Ep. 192: The No-Hire Growth Strategy: Adding Teledentistry to Scale Your Urgent Care - Interview with Leah Sigler and Dr. Maria Kunstadter from The TeleDentists

PCMP (00:00)
Walk ins welcome, walk ins welcome, walk ins welcome. I cannot talk today. I go straight in to mess it up. Michael, Hey, what's up there? Walk ins welcome family. That's so funny. Welcome to the podcast. We're glad to have you. We're here to help you get more patients, deliver better care, get repeat visits and scale your clinics. have conversations all about different things that are medical related. This is going to be a bit of a departure. Michael, what's up, man? Well, what's happening? You know, I, you know, we've been talking about how busy this summer has been, the

busyness is catching up to you. is. You've seen me going around a little bit. It's been a lot this summer. It's been crazy. But now I'm excited to have our guest on today. This is actually, think, I'm pretty sure it is the first time we've had a mother daughter guest come on. it's super cool to have that. But we actually met them at the UCA event in Dallas a couple months ago and they were our booth buddy. So we got to hang out with them for two solid days and they're just a whole lot of fun. right now.

But no, I have Maria and Leah. I like to say it that way, but no, Dr. Maria, she is the CEO and co-founder of TelaDennis. She's been in the industry now for 35 plus years. She's kind one of the trailblazers of the whole thing, which is amazing. And then Leah is the president of TelaDennis and she's helped grow the company over the years and actually helped with the partnerships with giants like Cigna and Procter & Gamble. So we got some big hitters here in the TelaDenistry world. Welcome aboard. Dr. Maria, Leah.

Welcome to the podcast. Say hello to the Walkins welcome family and tell us one thing about you that nobody else knows.

Maria Kunstadter (01:28)
Thanks for having us. I was going to tease that you probably had hair before the summer started and then it's been one of those summers, right?

PCMP (01:37)
Yeah. You know, it's funny. My team put up a picture of me using AI and they made a Chia pet out of me. So if that tells you what the culture is around here, let me tell you what I, I, I garner no fear and no respect for my team. I just throw that out there. We have a bunch of creatives. we, uh, it it went back a little crazy. So yeah, she, she evolved over here for the uninitiated. Keep going with that.

Maria Kunstadter (01:42)
No, no, no.

Cherry curls for you.

I love it, I love it. It's awesome.

Awesome. Well, I'm Leah. It's nice to meet everyone. I'm a dental hygienist and something that people don't know about me is that I'm actually fluent in Spanish. And I have been to, before I was 30, I had been to all the continents except for Antarctica. So ready for Antarctica.

PCMP (02:13)
Como se dice

teledentist en español.

Maria Kunstadter (02:17)
Teletelogos. I'm Maria and nobody will admit this but I'm really an introvert. just overcompensate a lot. I don't know if I agree with that.

PCMP (02:19)
Well done. Maybe we can have some claps in the background. Dr. Maria, what you got?

I don't know. Cause I

remember at the booth, ⁓ Leo was like, well, my mom's gone to another conference to talk from when this conference to another one doesn't sound very introverted to me.

Maria Kunstadter (02:48)
Cover

it up really well, so that's why nobody knows that about Fake it till you make it and you've made it. Exactly. You've made it. Good job.

PCMP (02:51)
there.

Well, if anybody has gotten to this episode and they have read the title of the episode, they're automatically going to be like, what in the world is teledentistry? how does it work? There's no way for me to not launch this off with what is teledentistry go.

Maria Kunstadter (03:12)
Well, so we have technology now that allows us to reach through the screen and pull it off. So I'll leave it to the industry starter for this conversation because believe it or Dr. Kuhn's daughter was the beginning, ⁓ founder of the industry. I, I was, I'm a dentist and I was in

PCMP (03:16)
I knew it.

So good.

Maria Kunstadter (03:31)
DC in 2012, 2013 on the opioid crisis with these big committees and these big meetings and over and over again, the top 10 reasons people go to emergency rooms and urgent care was toothaches. And it's like, that's crazy. There's no dentists in either place. They don't get any care. costs far more than going to a dentist. And at my table were physicians already doing telehealth, telemedicine. It's like.

That's what we need. We need a virtual dentist. I say to be in all the wrong places, people go with dental emergencies, because heaven forbid they're not gonna go to the dental office. They go to pharmacies, they go to urgent care, they go to emergency rooms, because they're afraid of dentists. And now there's a virtual dentist, like everybody probably listening has had a telehealth consultation. The doctor doesn't reach across the screen and palpate or listen to their heart or anything.

You talk to the patient. This is the same with teledentistry. We're on a platform that has their health history information, their dental complaints, their allergies, all the information that goes into a normal medical, and we are part of medical by the way, we're a specialty of medicine, goes into their medical chart. So we have all that available. Talk to the patient. The right specialist will understand what the patient's explaining about their symptoms, what treatment needs to be done, because they've seen this a thousand times.

PCMP (04:44)
There you go.

Maria Kunstadter (04:57)
and we address the patient just as you sit down beside them for the first 15 minutes in any office or as they sit down beside them in urgent care. They're not drilling on that problem in urgent care, but they're actually going to be able to repalliate the patient. We can e-prescribe, we educate the patient on what's going on with them and what they need to do. And then we actually take it one step further than telemedicine does. We actually triage them to a dental clinic, the right place, when hands-on care is needed. But that patient will go in

already off the cliff of how bad this is gonna get, knowing what they need to have done and be the best dental patient that office has seen in a long time. So we're that intermediary, just like urgent care is. And as I tell everyone, the last sentence in every telemedicine, every telehealth consultation is, if this isn't better in two weeks, go see your doctor. Well, we take it that step further and we help them get into their dentist within two weeks if they don't have one. So that's us.

PCMP (05:49)
Right.

Maria Kunstadter (05:57)
nutshell.

PCMP (05:58)
I love that.

Maria Kunstadter (05:58)
and she's not bragging

enough yet, but I'm gonna interrupt you. We've got about 250 to 300 dentists across the country taking calls 24 seven, three, six, five, because we all know that toothaches don't happen from Monday to Friday, nine to five, which is when dental offices are open, right? So we are always available to take care of dental concerns for the patients in the United States. And sadly, dental offices are only open, not like urgent care, dental offices are only

PCMP (06:14)
around.

Maria Kunstadter (06:28)
open 24 % of the hours of the

PCMP (06:32)
Well, I'm

100 % sure they're not open on a Friday. Yeah, that's true.

Maria Kunstadter (06:35)
or

on off day and you name it. that 76 % of the time, and they don't always answer their phones or take their emergency calls when they should, but we are there to do all those for the people that are looking for help when they need it, just as an urgent care does.

PCMP (06:53)
24 % of the hours, they're open. That leaves you quite a bit of an opportunity.

Maria Kunstadter (06:56)
Yes. Yep.

Exactly. Millions of people

have access to us, unfortunately or fortunately, thanks to their insurances and, you know, like Cigna and Anthem and Aetna. And we are trying to, you know, knock on the doors of urgent care centers to say, hey, guess what? We can do this for you as well, because especially at the conference, Mike, you heard the conversations next door. They, urgent care centers don't like dental pain. They don't do dental. In fact, so many people said they actually just say, nope, we don't do dental. Go away. They turn

PCMP (07:06)
Right.

Maria Kunstadter (07:30)
patients away. And so we are here to present an alternative to not only the urgent care centers but for the patients who need us. And pretty much what you said Nick, we're here to help them build their practices. mean urgent care centers are looking for ways of making patients happy, improving their revenues, adding new services, and they know dental patients come to their office, come to their urgent care if they turn them away, they don't send them somewhere else. Those patients need to be seen but they don't need to take...

and take care of that, offer that burden for them very easily for much less than they would charge and much less, you know, we would be their staff member for that, we're there for them when they need it and be able to build that patient comes to urgent care with a toothache, get seen by the teledentist at the urgent care, where do you think they're gonna come back to when they have a higher acuity need, where they were taken care of the time they went in the first time?

PCMP (08:21)
So what you're saying is an urgent care, let's just say a person comes in, whether it's a walk-in or they schedule a visit to come in. It is just that simple to say, I can't do this diagnosis for you, but if you will wait for two minutes, let me roll this computer in here or let me put you into this dedicated space with privacy and we can crank that up. one, I want to talk about that too. You want to talk about how, how an urgent care makes money with this, but let's start with

Maria Kunstadter (08:39)
Exactly.

PCMP (08:51)
how that looks, how is this transition for a urgent care doctor or an urgent care nurse practitioner to then offload that to you?

Maria Kunstadter (08:59)
So I love this as a video because I've done some audio podcasts too, but patient comes in like this and their hands dangling down there, you you immediately put them in the room and get the doctor in the room. Patient comes in like this and say, I have a toothache, send them to that broom closet or wherever you have that laptop kiosk. Or we also have a...

I mean, that's what they do in hospitals, but we also have a banner that they can click on a QR code. If they have a smartphone, they can say, call the tele dentist. They are working with us for dental emergencies. Click on that, leave and do it in their car. So there's several ways of doing that. How they make money on it. We know what we charge. They can charge whatever they want to you for the urgent care visit and then pay us our car.

PCMP (09:42)
So what you're saying is

is they would charge they would charge the patient you would charge the urgent care. Okay, alright, that's it. So that there has to be some kind of agreement that's put into place like it sounds like a host cell model. Yeah, exactly.

Maria Kunstadter (09:48)
Correct.

They're literally hiring a dentist.

to cover their dental concerns. So anybody that presents instead of rejecting that toothache and not making the money they would have if they had to charge them the facility fee, they can still say, okay, we've got you, but here's the QR code, go scan it even better. Don't even come in. Like on their website, just say, when you're scheduling an appointment, say toothache, great. Don't even come in, just stay at home, talk to the teledentist and you still will get to collect the fee because that's the service that you've provided.

And we're a lot cheaper than physicians, no offense to dentists, but because we're virtual. We're a lot easier. We don't have overhead. I mean it is a win-win for everybody. And in some of it we've talked to some urgent care that are gonna have their nurse hotline, you know, who takes people calling in and helps triage them into what time they should come in for the visit. Just, dental emergency here. Let me give you a link and they'll take care of you there. So it's real simple being able to be more comprehensive in the care you offer if you're not doing dental emergencies now.

PCMP (10:28)
that's a referral.

Right. ⁓

Right.

Maria Kunstadter (10:58)
be able to take care of the patient's total care. I know a lot of primary urgent care centers are going into primary care because it expands the breadth of care for the patients. So it say we provide teledentistry at our urgent care and they're gonna go driving down the road, they're gonna turn to the one if they have a toothache that provides teledentistry and care for their oral health needs. And then they'll go back to that one again when they have something else that needs to be seen.

PCMP (11:07)
Right.

So this reminds me, so in the agency world, we have a model called Done For You. And it sounds like this is a done for you, teledentistry to the point where you even said, ⁓ they don't even really have to, that's what I'm trying to get my mind around. Like I could just run ads for an urgent care for teledentistry and they would never see the patient because you guys would just pick it up and they would just see money come in there. Wait, I have an idea.

Maria Kunstadter (11:35)
Okay, yep.

Exactly. Bingo. Michael, thank

you for doing that for us. Absolutely.

PCMP (11:58)
I mean,

so I'm even thinking, do you have an online scheduler that's unique to the practices that co-branded with it? Shut up.

Maria Kunstadter (12:05)
You bet, all the above.

Each facility can have their own unique grow.

PCMP (12:11)
And I hire teledentist.

I was going to say, do I have to be a doctor to have this? Cause I could just run ads directly. just run ads right now and just make money.

Maria Kunstadter (12:17)
You send

us all the patients, we'll take care of them. Mark it away, please. But it's co-branded to the facility, it's co-branded to the franchise or chain, whatever it is. Each doctor can have their own private room and we do it for you. We take care of the rest.

PCMP (12:21)
I mean, we'll talk.

I mean, we should just run ads directly. I'm literally dedicated link, please. Yeah. Can I, can I just exactly? I mean, seriously, this feels like printing money. It really does. I mean, well, I know, I know for sure what for our urgent cares, when I put a dollar in, they're going to get eight to $10 back from us. So I know that. And now you're telling me, I don't have to do anything.

Maria Kunstadter (12:39)
I'll send you a contract tomorrow.

Well, and the part is...

Exactly. And more so, you

know, I've just done the eminent, you know, we weren't prepared for COVID. We didn't really know what to do or how to handle it.

But there is going to be a huge healthcare crisis coming as Medicaid is defunded. And dental patients are going to be one of the first people to develop problems because their dental Medicaid is taken away. What are they going to do? I mean, this is going to be huge healthcare crisis. So be prepared, have us in place. And when all those people don't have anywhere to go, don't have a provider to take care of them, they can come and at least get palliated, understand what's going on and be triaged to a safety net.

to

safety net clinics that they don't have money. We don't really care where the patient needs to go, just that if they need hands-on care, they go. But we see people with canker sores and fever blisters that think they're gonna die from this. Very simple things are remediated on the tele-dental call. So it's not always even needed, Betriage. In fact, our percentage is 43 % of the people say their needs were taken care of at the time. it is, it's just like, you charge this

mountain, we pay us this amount and we manage all those patients for you.

PCMP (14:10)
Y'all forgive me. I'm an entrepreneur first and I'm a marketer second. I'm just sitting here thinking where I build a landing page and then I use our voice AI voice AI to answer all the calls and then our voice AI text messages them a link to schedule with you and all we do is just generate income. Sorry, I can't help it. Yeah. I mean that

Maria Kunstadter (14:21)
Yep.

Yep. That's it. That's in

our business plan. So I'm happy to see that come to fruition in another field because we're all over the map. Absolutely. We are the televans for Aetna for WebMD for Anthem for Paramount. we're you we do provide

PCMP (14:37)
So we'll talk offline. is becoming a discovery call. This is becoming a new conversation.

Maria Kunstadter (14:51)
care for very large organizations. people, know, because we're a mother daughter team, but we're far larger than what the mother daughter team appears to be even though we're introverts. Not me. Not at all. No, our team of over 300 dentists nationwide, you know, licensed in every state, we follow all the practices of telehealth, the corporate practice of dentistry. So we are set in anywhere people want to put the

teledentists or have a teledental consult.

PCMP (15:24)
Well, go ahead. Now, one question that came to my mind that I know our listeners will have, unless you answer, I didn't catch it. So when they go to an urgent care, it's a dental issue. They sort of scan this code or whatnot and let you guys step in. On the billing side, does they need dental insurance or major medical insurance to cover it since they technically went to an urgent care first? How does that look?

Maria Kunstadter (15:49)
Yep.

care centers we spoke to said they're legally not allowed to build dental, but we are a teledental company. So we can file for reimbursement for that patient and get them a little bit money back. But again, it's 100 % up to the facility and how they run. So if they want to charge a fee for their consultations or their virtual visit instead of walk-in, they get to charge what they want because that's how they've structured already. We're not coming in and trying to change their financial structure or their revenue.

trying to enhance it by adding this new service. So we're able to bill for dental and the facility can charge the visit fee or the consultation fee and collect that and either if they choose to bill for medical, great. But did you know that only 50 % of people in the United States actually have dental insurance? So that whole reimbursement factor is so low. Again, we handle that for them and it's mostly to get the patient a little bit money back for their visit.

PCMP (16:42)
Right.

Maria Kunstadter (16:51)
but they get to pay the full fee.

PCMP (16:54)
Well, y'all are y'all are hitting on two of our podcast core values, if you will. ⁓ one of them is to just deliver better care, right? And I love the fact that they went to an urgent care to have a need met that the urgent care at that point didn't have to say, we don't do that. Good luck. They said, Hey, we can facilitate that appointment in here, but it won't be out by our doctor on hand. Let me usher you into our broom closet. as you mentioned, cause I thought that was funny.

Maria Kunstadter (17:01)
Yes.

Thank you.

PCMP (17:23)
I can see a mop with a lab coat hanging in the grass. Like mentally that's exactly where my brain is. And there's a screen with a lab coat on it. There's a sink over the corner. Anyway, then so then they're allowed to execute on delivering better care to their client, which is going to get them repeat visits in the future. But you're adding another source of revenue, which has allowed them to scale their clinic past their current offerings. And I love this so much. This is fascinating to me.

Maria Kunstadter (17:28)
Chaos is involved with a living laptop on us. ⁓

Exactly.

And using technology,

one of the key points is use technology to improve patient flow. I mean, why should that physician be seeing a dental patient because they hate dental patients, only dentists and hygienists. Why should they spend their time when they can be seeing somebody that's been waiting two hours for a medical issue while the dental patients are being managed by dentists and get the right specialist to the patient?

as you say, improves patient ⁓ wellness and well-being. We also only have a 10-minute waiting period, by the way. So if you come to us, regardless if you're coming through an urgent care center or a direct to consumer, you're not going to wait more than 10 minutes to connect with one of our dentists. That's how well-trained and staffed we are.

PCMP (18:33)
Do you happen to know off the top of your head, again, I know it's not a guarantee, but just maybe a ballpark, an urgent care that adds this service, what increase in their patient per day volume just with this particular service does that add on average in a month or a day? A day. Yeah.

Maria Kunstadter (18:50)
We actually have.

Yeah, go

ahead. No, it depends on how much they let people know it's available too. I mean, would love to have the neon sign on the side saying, you know, teledentistry available here. But it just depends on how much they let people know. Right now, getting any when we talk to urgent carers, we're getting anywhere they see two a day to they see 10 a week, which is the same thing pretty much. But you know, it depends on how much they're currently seeing. But when people know that they can go there and are not or that their normal patient pulse is if you have dental problems, we're now providing this service.

PCMP (18:55)
Okay, let's just say a well advertised.

Right.

Sure.

Right.

Maria Kunstadter (19:21)
It could wrap up very quickly and very easily. One urgent care we spoke to in California, we approximated 10 a week and depending, they were gonna charge a flat fee for the consultation, they could have netted about $9,000 extra a month just from teledental consultations without marketing. Right. Without marketing. Are we like your golden goose? Does that mean are we?

PCMP (19:43)
Michael's Michael, Michael, Michael

knows my looks. I can't turn the entrepreneur off. I just like, I'm wondering if I'm going to have to go partner up with Dr. Junkins just to get a, an MD in the office. You don't even need that. you're just going to broker them.

Maria Kunstadter (19:56)
One more thing,

these urgent care centers we're talking to, mean they are some of the smartest clinicians out there. They know that these people that are coming to see them for this or a rash or even their primary care don't go see the dentist.

So it's actually a medical fileable code to have a consultation with a dentist or oral health consultation. even if it's not an emergency, you can still connect them to the teledentist if they haven't been to the dentist in over a year. We can get them on the journey to improving their oral health and there's also...

more revenue because it's an added service that you've done, even if that wasn't their chief complaint. So we are trying desperately to integrate medical and dental, not just for the emergency aspect, which is a majority of our business, but just to get people on the journey to improve their oral health will then of course, systemically help them as well. Don't get me on that pedestal. I'll keep going.

PCMP (20:55)
Right.

But you know, urgent care clinics, listen up. So I'm just thinking all you have to do is add content to your website, SEO related content for dental telehealth visits. You add their scheduler to that page. then if you're running Google ads, add that as an independent campaign, throw some budget at it. And you've added up to, I'm going to say it this way so that it doesn't come across the wrong way with no guarantees.

Maria Kunstadter (21:05)
Right.

Exactly.

PCMP (21:23)
Up to 10 patients a week. And all you've done is added content to your website and sign an agreement. That's, I mean, that's doesn't sound to me. And it's like, you got to get a lab coat dedicated to the burn stick. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. However you want to do that. ⁓

Maria Kunstadter (21:26)
Mm-hmm.

That's right. Isn't that amazing? And open the broom closet, don't forget. Clear it out of broom closet.

I'm going

to look up you too because what we do as a company, obviously we want to be successful, but we want the urgent care centers to be successful in doing this. So we give them all of that. We give them the SEO words. We give them the marketing tools, images, stats, you name it. We want them to succeed because we are trying to make a difference in people's lives, right? So it is all handed to you. Just send it over to your website person and then off we go.

content for their news, not only their websites, 11s and that newsletters and avoiding, know, to stay out of the urgent care and education. you know, we are a library of content, needless to say.

PCMP (22:23)
So just for hypotheticals, I know where this is going. What kind of contracts would say I have to have in place with payers in order to make this work?

Maria Kunstadter (22:26)
Yeah.

We will add you to our sales department today. No worries. Absolutely. Please and thank you. Yeah.

PCMP (22:42)
Just throwing that

out there for consideration that, then this is a call to action for urgent cares. ⁓ if you don't do it, an entrepreneur will. ⁓ And just to put a little context to that, in the non-medical world, there used to be this way. You don't see it now in the non-medical world. There used to be like, if you needed a roof or something, there would be marketing hubs that would tend to be a roofing company, but they would just collect leads.

Maria Kunstadter (22:50)
Yes, absolutely.

PCMP (23:11)
and resell them back to the roofers to do the actual work. It's kind of like an Angie's List. So like in our head, we're going like, can we be this for teledentistry? Like this would be really simple, you know. So.

Maria Kunstadter (23:22)
Instead

of walk-ins welcome, it's dental welcome. You're the marketers, you'll come up with something smart. Give it to Hannah, she'll do some live content.

PCMP (23:29)
I've done, I can have a website, everything in ads running next week. there we go. Turn that Frankenstein into a Franken fine.

Maria Kunstadter (23:39)
I know Hannah and I talked a lot. She could do that live content for us. You we're good to go. We'll on TikTok next thing. I'll be teaching people about floss. It'll be great. And again, not only is what's happening now, but don't forget this pending, you know, in the next two to three years, it's going to escalate dramatically because so few people will know where to go for...

PCMP (23:44)
Absolutely. I'm just telling you.

Maria Kunstadter (24:00)
all their health problems, but including oral health problems when their Medicaid is taken away from And the rising age in a population, I mean, you name it, there's lots of ⁓ pending dental issues that we can help hopefully prevent and resolve.

PCMP (24:16)
So Dr. Maria twice now you've brought up that Medicare or Medicaid rather is going away. What do you know that we don't know? Cause I have not heard this yet.

Maria Kunstadter (24:25)
⁓ sorry, that we are not going to get political, but they're defending millions of people off Medicaid in the next two, three years. Millions. It's part of the plan. Yeah, again, we're not going to get political, ⁓ that's... Will said you an article. Millions of people.

PCMP (24:37)
Okay. Okay.

No, I'm with

you. I don't want to go politics either, but like since you had said that twice, I thought maybe there was something there that I just didn't know about.

Maria Kunstadter (24:48)
Yeah.

And it's huge. The number of people that will lose their Medicaid benefits, all those people will now have no health care benefits at all. At all. And those are the most people at most risk because they don't have a pocket or a bank account or anywhere else. They're just living paycheck to paycheck if they have a paycheck. And they're going to need help.

PCMP (25:13)
Okay. All right. Yeah. I did not realize that. So thank you for bringing that to our attention. So I'm kind of curious on the other side of the teledentistry where the dentists that you have in place that do the work, did they become, are they our local dentists are looking for additional work or are they dedicated teledentist people and that's all they do? Both? ⁓

Maria Kunstadter (25:33)
Yes. Both.

Well, when we first started

out, we thought dentists would be the hardest ones to recruit to this whole conversation, and they dove in head first. I mean, they've been fantastic, especially, unfortunately, when COVID hit. But what we did very smartly, Dr. K, works with the retired and the disabled dentist associations. So while they may not be able to drill and fill, they can click a button, they have their license, they have their education and their continued education, and they can treat people now through virtual care.

We also offer our program, it's called the MyTeladentist program for dental offices who want to be in that network of referral and also be able to use the platform to reach their patients. So we've got a great amount of dentists who are still drilling and filling. And when the patients come through, they can see them on their unique customizable virtual waiting room and triage them back to their own dental office. we have about, here you go, entrepreneur, we've got about 27 different silos in which we can

use teledentistry and urgent care is one of them. yeah, it is a lot for a mother daughter duo, but we're doing it.

PCMP (26:45)
I love it. I'm, I'm excited for you, but I feel like I've done

you, I feel like I've done you a disservice because I'm over here like advocating for myself. ⁓ and and I really want to dig in and just talk about the company itself. ⁓ you guys took off during COVID 10 X. I believe it's the number that we got, like really took off. ⁓ there was a moment at some point where you said, Hey, this is not just a pandemic situation. This is maybe the future of how, of how dental is going to be done. ⁓ what was that moment that

Maria Kunstadter (27:03)
100%.

Right.

PCMP (27:15)
sparked that idea to be more than what it is just during a pandemic.

Maria Kunstadter (27:19)
It was BC, it was before COVID. So we started in 14, right? So this whole conceptualizing by 14, then we tried a bunch of different boutiques. Everybody likes to their own app and their own little system. So we tried doing that. And when about 2018, we realized, nope, this is bigger than a boutique because of the amount of research R &D we did here in Kansas City, go Chiefs, sorry.

We, 2018, we partnered with an international telehealth company. Interstellar. Interstellar, thank you, because they're actually the telehealth company that's on the space station. So Interstellar. It's amazing. You didn't know a lot of things to use off that. Our patients float around like my tooth, though. And truthfully, just doing the research on how many people lack access to dental care, how many people lack

PCMP (28:00)
That's cool. I didn't think that was a thing, but that makes sense. I love that. ⁓

That's right.

Maria Kunstadter (28:17)
⁓ the dental insurance, as you know, lot of people won't even do it if they don't have insurance or if they're not in network. ⁓ An average of now three billion health care dollars are spent in emergency rooms and urgent care centers on dental issues. Every year. Every year. Every year. Three billion health care dollars. that was like, and in 2014 it was 2.2 and it's gone up. COVID lit the fire under all these massive companies. ⁓ You know what?

PCMP (28:33)
Mm.

Maria Kunstadter (28:47)
because when everything went to HE double hockey sticks, they were like, oh my God, we need to get access to our members. three, three weeks after COVID hit, had a contract with Cigna. A couple months later, we had one with Aetna and it has just, that has helped with patient awareness and provider adaptivity. But it's been the patient driven this entire time. Again, BC before COVID said a study was done by Denta box that 78 % of people

would like to do teledentistry if they knew how to access it. So we have been pushing a boulder up a hill and doggy paddling ever since. And 2020 was obviously by far our best year. We went up about 1500 % and it's been a good

PCMP (29:22)
wow.

That's wild.

Maria Kunstadter (29:35)
constant increase,

which is proof that teledentistry as a industry is still extremely relevant despite COVID plateauing the telehealth industry. We have continued to increase every year, not only in utilization, but in revenue.

I call it my party trick. This is the best health care tool ever invented. if you have a telemedicine visit, it's probably been from your phone. And 99 % of our patients call us from their phone. And only dentists can manage these. They're talking to us. And they stick their phone in their mouth, and they say, ah, ah, ah, ah. And only dentists can understand, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. I swear. You don't want to know it. She just called you. And I swear.

PCMP (29:51)
I it.

Yeah.

That is wild.

I feel like I know.

Maria Kunstadter (30:18)
one of our emergencies,

somebody's gonna get their phone stuck in their mouth and they won't be able to get it out. That's probably one of the emergencies we're gonna have. this is truly a great benefit to connect to patients because they talk to.

My age, they talk to their grandkids on their cell phone. Everybody knows how to use this. Everybody knows how to take pictures. Everybody knows how to do apps and all that. And now with connecting through their urgent care, they can get to the teledermist through their phones by just snapping the QR code that's at the desk or is sent to them by their nurse hotline.

PCMP (30:37)
And.

You know, it makes me wonder like when we're going to have tele PT or tele Cairo. Yeah. Just the. Okay. Okay. Okay. Glad he said that it wasn't me. Well, I'm thinking more. Okay. All right. All right. Gosh, Michael. But like I'm waiting for like the same model. Like, uh, you can go to the urgent care. We actually, we get you set up with a physical therapist because we set your leg. All right. But now you got to move on to PT. I don't know. I just like.

Maria Kunstadter (30:54)
There is telepathy, Michael. There's tele... Or yeah. There is teleoptometry, my favorite is...

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

PCMP (31:19)
Because to me, because I mean, we know this, the urgent care is becoming the primary care. Like the primary care physician is slowly going away. Like whether we like it not, it's happening. Graduation rates are low. It's just the reality of the industry we're in. And so how much power can we give an urgent care to keep that flow where it's preventing ER visits at the end of the day? Because an ER visit is so expensive. Right. And all these extra services that help prevent those things, because an ER is there to save your life.

Maria Kunstadter (31:23)
Right.

Right.

Yeah, why?

PCMP (31:49)
Like that's, that's what they are supposed to be.

Maria Kunstadter (31:50)
Correct.

Well, statistically, 95 % of the people that end up in an emergency room with a toothache are not medical emergencies. They don't need to be there. So of that $3 billion health care dollars spent in emergency rooms, we'll take 95 % of that and manage them from the till again. It's not a problem at all. We're happy to to work on that.

PCMP (31:58)
So.

Yes.

We're gonna middle man the mess out of that. So you don't have to worry about it.

Maria Kunstadter (32:16)
Absolutely,

PCMP (32:18)
That's funny.

Maria Kunstadter (32:19)
People's awareness, you say how will they increase? If they let people know it's there, people just go, they will not look for a dental office, but if they say, could go there and get answers to my dental questions or my dental problems, they will, because their level of awareness is made aware that urgent care is now offering this service. Well, and the Academy of Family Practitioners has actually said, mandated that oral health needs to be included in the primary care visit. You want to guess the percentage of people that said they had an oral health

encounter.

PCMP (32:51)
I'm going to say 50%.

Maria Kunstadter (32:53)
Ooh, so much. I wish. Seven percent. Well, seven percent. That seven percent. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. So this problem, this solution solves so many problems because oral disease is a silent epidemic and 99 % of it is preventable. And we are

PCMP (32:55)
I'm going to say 5%. That zero was made up. Okay.

Maria Kunstadter (33:16)
I mean, we're just going to continue to see use case scenarios for teledentistry. In fact, if you want a really good feel good moment, I got one for you. We had a mom connect to us. It was like 3 a.m.

and she was getting ready to go to the emergency room, urgent care, pardon me, for a toothache. She has two disabled children and she was a single mom and she was getting ready to wake them up and go into urgent care because she had such a bad toothache and she was able to connect to us instead. So the kids were able to sleep and the mom was able to get relief. And I mean, it's just stories like those that make us keep going and pushing the boulder because we know the importance and the need to access care.

PCMP (33:47)
Thank

Well, I love that you made the perfect transition available, ⁓ because you're talking about needs of kids and special needs kids and all of that. I have a special needs son, so I can relate to that. ⁓ tell me, and then we'll, we'll start to wrap up here. Tell me about the virtual tooth fairy. That's the perfect transition. So there you go. Very nice. Very nice.

Maria Kunstadter (34:18)
actually a dental hygienist by training. I had to follow her footsteps a little bit closer. And it was during COVID, so I'll admit it, that kids were talking about the virtual Zoom Santa, pardon me, Zoom Santa. And I think that Zoom Santa netted like $2 billion in one year. And I'm like, well, that's not fair, right? That's not fair. Kids lose weight every day. And I'm like, hey, we're already doing this with

PCMP (34:37)
That's amazing. Yeah. Leith fairy's a person too.

Maria Kunstadter (34:48)
adults, let's do this with kids. And it's morphed into this beautiful program ⁓ where dental hygienists can connect with kids either directly. ⁓ We've done ⁓ library lessons, we've done school, like kindergarten through second grade ⁓ virtual lessons. And we have our lovely wigs ⁓ and a wand and a little mouth that we give instructions on and teach the children as well as their caregivers or their parents and whomever the adult is connecting with them.

on how to help keep those teeth clean because prevention is key. One in three kids enter kindergarten with ⁓ cavities that are not treated. So if we can help just a little bit and make it magical and fun, that has been such a rewarding experience. Watching their faces just light up like, she's real. One kid goes, I knew it. It's been wonderful.

PCMP (35:27)
Mmm.

think if you send us that wig and wand I can get Michael

to make it terrifying instead.

Maria Kunstadter (35:48)
I've been trying to get

Dane Johnson to help me out and be my sponsor, but if anybody has his contact, let me know because I connect to him anytime.

PCMP (35:56)
Uh, I will tell you

that I will, I will fanboy over Dwayne Johnson. I'm just telling you, don't have a lot of celebrity crushes, but he's one of them.

Maria Kunstadter (36:01)
Yes. He is probably too good for Asti.

He's definitely the cutest tooth fairy I've seen, for Did you see him in his tutu though? Oh, it's Did you see the tooth fairy when using his tutu? If you're a fan, you need to see him in a tutu. It's really priceless.

PCMP (36:15)
I may or may not have seen that just because I'm just saying it's

a thing. I'm okay with this. right. We're going off the rails here. I'm going to bring it to you. Name of the episode. There you go. Let, let, let AI find that content later. But anyway, so I want to wrap things up though, cause this has been an amazing episode. I've had a lot of fun. I we were going to have a lot of laughs. just knew it. But so we always want me to start to leave out an episode. want.

Maria Kunstadter (36:24)
I'm

PCMP (36:44)
our audience to know how can they get in touch with you if they have like legitimate questions or interests. What's the best way to connect with you guys and start that conversation and what does it look like to have that initial start with the teledentist?

Maria Kunstadter (36:56)
Absolutely, go to our website which is theteledentist.com, very unique, I know. Going now and click on that contact button. Talk about a library of information, pretty much any ⁓ blog post. I have a ton about urgent care on our blogs, on our services, patients, providers, you name it. Scree through and if you don't have those questions answered by then, contact me and we will hop on a call. We can exchange emails, I mean you name it but ...

PCMP (37:00)
Going now.

Maria Kunstadter (37:25)
Sometimes seeing is truly believing. So seeing a consultation from a patient experience and how easy it is to connect has been the best way to convert people to, ⁓ I get it now. So love to show you how it works. Connect with us and we will give you the most affordable brand new line of revenue that you have had in a long time and really see how we can change people's lives. And adding that revenue without extra staff, without work on their part. That's the best part, that adding.

patient care without hiring someone new or monitoring, supervising, or all the things that we have to do in the ad services most of the time.

PCMP (38:03)
I love it. Awesome. That's good info. Alright, so you're gonna go to theteledenist.com. ⁓ See a dentist online is not the one you want to get more information. Correct.

Maria Kunstadter (38:09)
Make sure it's Yes. It's

dentist plural. And people always forget that last S. But there's more than one. S. ⁓ Thank you. Yeah.

PCMP (38:17)
Yeah, add the S before the dot com. Nice. Got it. Here we are. Yes, for sure.

I have had a great time talking about Can you imagine two days of conversation? That's fantastic. There's no... I don't know. If we needed a like, man, this is getting kind of boring. Hey, what are you all doing? You know, and then it just becomes a fun conversation again. I think I even saw...

Maria Kunstadter (38:28)
I hope you meant that in a good way, Michael. did.

We're already planning our

next one together too, remember?

PCMP (38:42)
Yeah, that's true.

And I think even Hannah, I think tested out the teledentist piece of it with their, like, did an actual consultation for a second. So it was real cool. love that so much. Well, thank you both for being on here with us. Absolutely.

Maria Kunstadter (38:46)
Did I?

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us. You're awesome. Walk-ins welcome

has been probably one of my favorite podcasts thus far to do. So thank you for having us on. We'll give you a lot of information your way.

PCMP (39:01)
we appreciate that.

Well, we'll put all of this information to be able to connect with both of you and to be able to connect online in the show notes. So go there for the information as always. We are grateful to have you as a listener and remember what you do in healthcare is making a difference. What you do matters. We're glad that you're listening and we'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for being guests with us today. All right. Thank you.

Maria Kunstadter (39:25)
Thank

you. Thanks, Al. Enjoyed it.