Byte Sized

Adrian Lefler
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Cut through the AI noise with Adrian Lefler, a 15-year dental industry veteran who's actually using this stuff. No theory, no sales pitches, just the tactical AI implementations that are transforming dental practices right now. In 20-30 minute episodes, Adrian brings you real practitioners sharing exactly how they're using AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other LLM's to save time, increase revenue, and stay ahead of the curve. Whether it's automating patient communication, streamlining workflows, or implementing diagnostic AI, you'll get step-by-step guidance from people who've done it successfully. This isn't another "AI is the future" podcast. It's your practical guide to implementing AI in your dental practice today – without the hype, without the fluff, and without wasting your time. Perfect for busy dental professionals who want actionable insights they can implement immediately. Because while everyone else is talking about AI, we're showing you how to actually use it. New episodes weekly. Real results guaranteed.

  1. 6 days ago

    66 : Test Out or Train Up: The Competency-Based Onboarding Model Dental Teams Need

    A great interview tells you how a candidate talks. A competency-based onboarding program tells you what a new dental hire actually knows, and what they still need to learn. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUTIn this episode of the BYTE SIZED Podcast, Adrian Lefler sits down with Chavelle Galton-Rice, Director of Membership and Education at AADOM (American Association of Dental Office Management). Chavelle started in dentistry at 18 as a front office coordinator in Kansas, became a registered dental assistant in Iowa, directed a dental assisting program, and later joined the learning and development team at a large DSO, where she helped build the assessments and 30-day onboarding program for new hires. She explains why a traditional interview is a weak measure of skill, how structured interview questions with a scoring rubric took the guesswork out of hiring, and why she hires for attitude and trains for skill. Pre-assessments in dental terminology, tooth anatomy, and role-specific topics like insurance let experienced hires test out of the fundamentals, while every new team member still completes company-specific training. The conversation covers passing thresholds of 85 to 90 percent, what to do when a new hire fails an assessment, how retention improved once live virtual training connected new hires across offices, and why a practice management software conversion became Chavelle's favorite project. Adrian and Chavelle also talk about using AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to draft interview questions from a practice's mission, vision, and values. For independent dental practices without a learning and development department, Chavelle lays out a lean version of the system: checklists, mentors, short training blocks, and a simple Excel tracker. She also previews AADOM's new certification program, built on 25 foundational dentistry courses planned for 2027. QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE1. Is a job interview a reliable way to evaluate a new dental team member's skills? Not on its own. An interview shows communication, personality, and experience, but it does not prove someone can perform a skill. Candidates may have learned different methods from different doctors. Pairing the interview with short knowledge assessments and skill demonstrations shows what a new hire knows and where training gaps exist. 2. Should experienced dental assistants be allowed to skip onboarding training? They should be able to test out of foundational topics like dental anatomy, terminology, and tooth numbering by passing a pre-assessment. They should never skip company-specific processes, doctor preferences, or hands-on competency verification. The goal is personalizing onboarding, not shortcutting it, so experienced hires get to patients faster without missing what matters. 3. What passing score should a dental training assessment require? A score of 85 to 90 percent is a reasonable target for general knowledge assessments like terminology and anatomy. Patient safety and regulatory competencies need a stricter bar. Even when someone passes, a manager should review the missed 15 percent with them one on one, because a passing score still leaves gaps worth closing. 4. What should a dental practice do when a new hire fails a training assessment? Find out why first. Review the missed questions together, pair the employee with a mentor, and retrain. Document every coaching session. If repeated coaching still does not click, consider whether the person fits a different role better. If not, that documentation supports a clear, fair decision to part ways. 5. How can a small dental practice build a training program without a big budget? Start with what a manager can realistically maintain: clear role checklists, set priorities, an assigned mentor, and short training blocks on the schedule. Track each new hire's progress in a simple Excel sheet. Use outside foundational courses for dental basics so in-office time goes to mentorship and practice-specific workflows. ABOUT CHAVELLEChavelle Galton-Rice is a dental operations and education leader with more than two decades of experience across clinical support, front-office management, multi-site operations, and professional development. She serves as Director of Membership and Education for AADOM (American Association of Dental Office Management), where she focuses on member engagement and building learning experiences that support dental office leaders at every stage of their careers. With a Master of Education in Education Technology and Instructional Design, Chavelle brings a practical, people-centered approach to education and leadership development. Her career includes leadership roles in both private practices and dental support organizations, where she partnered with doctors and management teams to promote operational consistency, team growth, and positive patient experiences across multiple locations. CONTACT INFORMATIONGuest: Chavelle Galton-Rice Website: https://www.dentalmanagers.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chavelle/ Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalMarketing #DentalPracticeManagement #DentalOfficeManager #DentalOnboarding #DentalTraining #AADOM #DSO

  2. 16 Oct

    65 : Google Broke Dental Search Traffic. Paid Ads Are Now the Way Back In.

    Google Broke Dental Search Traffic. Paid Ads Are Now the Way Back In. Google used to be a waypoint. Now it's a destination. Mitchell Leiman, CEO of iPromote, explains what that shift means for dental practices that depend on being found online, and why paid ads matter more now than ever. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT On this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler sits down with Mitchell Leiman, CEO of iPromote, a platform that helps partners manage paid advertising for small businesses. Mitchell started in a small business family, spent time at Bain & Company, then built his career at Constant Contact, VistaPrint and WordStream before leading iPromote. Adrian opens with what happened to his own company's search traffic when Google's algorithm shifted in January. Mitchell explains the bigger picture: Google went from a page of links you click through to a destination where people get their answer inside the AI overview and never leave. Total searches are actually going up, but the traffic that leaves Google is going down. From there they get practical. Mitchell breaks down Performance Max (PMax), the Google Ads campaign type that can place ads in and around AI overviews, and AI Max, the setting that rewrites and extends your search campaign for you. He's honest about the tradeoff: these tools are built to spend your money, they give you less control, and small budgets often can't feed them enough data to learn. They also cover how much a dental practice should spend on ads, how to split a budget between core search and PMax, why your Google Business Profile, reviews and website are still the foundation, and what dentists should know about the brand new ChatGPT ads platform. QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE 1. Why did organic search traffic drop for dental practices? Google changed from a waypoint into a destination. The AI overview at the top of the page now answers many searches directly, so more people stop at the results page instead of clicking through to a website. Search volume is still growing, but the share of clicks that leave Google keeps shrinking. 2. Can dentists run ads inside Google's AI overviews? Not yet. In iPromote's testing, dental ads show up around AI overviews but not directly inside them, even though other industries are already seeing ads placed inside. The best move for a dental practice today is to compete for the real estate around the AI overview. 3. What is Performance Max (PMax) and should a dental practice use it? PMax is a Google Ads campaign type where you supply headlines, images and video, and Google decides where to show your ads across Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Display and Discover. It reaches people who are still exploring and gets you access to placements around AI overviews. Mitchell recommends about 30% of your search budget in PMax, with the rest in core search for high-intent patients. 4. What is AI Max in Google Ads? AI Max is a setting on a standard search campaign that expands your keywords and matches searches to their intent, for example catching people who search a dentist's name. It doesn't give you recommendations. It makes the changes itself, and Google has only recently started showing examples of what it changed. 5. How much should a dental practice spend on digital ads? Two ways to think about it. Top down: 3% to 7% of revenue on marketing, which for a $1 million practice is roughly $2,000 to $3,500 a month on digital ads. Or by patient value: you can afford to spend about a quarter to a third of what a new patient is worth to acquire one. 6. Should dentists advertise on ChatGPT? It's worth experimenting with, but not with your whole budget. ChatGPT ads are new, healthcare advertisers go through a case-by-case approval process, and the performance data is still thin. If you're an early adopter with a larger budget, test a small slice now. ABOUT Mitchell Leiman is the CEO of iPromote, a digital advertising platform that helps partners manage paid advertising for small and medium-sized businesses. Before iPromote, he was a consultant at Bain & Company and held leadership roles at Constant Contact, VistaPrint and WordStream. He grew up in a small business family and has spent more than a decade helping small advertisers succeed online. Want a paid ads audit for your practice? Reach out to My Social Practice and we'll set up a review with Mitchell and the iPromote team. CONTACT INFORMATION Guest: Mitchell Leiman Website: https://ipromote.com Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalMarketing #GoogleAds #PerformanceMax #AISearch #DentalAdvertising #DentalPracticeGrowth #ByteSized

  3. 9 Oct

    64 : The Real Reason Technology Fails in Dental Practices (It's Not the Tech)

    Most dental practices think they have a technology adoption problem. What they actually have is a communication problem they've been calling something else. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUTOn this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler talks with Lisa Alvarado, founder of Empower Choice, about the human side of dental technology adoption. Lisa's position is simple: technology is only as effective as the team around it. Without communication, training, and alignment on why a change is happening, new software just exposes what was already broken. Adrian pushes back. What happens when an insurance verification coordinator finds software that automates 80% of her job? He shares how his own copywriters assumed they were getting fired the moment he floated an AI copywriting tool. Lisa's answer: good decisions happen in a circle, with the whole team asking how they can help each other. From there it gets practical. Looking for better tools belongs in the job description, with leaders acting as a sounding board instead of the fixer. Lisa explains why doctors will spend $100,000 on equipment before they'll invest time in team meetings. Lisa also walks through her beliefs, behaviors, results framework using a clinical assistant who avoids a new intraoral scanner because she doesn't feel competent yet. She closes with "choose your hard" and her new Rhythm of Excellence group coaching program for dental teams. QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE1. Why does new technology fail in dental practices? New technology usually fails because the team was never prepared for the change. When staff lack communication, training, and a shared understanding of why the change is happening, the software exposes existing gaps in systems and culture. A change-ready team is the foundation every technology decision runs on, and most practices skip building it. 2. How do you get dental staff to embrace new technology instead of fearing it will replace them? Frame the tool around what it gives the team member, not what it takes away. When an insurance coordinator sees automation as a way to spend more time helping patients understand their coverage, adoption follows. Build a culture where suggesting a better tool is rewarded, never punished with a lost job. 3. How can a dental practice build continuous improvement into its team culture? Make it part of every job description and measure it. Review it once or twice a year in growth conferences, and hold regular meetings where team members bring ideas for tools, training, or process changes. Leaders should act as a sounding board, not the person who fixes every problem. A responsibility without follow-up is only a suggestion. 4. Why do dental assistants avoid using a new intraoral scanner? Usually because they don't feel competent yet. Behavior follows belief, so an assistant who fears making mistakes on live patients falls back on traditional impressions and blames a busy schedule or a dead plug. Leaders should define what proficiency looks like, set a timeline, provide training and practice time, and make it safe to fail. 5. Is it worth investing team time before buying new dental technology? Yes. Lisa Alvarado's rule of thumb is that five thoughtful conversations before a decision prevent five months of frustration after it. Many doctors will spend $100,000 on equipment faster than they'll schedule a team meeting, but the time gets spent either way. Invest it upfront, while you still have options, instead of in reactive fix-it meetings. ABOUTLisa Alvarado is a Communications and Systems Coach and founder of Empower Choice, which helps dental leaders and teams build the communication systems that make change stick. After starting in corporate healthcare at Baxter Healthcare, she spent more than 20 years in dentistry as a practice manager, registered dental assistant, and team leader. She holds a master's degree in industrial/organizational psychology and a professional license in integrative coaching. CONTACT INFORMATIONGuest: Lisa Alvarado Website: https://www.empowerchoice.com Instagram: @empowerchoice Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.empowerchoice Lunch & Learn: https://www.empowerchoice.com/lunchandlearn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-alvarado-13081b68/ Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalMarketing #DentalTechnology #ChangeManagement #DentalTeam #DentalLeadership #DentalPracticeManagement #ByteSized

  4. 2 Oct

    63 : Why Great Dental Technology Fails Inside DSOs with Dave Salciccioli

    Dentistry has never had better technology coming into it, and it has never been less able to put it to work. Dave Salciccioli of Relay explains why DSO technology implementation breaks down between the signed contract and real adoption. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUTOn this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler sits down with Dave Salciccioli, who leads Relay, a consulting firm working both sides of the vendor and DSO relationship. Dave entered dental in 2018 and spent years as a fractional COO and VP of operations, usually sitting between the vendor and the operations team to make the technology actually work. Dave's core argument is that the bottleneck has moved. Vendors can now ship more in three months than they once did in three years, a point Overjet CEO Wardah Inam made at the recent Overjet AI summit. New AI entrants sell what Dave calls AI theater, incumbents keep bolting on features, and DSOs run three or four pilots at once with no extra change management capacity. Adrian and Dave dig into the messy middle between contract and outcome: sales reps making undocumented promises, 8 to 12 week onboarding windows that are too short for real adoption, and voice AI rollouts that fail because scheduling templates and overflow columns were never built. Adrian shares what his team learned helping develop Annie AI, where scheduling quirks across practices took months to solve. They also cover the questions to ask before signing, PMS read versus write access, why the DSO middle management layer disappeared, the real cost of building your own tools with Claude, and how Relay works alongside DSO Compass, founded by Matt McGaw. QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE1. Why do DSO software rollouts go wrong after the contract is signed? A common cause is a broken handoff between sales and implementation. Reps promise customizations to close the deal, those promises never get documented, and the implementation team delivers the standard package. Months later the DSO feels shortchanged and the vendor calls it extra scope. Documented scope and recorded sales calls prevent it. 2. Who is responsible for software implementation at a DSO, the vendor or the DSO? Both. Vendors should get a DSO about 80% of the way with technical setup, training, and onboarding that runs longer than the typical 8 to 12 weeks. The DSO owns the last mile: provider buy-in, updated SOPs, leadership, and project management that turn the tool into a daily habit. Vendors lack the authority to force that. 3. What does a dental practice need in place before implementing an AI phone receptionist? The operational foundation has to exist first. Scheduling templates, defined blocks, provider time within those blocks, and overflow columns must be built into the PMS or a voice AI agent has nothing reliable to schedule against. The DSO also needs a defined use case, such as inbound calls, outbound scheduling, or outbound billing, before rollout. 4. What questions should a DSO ask a dental technology vendor before signing? Ask whether real customers use the product in front of patients today, and whether you can speak with one directly. Ask what made implementation hard for other customers and what your group must fix first. If PMS integration matters, ask whether the product has read-only access or true read and write access right now. 5. Should a DSO build its own software with AI tools like Claude instead of paying for vendor subscriptions? Usually not for core systems. Groups replacing a $300 per month subscription with custom builds can end up carrying $10,000 a month in labor and token costs, plus maintenance and bug fixes. Never rebuild a system of record like the PMS. Build narrow systems of action only where no product exists, and keep humans in the loop. ABOUTDave Salciccioli leads Relay, a consulting firm that helps technology vendors sell into and implement with enterprise dental groups, and helps DSOs evaluate, select, and roll out new technology. Since entering dental in 2018, Dave has served as a fractional COO for founder-led and doctor-led DSOs and held VP of operations roles at larger national groups, focused on change management and adoption. Relay works alongside DSO Compass, founded by Matt McGaw. CONTACT INFORMATIONGuest: Dave Salciccioli Website: https://relaywithus.com/ Website: www.dsocompass.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-salciccioli-1b286b158/ Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalMarketing #DSO #DentalTechnology #AIinDentistry #ChangeManagement #DSOLeadership #BYTESIZED

  5. 25 Sept

    62 : Overpromised and Under-Deployed: The Dental Tech Buying Problem

    Most dental technology doesn't fail because the product is bad. It fails because nobody planned how to deploy it, and that problem usually starts before the DSO ever signs the contract. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUTOn this episode of BYTE SIZED, Adrian Lefler sits down with Matt McGaw, founder of DSO Compass, an independent publication covering how dental service organizations select, evaluate, and implement technology. Matt sold on the vendor side of dentistry starting in 2008 and kept hitting the same wall: the product he was selling wasn't always what the client needed. So he left corporate sales to build a source of direction with no pitch attached. They dig into why the market got so crowded so fast. A healthcare founders event Matt attends jumped from roughly 60 to 80 founders to about 180, driven by AI tools like Claude that let almost anyone build a product. Good for innovation, bad for evaluation. AI receptionists are the clearest example, with at least a hundred new entrants last year while practice management systems build the same feature in. Then they get into where tech purchases fall apart. Matt blames vendors who underinvest in deployment, and Adrian points to sales compensation that pays reps to close, not to see a product through implementation. Matt lays out how a good pilot runs: locations picked with a methodology, an internal DSO champion, KPIs set up front, and success defined before day 30, 60, or 90. They also tackle pay-to-play recommendations in the dental industry, why DSO Compass takes no revenue share from vendors, how it stays separate from sister company Relay, and why small groups hoping to sell to a DSO need standardized PMS and VoIP systems first. QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE1. What should a DSO ask a technology vendor before signing a contract? Ask exactly how the vendor plans to deploy the technology across your locations, in detail. That means which locations get piloted and why, which KPIs will be measured, who owns the project on both sides, and what success looks like at the end of the pilot. A vague deployment answer is a warning sign that implementation will stall. 2. Is the surge of new dental software startups good or bad for DSOs? Both. The flood of new products is good for innovation because new entrants push incumbent vendors to improve, but it makes evaluation much harder. A healthcare founders event Matt McGaw attends jumped from 60 to 80 founders to about 180 in a year. AI receptionists are the clearest example, with at least a hundred new competitors in the past year. 3. Why do dental technology vendors oversell to DSOs? Sales reps are usually paid to close deals and retain clients for a month or three, not to see implementation through. That pushes reps to promise features that aren't deployed yet. DSOs should ask vendors to separate what is live in the product today from what is on the roadmap, and hold them to it. 4. What should a small dental group standardize before selling to a DSO? Standardize the practice management system and VoIP phone system across every location. Private equity buyers and DSOs look for consistent systems, and a mixed PMS environment is a valuation problem. Groups running different software at each office will have a harder time selling and should expect a lower multiple than a standardized group. 5. How much of a dental technology rollout's success is decided at the point of sale? Far less than most vendors think. Matt McGaw estimates only about 20 to 30 percent of the work is done when the contract is signed, maybe 40 percent at most. The rest happens during implementation, which takes months of workflow change inside the practices, and vendors that don't staff for it rarely deliver what they promised. ABOUTMatt McGaw is the founder and CEO of DSO Compass, an independent publication focused on how DSOs select, evaluate, and implement technology, and what happens operationally after the sale. He worked in dental vendor sales from 2008 before launching DSO Compass around 2021, and his newsletter now reaches roughly 8,000 readers. Matt is also a partner in Relay, a consulting and deployment firm staffed by former DSO operators. He is based in Utah. CONTACT INFORMATIONGuest: Matthew McGaw Website: https://dsocompass.com/ Website: https://relaywithus.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewmcgaw/ Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalTechnology #DSO #DentalMarketing #DentalAI #DSOCompass #DentalPracticeManagement #BYTESIZED

  6. 11 Sept

    61 : The Orchestrator: How to Rebuild a DSO Marketing Team Around AI

    Most DSOs think adopting AI in their marketing means buying better tools. The ones getting real results are rebuilding how the team works. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUTMarc Heffner spent nearly three decades in Fortune 500, healthcare, and dental marketing before running marketing for a 14-location DSO. He tells Adrian Lefler how he rebuilt patient acquisition from the phones up: a 24-person call center moved from operations into marketing, daily KPI meetings, and coaching off recorded calls. Spend dropped by half and new bookings rose 80% in about five months. Then it turns to what DSO executives get wrong about AI. Ask how a group uses it and the answer is usually Pearl, Overjet, or ChatGPT posts written from scratch every day. Neither is a strategy. Marc lays out his layered model: specialized agents, an orchestrator agent on top (his is named Orin), a feedback loop, governance rules, and a human approval gate. Adrian compares it to the command and control agent My Social Practice builds in Claude for DSO clients. They also get honest about teams: the copywriter turned automation editor reviewing three times the output, the automation engineer role now starting around $182,000, and the double-blind problem where executives do not know what is possible and no marketing team will volunteer that half its work can be automated. It closes on HIPAA, RAG, and Kaxori. See what AI could be worth to your organization. Run the NXST LEAP ROI Readiness Index: https://nuparadym.com/nxst-leap-roi-calculator/ QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE1. What is the difference between using AI tools and having an AI strategy in a DSO? Owning a diagnostic platform like Pearl or Overjet, or having the marketing team write posts in ChatGPT, is tool use, not strategy. Strategy means deciding which workflows AI should own, connecting the tools so they talk to each other, tying output to financial results, and building an orchestration layer to manage all of it. 2. How does an AI orchestrator model work for DSO marketing? Start with specialized agents, each trained like a junior team member for content, graphics, or analysis and loaded with the organization's voice. Put an orchestrator agent on top to manage them, add a feedback loop that records what worked, set governance rules, and require human approval before anything publishes. The human reviews in minutes instead of producing for days. 3. What happens to marketing roles like copywriters when a DSO automates content with AI? Roles merge rather than vanish. A copywriter becomes an automation editor who judges the output, catches drift, and tells the automation engineer what to fix. My Social Practice went from two copywriters to one editor producing roughly three times the copy, and nobody was fired. The automation engineer role, new this year, now starts around $182,000. 4. How can a DSO use patient data with AI without violating HIPAA? Keep the data closed. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) lets a model read a protected file of patient data and generate output without sharing anything to the open internet, unlike a standard ChatGPT conversation. Local language models on your own systems go further. Build with cybersecurity input from day one, because dental software vendors already face multimillion-dollar lawsuits over data exposure. 5. How much can a DSO improve new patient bookings by moving the call center under marketing? At a 14-location DSO, moving a 24-person call center from operations into marketing, extending phone hours past 6 p.m. so ads were not going unanswered, holding daily KPI meetings, and coaching staff off recorded calls cut marketing spend in half and lifted new bookings 80% in five months. Everyone who touches a patient is marketing. ABOUTMarc Heffner brings nearly three decades of marketing experience across Fortune 500 companies, healthcare, and dental organizations. He rebuilt patient acquisition for a 14-location DSO and now works as a fractional CMO for emerging DSOs in the 5 to 50 location range. He created the NXST LEAP ROI Readiness Index, which helps dental organizations model the value of generative AI before they invest, and is building Kaxori, an AI-powered job application platform. CONTACT INFORMATIONGuest: Marc Heffner Website: https://nuparadym.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcheffner/ NXST LEAP ROI Readiness Index: https://nuparadym.com/nxst-leap-roi-calculator/ Kaxori: https://kaxori.com/ Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalMarketing #DSOMarketing #AIinDentistry #FractionalCMO #MarketingAutomation #DSO

  7. 4 Sept

    60 : Advocacy, Regulatory Pressure, and the Fight Over How DSOs Are Allowed to Operate

    One state dental board passed a rule that would have changed who gets to own dental equipment and hold office leases, and the DSO industry went to court to stop it. Andrew Smith, CEO of the ADSO, walks through what happened in Colorado and what it signals for the rest of the country. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUTAdrian Lefler sits down with Andrew Smith, CEO of the Association of Dental Support Organizations, the group representing roughly half the DSO market and about 19 billion dollars in revenue. Smith sums up the mandate in three words: protect, promote, and position the DSO model. Roughly 65 to 70 percent of that work is government relations, with lobbyists in more than 30 states watching legislation and dental board activity week by week. Then they get into Colorado. The rule came from the dental board, not the legislature. It would have forced supported dentists to take over leases and equipment the DSO had been holding, added variable fee restrictions, and opened up records demands. The ADSO sued on the grounds the board reached past the authority the legislature actually gave it. The board then voted unanimously to stay the rule while the case plays out. Smith thinks the board underestimated the operational damage rather than set out to attack the model, but he places it inside a wider anti-corporate mood showing up in state politics on both sides of the aisle. The back half covers insurance. Smith names the wins that have actually landed at the state level, explains why the industry still has weak negotiating leverage, and makes the case that consolidation is the thing that changes that. He also compares the rise of DSOs to what ride sharing did to taxi medallions, and explains where that comparison holds and where it falls apart. QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE1. What does a dental industry association actually do for practices that owners never see? Most of the work is government relations. The ADSO keeps lobbyists in more than 30 states monitoring every dental bill, sunset act, and dental board agenda, then decides which items have real momentum. Roughly 65 to 70 percent of the organization's effort goes there, because a single adverse rule can reshape how practices legally operate. 2. Can a state dental board change how a dental practice structures its business? Only within the authority the legislature granted it. Dental boards exist for licensee discipline and patient protection. When a board writes rules on leases, equipment ownership, or fee structures without statutory backing, it can be challenged in court as overreach, which is exactly what happened in Colorado. 3. What should a practice do when a new state rule threatens its operating structure? Engage before the rule is final. Submit comments, request meetings, and show regulators the concrete operational impact. Boards often do not understand what a rule costs on the ground. In Colorado, that engagement plus litigation produced a unanimous vote to stay the rule pending the outcome. 4. What dental insurance reforms have actually passed at the state level? Several states banned virtual credit card payments, which let insurers pay providers by card and skim roughly 3 percent as a transaction fee. Others changed assignment of benefits rules so the practice is not chasing patients for reimbursement checks. Network leasing and retroactive denials are the next targets. 5. How much of dentistry is now practiced under the DSO model? Close to 35 percent of dentists practice in a DSO-supported setting, and about 40 percent of graduating dental students go straight into one. Rising school debt and the economics of buying a practice drive most of that. Meanwhile 50 percent of Americans still do not see a dentist annually. ABOUTAndrew Smith is the CEO of the Association of Dental Support Organizations, a role he has held since 2021. Before dentistry he worked in Washington as a multi-client consultant and lobbyist, with earlier stops in political and government offices. At the ADSO he leads advocacy across state legislatures, dental boards, and insurance regulators, and hosts the association's podcast, Thank You for Flossing. CONTACT INFORMATIONGuest: Andrew Smith Website: https://www.theadso.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmulherinsmith/ Instagram: @theadso Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalMarketing #DSO #ADSO #DentalIndustry #DentalPolicy #GroupDentistry #DentalInsurance

  8. 28 Aug

    59 : Is AI in Dentistry Overhyped? Conner Ludlow on Digital Co-workers

    Three years after ChatGPT launched, almost every dental vendor claims to be AI powered. Annie founder Conner Ludlow gives a straight answer on which part is hype and which part is already saving practices real hours. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUTAdrian Lefler opens this BYTE SIZED episode with something he keeps running into at shows like ADSO and Dykema. Nearly every company has slapped AI on the logo, and almost nobody can explain what it means. Conner Ludlow, founder and CEO of Annie, agrees the framing is overhyped. He is still bullish on the technology. His fix is to stop leading with AI and start leading with the job you are trying to get done. Then the conversation turns to patients. Practices ask constantly whether patients will hate an AI answering the phone. Conner says some still do, but the reason is a decade of bad phone trees, not a rejection of technology. Adrian describes two recent calls, one with an agent that routed him instantly and one that glitched constantly, and lands on the point that consumers accept AI when it works and revolt when it does not. Annie has moved past website chat and missed call coverage into what Conner now calls a digital coworker. The idea is an always on babysitter over the whole patient base, covering recare, reappointment, appointment confirmations, insurance verification, and a new cancellation feature that fills open slots from the waitlist. He draws a line between open loop automation, which just creates a task for a human, and closed loop automation, which finishes the job. They also get into the labor shortage, whether an AI agent can take a PCI compliant credit card payment, and where revenue cycle management sits on the roadmap. Adrian closes with an idea he wants built: connecting clinical note takers to the front office agent so recare follow ups reference the actual conversation a patient had in the chair. QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE1. Is AI in dentistry overhyped, or is it worth adopting in a practice right now? The marketing is overhyped. The technology is not. Buying because a product says AI leads to failed rollouts. Pick a task that is repetitive, always on, and clearly triggered, then judge the tool by whether the job gets done. Practices that start with the problem instead of the acronym get results. 2. Why do AI rollouts fail in dental practices, and how do you implement one successfully? They fail when a practice throws AI at the wall with no defined job. Start by using everyday tools like ChatGPT so the team learns how AI responds. Then pick one workflow with a clear trigger. Annie assigns every new customer a human trainer who onboards the agent like a new employee. 3. What front office tasks can AI handle in a dental practice beyond answering the phone? Recare outreach, reappointment before a patient goes overdue, appointment confirmations, insurance verification, website chat, and cancellation management that offers an open slot to the waitlist. The pattern is repetitive work with a clear trigger. Lead follow up, incomplete forms, and overdue balances are next on the roadmap. 4. Can AI help with the dental staffing shortage and front desk burnout? Yes. Clinician and front desk recruiting is the top complaint from DSO executives and practice owners, and the good hire you do land gets buried in busywork. Offloading recare calls and confirmations to an agent keeps that person doing the high value work they were hired for, which is what keeps them. 5. How many dental patients ask for a human as soon as an AI answers the phone? About 14 percent, down from roughly 20 percent when Annie launched in 2024. That is the share who request a human immediately, before the agent says anything useful. The number runs lower in orthodontic and pediatric offices, where younger patients are more comfortable with chat and text. ABOUTConner Ludlow is the founder and CEO of Annie, an AI digital coworker built for dental practices. He is a software engineer and former CTO who previously led technology at a nationwide dental call center. He launched Annie in 2024 with website chat and an inbound AI receptionist, and has since expanded it into recare, reappointment, appointment confirmations, insurance verification, and cancellation management. CONTACT INFORMATIONGuest: Conner Ludlow Website: https://www.helloannie.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connerludlow/ Host: Adrian Lefler Website: https://mysocialpractice.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlefler/ Book Adrian to speak: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-expert/ Dental Marketing Services: https://mysocialpractice.com/dental-marketing-services/ 👍 Subscribe for more on dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and practice growth. #DentalMarketing #AIinDentistry #DentalAI #AIReceptionist #DentalPracticeManagement #DSO #PatientCommunication

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About

Cut through the AI noise with Adrian Lefler, a 15-year dental industry veteran who's actually using this stuff. No theory, no sales pitches, just the tactical AI implementations that are transforming dental practices right now. In 20-30 minute episodes, Adrian brings you real practitioners sharing exactly how they're using AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other LLM's to save time, increase revenue, and stay ahead of the curve. Whether it's automating patient communication, streamlining workflows, or implementing diagnostic AI, you'll get step-by-step guidance from people who've done it successfully. This isn't another "AI is the future" podcast. It's your practical guide to implementing AI in your dental practice today – without the hype, without the fluff, and without wasting your time. Perfect for busy dental professionals who want actionable insights they can implement immediately. Because while everyone else is talking about AI, we're showing you how to actually use it. New episodes weekly. Real results guaranteed.

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  • Creator
    Adrian Lefler
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    66
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Adrian Lefler
  • Show Website
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