Plus, so much more! Check out the details of our exciting new updates:
Our software team has been working for over 24 months to complete one of the most comprehensive software updates in our history. We’ve completely refreshed the look and feel of DS3, including:
Try it out and let us know what you think!
Our new website not only reflects our new brand and look, but includes an easy-to-navigate calendar of events and CE courses, helpful blog posts, resources for dentists starting out with their dental sleep journey, information about our services, and so much more!
We believe it should be as easy as possible for our members and other dentists to find the education and support they need to be successful in dental sleep, and we’re proud that our new website does just that.
Simple, colorful, and bold, our new logo draws on the imagery of a moon and cloud to evoke the satisfying calm of restful sleep- the sleep that patients treated for sleep apnea can now experience! Plus, if you’ve been with us for a while you’ll see that these elements are reminiscent of our previous logo.
We pride ourselves on providing our members with top-tier service and support, and our bright colors project the friendliness, innovation, and experience of the Dental Sleep Solutions team.
The distinctive “D” shape speaks for itself and ties the logo back to the root of our mission: making dental sleep medicine easy for dentists.
We’re so grateful to have you along on this next chapter with our Dental Sleep Solutions family!
Bradenton, FL. Dental Sleep Solutions, the parent company of dental sleep medicine EMR software DS3 and medical billing service 4 Pillar Billing, announced today that it has completed major updates to its software and brand. These developments reflect the company’s ongoing dedication to making dental sleep medicine and medical billing simpler for dentists.
Their new DS3 software interface includes all of the powerful features that DS3 members currently enjoy while introducing a monumental leap forward in user-friendliness, intuitiveness, responsive design across devices, brand integration, and overall look and feel. In addition to the visible interface upgrades, the company has also completed a three-year initiative to rewrite the software’s back-end to allow for higher velocity product updates and new feature releases.
Dental Sleep Solutions’ refreshed brand and website further demonstrate the company’s vision to educate and enlist more dentists to address the pervasive Obstructive Sleep Apnea crisis, in which one out of every five adults in the United States suffer from the condition but 80% remain undiagnosed. The all-new DentalSleepSolutions.com helps reach and educate more dentists with an easy-to-navigate calendar of events and Continuing Education courses, helpful blog posts, resources for dentists at any point in their dental sleep journey, and much more.
“These foundational upgrades enable us to both enhance service to our existing members and make it easier for more dentists to start treating their patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea.” says Mark Noble, President of Dental Sleep Solutions. “This is the beginning of a new, exciting chapter in Dental Sleep Solutions’ history.”
Visit DentalSleepSolutions.com to explore the new website, brand, and to learn more about the company.
About Dental Sleep Solutions
Dental Sleep Solutions was founded in 2008 by Dr. Gy Yatros and Dr. Richard Drake to help their peers treat Obstructive Sleep Apnea and save lives through software, education, training, and billing for dentists in all stages of practicing dental sleep. Dental Sleep Solutions was founded on and continues to operate today with a singular, focused mission: make it easier for dentists to help their patients breathe, sleep, and live better and longer lives. With powerful solutions to simplify the process of delivering dental devices and getting paid paired with exceptional support and service, dental sleep success starts with Dental Sleep Solutions.
Media Contact:
Alicia Miller
Marketing Manager
Check out these highlights from Day 1! If you haven’t signed up yet, be sure to register for the 2021 Symposium on March 5-6 in Clearwater, Florida!
September 2019 DSM Insider Article By Marc Fowler, CEO of Bullseye Media
Remember the days when postcards were the marketing medium of choice? Back then, the key to a successful campaign was the mailing list. A below average postcard sent to an excellent prospect list could produce solid results. However, an amazing postcard sent to the wrong list was doomed to failure.
In the digital world, targeting the correct search terms (keywords) can make or break a campaign. To succeed, a digital campaign must not only have compelling, informative content, but that content must be targeted to the right audience – the people actively searching for the type of content you are providing.
So how do you know which keywords/search terms you should be targeting? Too often that decision is based on gut feel, which is inherently tainted by personal bias.
Smart marketers compare their gut instincts with hard data because, as the saying goes, the numbers don’t lie.
When analyzing Google search data for sleep-related terms, the numbers break out as follows:
Over the past 12 months there have been an average of 368,000 searches on Google each month for the term “sleep apnea”. Comparatively, “snoring” has received an average of 60,500 searches per month.
If a marketing campaign manager incorrectly assumed snoring would be the best search term to target because more people know about it, more spouses complain about it, etc., they would be targeting an audience that is six times smaller than the audience for “sleep apnea”.
That isn’t to say you wouldn’t want to include snoring in your campaign, it’s just helpful to know that sleep apnea receives over 300,000 more searches each month and you should allocate your time and budget accordingly.
Additionally, knowing that CPAP receives 165,000 monthly searches shows that it is another keyword you would want to spend some energy targeting. While it’s true that a lot of those CPAP searches are being conducted by happy CPAP users simply looking for replacement CPAP supplies, we know from experience (and digging deeper into the data), that a high percentage of them are ideal prospects for a dental sleep practice.
Current CPAP users have already been tested and diagnosed, and statistics show that the majority of them aren’t using their CPAP consistently. Many would be open to an alternative. Even those who are CPAP compliant could benefit from having an oral appliance for traveling, as a backup when they don’t have power, or when they’re too congested to use their nasal CPAP mask.
Using the broad keywords listed above is just scratching the surface of a proper targeting strategy. To really maximize your marketing efforts, you’ll want to research keywords associated with those main terms. A deeper dive into the term “sleep apnea” turns up numerous additional search terms with large search volumes. For example, the term “sleep apnea symptoms” has an average search volume of 40,500 per month, nearly as many searches as the broad term “CPAP.” Even “sleep apnea machine” presents a strong opportunity for targeting, with over 27,100 average searches per month. Adding granular search terms such as these can help you really hone in on your true target audience.
Understanding your audience and targeting them properly can be the difference between another failed marketing campaign and bringing significant numbers of new sleep patients through your doors.
I screw up. Oh, I know, I’m sure I’m the only one. I can see you all in the comfy coziness of your glass houses.
When I make mistakes, I like to evaluate what happened and what the root cause is so I can prevent a repeat performance. I look at the event, ask the 5 whys, consult my colleagues, and ALWAYS seek the counsel of my Mom.
92% of the time (I made that statistic up, BTW), I find that my missteps can be traced back to my attempts to do too much. I’m either over-committing to aggressive timelines, forgetting there are only 24 hours in a day, sacrificing personal life activities for work activities, OR insisting on managing everything myself.
Do you know what the corrective action is for each of these? 1 word: DELEGATION! You cannot be a master of all trades. Tiger Woods is a great golfer but I haven’t seen him win an Oscar. Peyton Manning is a heckuva quarterback but the expertise and dedication required mean that he’s probably not picking up his own dry cleaning or preparing the gourmet meal at Saturday’s dinner party for 10. I do a pretty darn good job leading a team of medical billers and heading up a customer support team. I run into trouble though when I also have to function as counselor, project manager, fitness coach, and everything in between. You just can’t do it all. At least I know I can’t. Neither can Peyton Manning or Tiger Woods so at least I’m in good company.
So what do you do? Again, you DELEGATE. Evaluate the tasks that make up your week & place them in 3 buckets.
Me. I. I try not to use either of those words, yet here I do it again…and again. How do you turn Me and I into WE? The answer is delegation, cooperation, and training.
My business consultant made a comment to me the other day that got my attention. Afterall, I do pay him each month; Rhonda says I should at least listen to what he says with an open ear. “One great employee is worth three good ones.” My first thought was yeah, right. Then he went on, “How come I can consult two businesses that do the exact same thing; they have the same number of employees; yet one of those businesses does $8M a year and the other only does $2M?”
It’s the employees. It’s YOUR employees. Do you engage them in your DSM practice? Do you let them interact with the patients? Within the bounds of your state dental board, do you allow each of them to do as much as possible? Or are you like most dentists, micromanaging your team and constantly looking over their shoulder? I hope not!
Here’s a quote from Herb Kelleher, perhaps you’ve heard of him; he’s the guy who started Southwest Airlines. “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”
Strive to build a stellar team who engages a patient, each at some point along the preferred path, from the first phone call, to tracking down sleep studies, to verifying insurance benefits, to getting the Rx/LOMN, to scanning, to follow up, etc. You are only as successful as your team.
Strive to be the best you can be
Assemble the BEST team possible
Be proactive; Be smart; Be efficient
Did you have a sandbox when you were a kid? Some nice clean sand mixed with a little water and some of mom’s Tupperware, all the ingredients to build an awesome castle. For reasons to complex to figure out, this got me thinking about titrating our dental devices. Remember the envelope of function as taught in freshman dental school, and that from a full protrusive position you lose the ability to move forward as you open more? You do recall that, right?
IWhen you think about what you have control over with OAT, it’s not much; the fit, the vertical, and the protrusion. So all your perfectly fitted device needs now is the correct vertical and protrusive position. Therein lies the challenge.
Imagine placing a dot on the lower incisor, open a little; move the jaw forward as far as you can; open a few millimeters more and then move the jaw back all the way. There you have it. Our final treatment position will be somewhere within that rectangle. I’ve heard it called many things, but “Drake’s Box” seems to have a musical ring to it, don’t you think?”
So, until I have littered that box with multiple points, I do not concede that a dental device “just isn’t working.” Armed with this knowledge, be sure to pass that along every time you do a lunch and learn for a physician. Just yesterday I said to an MD, “I’m pretty good at helping the patient find the sweet spot, but often times I need more than a single guess.” Only allowing the patient to test at a single jaw position is like having a CPAP machine that is stuck on 7cm of H2O. Please don’t tell the patient that it’s not working. Instead, explain that we simply need to adjust her device. Don’t be afraid to pick up a pen and draw Drake’s Box (hoping that with repetition it’ll catch on!) and explain this to your patients, to physicians, NPs and PAs.
In summary, the best advice I can pass on for now:
You want to make DSM an integral part of your practice. Schedule your consultation today. No pushy sales people. No hidden agendas. We just want to learn about the current role of DSM in your practice, your goals, and determine if DS3 can help. Join 1k other dentists as a DS3 Member before May 5th and get special introductory savings.
Schedule Your FREE Consultation!Wondering how DS3 can help guide you to your goal to implement Dental Sleep Medicine, do more of it, help more patients, and increase production? Well, just hear what your colleagues have to say – check out these testimonial videos!
The 2019 NADSM Symposium was held in Clearwater, Florida on February 15-16th. With hundreds of attendees, three dozen sponsors and an amazing lineup of speakers, this event was expected to be a hit.
But what a hit it was! The 2019 NADSM Symposium was another successful event full of informative presentations, valuable networking and an abundance of dental sleep medicine knowledge!
Don’t take our word for it, check out the attendee testimonials below!
Register by February 28th for the 2020 Symposium and save $100 on Dentist and Team Member tickets! This is the largest discount we will offer, so claim your seat and your savings today!
There is always excitement and some fear when the New Year is upon us. The same can be said about the medical insurance landscape as well. Medicare recently issued a development notification that will specifically affect dentists that provide Medicare DME services..
On November 28 a notification was mailed to all Medicare Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) providers.
The big question is why does this matter and how are you affected?
Dentists must now carry a Surety Bond in order to provide DME services to Medicare beneficiaries. Below are additional important details that require your timely action:
If you are in the process of the Medicare application process you should receive an email from your Medicare Analyst requesting the need of the Surety Bond documentation. Please review the email notification to ensure that you are adhering to the time frame to produce the request.
This has been a topic of conversation on many different forums. The National Supplier Clearinghouse (NSC) issued an article outlining the change. The regulations have yet to be updated in 42 CFR § 424.57(d)(15)(i)(C). The notated reason for the update is as follows: “In recent years the NSC has seen a spike in the enrollment of Dentists for DMEPOS services. Dentists were initially allowed the exemption for the surety bond requirement”. Think about that for a moment! Dentists have impacted Medicare’s DME significantly enough to be defined as a “spike”. This means that Dental Sleep Medicine is moving the needle! That is a testament to your continued pursuit in providing options to ensure that people do not go untreated.
Medicare can be difficult to navigate. Your billing service provider will be well versed in the updates and will be a your valuable resource. They will be the GPS for your practice and get you to the correct place without re-routing. We are always available to provide assistance as needed.
Questions? Contact Lisa Herdt, Director of Billing Services, 4 Pillar Billing.
