Level Up Your Patient Communication With Rhinogram

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome! You're listening to the GrowOrtho Podcast presented by HIP. This podcast is dedicated to orthodontists who want to stand strong in their market and be leaders in their community.

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, on to today's show.

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Estal, thanks so much for coming on the GrowOrtho Podcast.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me, Luke. I'm really glad to be here in Pensacola.

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Definitely. So tell me just a little bit about your background, how you got into this.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_01]: When I think about the tech space, how I got into it, I actually fell into it because I had a, I was dating a girl in college and she was telling me that, hey, there's an opportunity at this software company, but you have to go to like the co-op office here at Fadalsa State University.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So I went up there and spoke to the counselor, set up a meeting and everything. And so I kind of just started off as a co-op with college and then getting into my first job, I think was with Goal Leaf Technology, is a fintech company.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's where I spent, I think close to eight years getting into software. I actually started off as QA. So I was actually a QA engineer and then rolled into our manager professional services there.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. What was the QA life?

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Constantly looking for issues.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my goodness gracious. So what was funny is, this was well before there was the automated like testing you can do.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. And so we literally had like three inch binders that had all of our test scripts and word docs that we would print out every single test cycle.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was before, I think right before agile really became mainstream, we were still doing a waterfall methodology. So it would take anywhere from three months to 18 months to deploy code depending on how much feature sets were actually put in there.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. So it's you got to be patient with that stuff.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing too is QA is such a vital role in any software company because it's almost like when you take your car to a mechanic, you're not talking to the mechanic, you're talking to their front desk.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's who that QA person is. They tested everything, made sure it was working how it should be working.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So after that where did you go and kind of what was the career like?

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I worked with a good friend of mine named Lynn. And so she had left Goldleaf and went to a company called Clientel, which was my first company in healthcare really.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And this was 16 years ago, I think. And so this was like right when like, I think it was the automated phone call reminders with a big craze for appointment reminders.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what Clientel did. And then I actually worked on special projects in the pharmaceutical space. So we did some vaccination adherence programs with some large pharmaceutical organizations.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: How did you find your way to RhinoGram? What was that transition like?

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So the long story is, is really that one of RhinoGram's competitors actually bought Clientel. I worked with them for about a year or two and then COVID hit.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as you know, COVID hit, they laid off a lot of their staff. I was unfortunately one of those and went to a company called Flowers Foods.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And they're out based at a Thomasville, Georgia, the second largest bakery. And I managed their entire enterprise applications team.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And 18 months later, a recruiter reached out. And when I saw the job description for RhinoGram, I was like, oh, this is what I was doing before.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So let me go see if I can take what I learned in those 10 years and bring it over.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And would it correlate to RhinoGram to help them become better and grow the company and maybe get back into the game?

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And was that 2021 or?

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It was like 2021. Yeah, you're right. It was like September. That's right. Because I'm going on three years with RhinoGram right now.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Time flies.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So I got started on really as a senior product manager initially.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And what's your role there now?

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm like the VP of operations and strategy. So just trying to help out across the board, look at how the company is running and organized and come up with what our initiatives need to be,

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: what should be the focus for our teams to make sure we're prioritizing and making the most impact in healthcare with what we do through our digital communications platform that we've got.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And what's the size, team size of RhinoGram?

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Probably right around like 25-ish.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. And then client count you guys are continuing to grow and I mean you work with everyone from private practice to large organizations.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So we actually have just got into the university space.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So we actually have a university client as well that we're actually piloting this week with some pretty cool initiatives in the dental medicine space.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That's incredible.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So what is RhinoGram for those who don't know?

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, end of the day, what we do is we're more of a digital patient communication platform and the biggest thing we want to do is elevate that patient experience for our customers.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So how can we go through and create a better patient experience in a fact of getting your appointments done, getting these intake processes, these forms,

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of different feature sets using AI. How do we streamline process?

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Now what really kind of I think is great is the fact that the patient doesn't have to download an app, you know, in order to utilize RhinoGram because we're doing everything through text messaging at the end of the day.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And so the actual product is on the customer side for the healthcare providers and professionals where we take all those conversations, bring them together into one platform almost kind of like a HIPAA compliant teams or a Slack type messaging platform.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And I mean it primarily started off just as text messages and then I mean you guys have added a ton of stuff. I'm curious because you and I haven't even talked, you know, deep into features and what's new with RhinoGram in a while.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's what I started to pick up on a couple years ago is it kind of was becoming a little bit like Slack and other messaging platforms, but it had some features like the app mentions was really cool where you could mention other team members

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and pull them into the conversation. And obviously this is behind the scenes in the app. So the patient has never seen this, but it's connecting them with the best person in the practice to be able to handle their question concern need, which was really cool.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So what are some of the new things that maybe people have been using RhinoGram for three, four years, maybe they've heard of it. But what are some of the cool new things that you guys are doing?

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_01]: There's quite a few things. The first thing I think that's quite intriguing is we have an AI component now and so we have a concept that we call patient initiated messaging.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So what that means is when the patient starts the conversation with the healthcare practice, over 30% of all conversations actually originate from the patient.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So we can actually set up categorizations on what they're trying to ask for using an artificial intelligence model and the running joke internally is is Estal 2.0 because I actually trained the model with like 30,000 messages.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. How long did that take?

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it took about almost a month because you have to manually go through each message and then categorize each of those messages. So the test sample had to be brought in and ingested into the AI component so that way it could learn.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we went and did some A-B testing with some various models. And so it's about 87% accurate and understanding when it has that identification of what they're asking about.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: If it has less than a 70% score, it won't try to make a guess on that. It'll basically push it to the user just to say, hey, we couldn't make a determination. How would you classify this?

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So we try to help the model learn a little bit.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: That's cool.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of one of the first main projects I worked on when I first came on as a product manager.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But some of the other things we've got that are coming to fruition is we just released, literally I think about a month ago, our post appointment campaigns.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So what we can do there is reputation management, follow up education. How do you need to take care of your health based off of what you're trying to do?

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So now you have the capabilities that when that appointment is taken care of, now you can have an automatic process on how you educate or take care of certain things to learn from that patient.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the other thing literally just two weeks ago that we released is we actually have an entire HIPAA compliance model now.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So what that does is there's some configurations you can set up in there to basically give your staff as much freedom or restriction as you like.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And what that means is if the HIPAA consent is not granted, you can literally flag your system to say, well, you can't communicate with that patient, but you can send an automatic request for HIPAA compliance or ask them to be able to text you, you know, HIPAA information.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So with that being said, now we've got this process and campaign in and then there's a cadence as well.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So if anybody is actually set to unknown on their HIPAA compliance after you set up, you can set the cadence of how frequently you want to request that compliance from them.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the big, big thing we've got hopefully in about 45 to 60 days is we're actually going to be launching our blended VoIP product as well.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So now not only are we going to be doing texting, but we're also going to be in the phone services in conjunction with that.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And what we're looking for is not necessarily to come in and re-emit the will on what VoIP is, but to leverage it as a tool on how can we set up the right IVR tree flow to convert these phone calls into text messages.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Because when you have to talk to a particular patient, you're looking at about 93 seconds of conversation on average, and then you could probably respond to six or 10 patients in that time.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So if we can get into the VoIP component to be able to convert that into a text message, then we could start doing staff savings where you can spend more time actually speaking with your patients or doing more important things.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Would that be some type of bot that is maybe fielding the call and presenting options for texting? Or would that be a real person just trained on the processor both?

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It would probably be a combination of both. What you'd probably see is the patient is calling in and of course you have that automatic kind of RVR flow, you know, select one to do ABC, two to do this.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So the thought process we've got is as we start getting this rolled out and blend that product out is how do we bring it together?

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And at what point does it make sense for one of those options to be if you'd like to do a text message, hit this button.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Or if you're out to lunch or if you're closed after hours and they're calling, give them that option to where they can text you.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you've got staff after hours or staff available using the mobile app that we've got, then you could get that message on your phone and be able to then respond via text instead of having to call them back.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: What are some of the things that you guys see in a practice because you work, I think with hundreds of practices, right?

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: What are some of the things that you guys see maybe for for biggest opportunity inside a practice?

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I think continuing to flesh out the automations, right? What are the things that we can take?

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So when we look at our platform, we actually see that 80% of all conversations are more administrative in nature versus clinical, right?

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: There's capabilities on the clinical side.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, if we can reduce any of the administration side, you can automate a lot of those things.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things that we're seeing is with the AI models, since we have all of our 13 different categorizations, if we can get the access into the PMS or EHR systems,

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_01]: we can do bill collection. We can get those payment processes going. Can we auto serve up your appointments letting you know when that next appointment is?

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And how do we continue to try to make things easier but not complex or complicated for the patient at the same time?

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know about you, but when you call certain large, large organizations, you almost feel like you're in this loop inside the IVR tree.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: So the last thing we want to do is create any kind of just kind of forever loop.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_01]: We want to be able to get that converted and just get it straight to the answer and get what we need done for them.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you guys handle getting integrated into these practices because the doctors are very busy?

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll just take a private practice, for example. Not one of maybe the hospitals or large practices, but let's just take your average private practice.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Doctors super busy probably wearing a couple hats. Maybe there's an office manager. They wear a couple hats.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's kind of everybody else and there's not a lot of oversight. There's not a lot of training.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I would imagine, you know, I know it is with us. The onboarding process is very key.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Getting the team to buy in, getting the tool integrated. You know, and for us, it's the whole process.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It's getting them to buy into the marketing, working the lead system, the hybrid follow-up process.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: But I would imagine it's similar in you're presenting this new tool.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of times the teams are thinking, oh no, not another software. Not another tool.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the doctor went to some trade show and saw you guys present.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And we see that all the time where docs will go places by the shiny object thing.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_00]: In a lot of cases, there may be some bad stuff out there, but there's a lot of good tools that docs can leverage, especially nowadays.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: But getting the team bought in, how do you guys handle that and maybe even measure it through the process?

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. I think, you know, when you're talking to the doctors, really there's two things they're looking for.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Is this platform going to accommodate what I'm looking at to do? And what's that cost association?

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Right? That's probably the two main things they're concerned about.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm talking at trade shows, I think the most important thing is my question is who is utilizing this tool?

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So if we can understand it's mostly going to be front-end office managers or front desk folks that are going to be using whoever's answering the phones,

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: generally will be doing the text messaging as well.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Schedulers, maybe treatment coordinators.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Occasionally, yeah.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's an orthodontist, yeah.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. So when it comes to that, you know, we want to find out who are the players inside of that practice and who are going to utilize that.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So when we get ready for a demo, I want to make sure that the people actually utilizing the platform are going to be able to see and weigh those opinions on what they believe.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And what I see a lot of times too is they've already been exposed, if not to Rhinogram but to other organizations that are similar to what we do.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And they have the better questions.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: They have the questions of process and workflows.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we can address those because the last thing we want is probably the same for you.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to sell your product if it's not going to do what it's going to accomplish or support your organization at the end of the day.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of the interesting part for me is I'm kind of more of a product guy.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And so when I get into some of these sales or conversations with that, I'll tell you what we can do and I'll tell you what we won't do.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And you've got to make the decision on if you feel this is going to be adding value.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And the way that we see value, I would say is, is are we helping you communicate with those patients in a very easy to use experience and that patient is happy as well.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And then through that process, once we do kind of have the right people that are going to be using the platform available for those demos and asking the questions,

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_01]: then we get everything squared away. We start implementation.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We do about six hours of training total that's available to these offices.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It's probably overkill. I think you might need three maybe four hours depending on what functionality you're doing.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: But the great thing is this though, what I love about our support staff is our entire support staff has either worked in orthodontic or dentistry practice.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So they actually used Rytogram in an office setting and then came and worked with us.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So January, Allison, you know, they those ladies absolutely can tell you how the product has grown the way it has.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And they can actually understand some of the challenges you're facing as well and maybe give you some ideas how to tackle it with the platform.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk through some type of instance, maybe for an orthodontic practice since this is a orthodontic podcast.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say somebody goes to a website and sees text or call us.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, we know if they're in my age category, they probably going to send a text younger, especially they're not going to get on a phone call.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So they send a text. It comes into the practice.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And then what are some of the things like maybe they have questions, maybe they're shopping, maybe they don't want to come in the practice just yet.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: What are some of the use cases practically that may happen through Rytogram?

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. So when you've got those questions coming in, again, you know, we've got the AI tool.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So we actually have capabilities to understand if it's a new patient through one of two things out of the question or they're not in your system.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's actually one of the beautiful things that we've got in our platform is as you see a 30% patient acquisition possibly if they know they can text or call your practice.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And so with that, what we believe you can do there is you could have your canned templates set up to where you could basically just have everything ready to go for, you know, an intake process to where you can literally send them forms

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_01]: and be like, hey, if you want to sign up, let's do this or here's material about what we're doing with things.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It's again, it comes down to I think like, what's the workflow for that practice?

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And then how do we help show them how they can digitize, streamline the processes and then we'll provide guidance as well once they get in there.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Because really the thing is we're not here to put people into a box and say you've got to do ABC or it just doesn't work.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: We try to conform to what your processes are to convert those into more of a texting workflow is what we do.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you get a new patient, they were trying to see about services, there's ways in which you can flow that conversation through the AI component.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_01]: There's ways in which you can respond once you understand what they're asking.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you determine what are those steps really that you want to do for a new patient that may be interested, right?

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's probably the same thing as like for me when I'm talking to new customers, you know, what is driving that purpose?

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01]: What is driving them to do this?

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And can you answer those questions and help them see the benefits and value?

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And you guys have templates.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So even if it goes to a real person, that real person can say, okay, what are the main conversations I'm having?

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Let me say this is a template.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I can easily plug that in, edit it before sending, tweak it, then send it.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: If somebody's wanting to have a virtual consultation, they can send photos.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'll be eating dinner with Dr. Dressler.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: He's literally checking appointments, actual established patients of, hey, send me your photos with aligners in and aligners out.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you're good.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to see you for another six weeks.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And so if they have their trays and treatment is tracking properly, they don't need to come in.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So the convenience is huge.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if a mom can send in some photos of their child, it's like you just saved pulling them out of school, taking off of work, you know, driving, being stuck in traffic.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a massive convenience and a value add to the patient.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, I've seen instances where it's like you got the pokey wire, text it in, hey, we'll get you in tomorrow first thing, come by, we'll take care of it.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just really, really great.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's literally like having the doctor at your fingertips.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_00]: You're right.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And what I would say is this is the other component of that too is the cost savings for the doctors to write.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you've got a because like 90% free up exactly right and 90% of all perceived emergencies can just be handled through an image or a text message basically at the end of the day.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So that reduces the cost of having to have the chair free and equipment, your gloves, all the different things that are associated with having that person in the chair.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, if you see that, hey, I just had a conversation actually before I came in here with a customer that asked a very similar situation in a different way was oh, well we can have them take a picture and we can see if that's actually an emergency or not.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we don't have to worry about it because oh, that's normal.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you'll be okay.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's a lot of cool technology in the space, a lot of innovation within dentistry orthodontics.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_00]: But what I really like about RhinoGram is it's so simple because there's some other tools out there where you're having to put this massive device in your mouth and, you know, especially if you're trying to text in like a broken bracket or pokey wire or, you know, another component is I've talked to orthodontist and they like to see photos with the naked eye versus getting these elaborate skin.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, I think it's just a lot of work that's going on in the hands which can be helpful but they want to visually see for themselves what's going on.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just, I think people are much more used to the selfie style.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So, it really fits consumer behavior versus get this bulky thing, dock your phone in it, sit perfectly still, wait for it to scan, not knocking any of those things.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_00]: They can be great tools but my point is the simplicity of RhinoGram is really nice.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So, my BDR Casey, whenever she talks to somebody, she's like, if you can use Facebook, you can use RhinoGram.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean it's really all we do is just take all that communication.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like messenger. What's that? Messenger.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So, we have integration, practice beacon and RhinoGram.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So, obviously, you know, new leads are coming into practice beacon as they move to the appointment scheduled column, they immediately move over to RhinoGram.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It leaves a note there for the office, you know, follow up with Estel and RhinoGram.

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_00]: He's now in the system.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's kind of seamless and we may even be working to make that even better in the future.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's really cool too because, you know, we have a lot of practices who are always asking us, you know, when somebody gets in the system and they're actually entered into the PMS, like practice beacon isn't really used because it's a patient acquisition tool.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not ongoing communication.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And then they're trying to maybe use their PMS, which we all know there's not a lot that really look up to date.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me of, you know, when software first came out like the small square on the screen, you know?

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So, it can be really painful.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, that's another thing is like these, you're connected to the PMS systems, most of them in ways to be able to say, okay, you know, here's a sync to be able to sync some information.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And then communicate with that person in RinoGram.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's a little bit more seamless because you're connected to those platforms.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_01]: There's about 300 different PMS EHR systems that we actually are integrated with.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So, we've got a pretty good breadth of things that we can tap into.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that is a challenge I would say is what are we having access to?

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_01]: What data am I allowed to grab from them?

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Because not all of these systems have the exact same like demographics, a point like they've got some of the basics that are same.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But there might be things I just don't have capabilities to get into.

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So, and then of course the rules and regulations on how frequently can we get the data and the patient demographics, things of that nature in the university space, a platform that is as real time as possible.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're trying to get some of these other vendors to hopefully see or this PMS to see the benefit to using some of these APIs we're building.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, to give you an example, one of the things that's really intriguing is if a new user gets added to their platform, it's getting sent over to RinoGram.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And they get a default setup of the end user in our platform.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So, that way you're not having to plug in two different users.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_01]: We're just getting it pushed in.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But then the other thing that's really interesting is and especially with what you guys do with practice speaking with that patient acquisition.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_01]: As soon as that patient has put into that system, if somebody tries to communicate with that patient, there's an API call that sends me the demographic, all their appointments and pushes it into RinoGram.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can literally start talking to that patient in less than 10 or 15 seconds.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So, we're trying to take some of the lessons learned from there and how can we streamline some of these other platforms.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've already started having conversations specifically in orthodontics, some of the larger ones there.

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_01]: We're actually having conversations with them on how we can continue to tighten those integrations to make them quicker and more seamless.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We've got some that are about almost as real time, about maybe 10 or 15 minutes of that integration.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Some are just nightly syncs.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, it just depends on what they allow us to do.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Just to kind of overview the flow.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, patient comes in, obviously you guys are text first, but you're adding in VoIP.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: You have forms on the back end so you're able to collect information through kind of like a drip, right?

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So it feels like a normal conversation.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_00]: You can get payments through the app.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You have RhinoPay.

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00]: You can bring in other team members who needs to know who needs to have eyes on this.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Anything I'm missing with, you know, you could provide virtual care.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, telehealth.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So you have like a little meet now option.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It sends an on demand video link.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's video.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's actually the video component.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you can also share that link with, you know, if it's like a child, you can share it with mom and dad.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So they're all together or if you have another, yeah, another, if you have another staff member that needs to be on that call,

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01]: you can bring them into that teleconference as well.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the mentions is really cool because what you can do there, it's, it goes into our system as what we call a note.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And you mentioned the person or that group.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And when you're continuing to talk to the patient, patient doesn't see it.

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But that you may be asking like, Hey, what is the bill for Luke?

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And you're continuing your conversation and that person can send a note in and says, Oh, the bill is this or that, you know,

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_01]: so it's a way that we can bring people in and not have that conversation kind of stall out or be stolen.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, keep it moving forward.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any type of data on, let's say, patients trying to engage with the practice and you guys are able to show the practice where they could improve with engagement?

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Anything like that.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm just thinking, you know, on average, orthodontic practices miss about 20% of new patient calls.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And I bet they're missing a lot of texts too.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, is there anything, you know, in the works with that or do you guys maybe start to miss it?

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Measure that data to be able to provide some data for these practices on, Hey, you know, here's your usage.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, maybe you're missing this amount of text messages or response times or average in this area, you know?

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'd say two things to that with the Blinit VoIP product that we've got coming out.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: There's actually reporting that shows you the number of missed calls and you're absolutely right, Luke.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01]: You miss a call, you're losing out on opportunities there, right?

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So being able to see that escalated up to the doctor of the management of that practice will help them see, you know, what they're missing.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And then what's also most intriguing about those reports, it actually ties it to a dollar value.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So it actually shows you how much money you're losing by not actually taking that call or calling them back.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Inside of the texting portions of that we have some custom applications or custom reporting we've done for certain organizations.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And so in 2025, we do have a goal to try to enhance those dashboarding and reports for all organizations.

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of those things that you're talking about is, you know, if a patient has asked something, you can read the message and then it takes away the indicator.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And then if you don't answer, well, you don't know that they're just sitting there waiting.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So we've got thoughts on how we want to tackle alerting or notification and escalation procedures when it comes to like a missed text or somebody's not responded either with reporting

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: or automatic escalations.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_00]: You talked a little bit about maybe who's a candidate for RhinoGram and who's not.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would imagine a lot of people watching are, you know, okay, maybe I want to get on a demo or learn more.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: How do people know that this is the tool for their practice?

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Whenever I talk to new customers is I try to understand what drove them to even engage with us to begin with.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_01]: What tools are you using?

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01]: What makes their entire ecosystem as an organization?

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Because everybody's got different tools they're using.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there's a lot of redundancies in some of these tools and maybe even some of the same companies.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But usually we get a lot of recommendations or people are searching.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So when it comes down to it, you just got to have that initial conversation.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And so the two things I like to do is go ahead and figure out why'd you come to me and what are you needing?

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think we're doing?

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Explain them a little bit what we do.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But then I think the other thing, I don't know. Maybe I'm just weird, but I like to just go ahead and talk about our costs immediately before I even dive into a demo.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Because there's, you know, the way the economy is with everything right now.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of practices are very sensitive, you know, from a cost perspective.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So we want to make sure not only is it going to fit, but it's also going to fit your budgetary needs as well and be a long-term value to that organization.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Nice. Anything you want to share in terms of cost just for expectations?

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_01]: We take a look at what the annual visit volume is.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So when I first came on board, it was kind of like a one-size-fits-all for locations or providers that were all being in charge the same.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things we changed in the first six months of coming on board was that price model to be more about what's the usage of the application.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It makes way more sense.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because so when I look at my cost as a company, you know, a percentage of that, a large percentage of that is just sending these text messages.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Because we get dinged from the communication partner, the carriers and they all have different, you know, price points.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So we have to take that into consideration.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So what we try to do is we know that the average like appointment, you're going to probably communicate somewhere between five and seven times of that particular patient.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And then based off of that, we can understand, all right, you've got X amount of annual visit volumes will create a custom package price for you basically.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The like starter packages around 349 just with a basic subscription.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you graduate or if you're like a new practice, we've got ways that we can kind of work with you on that.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're already kind of established practice with numerous locations, then we have a way that we can kind of give you a very specific price that hopefully fits what you're looking for allows growth.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And then as you continue to grow and you use the application, then we want to grow with you right so we don't want to try to be like, OK, bam, this is all this.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the top price and that's all everybody's paying it as volume goes up and usage goes up, you know, cost may go up.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, it's really pennies when you think about it because if you're having meaningful conversations, you know, and we know that a lot of times practices may not even need to spend more on marketing.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_00]: They may need to focus more on what marketing is actually bringing them.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And most practices don't even know what that is.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_00]: This is first really creating a good system in the process for that having that transparency and accountability with your team and knowing what opportunities are coming in before I'm spending more and really just adding more water to the leaky bucket.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I need to know what's going on and plug those holes and RhinoGram really helps with that, you know, what's coming in?

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I've got a central platform and, you know, a couple hundred bucks a month when you're looking at the ROI. It's just it's kind of a no-brainer.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_01]: No, you're absolutely right. And that's the thing is as you're continually creating that experience and I think the other thing too is you've got to think about is you've got to think about your upcoming population of customers, right?

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So they're younger and younger and they're all communicating different now, you know, back, you know, for my age, I think I'm kind of that middle twist, right?

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, phones were great when I was younger but now I'm like you. I'm like to me like I'm always on calls or I'm always busy.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I tell my family and friends I'm like, listen, if you call me between eight and five and get me play the lottery because you're probably not going to get me.

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Shoot me a text.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It's easier. And here's the thing too. I would say, there's a different conception of like a phone call versus a text.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_01]: A phone call, you're wanting to get a hold of somebody. You want to get your question answered immediately.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But when you text somebody, you text them, you put your phone down, you go back to doing what you're doing and you know that person is going to get back to you when it's convenient for them.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's almost like there's this unspoken rule that, oh, don't worry, don't rush. Just get back to me when you can.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying? When it comes to texting.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think text, you know, it's one of the highest red in terms of just like you said if you call me, I have all these red numbers in my phone.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Like how many voicemails do you not check?

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I mean, it has to tell me. My phone has to tell me your voicemails full or 95% full before I go check it.

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, imagine, you know, I'm requesting information from offices if it's, you know, elective where, you know, it's more of a want.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't need this thing, but I want it. I may opt in on several brands, websites, ads, etc.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_00]: They're all going to call me probably, you know, with some practices like couple days later, a week later, but they're going to call me.

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have their number saved so I'm not picking up.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But if they call me, maybe leave a voicemail.

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I may not check it, but then text me, hey, Luke, that was me, Estal, who, you know,

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_00]: then you start to attach, oh, this is that person or this is that business that I reached out to.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So there are multiple attempts are happening and the communication back is probably going to go through a text message, you know,

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think his email has like 13, 16% open read rate, you know, it's very low.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, for us, we're on computers all the time. I would imagine you are so we're kind of the exception where we may check email during the day more frequently than actual phone calls,

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_00]: but that's not most people. You talk to most people. They're not even using email anymore.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_00]: They're not.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And last time I checked messaging, it was 93% of messages get read.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what data you have, but more like 98.2%.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It's very high.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It's extremely high. So you look at the population, there's quite like so many people have smartphones now and if you text them, you know, they're more apt to,

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_01]: they're going to see the pop up on their phone at least if nothing else.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And if they know it's from the doctor, if they know it's from a practice or somebody they reached out to, they're more likely to respond.

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I think we do at RhinoGram is we make that a little bit more congruent where we take your phone number that you're currently talking to your patients on,

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_01]: turn it into a textable number. And now all that customer has to have is just one number. That's it.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to, some of these other systems they'll have a wait a tax, but it's like a different number.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So you lose that congruence that you've got there.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing I will say that we did do, I think it's probably about six months ago, we actually incorporated vCards into our platform too.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So as a part of your campaigns, you do, you can actually send a vCard and you can customize that with a logo, the address and information of your practice and the phone number that they can text in.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And what that does is it's just like if I shared, you know, contact to you with a vCard, they download it into their device.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Now it's locked in there because, you know, especially for a new practice, if you got somebody that's graduating or starting a new practice,

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_01]: it's really helpful because that phone number may be tied to a different business prior or a resident.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Whereas if you do a vCard, hey, we're new practice, import this in your phone, they're more apt to take that action and do it.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And then now they know it's their doctor.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the preferred route I think with consumers specifically with iPhone.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I know when I'm sharing contact information or somebody sharing it with me, they're actually sharing the contact.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So in my texts, I can click on it and it saves in my phone.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So you guys are doing the exact same thing that people are used to already.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And then one thing I would add as well when we think about some of the processes like the intake processes,

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_01]: when they fill that form out, if we have that capability of integration with your PMS,

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_01]: we literally will push that form right back into the clinical documentation area in real time.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So that way everything resides because the way we view the PMS systems, those are the sources of truth.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: We're just a facility tool that helps you communicate with those patients.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if anybody listening, watching wants to learn more, where should they go?

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Probably the easiest is rinogram.com.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_01]: We've got a little chat window down there.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_01]: If you message in there, they will respond very immediately.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they're really quick about it, I tell you.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So but we can definitely get more information.

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_01]: There's more information on the website as well, you know what we do, how it works.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And you'll be able to get all the information you need there for sure.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Very cool.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you inviting me, Lee.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to learn more about HIP or any of the topics in this episode,

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_00]: send an email to hello at hipcreativeinc.com.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_00]: That's hello at hipcreativeinc.com.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Or jump over to our website at hip.agency.