brett Wells
You know, we did right by our clients and they referred other clients. You know, I, I had, like, friends, family who work for us and just, you know, continue to peck away at the software to create the best software in the market. Until we got to a point where we had enough revenue, where I could then bring in a CEOs and a, fractional CFO and a salesman, you know, and so we just upgraded the team as as we grew it, instead of going and just taking a bunch of VC money early on and diluting the business where it wasn’t even really mine.
00;20;30;04 – 00;20;44;00
Dr. Brett Wells
So, you know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going slow when you’re running a business. And this whole mindset of like, grow as fast as you can and sell, it works for some people, but there’s going to be a lot more stressful, real, and a lot less rewarding route, in my opinion.
00;20;44;07 – 00;21;14;24
Dr. Richard Offutt
Well, you’ve built, you’ve built you’ve built sustainable companies. I mean, that the truth be told, even the hot dog business was a sustainable company. It just I think you touched on something interesting on the hot dog business and. Yeah, let me go back to that and tell me if I’m right or wrong on this. You realized that in what you do, you’ve built the companies, but then you’ve learned you’ve leveraged yourself with a team around you with, like you said, by adding an operations person for for dental HQ.
00;21;14;27 – 00;21;38;03
Dr. Richard Offutt
And so you’ve learned a big part of leadership and management is how can you delegate and get people to do things in the culture that you’ve established? And I think I think, but as I said, our listeners need to go back and listen to those last eight, nine minutes again of what you just said, because it is, you know, you can you can do, MBA and not learn what you just said.
00;21;38;05 – 00;22;04;19
Dr. Richard Offutt
And so it’s, it’s I think I think that’s, that’s very important. But anyway, I want to change gears. I want to turn to dental HQ. Yeah. A membership, membership plans for for dental offices and and as I understood it, is that you identified a problem you’re one tired of dealing with with dental insurance companies, which I think every dentist listening to us will agree to.
00;22;04;21 – 00;22;25;25
Dr. Richard Offutt
And then you had you had, a large pool of uninsured patients. Talk to me a little bit about how you decided that you need I know Charles Blair, who influenced so many dentist, especially dentist around the South, because he was on the he was on the lecture circuit. Yeah, a lot. And even inspired a lot of dentists.
00;22;25;25 – 00;22;48;24
Dr. Richard Offutt
And God bless him because he, you know, it was a, substantial impact on the dental profession. Talk to me a little bit about how did you decide that it what you needed this and what what was, you know, the problem that you saw. And, you know, most great ideas are solutions to everyday problems, right? You know, talk to us a little bit about that.
00;22;48;25 – 00;23;12;20
Dr. Brett Wells
Well, you know, it was as entrepreneurs and somebody suffers been from ADHD in tell you it was a little bit of like jump first and then be like, oh, and then learn from kind of the mistakes you make. But, you know, okay, so here’s, here’s what, here’s the real story of what happened. So, you know, go to Doctor Charles Blair’s course.
00;23;12;20 – 00;23;28;23
Dr. Brett Wells
I’m like, this is so awesome. I can go sell this package this and sell it to uninsured consumers. I can build up the uninsured patient base. I’ve never been one of these is like, you know, and there’s a lot of dentists who want to get rid of insurance. And if you’re a smaller practice, I think as you grow, you can certainly do that.
00;23;28;25 – 00;23;46;17
Dr. Brett Wells
For me as a growing practice, multiple locations, I can I don’t really see a light where I can just get rid of insurance. So it wasn’t like, I’m going to do this instead of insurance. That hasn’t been my, my avenue for bringing their membership plan, but it was a way to grow my uninsured patient base since they were the minority of my patient base.
00;23;46;19 – 00;24;04;19
Dr. Brett Wells
Retain them. And, create almost like the Amazon effect, where they’re more likely that, to do the procedures that we were recommending. So, you know, it was a great way to, to build that side of my business. And so, you know, when I, I learned about the the solution from Doctor Blair, I brought into my practice is the annual memberships.
00;24;04;19 – 00;24;21;05
Dr. Brett Wells
I was like, well, how do I take this to the next level, automated monthly memberships. And then I was kind of like, well, you know, patients right now they’re calling my office if they don’t have insurance and going, hey, what’s your new patient special? What’s it going to cost me? It’s such a convoluted, difficult thing for patients to have to go through.
00;24;21;08 – 00;24;42;00
Dr. Brett Wells
Why can’t I take this new membership thing, create a, a monthly fee to it, a monthly version of it, and create a marketplace where Dennis could post their, membership plan fees. You could have reviews, pictures of the office, insurances. They have, everything a patient needs to know without insurance. With insurance on this one marketplace.
00;24;42;07 – 00;25;05;05
Dr. Brett Wells
And so the original idea of dental HQ was to create a marketplace where we could have transparent pricing by way of a membership plan, and then we would be the the mechanism for where offices could, automate the membership plans and plug it into this marketplace where consumers could then find the dentist and see easily what it was going to cost them to go to the practice.
00;25;05;05 – 00;25;22;28
Dr. Brett Wells
They didn’t have insurance. So that was kind of the initial iteration. But I realized quickly after launching direct to consumer is very, very difficult. It’s very, very expensive. And that was just not going to be the route that that this was going to go. And so, you know, after a year or so, we kind of killed the marketplace.
00;25;22;28 – 00;25;24;28
Dr. Brett Wells
Maybe one day we’ll bring it back. We’ll see.
00;25;25;00 – 00;25;42;24
Dr. Richard Offutt
But no, but that’s exactly what you and I talked about is that you started out going west and you go, hey, you know, I, you know, yeah, it was the same sort of thing. We built a GPO. The original concept was kind of what you were saying, having a bunch of. Yeah. And then we had to change that to, to a different model.
00;25;42;24 – 00;25;45;12
Dr. Richard Offutt
So, I mean, that’s part of the game.
00;25;45;12 – 00;26;06;03
Dr. Brett Wells
It’s part of the game. You got to be able to pivot and quickly. And so we did that. And then it was just, okay, how do we create the best software? The best automated, subscription software. And being on the front lines, the industry sitting up front, literally like we weren’t even going to do annual memberships initially because I was like, well, like, why do an annual membership?
00;26;06;03 – 00;26;25;04
Dr. Brett Wells
Why automated? They they’ll be at the office anyway. But then I sat up front, I was like, well, wait, my front desk team is only renewing their memberships when they’re coming in for their cleanings. Some of my patients go 14, 15, 16 months, right, for two meetings. So I’m losing four months of recurring revenue because we’re just waiting for them to come in.
00;26;25;05 – 00;26;49;09
Dr. Brett Wells
I was like, no, I need the annual memberships, need to be on, the software too. So and, you know, our Business Connect solution, I guaranteed plan payments. Some of our marketing stuff, like all this stuff is kind of solutions that I needed built. My offices are, you know, some of them are requests that we’ve had, but a lot of them are solutions that I’ve wanted in my own dental practices to make it easier to grow my membership plan.
00;26;49;12 – 00;27;06;28
Dr. Brett Wells
And so it’s it’s been kind of fun trying different things, not always fun when you spend a lot of time and money on developing a solution that people don’t really use. But, it is fun, being able to get out my creative outlet, with dental HQ by solving problems for other dentists instead of just building my idea.
00;27;06;28 – 00;27;09;12
Dr. Brett Wells
So it’s it’s a nice it’s a nice balance for me.
00;27;09;18 – 00;27;30;07
Dr. Richard Offutt
And how cool is it that that you that you kind of beta tested everything you were doing in your own practices, right? You know? Right. I mean, so so you’ve walked the walk. I think that’s so I think that is that that is so important. So let me, let me ask you just a couple of things. And this was this was a very revealing conversation.
00;27;30;07 – 00;28;01;18
Dr. Richard Offutt
I can’t remember, Brett, when you and I had this and and we were talking or something, and I, I asked you the question. Somehow I got backed into a good question, and it was more or less, what is the the how about the utilization by the dental, membership plan? Patients versus versus, fee for service and or dental insurance patients or patients with dental insurance, I should say.
00;28;01;21 – 00;28;13;21
Dr. Richard Offutt
And, and and I if you just have that discussion, I mean I think that will be eye opening to, to our, our, our listeners and then how dental HQ handles that. I think I think, yeah.
00;28;13;24 – 00;28;44;00
Dr. Brett Wells
Yeah. Well, you know, membership, the membership concept, subscription dentistry concept to dentists, a lot of times you’re just kind of like, well, everyone’s doing this, I guess I need to do it, but they don’t really think about it in terms of, you know what, it’s actually bringing their practice. And we’re working on some solutions to really put it in, our offices faces, when they get their practice management software integration and they can see this, but, you know, subscription dentistry does more than just kind of build up your uninsured patient base.
00;28;44;02 – 00;29;06;16
Dr. Brett Wells
What we see from doing the case studies and doing the analytics, now that we have practice management, software integration, is that our members, compared to uninsured nonmembers, spent around two and a half weeks in the practices compared to our our members are spending around two and a half weeks from our uninsured nonmembers. Okay, so our members are even spending more than our insured patients.
00;29;06;16 – 00;29;25;24
Dr. Brett Wells
I can’t remember the number. I think it’s around one. And a half to two x. So they’re just much better patients for us. The other side of the coin, is the attrition rates. We realized for my, uninsured patients were through the roof. You know, attrition in dentistry is a real problem. You know, some people put it at 15 to 20% since Covid.
00;29;25;24 – 00;30;00;20
Dr. Brett Wells
It’s it’s up now north to 25%. Well, our patients on our membership plan, I mean, they’re at like 10% or less. So they leave our practice much less. They spend a lot more money in our practice. And, it’s it’s recurring cash flow that’s great for business. So, you know, we have practices sometimes we’ll say, well, why do I want to cannibalize my existing patients who are paying my full fees, or because they’re leaving their practice and they’re not spending nearly as much as your patients who have insurance because, they’re not getting the discounts and the subscription mindset that, a subscriber has.
00;30;00;20 – 00;30;08;20
Dr. Brett Wells
So, you know, there’s a lot of benefits to having a membership plan, outside of just increasing the uninsured patient nation in practice.
00;30;08;20 – 00;30;30;01
Dr. Richard Offutt
But I think, I think that that may be another I know I think I said this a minute ago, it may be the most important thing that you said, but this is a very important thing as well that you’re saying is because that just that flies in the eye of so many, many beliefs, right? Yeah. That, that and so my, my next question is membership programs.
00;30;30;01 – 00;30;32;05
Dr. Richard Offutt
Are they expensive to implement.
00;30;32;08 – 00;30;57;15
Dr. Brett Wells
So are they enough. We don’t charge any sort of okay. So let’s say you’re not using an automated solution like ours. So you’re going to go out, you’re going to, have a brochure kind of designed and printed. You’re going to maybe probably track them on a spreadsheet or something. You got to get your consent forms, your, I mean, your contracts and whatnot done, probably legally.
00;30;57;15 – 00;31;19;01
Dr. Brett Wells
So, you know, not very expensive. I would say the expensive route doing on your own is the lost revenue from the automation and the recurring payments, and the lack of, uptake by your by your team, because it’s so much harder to implement than just an automated solution like dental HQ. So dental HQ, in terms of cost, there is really no cost.
00;31;19;01 – 00;31;36;15
Dr. Brett Wells
I mean, we we, we don’t charge any sort of set up or, training fees. You know, you can you don’t have to you can buy the marketing materials that, that we provide for you with your branding on it. And then other than that, it’s a link you put on your website, you put up some marketing materials.
00;31;36;15 – 00;31;58;00
Dr. Brett Wells
The number one, determined, there’s you’re going to have a, successful membership plan or not is how about on your team is okay, so the teams, the offices that really get it and their teams love offering this solution to their patients. You’re going to have 98, 99% of your uninsured patients on your membership plan. You don’t even need brochures because your team’s so excited to talk about and tell you tell your patients about it.
00;31;58;00 – 00;32;12;16
Dr. Brett Wells
So, in terms of cost of getting one of these programs going, especially through a solution like dental HQ, I mean, there’s there’s no real cost. And you can you can have the program set up and implemented, ten minutes through our, signup intake forms.
00;32;12;16 – 00;32;38;14
Dr. Richard Offutt
So that’s, that’s that’s fantastic. Because I think that that is, you know, you know, dent dentist. Yeah. I often say that that dentists look at the ocean and they say, oh boy, let’s go swimming. But they don’t realize how many sharks are out there trying to take a bite of them, you know? And I think I think, you know, I mean, just take it, you know, I mean, think how many consultants per dentist there are in the country, right.
00;32;38;16 – 00;32;49;18
Dr. Richard Offutt
And so so I think that point is, is fantastic. Now, when did you realize when should I when did you realize that you needed to do this in your own practice? Well.
00;32;49;21 – 00;33;09;12
Dr. Brett Wells
When we were, we launched the membership program, I don’t know, 2012, 2013. That’s shortly after I listened to Doctor Charles Blair give the lecture down on him. And and we were doing the annual memberships, and I really wanted something that was, had more of a bite. I really wanted to break it down into a monthly membership.
00;33;09;12 – 00;33;27;25
Dr. Brett Wells
So instead of doing $400 a year, I wanted to do like 30, $35 a month. And and because we were just taking payments from the patients came in and they were doing their thing and their, they were at 12 months of the membership. I didn’t have a way to do that. And so I and I figured as this thing grew, other Dennis were going to want me to do that.
00;33;27;25 – 00;34;02;02
Dr. Brett Wells
And so I started down the pathway of building a technology that allow myself and then other dentists to create fully customized plans, fully customizable plans. I wanted to be able to have it on my website where they could, automate the their own enrollment into this program process payments, provide a lot of marketing materials. And so, that was the moment where I realized I couldn’t I didn’t want to just do these annual memberships that I could that was easier to do on a non automated in an online automated way when I wanted to get a monthly plan, is when I realized that I had to have a solution that just really didn’t exist
00;34;02;02 – 00;34;04;11
Dr. Brett Wells
in the marketplace back in 2016.
00;34;04;13 – 00;34;09;03
Dr. Richard Offutt
So how cool is that? The so for our listener docs, they if they.
00;34;09;03 – 00;34;10;14
Dr. Brett Wells
Have.
00;34;10;16 – 00;34;47;09
Dr. Richard Offutt
I think you had you answered this is that that it helps stabilize the patient base and to to reduce attrition that that is one of the big the big benefits of this system. Okay. Well, I’ll tell you, you know, as, as we close and talk, I always like to ask a question or two of our guests, and, and I don’t know whether this is the lucky draw or the not lucky draw, but one of the favorite things that I like to talk about is if you knew then what you know now, how would things have been different for you?
00;34;47;09 – 00;35;00;03
Dr. Richard Offutt
And so, you know, you, you’ve had such a successful, successful experience with with your entrepreneurial efforts. What if if you knew then what you know now, what would be your takeaway for our listener?
00;35;00;05 – 00;35;01;09
Dr. Brett Wells
I can’t give you three.
00;35;01;15 – 00;35;02;13
Dr. Richard Offutt
Yes, abs.
00;35;02;15 – 00;35;14;22
Dr. Brett Wells
Absolutely is. They’re going to be all things that cost me money. Even, you know, it’s not about the money, but the money is kind of like, you know, if you’re winning or not. It’s if you’re growing in revenue and.
00;35;14;27 – 00;35;16;24
Dr. Richard Offutt
It’s just a measuring stick.
00;35;16;27 – 00;35;35;20
Dr. Brett Wells
It’s a measuring stick. So, you know, number one was takeouts. The restaurant probably spent 1000 hours on that project. I mean, if I had to go back and add up every hour, I was in there sweating on New Year’s Eve, making hot dogs and, like, checking the restaurant out and getting ready for it. Thousand hours of my time probably cost me $600,000.
00;35;35;22 – 00;35;55;28
Dr. Brett Wells
Just a loss. All right, so that’s something that I regret. I did learn from it, and I appreciate the lessons that I learned, but I probably could have learned those lessons without losing $600,000. So that was a mistake. I made the dental office, my original dental office, that I said I waited till 2018 to expand. It was probably it was ready to expand, probably in 2011, 2012.
00;35;55;28 – 00;36;18;28
Dr. Brett Wells
We’re at capacity. So again, just going back to numbers because it’s what everybody knows. I think in 2012 we were at about two 2.25 million in revenue. Probably stayed there until about 2018 until we expanded. We expanded in 2018 by 21, by 2020, maybe we were already at 4 million. And then, you know, now we’re close to 6 million of revenue.
00;36;18;28 – 00;36;44;01
Dr. Brett Wells
So it’s like, had I have done that five years earlier and given myself the ability to, accommodate all those patients who wanted in, I mean, millions and millions of revenue loss because I was just slow to act on on the expansion of the office. And then the last thing mistake I made was being late to the game in terms of going multi-location, because I was so worried about not getting in my friends way and letting them have full rein, you know, to go expand.
00;36;44;01 – 00;37;04;28
Dr. Brett Wells
And I didn’t I didn’t want to have to worry about bumping into them. And so I waited probably five years longer than I would have, going multi-location. So, you know, these are things in terms of growth. And then that measuring stick, that, you know, I it certainly cost me over the years and that I would do way definitely I wouldn’t have done the restaurant.
00;37;04;28 – 00;37;10;29
Dr. Brett Wells
I would have gone multiplication much earlier. I would have expanded my original office much, much sooner.
00;37;11;01 – 00;37;31;08
Dr. Richard Offutt
Well, doctor Wells, I I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I think you have so much to offer our profession. You know, it is the entrepreneurial mindset that I think that you embrace. And and I agree with you on the 600,000 on the restaurant, you know, and you probably invested that in expanding your first dental office.
00;37;31;11 – 00;37;37;07
Dr. Richard Offutt
Yeah. You might you know, that’s the whole thing of, of stay in the industry, you know, sort of thing. Yeah.
00;37;37;09 – 00;37;40;21
Dr. Brett Wells
Then the thousand hours of my time, I, you know, I don’t know.
00;37;40;26 – 00;37;49;23
Dr. Richard Offutt
But I but I appreciate your being honest with our listeners and with all of us. And thank you very much. And I hope to have you back, sometime.
00;37;49;25 – 00;37;51;07
Dr. Brett Wells
Absolutely. It’s been fun.
00;37;51;09 – 00;37;51;27
Dr. Richard Offutt
Thank you.