Featured Guest: Erin Hendricks

What she does:  Erin is a dental practice administrator in Washington, DC.  She is the president of the Washington DC/Maryland/Virginia chapter of the American Association of Dental Office Management and is on the Board of Directors of the American Dental Assistants Association.

On risk:  "On the clinical side the obvious health risks, not watching someone's health history and understanding there might be contraindications between medications and materials … Staffing risks can have people that aren't very well trained, the main goal is to make sure that everyone is properly trained and they have the proper information in order to mitigate any kind of risk … In addition to as a group, being able to make sure that we are keeping all the information safe, it's incumbent upon each individual and their training and understanding their part in also keeping the risk low … Doing background checks is something that although recommended is really not done that much in dentistry … there are safeguards to put in place that sometimes dental offices are lax about, or, to be quite honest, aren't trained"

Transcript

Scott Nelson  0:01  
Welcome to The Risky Health Care Business Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights, and skills from expert voices in and around the United States health care world with a mission to inform, educate, and help health care organizations and individuals, ranging from one doctor practices to large integrated systems and organizations throughout the dental, medical, and veterinary health care industry with risk, while hopefully having some fun along the way. I'm your host, Scott Nelson, a guy that grew up in Ohio and has been working all over the United States during my 20 plus year and counting career in the health care industry, with a commitment to accelerating health care performance through creativity, not just productivity. Let's dive in.

There are many pieces that go into the administrative, business, and clinical success of a dental practice. One important thread that weaves through those three areas is staff. The staff perform a wide variety of duties that help keep the dental office running smoothly and productively. Things like assisting with patient care and preparing patients for treatment, patient education, scheduling, rescheduling or cancelling appointments, collecting payments and managing insurance, and possibly in some situations as a buffer between patient and doctor. In a 2023 American Dental Association poll on economic outlook and emerging issues in dentistry, dentists were asked how challenging has it been to recruit four positions: administrative staff, dental assistant, dental hygienist, and dentist, and according to the survey, 94.5% of respondents reported extremely or very challenging to recruit dental hygienists, 83.7% of respondents reported extremely or very challenging to recruit dental assistants, 79.3% of respondents reported extremely or very challenging to recruit dentists, and 69.4% of respondents reported extremely or very challenging to recruit administrative staff. Risk can enter a healthcare practice and organization in a variety of ways through the staff. Recruitment and retention - open positions can stress existing and overwhelm staff causing loss of focus or burnout. Training - is the staff trained and do they know procedures and protocols? Are the procedures and protocols current? Pre-hire screening and clearance - have background checks been completed before offering and hiring? Work models - have new work models, whether in person, remote or hybrid, been assessed for risk and operating with safeguards? These can create risk to the patients, the staff, and the practice. So how can risk versus need be balanced? In today's episode, we talk about these risks and more with Erin Hendricks. Erin has a unique perspective with experiences gained from a career serving in both clinical and administrative dental care. She began her career as a dental assistant, then moved into administration and management as a dental practice administrator. She is on the Board of Directors of the American Dental Assistants Association, and is the President of the Washington DC/Maryland/Virginia Chapter of the American Association of Dental Office Management. Let's talk with Erin about risk in dental care. 

Erin, welcome to the show.

Erin Hendricks  3:14  
Thanks, Scott. Glad to be here. Thank you.

Scott Nelson  3:17  
Before we begin our conversation about risk in dental care. Let's go back to the beginning. How did you get into dental care and where you are today?

Erin Hendricks  3:23  
Well, it all started with a trip to the dentist as a as a child and it wasn't that great of an experience. So I decided that I wanted to get into this field I started 35 years ago as a dental assistant in the United States Air Force and got stationed in the Washington DC area stayed here and been here ever since. And being a dental assistant my career has taken me through just about every position in the office except dentist and hygienist and I'm now an practice administrator.

Scott Nelson  3:59  
Well, I think you and my sister may have had some similar experiences and maybe just in different ways, but I am going to put this out there and probably jinx myself but I have never had a cavity and never had those issues. My sister who we grew up in the same house and did all the same things. She had cavities. And so as I've gotten older I've kind of realized that everybody's different but she she and I had different experiences that I loved going to the dentist and never had a problem and she didn't really love it. So so but now I'm going to jinx myself and have a problem there. But I'd like to start by getting your thoughts on what is risk in dental care. Risk can and usually does mean different things to different people and likely depending on the job or the role, say the doctor or the hygienist or the dental assistant or manager or other staff, so as a dental practice office manager and a professional, how do you view and think about risk in dental care?

Erin Hendricks  4:49  
Well, I get to have a unique perspective about the risk and dental care because I worked on the clinical side and as well as the administrative side. So on the clinical side, the risks are kind of like the obvious health risks, not watching someone's health history and understanding that there might be contraindications between medications or materials we're using. And then on the administrative side, the risks of, believe it or not, embezzlement is huge on the administrative side.

Scott Nelson  5:22  
What are some examples of some things that can be done when you're looking at some of those issues? When you're talking about the clinical piece and the administrative piece? You know, when I'm looking at some of the information that's been reported and put out by the American Dental Association, there's a lot of areas these days that dental practices are having to focus on as either issues or challenges, whether or not it's from, like you've mentioned, the clinical or dental side looking at staffing, at rent and mortgages, at equipment, rising insurance premiums, and decreasing rates for reimbursements. How do groups and doctors and dentists and individuals in your position, how do they look at that as potential risk?

Erin Hendricks  6:04  
Well, as far as staffing risks, some of the some of the risks you can have that are on the clinical side that people aren't very well trained clinically, in being able to recognize when there might be an issue, a contraindication. So you run the risk of getting a team member who is not really fully trained, or very well trained. On the administrative side, as far as the risks with, like you said, insurance reimbursements and carriers not paying for for needed treatment. Those are those are areas that are constantly sort of under the microscope, so to speak as far as risks on either side. There are other other risks as well say, for instance, that the when the ADA says there's an issue with hiring, doing background checks that's something that although it's recommended it's really not done that much in dentistry, because you kind of assume people kind of doctors kind of assume that, you know, if you're working in a health profession, that you've got a clean record, so to speak, but but not understanding there might be some underlying risks there if you if you're not paying attention. What if this person, you know, has drug problems? We do have drugs in the office. We administer sometimes valium or things like that. So just those are some of the types of risks that that you really have to think about when, when you're in the practice.

Scott Nelson  7:37  
Well, that gets me to the next question I was thinking about is like, why is it important to think about risk in dental care and then actively plan and be prepared? You'd mentioned, you know, recruiting, and the ADA had just recently published some data about recruitment needs and the busyness of a practice, and then staff pay and benefits and confidence. And one of the pieces they noted in terms of June 23 versus June 22, more dentists are reporting the recruitment of dental hygienist is very or extremely challenging in '23 compared to a year ago, both hygienist and dental assistants. And having those roles of having people just not even just having people available, but you're talking about people that are well-equipped, well-trained, and knowledgeable within the roles that they play within the office.

Erin Hendricks  8:21  
Right. And and I'll tell you the difference some of some of what happened, and the reason there's a challenge now as opposed to, to before, a lot of it has to do with some of those some of the said risks. For instance, when COVID hit, there were a lot of offices who were not really prepared for the pandemic, so to speak, not really prepared as they should have been. And what happened was a lot of hygienists and dental assistants in particular, left the field. And when it comes to, like I said, pay and benefits, the dental assistant was sort of the lowest on the totem pole as far as as benefits and pay but yet, sort of expected to go above and beyond sometimes what other would be considered practitioners or providers would do so dental assistants mitigate a lot of risk between the patient and the doctor and the procedures and so on and so forth, but they weren't compensated. So they left the field. Same with hygenists. Some of the risks that they were facing, were not being well protected with something as simple as PPE, not having proper PPE, so they left the field. So the challenge now is to find people that are willing to come back, either come back or you're sort of stuck in a situation where you're trying to find people who are either in school, and you know, they're committed to, to the job or, you know, trying to figure something out but until certain things are changed in the in the within the dental office structure I don't see that it's going to let up anytime soon unfortunately.

Scott Nelson  10:11  
For a long time, risk has been viewed as complicated legal issues like patient lawsuits. There's also the dental record and patient chart. The American Dental Assistants Association recently distributed an article from Today's RDH about HIPAA and if dental professionals fully understand protected health information. The article notes patient communications, phone calls, mailings, text and email messages, and teledentistry. And in this article, the author writes practices must detect and safeguard against anticipated threats to the security of the information and protect against anticipated impermissible uses or disclosures. The HIPAA Security Rule requires a dental practice to conduct a written risk assessment and develop safeguards to protect electronic patient information. The purpose of the Security Rule safeguards is to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic patient information. The article then goes on to share examples of phishing scams, social media, and file disposal HIPAA violations. From your perspective, where is risk in dental care for you? Where should dental care professionals and organizations be watching or monitoring as potential areas of risk concern?

Erin Hendricks  11:17  
Well, as as that's a great, that was great article. And that's great information because a lot of times, and I'm sure lately, especially after the pandemic, you hear people who are not necessarily in health care, talking about HIPAA, you're violating my HIPAA and not really fully understanding. And to be quite honest, a lot of dental professionals really don't quite understand it. Although it's required training every year, not every dental office adheres to that. So that risk is pretty high, especially if you don't have trained team members. Protected health information, a lot of offices don't realize, something as simple as writing, you know, you could take a phone call and write a patient's name and phone number on a sticky note to pass to someone else, and you know, because they need to return a phone call, not understanding that that is a violation of the HIPAA Security Rule. You don't that's identifying information enough identifying information to put that patient's records at risk. Something as simple as taking that that sticky note and throwing it in the trash. Again, another violation and, and a lot of times in health care, dentistry in particular, we're not really paying attention to those risks. Something as simple as if your office is situated where, you know, patients sit behind the reception desk and the reception has a schedule up, you can see other patients information, the same thing in an operatory not realizing you know, sometimes you bring a patient in and the entire schedule schedule is up. Well there's a there's all these safeguards that are supposed to be put in place that sometimes dental offices are lax about, or, to be quite honest, aren't trained in it. So for me, my in the where I work, we get the required training every year because rules change, things change, and so you have to be up to date. Unfortunately, a lot of offices are unaware of things. I'll give you an example. Now, when you when if I were to call a doctor's office or another dental office regarding a patient, and I needed information, because both entities are covered entities, I could just get the information, I don't have to have the patient fill out a form and have them sign it and send it back and then send it over to the to the other office. But because people aren't properly trained, you get a lot of pushback. So what ends up happening is it interrupts patient care. And I'm often finding myself in a position to let other offices know, hey, this is now the rule we're both covered, you can just give me the information or if I have the patient call you, you don't have to have them they're not required to sign a form and and go through all this rigmarole that we're covered entities, you could just go ahead and send the information but because they're not trained, they don't understand. And what ends up happening is, like I said, an interruption in patient care that's really unnecessary. So I think if if more dental offices were more compliant with making sure that the team is trained every year, then that risk can can be mitigated greatly, just simply through the required training.

In each of the steps that you just went through in terms of different offices and even within an individual office, there's a lot of people that are involved in those different touchpoints. Who do you think are the stakeholders or the actors that are typically involved in a dental practice and how do they can or should they address risk? Whether or not it's it's an individual from the dental assistant, the hygenist, the doctor, the any of the other staff, or is it a collective that we're all in this together and the group needs to take this on and be viewing this as a group to take together overall?

I think it's both, I think it's a bit of both because you have the two different sort of departments within the office. So clinically speaking, everyone on the clinical team needs to be aware of how to protect the information, like I said, making sure that only the person in the chairs information is on a, on a computer screen, if you're walking into an operatory, to discuss another patient in front of another patient, making sure that you're not disclosing anything that's, that can identify that patient. As far as, as the administrative part, it's making sure that all of that information that you have, is being protected to the best of your abilities and, and the best of the training and all the all the laws that are in place. That means making sure that if you are leaving, stepping away from your desk, that you're you have a screen lock on so that no one can come by and get into get into the computer. Making sure that when you're discussing something with a patient, and it's in an open area, that you either take them to an area where it's more private, or you're you don't discuss things that some other patient can hear about. So it's it's sort of both. The receptionist responsibilities, all that information that she has in front of her, she has to safeguard it. In the clinical areas, all the information that the clinicians have, they have to safeguard it. But at the same time, understanding that it's a collective, it's a collaborative effort to maintain that information, because we all like you said, we all have a touch point on each and every patient that comes in here. So in addition to as a group, being able to make sure that we are keeping all the information safe, it's it's incumbent upon each individual and their training and understanding their part in also keeping the risk low.

Scott Nelson  17:08  
When you're going back to the some of the who questions and thinking about the background checks, is this an approach to where there are things that you prioritize, you have to factor in different things, and we distribute and put that out throughout the collective, the individual and the group, you know, if people have a lot of things on their plate, and and you know, and it's a good thing to do background checks but that may be at the bottom of the list, they would like to get to that at some point in time. If that individual or the organization wants to plan for risk, what's an approach that they can take from developing a process or putting a plan together?

Erin Hendricks  17:44  
Well, part of it is understanding the individual office's needs. So like I said, it is mandatory that the entire team gets training. So that would be the first step is ensuring that whoever whomever you already have on board is equipped with the proper training. And then when you go to bring someone else in a new hire, you know, it's required that within a certain amount of time that they are also trained in how the office uses patient information. And, and so background checks would be something it is typically on the bottom of the list, especially in this age where it's difficult to even get people even get candidates. So that's typically on the bottom of the of the list of things of ways to mitigate mitigate risk. But once you get these team members in you can always, you know, do it later, but the main goal, I mean, in my opinion, the main goal is to make sure that everyone is properly trained, and they have the proper information in order to mitigate any kind of risk. And again, that goes back to making sure that you're compliant in training every year and documenting it.

Scott Nelson  19:08  
Another article the American Dental assistants Association recently distributed was published in Dentistry IQ about dental staff meetings, the American Association of Dental Office Management has recently posted about hybrid work models and productivity without an in-office environment. This is a big topic when you talk about staffing and people leaving the field and how are we able to deliver care these days with people wanting to work and whether or not it's a it's a hybrid model or wanting to work in different types of schedules and hours. What resources can be helpful to the success of a dental practice while also thinking about risk and factoring that into a model where people may be working from home, maybe in the office in varying periods?

Erin Hendricks  19:53  
Well, obviously, if you're a clinician there, it's it's not possible to work remotely. But as far as administrative, there are occasions where you can work remotely. So say someone in my position, a receptionist can't work remotely, you need to be in the office. Now someone in my position and administrator or a practice manager could possibly work remotely. And but again, you'd have to have safeguards in place so that when I or whomever, whatever administrator is working remotely, that all the proper safeguards are put in place, so that when I'm accessing patient information from home, that I'm being very compliant, like I, you, I would not use a laptop or computer that my family uses, if I'm going to be accessing protected health information from my office. So that would be one thing that I in my opinion, should be required. So if I'm going to work remotely, and we've agreed, then the organization should provide me with a laptop solely for accessing protected health information in the office. I can't use it to play games, or send emails. So that's one way to sort of take a look at how you can mitigate any risk and and remain compliant and not have to necessarily worry so much about whether there's going to be a breach. So I think in those terms, if it's going to be if you're thinking hybrid models and how to mitigate risk, I think the only team member that is able to do that would be an administrator and again, putting those safeguards in place to ensure a very, very low risk of any kind of breach or, or things like that.

Scott Nelson  21:41  
And is that an administrator is that the person who you would recommend and kind of see, as the overseer or the person that manages those safeguards, make sure that that they're put in place to make sure that they are adhered to so that we're not opening ourselves to more risk by adapting and adjusting to that hybrid model?

Erin Hendricks  22:01  
Absolutely. That would be the administrator 100%. So that falls in line with every year, we're supposed to have a written risk assessment. So you have to go through all your systems and procedures and protocols to check to see are they still good? Does this still work? So say, for instance, maybe five years ago, no one was working remotely from a dental office. So you had systems and procedures and protocols in place that worked. So now, if you're having where you're having your administrator or practice manager work remotely, you have to take a look at those procedures that you have in place, and maybe add some things and tweak some things to fit the what the risk is now. So yes, that would definitely be the administrator, who would make sure that those all those systems and protocols are in place, make sure you're you're doing your risk assessment. And even though it's required once a year, you don't have to just do it once a year. When things change in your office, you can go ahead and do a risk assessment. Say for instance, I got sick, and I'm on medical leave, and so but I still can work from home. So maybe this happens in August. So I'm not doing a risk assessment at the beginning of the year. What I have to do now is a risk assessment in August, because the way I'm accessing protected health information is going to be different. So I would have to do a risk risk assessment, and then make some adjustments to help prevent any kind of breaches or, or violations. So yeah, it would definitely be the administrator who I feel should be in charge of that.

Scott Nelson  23:44  
And that gets me to start thinking about the differences between being reactive, which a lot of the things that we've talked about so far, it's a reactive position versus being proactive. So you know, if you have somebody that's sick, and that's unanticipated, or if somebody is going to be out for a little bit, and you can anticipate that, a couple of the other examples you mentioned earlier, during COVID and since COVID, people have left the field. You mentioned design and layout. Some of those things are we react to situations that happen within the day to day environments. How can groups look at these from a proactive stance? And if they're looking at people that may be in the next period of time, or even if they're going to do a facility assessment to take a look at how things are situated from from the computer stations or from the clinic pieces where patients kind of flow through, how would individuals approach a proactive opportunity to take a look at those and mitigate risk opportunities?

Erin Hendricks  24:45  
Well the first proactive thing I keep stressing is making sure that everyone's properly trained. The second would be for you to do an physical assessment, walk through your facility and take note of what could be potential risks before they before anyone else notices. So walk through your office get up throughout the day to check each operatory and make sure everyone is being compliant and adhering to the training. Sit in the chair, sit, sit in the chair from a patient's perspective and look around and see what you can see, what you notice, sit in this reception room and see and see what you can hear and what you notice. So those are things that I feel like you can do to be proactive. It's just you, it takes you physically, in my opinion, physically sort of roaming around, so to speak, to see what the possible risk can be. So say for instance, a patients get up and go to the restroom all the time so they're passing other operatories. So making sure that your operatory schedule is always on what's called the HIPAA view. Meaning they may be able to see procedures and times but they can't see patient names or anything like that. So just again, physically, I think the best way is to physically walk around your office, check and see what the potential risks can be. I mean, I think that's the best thing to do. That's the best way to be proactive about things.

Scott Nelson  26:18  
Looking back through recent history from a risk standpoint, and we talked about COVID, we've talked about some issues that may be unique or maybe one-offs or outliers for practices. You'd mentioned some of the pieces with with dental practices and embezzlement. There have been cases like that documented across the country. While those may be viewed from an outlier or a unique one-off, when those are taken in the collective, there can be groupings of that put together that do make an impact and and do affect practices. What was expected versus unexpected in dental care over the most recent history, or most of the last year, and what could have been done differently to proactively address those situations.

Erin Hendricks  27:03  
So maybe over the last year, some things that weren't expected were staff shortages. And in my opinion, again, it could have been, it could have been prevented by simply taking a look at the sort of the structure or hierarchy in the dental office and everyone's role on the team. And, and not putting one one team member's role or status ahead of another. And oftentimes in dental offices, that's sort of the norm, it's you know, that you know, sort of a ladder of respect, so to speak, and the dental assistant is usually at the bottom of that ladder. So taking a look at that structure and sort of remaking it, reimagine it, everyone's equal on the team so so you could prevent that sort of no one really, especially their assistant wants to come in and work in a dental office, and you know, for X amount of dollars when they can go to work, you know, in retail, for the same amount or more with less stress, and so on. So that would be one thing that that I would take a look at. As far as how to sort of understand sort of the risk, we're talking about embezzlement those things, it's a matter of, again, training, and then being aware of how things are coming in and out of your office, how how things are flowing in and out of your office, a lot of times, doctors aren't necessarily business savvy, because they don't teach that in dental school. And they are not ones to sort of learn practice management software, from the administrative point of view, so they aren't aware of how to look for things. So that would be another way to sort of reduce that risk as far as being being in a position where where embezzlement can take place. Learning how to use your practice management software, so that you can check and see if things are adding up or not adding up. I would say what else some other things that weren't anticipated that could have been? Well, this wasn't in the past year, but for COVID, all of the hoopla could have been prevented had had dental offices sort of taken on the recommendations of the CDC from the '80s. So a lot of the things that people were trying to scramble and put in place in 2020 were recommendations from the '80s. And because they weren't laws, but recommendations, doctors chose not to follow them for most likely financial reasons. So we don't have to have it so we're not going to get it and then found themselves in a pickle in 2020 when all of a sudden those recommendations became necessary. So that could have been prevented, in my opinion, but those are some of the things that sort of come to mind when we're looking at things that weren't anticipated that could have kind of been prevented.

Scott Nelson  30:05  
Now looking forward during this year and maybe even beyond, and I'm sure staffing and we've mentioned staffing several times here and staffing is in the workforce and labor force is always something that everybody has top of mind, Forbes had a recent article titled Addressing The Data Deficit: Improving The Future of Dentistry that noted critical issues such as significant lack of high quality, standardized data, and accessibility that consume valuable time and resources, and instead of enhancing patient care and streamlining practice operations can lead to lack of trust, missed patient education opportunities, and reduction in case acceptance. What do you see as potential issues in dental care and how can individuals and organizations anticipate and be prepared going forward into the future?

Erin Hendricks  30:49  
So I agree that there because of you're right, because of the lack of sort of data to help make dental offices more efficient and educate patients more, I think, which does lead to less case acceptance, part of it is right now what's going on is dental offices are trying to make up for the deficit. So they're skipping a lot of the patient education pieces and, and, and a lot of the spending more time with each individual patient and, and getting to know their needs, and putting them in a position where they feel like they've gotten all the information that they can from you that they've had all their questions answered, and they know exactly why they need what they need. And that would obviously lead to better case acceptance. So what I see now is, we have AI coming into into place in the dental field. Now, dentistry is sort of behind medicine in that we don't in our field, we don't we sort of side eye things like AI, because we think that it can't really help. It can't, it didn't go to school, so it doesn't know, but not understanding that patients, now a lot of this stuff is is mainstream so a lot of this stuff patients know about and kind of, although they may not trust certain aspects of AI, but if you have it in a practice, say for instance, there is a way to use AI to help detect small cavities in someone's tooth, something that the doctor can't see, an x ray can't pick up yet, but AI can predict this area here, will get a cavity in it so we can do some preventative measures to alleviate the patient having to have maybe a drill which is the dreaded word so prevent you from having to pick up a drill and drill a hole on your tooth and replace it with some some resin material. If we could use AI to sort of educate the patient and help them see that we are sort of stepping up the game in dental care, we're coming into the 20th century and and we are making it so that it's not so bad when you go to the dentist anymore. But but in in within dentistry people sort of tend to wait you wait five years, seven years to see to make sure things are are working, all the bugs are worked out, we need to remove that, remove that attitude, in my opinion, moving forward, and use all the available technology and tools moving forward to help patients understand what their dental needs are, and help them understand that, you know, dentistry is not optional, your head is not disconnected from your body, you have to take care of what's going on in your mouth. And oftentimes, patients view it as an something that's optional, because they don't patients don't understand the mouth body connection, you know, diabetes and heart disease is is found in your mouth. You know, if you have bleeding gums, when you brush your teeth, patients don't understand that's not normal, something is wrong there. And we're not taking the time to sort of educate our patients on the on the mouth and body whole connection. So moving forward, I think if if dentist and dental professionals looked at it as treating the whole body and not just your teeth, that would go a long way with patient and case acceptance.

Scott Nelson  34:32  
So that side eye approach, or that late adoption to technology, and in this case you know the example of using AI, but just using some of these other technological advancements can both at the same time maybe simultaneously help and hurt from a perspective of you know, there needs to be some more proof of concept, or some more testing, some more some more experience with it. But at the same time, does that also hurt from a risk perspective because it may delay treatment, it may delay opportunities to engage and interact with with a patient?

Erin Hendricks  35:09  
I'm not sure. I haven't seen the downside of it yet. Maybe because I am only looking for the positive. So I don't feel like the use of technology in the early stages can hurt. I mean, it's not like it's, it's rolling hot off the press, and you're no one's used it before. So it's been tested. And maybe it hasn't been tested on a super large scale, but it's been tested enough that has been rolled out, it's been offered. So why not go ahead and look into it, why not use it? It's not, I don't think it's hurtful. It's not, it's not leading to invasive treatments. It's sort of, in my opinion, helping to not only educate patients, again, about the whole mouth-body care, but it's also helping your practice in that, you know, you're not going to be known as you know that the office where you go into a room and someone comes in like a car salesman, and you got this whole list of treatment that needs to be done, so we're just gonna go and discuss all the treatment and then discuss money. So it sort of, in my opinion, sets you apart as a health care practitioner, less of a dentist air quotes, and more of an oral health care provider. That's just my opinion.

Scott Nelson  36:35  
Well, that's a great point to conclude our conversation. Erin, thank you very much for your time and sharing your thoughts today. It's greatly appreciated.

Erin Hendricks  36:42  
Absolutely. It was my pleasure.

Scott Nelson  36:47  
Thank you for listening to The Risky Health Care Business Podcast. You can listen to all episodes from the resource center page of the SpringParker website, springparker.com, or click the Listen link in the show notes to listen and subscribe for free on your platform of choice. And remember, accelerating health care performance is achieved through creativity, not just productivity.