Are Your Patients ACTUALLY Sleeping Well?
Why dentists should embrace Dental Sleep Medicine,
& what are the first steps to getting started?
BY DAVID WALTON
CEO & CO-FOUNDER OF RESPIRE, A WHOLE YOU LAB
The new hot topic of dentistry…Dental Sleep Medicine! What does this conjure up in your mind? A new profit center, a new way to diversify your patient offering, and a way to work less and make more money? I urge you to consider a more moral reason.
Simply put, you are about to affect your patients’ lives in ways you never imagined.
You can give your patients more energy to play with their children. You will be able to reduce the chances of heart attacks and strokes. You may even save a marriage and bring bed partners back into the same room for the first time in years... Maybe. Now, like anything worth doing, it must be done right, and there is a lot to learn. To quote Dr. John Tucker, "it's not difficult, it's just different!"
Like any business venture there needs to be a plan but the good news is that there is a support network explained below to help you navigate this new era. Education is always paramount but this is a team driven project, so your staff need to be trained too. Take a look at OSA University as a first step to getting everyone geared up https://osauniversity.org/. Dentists can take a look at Tucker Educational Excellence https://www.tuckereducationalexcellence.com/ for an introductory course to get you started on your journey. You should also attend the national conference organized by the AADSM https://aadsm.org/.
On this new endeavor, there is one thing to remember: you are now in a medical model. This means working with medical doctors, dealing with a medical condition and ultimately, working with medical insurance. The team at Pristine Medical Billing https://www.pristinemedicalbilling.com/ will be able to walk you through the how’s and why’s of this arena.
Next up: testing and diagnosis. There are a few options here including working directly with a local ENT, hospital, or sleep lab. Another option is working with a company like SleepTest.com https://sleeptest.com/. Please remember that making a sleep device cannot be done under the guise of a snoring device to avoid the medical aspect. You need a diagnosis and the team at Sleep Test will be able to walk you through this.
Oral appliances…the exciting part! The team at Modern Dental provide the full range of Whole You devices to meet specific patients’ needs, whether that is a bruxing patient, someone with a small mouth or someone with a new set of veneers that they are looking to protect.
There is a lineup of upcoming podcasts and webinars by Modern Dental to help you on your journey into this new world of Dental Sleep Medicine.