I Went From Skeptic To An Orthodontic Success

[00:00:00] Welcome, you're listening to the Grow Ortho Podcast presented by HIP.

[00:00:05] This podcast is dedicated to orthodontists who want to stand strong in their market and be leaders in their community.

[00:00:13] Now, on to today's show.

[00:00:16] Luke and I were talking, I don't know, a couple weeks ago and we were really trying to think like,

[00:00:22] what should we put together for a presentation at our thing?

[00:00:26] You know, everybody here has pretty much met me or met Luke or met our awesome team and gone through a lot of our training.

[00:00:33] We're like, what could we really do to like add value when you have the greatest orthodontic team in the entire country here to learn from?

[00:00:42] And so we said, you know, obviously a lot of people come to this event and they say, you know, this is all great,

[00:00:48] but I don't want to have nine locations and seven offices.

[00:00:52] I just want to crank it out of my one office and be super efficient and work three or four days a week.

[00:00:58] We thought, well, maybe we could find a doctor that we work with that, you know, started with us a little bit ago,

[00:01:06] maybe didn't quite get it totally.

[00:01:09] Then they came to Fishbine Fundamentals and learn from their awesome team and has had awesome change, awesome growth,

[00:01:17] but isn't looking to expand into nine offices and seven orthodontists.

[00:01:22] Or seven orthodontists, excuse me.

[00:01:24] Who here, I know who wants lots of locations and lots of patients,

[00:01:28] but who here wants to kind of keep it one office, two offices, one doctor kind of thing?

[00:01:34] Is this okay? Yeah? Okay, cool.

[00:01:39] So we were playing the Ouija board a little bit and saying,

[00:01:42] who could we interview that maybe could shed some light and shed some perspective purely from the doctor's mind

[00:01:50] to make an impact and add some value to you?

[00:01:53] And so I'm going to bring up somebody I'd like to say has become a great friend after our last weekend spending time together.

[00:02:01] I can also think back to some of our initial conversations.

[00:02:05] Initially, I was like, I think this guy hates me.

[00:02:08] Always with a raised eyebrow.

[00:02:10] Is this even working?

[00:02:12] And he's just done some incredible things.

[00:02:15] So I'm going to bring up Dr. Sean Rice.

[00:02:18] Give it up for Dr. Rice. Come on.

[00:02:24] And we're going to keep this super casual, super lax.

[00:02:28] I'm just going to kind of interview him and hopefully you guys can get some perspective.

[00:02:32] So Dr. Rice, thanks so much for doing this, man.

[00:02:35] Sure.

[00:02:36] We just had you out in Pensacola, what, two, three weeks ago.

[00:02:41] If anybody's in our private Facebook group, we did a first time, first annual private mastermind group.

[00:02:48] Dr. Goldberg was there.

[00:02:49] It was awesome.

[00:02:51] If you guys talk to them, I think we had a great time.

[00:02:54] But Dr. Rice, why don't you just kind of give everybody quick background intro, who you are, where you from,

[00:02:59] where'd you go to school, why'd you want to be an orthodontist?

[00:03:02] Give us the Reader's Digest version of Dr. Sean Rice.

[00:03:06] Okay.

[00:03:07] Sean Rice, I'm from Paducah, Kentucky, kind of the west part of the state, about three hours from Louisville.

[00:03:12] One of the smaller cities, areas.

[00:03:14] We're a pretty rural community.

[00:03:16] It's normal for someone to drive 60 minutes to Paducah to eat supper because it's such a rural kind of situation.

[00:03:24] I grew up a farm kid.

[00:03:26] My dad sold out as a farmer when I was 15, so that was life altered.

[00:03:30] I'm going to find something that's stable in life, however long that takes.

[00:03:34] Went to school, didn't really know what I wanted to do.

[00:03:36] Thought the body was kind of cool.

[00:03:38] Like children, so I was going to be a pediatrician.

[00:03:41] Well, did not do so well on the MCAT, so here we are.

[00:03:43] It's like reassessing time.

[00:03:46] Talked to my advisor and he's like, how about being a dentist?

[00:03:49] I'm like, absolutely not.

[00:03:50] I do not want to work in the mouth or anything like that.

[00:03:53] And then I got to thinking, you know, at 17, I got my lower incisor knocked out and two other incisors knocked out.

[00:04:00] Trying to keep other people from fighting wasn't even my deal.

[00:04:04] My orthodontist met me at midnight at his office and lassoed my teeth back in, which had an impact on me.

[00:04:11] But growing up, I didn't really know for sure what I wanted to do.

[00:04:14] But then I got in college and started thinking, hey, my orthodontist always seemed like he enjoyed what he did, seemed to have a good time.

[00:04:23] You get to change people's lives.

[00:04:24] So the thing that got me interested in ortho was you can change someone's life, how they feel about themselves, how they look at themselves and how the world looks at them.

[00:04:34] Got in, went to dental school at University of Louisville, did ortho University of Louisville, came out in 2000.

[00:04:42] So at the mastermind, maybe one of the most shocking things, I was the oldest dude there, but that's OK.

[00:04:49] Not by much. Not by much. There was a couple not.

[00:04:52] But anyway, went to school, came out, decided to start my own practice, small town.

[00:05:01] Very honestly, at the time when I was doing all the research, the most competitive area that I could find on paper.

[00:05:07] My wife was from there. I was from there.

[00:05:09] I wanted my children to know their grandparents.

[00:05:11] I was more concerned about family and them knowing each other and raising them than money.

[00:05:17] So it took me 10 years to even start to get busy.

[00:05:20] Talk a little bit about your practice, like before we met each other.

[00:05:24] 2000 graduated. I was in a small doctor's complex for 18 and a half years.

[00:05:30] There was an area around town that was kind of growing and changing, kind of over by the mall area,

[00:05:34] because we were kind of in a little niche away from the main town.

[00:05:38] It was really probably the most affluent part of the town.

[00:05:41] But everybody would go over to the mall to run their errands and Walmart and Lowe's and all that stuff.

[00:05:45] All they had was a Kmart over in the area. I was at, no one was going to Kmart.

[00:05:51] So, started, there was an up and coming area that like, an area that you could drive to to get to the area.

[00:05:57] Great location. Bought a lot at the end of 14. Didn't actually get in until 19.

[00:06:03] So from 15 to 19 or so, we were...

[00:06:08] When I moved to my office where I'm at, I was probably doing 1.2, maybe 1.3.

[00:06:13] I did a lot of Medicaid. Well, not a lot. I did about 15 or 20% Medicaid.

[00:06:17] That was my way of trying to give back to the kids.

[00:06:19] I grew up poor enough. I could have been on Medicaid. We were not.

[00:06:22] But it was always my way to kind of give back.

[00:06:25] You know, through the years that just continued to get worse to the point at the beginning of this year,

[00:06:29] I figured out that I was losing $800 a case with overhead doing Medicaid.

[00:06:34] So we stopped it. So I knew that was kind of a problem.

[00:06:37] I knew we was at the break even point.

[00:06:39] So then I started looking, how can we actually grow the practice?

[00:06:43] You know, instead of losing money on some patients, how could we grow the practice?

[00:06:47] So in 19, we moved to a new location.

[00:06:51] Like I said, we're doing about 1.2, 1.3.

[00:06:55] When we moved to the new location, good location, we had 30% growth, 25 to 30, which was awesome.

[00:07:00] You know, they say 20 is the average, about 30.

[00:07:04] And then that was 19. And then of course, COVID happened and all that stuff.

[00:07:08] And then we got to 22, June of 22.

[00:07:10] I started with HIP, met Harrison.

[00:07:12] They had all these ideals and all that stuff.

[00:07:15] I don't think I understood the big picture of how significant some of the things he was recommending to do.

[00:07:20] I just didn't quite get it.

[00:07:22] And so, you know, kind of had that traditional orthodontist mindset.

[00:07:26] Well, if they have a, we did credit reports and if they got to see what they got to pay $1,500,

[00:07:31] I'm not, I'm not losing any money, you know?

[00:07:33] So I guess the scarcity mindset is what the book says instead of the abundant mindset.

[00:07:40] So anyway.

[00:07:41] I remember nudging you like, dude, you gotta come to Fishbind Fundamental.

[00:07:44] Right.

[00:07:44] And see it like you're not quite getting it.

[00:07:47] Yeah.

[00:07:47] That was kind of a game changer.

[00:07:49] But so we just, I had not advertised in like 15 years or so, nothing significant.

[00:07:55] And we started with HIP.

[00:07:57] He's like, hey, what's the offer going to be?

[00:07:59] Can we do $500 off?

[00:08:00] I'm like, absolutely not.

[00:08:02] Why?

[00:08:03] Why would you do that?

[00:08:05] He's doing the math work.

[00:08:06] We do $500 off.

[00:08:08] We do this money.

[00:08:09] He starts, I'm losing.

[00:08:10] This man has this much money.

[00:08:12] Exactly.

[00:08:12] So, so the offer was free orthodontic consult.

[00:08:15] I mean, who doesn't want that?

[00:08:17] Right.

[00:08:17] Super sexy.

[00:08:18] Super sexy.

[00:08:19] Yes.

[00:08:19] Super sexy.

[00:08:21] But the truth was I was in location with less than 5% of my community would have known

[00:08:25] where I was at.

[00:08:26] Now, if I'd said I was by the local oral surgeon that was the most popular guy in town, everybody

[00:08:30] would know that, but they didn't know me.

[00:08:34] Even with HIP, even with the new location, yeah, probably 50 to 75% of the people would

[00:08:39] know where my office is now because it's such a busy thoroughfare through.

[00:08:43] So we grew 30% before HIP.

[00:08:45] With HIP, with just the free exam, we grew about 30%.

[00:08:49] Our bonus system was tied to a 30% increase and we made the bonus pretty much every month.

[00:08:55] And then 16, 17 months later, he stopped me into coming to last year.

[00:09:01] I came to, I think it was November 8th or something like that.

[00:09:03] And then what happened?

[00:09:04] I brought four girls.

[00:09:06] Uh, since that time we've grown 101%.

[00:09:09] That's awesome.

[00:09:10] And that's, that's an incredible testament, obviously the fishbind team, and hopefully

[00:09:14] we helped get some butts in the chairs, but I want to ask you a question.

[00:09:18] Cause I think a lot of people's fears to grow that much is how much more work am I going

[00:09:23] to do?

[00:09:24] Is it going to be worth it?

[00:09:26] Have you added any days?

[00:09:28] So, and how many days a week do you work?

[00:09:30] Actually three.

[00:09:31] Three days a week and you've grown 101%.

[00:09:34] Okay.

[00:09:35] Really 130% since I started with HIP.

[00:09:38] Cool.

[00:09:38] But actually I was working, when I started with HIP, I was working three and a half days

[00:09:41] a week.

[00:09:42] Now I'm working three.

[00:09:44] So that's the mindset was like, okay, am I going to go back?

[00:09:47] If we continue to grow, am I going to go to three and a half or four?

[00:09:50] Cause that's kind of where that's heading.

[00:09:52] So yeah.

[00:09:53] So what happened with, um, with your team?

[00:09:57] You know, where's, where's Lori?

[00:09:59] Obviously Lori, we've had some awesome calls with you and your team, but maybe since you're

[00:10:03] in the crowd, when, when you guys came back from fishbind fundamentals, what happened the

[00:10:06] first time?

[00:10:07] We knew we could do it.

[00:10:08] We knew it.

[00:10:09] We knew it.

[00:10:09] You know, and we were just waiting on the boss to say, let's do it.

[00:10:12] Um, so we got back there, you know, and we were like, I wonder if he's going to, I wonder

[00:10:41] if he's going to.

[00:10:42] Seven, zero, seven, zero, seven, zero.

[00:10:44] Seven, zero.

[00:10:44] And we had no place to put them.

[00:10:46] And so he was like, okay.

[00:10:47] So we did, we did our whole schedule the way fishbind does.

[00:10:50] We, we did everything.

[00:10:52] The girls up front, moved all the patients, got it all worked out.

[00:10:56] And I mean, the rest is history.

[00:10:59] It's just been, but it was so exciting.

[00:11:02] And the truth is, if you'll just do what hip and fishbind say, it's going to happen.

[00:11:07] So Dr. Rice, talk about your days.

[00:11:10] You know, you're, you're doing more on, I guess, less time.

[00:11:15] Probably, you probably seeing more patients, but what's your typical day?

[00:11:18] Like, are you more burned or less burned at the end of the day?

[00:11:22] You feel more fulfilled that you're helping more people instead of, you know, worrying about how many hours you're in the chair,

[00:11:29] but just kind of talk about life in the practice now, both personally and with your team and patients and the impact.

[00:11:34] So when I graduated my program, it was a 30 year old program.

[00:11:37] They said, you are the most particular orthodontist we've ever had come through here.

[00:11:41] So I am very anal about over jets and over bites.

[00:11:45] And, you know, I still had done a 30 minute consult, but I was in there 15 or 20 minutes talking instead of,

[00:11:51] you know, so that's been a humbling thing to go, hey, I'm not near as important to this situation as I thought it was.

[00:11:57] And that's, that's okay.

[00:11:58] Cause I got more time to be in the clinic, you know, so, uh, you can do more than you think you can do.

[00:12:05] Whatever speed you're going right now, you can go faster than that.

[00:12:09] Uh, even if you're anal, you can still do better.

[00:12:13] He's still stubborn.

[00:12:14] Oh, very much so.

[00:12:15] He's still, we'll get into that.

[00:12:19] But you know, I used to spend 20 minutes on my D bond, getting off the glue and doing cosmetic, every angle of every tooth.

[00:12:26] You know, I'm doing it in five to seven minutes now where I was doing it in 20.

[00:12:29] You can go faster than you think you can.

[00:12:31] When you look at your bracket and you said it and you're like, you've looked at it.

[00:12:35] And then you've gone around, looked at all of them.

[00:12:36] You go back and look again and you look two or three times.

[00:12:38] The first time you said it was about where it should have been.

[00:12:41] You should just leave it alone and hear it.

[00:12:45] So, so yes, we're busier.

[00:12:47] Now it does take it.

[00:12:48] It does take a minute to get used to it.

[00:12:49] We used to see about 60.

[00:12:51] We're seeing about 80 now, you know, uh, talk to Jeff away from the airport a couple of weekends ago after our mastermind.

[00:12:59] And we sat down, he's a math, I'm a math guy, but he's even has more experience on the practice side of doing math.

[00:13:05] And he's like, you know, if you don't grow, if you don't change anything at all, you'll be having to see a hundred patients next year.

[00:13:12] Cause you're only nine or 10 months into this growth cycle.

[00:13:15] I'm like, oh wow.

[00:13:16] I got to get rid of some.

[00:13:18] I got to weed the garden.

[00:13:19] I got to get rid of these people who haven't been finishing.

[00:13:23] So luckily you love cutting your own bushes anyway.

[00:13:25] So yeah.

[00:13:26] Yeah.

[00:13:27] Um, just talk a little bit, uh, to kind of wrap up, like what's, what's your vision for the future?

[00:13:33] And I kind of prefaced, you know, that we wanted to interview you because I think your story can relate to a lot of people here.

[00:13:40] You don't have the desire to have 18 locations and manage nine orthodontists and that's okay.

[00:13:46] But is your vision to stay put or is your vision to find a way to continue to still grow and maximize your, uh, maximize the location you do have?

[00:13:56] And help your team come up.

[00:13:58] I'd love to hear what is the next, we're kind of, we're kind of a rule enough area, you know, because when I was with the mastermind guys, they're like, who wants to come sit in a room and listen to people who are doing better than you?

[00:14:09] I'm like right here.

[00:14:11] Let's learn everything we can learn.

[00:14:13] But, uh, you know, a lot of those guys have a niche where, you know, there's 385,000 people over here on this little section that's just up the road 15 miles.

[00:14:22] We don't have that.

[00:14:23] We don't have 385,000 people in the whole end of the state, you know, it's just a different thing.

[00:14:28] So there's really no advantage to me doing another satellite, but I could, you know, I have a local competitor who's wanting to sell right now, but he starts 15 a month, you know, 10 or 10 to 15 a month.

[00:14:41] And I could add a day or two a month and do that.

[00:14:44] So, you know, uh, no, I do not want to have, you know, 10 orthodontists and nine different practices or any of that stuff.

[00:14:52] Yeah.

[00:14:52] We just want to kind of keep it going where we've been going.

[00:14:54] And Carter Thomas told me, he said, you know, uh, like I said, I didn't finish that.

[00:15:00] We were at 1.2 when I went to this office, probably when I started with hip hip, I was probably 1.6 or so.

[00:15:09] Last year, when we did this, we were at about 2.2 to 2.3.

[00:15:14] And right now we're on track to do between 4 and 4.2.

[00:15:19] So that's a huge change.

[00:15:21] So, and that we got to make sure that round of applause goes just as much to the Rice Ortho team.

[00:15:27] We all know they can't do it without.

[00:15:29] Speaking to the thing, one of the things that, you know, I still want to give back to the kids with the state insurance program, 75 to 80% of them did not qualify anyway, which is super.

[00:15:38] It's super frustrating, at least in the Kentucky program.

[00:15:40] You look at them, the kid needs treatment, but they can't get it.

[00:15:44] You have these high filters in that says, oh, you got to pay $2,000 down.

[00:15:49] Well, now just this last week, our TC was out this week.

[00:15:53] She was on vacation.

[00:15:54] She's going to meet us Monday.

[00:15:55] We're going to stay over and do a one-on-one with the fishbine folks.

[00:16:01] And she wasn't available.

[00:16:05] So she's coming down Monday.

[00:16:07] But so Lori, the office manager is filling in his TC.

[00:16:10] And we had a kid come in, second opinion, been to the other local orthodontist.

[00:16:14] They told him $2,000 down.

[00:16:16] Not normally that high, but that's what they told him.

[00:16:19] Well, it's the Medicaid case.

[00:16:21] Would not have qualified for Medicaid.

[00:16:22] I'm no longer doing Medicaid.

[00:16:24] But by taking the fishbine fundamentals of the $300 down and the $199 or less a month, they started.

[00:16:30] It was the same day start.

[00:16:32] So I'm now full paid, full price, full everything.

[00:16:37] But now I was only able to help 20% of the kids who were poor enough to get it.

[00:16:41] Now I can help them all because we've lowered our barrier of entry.

[00:16:45] That was always the thing instead of $600 or $800 or whatever.

[00:16:49] If you make it easy so easy they can't say no, they won't.

[00:16:53] That's just the bottom line.

[00:16:55] There is some risk.

[00:16:56] You feel like you're risking a little bit.

[00:16:58] Cash flow is slower than production, but that's okay.

[00:17:03] It's okay.

[00:17:03] That's just part of it.

[00:17:04] Dr. Rice, thank you for your time.

[00:17:06] We really appreciate it.

[00:17:08] So thank you much.

[00:17:12] Thanks for listening.

[00:17:13] If you'd like to learn more about HIP or any of the topics in this episode, send an email

[00:17:19] to hello at hipcreativeinc.com.

[00:17:23] That's hello at HIP creative, I-N-C.com or jump over to our website at hip.agency.