(800) 560-6066Rolando Mia, from Zyris, hosts a video series focused on the latest news, topics, and conversations happening in dentistry featuring dentists across the nation. In Season 2, we’re focusing on, “What’s Working and What’s Not”, where we’ll debunk myths by assessing trial and error since the start of Covid-19 in dentistry.
In this episode, we interviewed Dr. Robert Raimondi, Prosthodontist and co-owner of One Manhattan Dental. The purpose of this discussion was to understand what has worked, since re-opening during the Covid-19 pandemic and get a perspective on being in a partnership while having to incorporate critical changes to their dental practice.
Watch this video to learn the following:
- Researching specific products for infection control – what works, what doesn’t
- Working with a partner during a pandemic
- Seeing more new clients than prior to the pandemic, what contributed to that success?
- Patient communication and marketing your dental business
Transcription
Rolando Mia:
Good day, welcome to Dental Voice Season 2. My name is Rolando Mia, and this is Zyris. Our guest is a Prosthodontist in Manhattan, whose name is Dr. Robert Raimondi with One Manhattan Dental. We’re really excited to have him on because when you look at it, New York is a place where all sorts of things happen. When you look at this season of Dental Voice, the kind of the purpose of is to understand from clinicians what’s going on currently, get your perspective, and then also actionable advice. So good afternoon, Dr. Rob, how are you? Great to see you.
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Doing well. Yeah. How are you doing?
What’s Become a Reality During COVID-19
Rolando Mia:
I am well, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to spend time with us, really interested to hear what you have to say. My first question for you, this has to do with all the stuff that’s going on now that we’ve come back and have semi passed through quarantine, what’s happening that you thought would be happening before you came back to practicing and what’s not?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
I guess I’ll start with what’s not happening because that’s almost more interesting to me. We’re much busier than I thought we would be now. I mean, we have the luxury of being in New York, right? It’s funny to say that because where we were in April was a scary place to be. We were the hot zone and now we’re the opposite. We’ve lived through the scare. People have responded quite aggressively in a good way here. Our numbers are really good. We’re retesting somewhere between 60,000 to 80,000 people a day in New York state and our numbers are kind of around 1%. All of a sudden, the numbers going up in other places of the country, which we hate to see, but it makes people feel safer to be here, right?
Our hygiene schedule is busy; our patients are coming in. So, what I’m not seeing is a lot of fear. I’m seeing a lot of people being careful, bottling the precautions and I’m happy to see the city like it is in August. Normally August, most of the people who would go away on vacation are here. People are at their weekend or summer homes.
So, it kind of feels like that right now here in New York City and not in a bad way – it’s pretty comfortable. I am seeing people be very careful. I am seeing people be concerned. A few of our patients are asking us questions about what we’re doing to reassure them, but we’ve already expressed to them what we’re doing, right? I know we’ll get to this in a little while; however, we communicate all of the things that we’ve been doing to protect ourselves and the environment in our office.
Rolando Mia:
That is awesome. We heard prior to all of this, that a lot of the staff, especially hygiene, dental assistants, even the front office were feeling really apprehensive about the prospect of becoming infected. Are you seeing that happening? Is there a dialogue still continuing around that in your office?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
So, March 12th was our last day seeing patients before the quarantine here in New York. The next week we had our first of many zoom chats with our team and we were right on top of it. The first things we were doing with them was collaborating on what to do during this time to first.
For example, reorganize our office and the timer closed, not in terms of organizing our physical stuff, but just where are the patients in treatment? Where are they what’s going on in patients who are having emergencies during this time? We worked really hard. Like our first Zoom call was just to check in with our team and we did that throughout the entire quarantine. The other thing we did was we worked with them to create an environment where we all feel comfortable. In our weekly Zoom calls we followed up with the research, explained it to different parts of the team that researched different things.
As other people on our team found things or heard of something, we all looked into it together and made decisions as a group of what we would do. For example. the reason why you and I are connected is the Isolite®, right? That was one of the things we really researched together; what were we going to do to control aerosol droplets in the operatories? There’s lots of different things you can do. After all of us working together to research things, be together as a group, my hygienist, my assistants, and us decided that Isolite would be the go-to. Also, the air filter here, we researched those together. So, I’m answering your question with a really long answer. However, the fears were addressed over time, it wasn’t like there was a moment of silence that lasted two months and then where we then reengaged our team.
Taking Care of Your Team Members First
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
It was very different than that. There was constant engagement as a group together to figure out what we would do. There were some people who had fears and there still are some people that are not worried but being cautious. We did not lose one team member – everyone’s back at work. We’re working hard to protect each other. Everyone wears masks, everyone’s careful with their space, and careful with how our patients around. So, we’ve had a very different reality than almost everyone.
Almost everyone in the dental community that I know lost an assistant, hygienist, or front desk person. I think part of the issue that people are having even before, COVID-19 is honest communication. I don’t think what we do is that complicated. It really isn’t if you lead with what your agenda is and what your outcome is.
Our outcome in our group is that we take care of each other before we take care of a patient. That’s always been our motto. That’s always been what we’ve done. It was even more than that during this time. So, if there’s a patient who is upsetting my team member for something, not that, that happens. But if we take the side of our team member because we know they are doing the right thing; our team members are to be trusted to do the right thing. We take care of each other before we take care of anyone else, because if you don’t do that then you can’t take exceptional care of other people. If your core group, isn’t all there together, working hard towards the same common goal, then it doesn’t work.
Rolando Mia:
I love the sentiment around that. When you look at it, you have to have a strong anchor and foundation with your team in order to support everybody. That’s great. Where did that come from? I’m curious because you’ve been in dentistry, how long now?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
That school started in August of 2002.
Rolando Mia:
Right? So, where did you get that wisdom? It’s a progressive view.
A Progressive View on Dentistry
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
I stole it. It’s not my wisdom. Well, I work really hard on trying to be a well-rounded human being in my life. Part of that means that I’m a boss and a leader in my office. So, I do spend time working on that reading books, listening to podcasts, and taking content meeting with people who are really good at it – trying to learn what they do well. I mean, the simple thing to do is assignments. Simon Sinek’s book, “Leaders Eat Last.” I mean, you have to figure out how to achieve the goals you want achieve – you realize you can’t do them alone. If you can then accept that, then you’re doing a goal collectively with the people around you. Well, then how do you support those people? I’m pretty sure that they’re goal should be overlapping, right?
They have their own goals that are part of being them being there. Maybe it’s simple – to make money and have a job. So you kind of find the leverage between that and that relationship. You work together towards the common goal, and then you start learning how to just empower people. You learn how to trust people. Learn how to support them. If you want those things, you have to do them first for other people. Right.
Rolando Mia:
That’s so awesome. When you look New York city, it was the epicenter when all this happened and Covid-19 skyrocketed. Was there ever fear between with you or your team?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Of course, there was. Fear and anxiety of imagination.
I mean, if you live in the reality of where you are – it was uncomfortable. The news, the city shutting down. However, if I walked around the city, I was safe. Like if I walked around the city on April 3rd, it would be quiet here, but I could also enjoy the beauty of the city in a different way. I would go home, and I was comfortable being home and my family was healthy. We were lucky. I was able to get groceries and food. I was able to get the basic things that I needed to be comfortable and survive. The other stuff that was going on around me, I mean, I wasn’t making money. My practice wasn’t there, but luckily, I lived. So, my perspective was the reality of my life was comfortable and fine instead of worrying about the things that could be.
I try to just be present and okay with the things I can’t control. I think that’s what we do in our team. We can connect with each other. My partners and I, and our team talk about, “Okay, well, what can we control? What can we do in our reality right now?” Well, we can work on some things. We can work on our relationship as a group and we can only be patient because this is literally affecting the entire world. You can’t feel special about it. You know, a lot of our problems, aren’t yours. Very few things are unique to you yourself and not in a bad way. Your problems are shared with thousands to millions of people. It could be that you’re late to work.
Guess what? A million people were late to work today, you know, so we, we sometimes get a little self-absorbed about our problems, it’s just our nature. We care most about a lot of ourselves, right? Just the perspective of things and what was going on with people around us, kept us all grounded during what is a little funky time.
Rolando Mia:
Thank you for that. Appreciate your sharing. I resonate with the message behind that. You mentioned earlier, infection control or how big of an issue were aerosols back then compared to now. What’s your mindset around them and what has changed basically, or evolved as you start separating what the speculation is?
Doing Research Relating to Aerosols
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
So, the week after March 12th was the first week we were closed and trying to figure out what’s going on, what to do what to do with our team’s salary, keep them on, keep them off. The second week off, we started researching aerosols and how to control them and how people did control them. Mark and I started connecting with people all over the country on how aerosols are collected in different environments in the medical world. What are the different environments they’re collected in and why they’re collected in that manner?
We worked really hard. I had phone calls to people in Seattle, Texas, Arizona, experts in hospital management, and in different spaces. So, we’re pretty lucky here. We also did some research in our own facility to understand the issue we need to be dealing with and also how to deal with aerosols. So, that was the number one thing we researched through the pandemic – how to handle aerosols. What’s real? That’s a good question. We read a lot of medical journals, Marc and I about what’s happening, what they’re finding. We’re controlling things to the best of our abilities. Based off the medical literature, we are ignoring the guidelines from CDC and OSHA because we are operating at a level above them.
Rolando Mia:
Right. So, when you say operating at a level above them, what do you mean specifically? That’s cool.
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Well, it’s a little bit of everything that we do, right? For one, the way we schedule our appointments and space, everything out is in a way that leaves them the most amount of time for everyone to properly put on fresh PPE, take off between patients, clean the room, and then how to filter out the air. The way we take temperatures, and the Pulse Sox on the way in and way out for our staff and team. We make sure we do that with all of our patients – taking oxygen, saturations of their blood, not just temperatures, then handle the room and the space differently, right? We clean everything thoroughly and have air filters – we researched air filters a lot. These filter out particles smaller than the Covid-19 virus, and they also can kill it.
So, we have 20 of those through the practice. They are triply engineered for the space, right? We have more than what we need for this space everywhere and we have Isolites in every treatment room. We used them for every patient that we’re working on, that we’re doing anything with a hand piece in the mouth and our hygienists are even hand scaling with them in the mouth. So what else Mark and I are going for? And our other partners are going for a weekly COVID knows swabs, which we are SARS. No squads is we find out the results within 12 hours. I’m trying to think what else try and do everything ever communicate.
Rolando Mia:
Yeah, that’s incredible and now I get it. I totally get above and beyond what the guidelines mean now. So, it sounds like you’ve done a lot of research, but then between you and your team, you’ve kind of figured it out. I’m curious and really appreciate you mentioning the Isolite, how did you end up with our system vs. maybe an external hood or one those extraoral suction devices?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
So, one of the things we were researching was what to do during the development of the pandemic in our country. I looked around at what people were doing and what I noticed was a lot of people were having the obvious knee jerk reaction to it, right? And I can support them. It’s a pandemic, right? None of us were alive in 1918. So, I started looking into what people are doing and those extraoral hoods became a thing people were doing.
So, we started researching that and found not great science behind it. Then, we started researching a lot of other things people were doing during the pandemic. We realized that there was a response as an opportunity instead of looking at proven technologies. So, the Isolite, I’ve heard about for a long time, I said to Mark earlier today, “I feel like I’m late to the Isolite party.” I actually said that privately in my office with him.
The Molecule here is an air filter that has crossover representation with residential and healthcare system environments. The Isolite has been around for years. So we wanted proven technologies that worked well in practice. Instead of just jumping on the, “Let me buy that” bandwagon.
There are people that are fogging their offices. There isn’t good science behind that yet. There’s no science behind that. If I fog this room, and it touches this, but not under here, it’s not clean. So, we really looked at proven technologies and I could say that everything we’ve added into our practice, we were delighted with and our patients feel really safe.
Patient Apprehension: The Truth
Rolando Mia:
Awesome – it’s interesting. It sounds like your patients are not as concerned or are not having the apprehension. Is that correct?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Well, I’m sure that there’s a huge group of people who are not coming in now that are apprehensive, right? My sample size is a little jaded. It’s like saying, “Everyone at McDonald’s loves hamburgers.” Well, yeah. Right? So, I think that what I hear daily is our patients feel really comfortable with everything that we’ve done. Right? They feel really comfortable. We worked really hard to communicate and to be transparent, not to persuade them to come in, but to be clear what we’re doing and if they feel safe, then they should come in. So, I think our patients are worried. Our patients do not go to places without thinking about it. However, because of the things we’ve done, they feel comfortable.
Rolando Mia:
Yeah. I can totally see that. Plus, you’re constantly communicating and showing them what’s happening. I love the fact that you’re showing what we’ve done.
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Right, Rolando. Just to be honest with people. I mean, I don’t want someone to come in and get a veneer or a set of veneers that they’re not really interested in, or I’m not going to meet their expectations. The same concept applies here where I don’t want a patient to come in right now and have an environment where they don’t feel safe and we do not meet their expectations. I don’t want my team’s expectations of what their job and the environment of this office is going to be. It needs to be honest.
If they feel comfortable, then they’ll show up to work every day. If the patient feels comfortable, they’ll get a treatment. It’s not the other way around. Right? I think that’s the mistake that a lot of people make in everything that they do, especially in dentistry. I think doctors are trying to get patients in trying to get that treatment sold. What’s your case acceptance rate? I think that’s all bullshit. I really do.
Rolando Mia:
That’s a very progressive view, the whole Simon Sinek context, which is about make it about them, not you. I love that, from a practice perspective, you use a lot of different products and when you speak to them, you speak to them from a use case, not from what the vendors are telling you. So I think that’s pretty cool. So you have a partner in this. How long have you guys been together?
Having a Business Partner During a Pandemic: A Success Story
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Well, I moved, I was practicing by myself up until November. I moved into this space in November and then we shut down. So we were working on New York city, as you might imagine, real estate, it’s a little difficult and the past three years we’ve been looking at spaces and I’m looking to build an office out. So, Marc and I have been partners for a couple of years on this journey. I finally moved in with him in November.
Rolando Mia:
Oh, that’s so cool. I’ve seen the two of you together and specifically for dental voice, I wanted to have you separate because you both have such wonderful personalities and perspectives that each of you have. What would you say is really different between you two?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
There’s a lot of differences and that’s why it really works well. I’m the kind of guy that jumps into the pool. I just jump in and no matter what’s going on, I’ll just jump in and Marc might walk in slowly. So, between the two philosophies, there’s a middle ground that works really well. Right? I’m pushing him, he’s pulling me back. Then we find the right pace. He’s either being a real stickler with the numbers or I’m floating in the air somewhere thinking about something else we could do.
We work really hard at our relationship – we have a business coach that we share and have monthly calls with her. The three of us work on issues that we have together and, so funny, but we’ll put our office manager in the middle of us sometimes. When we’re going through an issue, we’ll just go watch it, go back and forth and be like, we argued these points in a good way, right? We have to. We set up an environment whereas business partners and best friends, we can be raw with each other and be comfortable doing that. You’re going to come out with something better together. So, he makes me check myself a lot more and I persuade him to do things that he wouldn’t do otherwise.
Rolando Mia:
See, that’s perfect. I was expecting you to say something like yin and yang. I can’t wait to ask him this. I’ll be curious to see what his answer is.
There are a lot of dental practices that are struggling out there right now – they’ve been hit hard. They have staff members or team members who are not coming back. What advice would you give to those who are sitting there and thinking, “How am I going to make this work?” What message would you give to those clinicians and teams?
Advice to Clinicians and Teams Who Are Struggling
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Look at what you’ve been doing. That before this, is what led you to be in this situation, you have to look at you. You have to look at you as an owner, as a leader, I’m going to be like a little hard on those people, because you have to look at what you were doing wrong. The only way you grow, the only way you can get past something is to see what wasn’t working so well and to not repeat those mistakes continuously, right? Those of us that are more successful than others make the same mistakes as everybody else. We just make them less often and learn from them and try not to repeat them.
So, I think those business owners that are struggling, this is the best time to struggle. Struggle means you’re growing. If you really dig in and figure out what you could be doing differently for success, whatever you define success to be work hard to surround yourself with the right people, that’ll help support your goal.
Rolando Mia:
Now let me ask how big of an impact or influence has this pandemic and COVID-19, because you know, people point to COVID-19 as the reason that they’re struggling, “I’m not getting guidance. So, I don’t know what to do.” Is that an influencer or is that just another thing that they’re going to have to deal with?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Exaggerates everything right now, right? So, I think that if before COVID-19 occurred and you were a nervous person, you’re going to be more nervous. If you have a bad time making decisions, right now, you’ll be even worse at it. So, I think that, we’ve always been researching on what we’re doing from a dental standpoint and we just shifted our focus to figuring out what to do in the environment. Right?
So, I think those people are struggling. I encourage them to really look at what they’re doing, what they can improve on, and just focus on what they’re trying to do in the world. I mean, it has to be beneficial to the world, right? It can’t just be, “I want to make money.” That’s garbage. What we’ve done is try to do what we do normally and also try to deal with what we were not doing well.
Also, we’re trying to use this as an opportunity right now with the pandemic – there’s a little more time to use this time to improve yourself. Right? There’s like a thing, I forget what it is like there’s two zones – practice zone and executions. I forget what exactly it is. You’re either working on it or you’re executing it. So, maybe now in the zone, you’re in more of the practice mode or the learning zone. So, maybe you just really get ready for when this is all over.
Rolando Mia:
That’s cool. There’s a wisdom you have – it’s a lot deeper than that I expected. I appreciate you sharing that with us. Pretty cool. So, you mentioned earlier that there’s a bias with regard to the patients, what message would you like to give the patients who aren’t or who are apprehensive, who may see this? What do you want to let them know about where dentistry is overall?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
The thing I’ve been trying to do with a lot of my communications to patients is to really encourage patients to be their own advocate. They need to ask the places they go, what they’re doing in preparation for COVID-19. It to builds your confidence, knowing you’re going to the right place. Like the joke Anthony Bordain would say is, “If you walk into a bathroom of a restaurant and it was really dirty, you should probably shouldn’t eat their food.” And I think that same rule applies to everything in your dental office – ask them what they’re doing. You are your best advocate, and no one cares more about you than you do. You can’t expect them to.
So, I want patients to be encouraged to find out what the people around them are saying about the offices they go to. If it sounds like they’re doing the right things, I encouraged them to get the care they need. If they’re not doing the right things, ask your friends, ask your family, ask people around you what their offices are doing what are the weirdest things that have happened?
Rolando, we’re in week seven and right now got a lot of new patients. That wasn’t our intention in anything that we did of course – we got a flood of patients leaving the practices they were going to because they didn’t communicate enough with them. They don’t know what they’re doing, or they’re not doing enough, and our patients have forwarded our emails to those people. They’ve come because of that. It’s wild.
I feel badly though, for these practices that aren’t doing, maybe they’re doing it, but they’re just not communicating it. So, I think that people, patients also can communicate that with the places they go and hold them accountable in a good way. Right? A couple of weeks ago, I got a haircut and one of the people working there was walking around without a mask on. I like these people very much. They’re good. I told someone working there, “Listen, you’re not doing the right thing for yourself.” As a business, if you’re not doing what you could be, it’s really going to affect you negatively. So, I think that if patients aren’t feeling comfortable with what their offices are doing, they should communicate that with them, give them the opportunity to let you know what they’re doing or to do the right thing.
The Future of Dentistry and How to Make Yours Bright
Rolando Mia:
That is awesome. So, basically own who you are. You have a choice ask and don’t be afraid to ask what’s right. That is awesome. What kind of closing comments would you want to give to our viewers?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
I really am impressed with the Isolite. You’re not paying me to be here. I prepared a gold alloy on number 16 today and I don’t do a whole lot of gold anymore, but it was the right thing. I prepared it in like 20 minutes the whole start to finish. It was crazy. But that’s because of the Isolite and the patient was like, “Wow.” It was pretty cool. So, I really love the product.
I would just encourage people though, to work together with the people around you. If you can’t do that, then you might want to think about who you’re surrounding yourself with. I think this time right now, we can really still connect with people and build relationships and collaborate for the common goals that we have and make them prosperous.
Support the people around you, lead with support, help the people around you. Think about what you’re doing in the world. How can you positively affect the world every day to be a little bit better? Cause your existence, everyone’s worth it. Everyone has something to give to the world. If they allow themselves to do it, put the other things first. In the end you will prosper because you help the people around you to be better. That’s what it’s about, man. It’s everything. That’s all you’re left with.
When you go to sleep at night, no one cares about how much money you made or how many crowns you did or how much you charge for a veneer. No one cares about that story, about how you affected them. If you had a positive effect on them, if you helped them do something, you made them better. It’s all we’re here for.
Rolando Mia:
Awesome. Thank you. If viewers or people who want to get in contact with you or want to ask you a question, what would be the best place for them to do that?
Dr. Robert Raimondi:
Yeah. Find me on Instagram. Dr. Raimondi on Instagram. If you check me out, let me know if you like my stuff, I’m trying to create some really good content and understand if there’s anything I can do better. I’m really open to criticism. I appreciate it. Or if I’m doing something that you like, let me know. I appreciate some encouragement too. Also, my practice One Manhattan Dental is on 61st Street and 5th Avenue. You can find us at @onemanhattandental.
Rolando Mia:
I appreciate it. This is, this is Rolando on Dental Voice, Season 2. Have a great week. We wish you all well, take care.
