Dental Sleep Medicine, Celebrity Crime, & Gym Memberships; 1 of These Is Not Like the Others
Money helps celebrities get away with drunk driving, but no amount of money will make you successful in Dental Sleep Medicine. Think that’s a non sequitur? You may be asking yourself if I’ve lost my mind. Please allow me to explain.
Whether you get your news from The Economist, Facebook, TMZ, or Fox News, you’ve undoubtedly read about celebrities committing crimes and escaping unscathed. Why? They pay exorbitant amounts of money to get the results they want. In some cases, they have literally gotten away with murder. Follow me so far?
No amount of money can get you in optimal physical condition though. You want to get in shape? Look in the mirror & then wrap yourself in seaweed, only eat carbs OR never eat carbs, wish upon a star, whatever.
Look in the mirror again. Both the prince and the pauper will still appear the same. It doesn’t matter if you have a billion bucks in the bank or a pocketful of peanuts. I know. I’ve tried it all.
So, you decide to join a gym on January 1st along with the other 10,436 people that signed up that day at a gym with a fire department code capacity of 78. You can find a gym that has the perfect hours, the newest equipment, classes that cater to your specific needs, world-class trainers, and dedicated nutritionists. Guess what happens if your only curls are preceded by the word “cheese” or your only lunges involve the remote control that fell into a 10 gallon vat of Moose Tracks ice cream? You won’t realize your fitness goals or be the person you want to be. That’s not the gym’s fault.
Dental Sleep Medicine is very similar. You can attend a course with John Viviano or John Tucker, subscribe to DS3, buy a WatchPAT, obtain Pristine Medical Billing’s services, purchase a MATRx, or hire Erin Elliott to train your office. These are all extraordinary products and services. However, what you paid or who you paid doesn’t matter; what you do with it is all that counts. There are people that will do more with less and unfortunately, there are also many dentists that will do less with more.
The excuses for not fully embracing fitness regimens are eerily reminiscent of the reasons I hear cited for failure to launch DSM:
- I just don’t have the time
- I’m going to start when work slows down
- I’m just too busy right now but when this arbitrary date rolls around or life pauses (it never will!), then I’ll be ready.
- I just wasn’t getting any results (after going to the gym twice and eating at Golden Corral three times)….
Who is accountable if you secure the onsite mentoring services of Dr. Erin Elliott and fail to follow her instructions because you got too busy? Her wildly successful practice is proof positive that it works if you work it.
Don’t subscribe to SleepTest.com’s invaluable service, never order tests because you don’t screen patients and then say “Dental Sleep Medicine doesn’t work.” That’s like saying fitness regimens don’t work. Every four years there’s a village full of Olympians that are living proof of the contrary.
Over 1,000 dentists have subscribed to DS3’s education and software platform over the past 5 years. Some of them treat 60 patients each month. Others treat 2. Some treat none. Guess what the difference is between those that treat 40+ patients per month like Dr. Richard Drake, Dr. Stacey Layman, and Dr. Brandon Hedgecock.
It’s not that they are the only name in the game in their respective cities.
They haven’t uncovered a holy grail.
They don’t possess magical powers that allow them to pause time ala Zach Morris.
Each manages home sleep testing differently in their practices. Some exclusively practice DSM while others have a DSM practice associated with their restorative dental practices. Is it because one uses a TAP and the other uses ProSomnus or Somnomed? Nope. Is it because they all subscribe to DS3? They do, but the tool is only as good as the practice using it.
Then what separates these prolific providers from others?
They make it happen. They show up and do the work. Dr. Drake hosts 2-3 physician lunch and learns every week. Dr. Layman and Lesia made the investment in hiring and training a phenomenal team while giving them the resources and autonomy they need to be successful. They are the DSM equivalent of eating clean, working out daily, and foregoing linguine in favor of lunges. That’s work. Hard work. And sacrifice. But they do it and they get the results. They also reap the rewards. So do their patients.
They don’t make excuses and they’ve made a conscious decision to view obstacles as the path to progress. They don’t cower through it. They power through it. What are you going to do? Make it happen.
