Starbucks, Fishing Line, and Dental Sleep Medicine

Dr. Richard Drake, Co-Founder of DS3

Some years ago, Grandpa (my dad) was with me and a couple of my boys, and Garrett wanted to stop at Starbucks. His lawn mowing money was burning a hole in his pocket, and he just had to have a Vente Froppa Loppa Chino. WHAT? $7 for a cup of coffee? Later, I stopped by a fishing tackle shop and bought some braided fishing line….for $250. What? $250 for fishing line? “Well, I guess I can go ahead and die now” I remember hearing my dad say. “I never thought I’d live to see that!”

Funny; time marches on, and we soon become our parents. I found myself saying just the same thing the other day. You see, I pay a guy $2750 per month to manage my digital presence. What? I never thought I would live long enough to say that. I was listening to a financial guru give a talk recently, and a spritely young college kid in the audience asked what he thought the next big money idea would be. The guy didn’t even hesitate. He said “It doesn’t exist yet; the next big thing to make money in the next five years does not exist today.”

That got me thinking about where I may be five years from today, and how different dental sleep medicine will be. Or will it? “Eat right; get some exercise, and get a good night’s sleep.” We’ve been saying that for over a hundred years now, and I imagine we’ll be saying It a hundred years from today. When I made my first dental device 17 years ago, dental sleep medicine was much less sophisticated, and the number of dental devices was far fewer. Today, thanks to dentists like you, yes, YOU, awareness of sleep disordered breathing is increasing at a faster pace. More dentists are screening their patients; more dentists are visiting the physicians in their community and educating them about how effective a dental device can be, and the volume of evidence based medicine supporting the efficacy of dental devices simply can no longer be ignored.

So we are gaining ground. Patients are more aware; dentists are more aware; physicians are more aware, but we still have a long way to go. We need to continue to fight for a larger market share. 5% is not enough. We need more dentists to pick up the phone and call the patient’s primary care doc and discuss a plan to get their mutual patient sleep tested and treated. If just 1000 dentists did that once a week, a year later, 52,000 physicians would be more knowledgeable about dental devices and more likely to refer a patient to the dentist.

Let’s get this party started!

• Screen your patients
• Call the patient’s physician and have a meaningful conversation (I promise that it WILL help your practice grow!)
• Get out of your comfort zone and start speaking to public groups