E1.06 | Making Virtual Consultations a Reality

Richie Guerzon: Hey everyone. Welcome to OrthoThrive. We've got a great guest today Greg Pellegrom from SmileSnap. Greg is the co-founder and CEO of SmileSnap, a virtual consultation software for the dental industry, is 15 years as an accomplished orthodontic sales professional at 3M Unitec, Opal Orthodontist, and Excel Dent has given him tremendous insight into the rapidly changing landscape of dentistry. It was during this time that Greg recognized the difficulty many of his doctors are having attracting new patients. Also witnessing the explosive growth of the DTC aligner market, he decided it was time to create a way for dentists to connect with patients through a convenient and transparent digital experience. He's driven to get more people off the couch and into your chair. SmileSnap launched in 2019, and is headquartered in Denver. When Greg isn't grinding away at startup life, he can be found enjoying everything Colorado. These include sporting events, concerts, hiking, snowboarding, and the best craft beer scene in America. His wife of 20 years and two boys, 17 and 13, are his biggest supporters. Greg, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.

Greg Pellegrom: Thanks Richie for having me. I appreciate the opportunity and it's a little bit difficult to listen to that bio you read when you're talking about the outdoors and sports, and all of that because in light of everything that's happening right now. I've been stuck inside like most people wishing to get out and enjoy that.

Richie Guerzon: So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned in the bio, you know, I had a background in Orthodontics sales. Loved the profession, was a very natural fit for me. I think what orthodontists do for patients is fantastic for their self confidence, you know, creating great bites and beautiful smiles, but I was also witnessing as a representative a lot of the challenges that doctors were facing and the changing landscape. And I will review all those because everybody knows what they are. But one of the things that really always kind of stuck in my mind was that as technology was evolving, and we were doing more and more things online. I found that a lot of my customers weren't really adapting the consultation process to match what today's consumer was mostly interested in and that that whole customer experience that is evolving in all industries, and mainly it's the utilization of technology to provide convenience as well as transparency. And so it was a couple of years ago. I was heading home from the mountains and I just turned to my wife, and I said do you think people would take pictures of their teeth from their phone and send it into an orthodontist to get an idea of what treatment would cost and how long it might take? And she looked up from her book, turned to me and said, “why wouldn't they”? And that was how it started.

Richie Guerzon: Nice. Yeah, because if you go back up just a little ways and people would have said, “what do you mean that sounds crazy,” so that gave you the confidence to kind of give it a shot and see if people would do it.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah. I mean that's where the idea was born. And so what I did is I reached out to a friend of mine that I've known since high school who's been in the tech industry for over 20 years. I told him I said, “hey I've got this idea”. It's essentially allowing people to do virtual or remote consultations with their dentist or their orthodontic specialist, and in its simplest form just sending in some information and pictures of their teeth and beginning that that engagement, you know, he was interested enough that we have built this platform. We started to run some tests to see if we could actually get people to take photos of their teeth, and what we found out is that yeah, people are very willing to do that. So we kind of knew we had something there, we didn't exactly know at the time. How are we going to package this and bran this and then, you know, bring it to market. Dennis traditionally have I always would tell him have two speeds of adoption slow, and stop and we put some that we've been somewhere in the middle for a while. So we felt like we were doing good, but obviously, you know, with everything that's happening with the pandemic, our business has absolutely exploded, which you know-

Richie Guerzon: This has definitely been a catalyst for change. It's just all being forced into a new way of life, I myself, have just starting to get into a routine at home, and it's really strange because it's just totally different than what I've been doing for the last 30 years or so.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah and over the past three weeks we've heard from you know, just dozens of orthodontists that have said this has been on my list for a long time. I now have the time to do it, and so let's get started. But what they're also recognizing, and I think it's important for your listeners to really embrace this, that coronavirus has put Telehealth on the map for good not just in dentistry, but in general, yeah and one of one of the hurdles I thought we would always face at SmileSnap, is how do we educate the general public. How do we teach the consumers what a virtual consult is, or a virtual appointment or those types of things, and now they have all heard of that. And so as we go forward, right, this virtual process isn't just to get us through the coronavirus timeframe. This is here to stay, and the general public is not only going to expect that their doctors and dentists are offering these, they are actually going to demand it.

Richie Guerzon: So is that just one of the ways, that's probably the main way that you think the crisis is changing the industry's really propelling Telehealth into the into our normal day-to-day routine. And that's what's going to be expected from every Health provider, I would guess.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, I mean absolutely. Look we all have busy lives. We value our time more than ever. I think there are generational differences from a Gen X or but you know, the Y's are the Millennials and then you've got gen Z's. The mindset is different, and understanding that and how to connect and engage with them makes a lot of sense. One of the things I always recognize, you know, as an orthodontic rep was the similarities from one office to the max, and especially when it came to consultations. Sure they were going from a three step process to a two to a one step, but it always required the patient or the parent and the child to come into the practice just to get basic information. Am I a candidate, or ready to start. Yeah about how much is it going to cost? And approximately how long will it take? And there's a lot of people out there who maybe are kind of on the fence about orthodontic treatment, or not quite sure and they're not willing to actually take the time off work or pull their kids out of school just to go get that basic information, and doctors would say to me “Hey, you know, we have X number of patients that come in each week and no matter how hard we try or what we offer, they walk out the door for these various reasons,” and they would say it's a total waste of my time. And I would say hey doc, let me ask you this, “Do you give them any other way to find that information out? You don't give it over the phone. You don't provide it online, you require them to come in”. And so yeah, your batting average is going to be affected by that. Over the past year since we launched SmileSnap, you know, we are seeing that when a patient comes through our platform, and actually goes into them for records. They're converting at a very high percentage rate because you've provided them with information such as you know, fees, time frame, number of visits. Things like that that allow them to actually decide outside of the practice if they're going to come in. So it's an incredible filtering, or screening tool to utilize with patients.

Richie Guerzon: And I've been saying this over and over again for the past couple of weeks when we have all these great digital marketing tools at our disposal, and when you are trying to ask someone to schedule an appointment and that's the only call to action on their website for instance. It's the same as going on a first date and asking someone to marry you, you know, most of the time that's not okay. You have to build that relationship. People need some sort of smaller step. Not everyone obviously, but there's a big chunk of people that do, they need to take a smaller step into that relationship with you and especially if they're just an information gathering phase. That's really what's changed so much and if you study inbound marketing at all, you know, people are so much more educated than they were before they approach what essentially is a salesperson, you know, 50 years ago, 30 years ago, the salesperson or whoever it was the expert was the sole source of information. So that meeting happened with no knowledge from the potential customer. Just getting all the information from whoever was offering the service. That's just not the way it is now, people want to be as informed as physically possible, and then they talk to whoever the service provider is, and they are just at that last decision phase almost where they just need to make seat. Well, do I like this person? Especially if it's a doctor. Is my kid going to like them? Does this feel like it's good environment? Can I afford it, etc.? I totally agree with you.

Greg Pellegrom: Yep. Absolutely. And those are all great points and that's why we see the consultation process evolving in dentistry and Orthodontics being more of a lot more of this being done outside of the office that initial engagement. Even to the point where they can you know, sign contracts electronically, you know, give a down payment. So when they do walk through the door for the very first time they're essentially, signed, sealed, delivered, and ready to go.

Richie Guerzon: That is the biggest advantage to this change because once they get there, they're really ready to go informed. You don't have to spend all this time with these other actions. So just explain to us how the virtual consultation action works with SmileSnap.

Greg Pellegrom: Sure, absolutely. In its simplest form SmileSnap is a software widget that gets embedded directly into the practices website. So this lives on the doctors website, we don't drive consumer traffic to our website, and disperse those patients. It lives in their environment and they control it. So we give them the ability with this pop-up widget that happens on their website to brand it to the practice, use your own colors and logos. We encourage them to have a photo of the doctor there so that the user knows they are actually communicating with the practice, the doctor, and not a third party or some AI Bot. We also give them the ability to create whatever type of intake questions that they want to ask that's specific to their practice. So there's a lot of flexibility built into it. We get their information, and then we walk the patient through a tutorial where we're going to get five interoral photos of their teeth. And we worked really hard on this process on the UX to make sure that we're getting good photos. Are we going to get in office quality photos? No. Are we going to get good enough that you can make an initial smile assessment? Yes, and that's our goal. And once that happens, that provides a lot of what we refer to as stickiness on your website. Believe it or not, people don't want to go to dozens and dozens of websites to get the information they're looking for first. You give them this they're gone. They're back to their life their day. They're watching Netflix or whatever it is that they're doing and now we will send text alerts and emails out to create that connection between the practice and the patient. Ultimately with the goal is to provide them with information and then get them to scheduled to come in for that consult. And we've asked doctors are like, what are those councils like when they come in are they different or they shorter? They said well, “They're a little bit shorter, but the real benefit is they’re super focused”. The doctor says, “really I don't have to spend my time trying to convince them why they should do Orthodontics, why it's a great investment, or why they should choose us. They're pretty much they're like, I'm ready to go and we say hey, I looked at your X-rays. I didn't notice anything different you have any questions and boom they're out of there”.

Richie Guerzon: Also, this can really increase efficiency at the office. A small, one doctor office could probably see a lot more patients just to change this workflow a little bit.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, we're learning all the time with this tool from our customers. What more they need, how they're using it. I always say this works urban, suburban, and rural. It doesn't matter what type of practice you have. For you know, people who maybe are coming a great distance to your practice. Well, maybe you're only in a certain location one day a week or twice a month and every practice is dealing with no co-pays. Every practice is dealing with no-shows, and this is a great way if you have somebody no-show for an in-office consultation. Go ahead and say, “hey, you know what? Sorry, we missed you. We understand people are busy. Maybe this is a better option for you,” and have them go through the virtual process. And my favorite is the girl who, or staff member, team member up front, who has to feel those phone calls. The first words out of their mouth are how much? How much are braces, how much is Invisalign? And you know, they’re coached to try to talk this person into scheduling a consultation, and that's really tough too. What a great way to say, you know what, we're happy to give you some pricing information. All you need to do is go to our website and go through this virtual consultation process, and we’ll respond to you within one business day or within 24 hours. So it's just a nice solution.

Richie Guerzon: Yeah. Absolutely. We I mean we know price is one of the top concerns of potential patients. So we're writing a lot of blogs about it. We make sure if we have any offers, it's right on the homepage. So that's just another way to address that concern when people want to understand the pricing. Of course they do. I mean, it's totally legitimate question.

Greg Pellegrom: Yep, one other thing to Richie. I wanted to point out is you know, and in developing this I had a lot of frustration with the direct-to-consumer Aligner Market that we saw evolving and we know what it's grown into today. And the message I've always tried to bring tip to our customers and to the doctors is that there were three things that traditionally these companies did better than an orthodontist. One is marketing, two is convenience, and three is transparency of fees. The days of just doing some basic marketing or using a team member in the office because she's really good on Facebook, those days are over. We encourage all of our customers to find a marketing agency like OrthoSales Engine, and engage with them to really do good quality, high-end marketing of their practice. Two, convenience. And this is where we come in being able to engage and communicate with people on their time frame is really appreciated by them. And then third, is that transparency of fees, which we've already touched on. If we embrace these technologies as an industry, we can go and capture more of those patients, and bring them into orthodontic practices for treatment. Rather than you know, letting them make the decision to go to a direct-to-consumer align or model. So we have to sort of take a page out of their playbook, and emulate it to a degree, and and get more patients into the practices, into treatment with licensed specialists.

Richie Guerzon: Yeah, when you’re not transparent about your prices on the website, and someone's in part of that buyers journey when they're doing all the research and deciding if they're going to go with you. If you're a doctor, you have to think of what is the consumer’s perception of that. You know, why if I'm someone looking for an orthodontist, and they're not giving me any information about price, or they're sort of dodging my question when they call them from me, I'm going to think what's the reason for that? Is it because they're too expensive? That's the first thing I'm going to wonder, and that might not be true at all. Are they not authentic are they not credible and not trustworthy? These are all things you do not want people to perceive about your brand. So I really do encourage people to be as transparent as possible about their prices because that's not- at the end of the day, you don't want people who only choose you because you're the lowest cost provider. There's so many other great ways to differentiate your practice that you should be focusing on in your messaging. So this really has helped overcome a lot of that.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, you really understand the psycology behind the buyer, and I think that that's great. And you know, we have not had issues in terms of doctors not embracing this our customers because we allow them to present these fees in a way that they're comfortable. So they don't have to give it down to the penny, they can give a price range. Some of them don't even give the total fee. They'll focus simply on like a monthly payment range kind of thing, just to let them know that your monthly budget.

Richie Guerzon: And that's totally reasonable. I think it's just scary when there's nothing, and it feels like signs avoiding the question then there's all the it's like a red flag, you know. So we heard that you're having video features becoming available in the platform. Tell us a little bit about that and what that's going to offer, and allow the doctors to do.

Greg Pellegrom: Sure. So, you know, we try to be very focused when we were launching SmilesSnap and over this past year, to be very clear that we were about virtual consultations new patient acquisition was our focus. However, a few weeks ago we had doctors reaching out saying I think my practice is going to get shut down for a while. Can smile snap help me with my current patients? And so I gathered up a few doctors who I who are having success on the platform, and we created a set of intake questions that have been helping them weather this storm, and it's been working well, but it's not perfectly built for that functionality, right? So my CTO and his Tech Team have been heads down for the past three weeks, launching what we're calling SmileSnap our Pro Plan, which will allow doctors to do virtual visits and virtual appointments. It will include live video. They can share their screen. So rather than using an outside platform such as Zoom, or FaceTime, or Skype, or something like that, we'll have it all built into the platform, and then all of these patients, new patients, current patients former patients in retention, can all be managed in the backend system of the SmileSnap platform. So we're excited. We're starting to roll that out today, in kind of a slow and controlled fashion. And when I you know, when I use the word virtual visit, or virtual appointment, we're not talking about using this as a as a treatment tracking or monitoring platform across that whole journey. You want the orthodontist and the dentist to decide which patients and which appointments can be done virtually, and if we can reduce the number of patients that come to your door by ten, fifteen, maybe twenty percent in a day. That's the utilization that we're looking for in this platform, make everybody's lives a little bit easier and more convenient.

Richie Guerzon: Yeah, that is just another way to increase your bandwidth and get more revenue through the door, especially if you're a smaller office, I mean any size office really because if you can do more with less that's great.

Greg Pellegrom: Yep. So we started rolling that out today. It's also in conjunction with- we're proud to announce that we received an official endorsement by the AAO. We're very proud of that, and it's very validating but it also motivates us to continue to develop and build this platform, and evolve it in a way that really supports the industry.

Richie Guerzon: So is the video the main way that it works with existing patients? That's those virtual consultations, the virtual appointments.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, so you can still utilize photos. But you know, you can you can actually just text them a link, and on their phone it will say, start your virtual appointment. Yeah, they can schedule it. We have a scheduling feature built into it. So some of the work flows I think is where my mind is going. Working with some of the industry Consultants, some of the TCS, and some of the doctors that are using our platform, and really developing a workflow strategy that practices can then implement. It's one thing to build the software and put it on your website and make it available. But in order for it to be truly successful, and maximize the performance of this tool, we have to gather that information, package it up nicely, and then share it with our customers and the community to maximize the performance, and get full value out of it.

Richie Guerzon: Have you developed anything to help with pending patients following up trying to get people over the fence? They haven't quite made that commitment.

Greg Pellegrom: Are you talking about ones that are kind of on the fence about getting treatment or saying yes? I can't say that we've developed anything specifically to get people off the fence. You know-

Richie Guerzon: We could reach out to them even with the video feature and it's just kind of address their fears maybe, or obstacles.

Greg Pellegrom: That's certainly one way to do it. You know, we have text, two a texting built into the platform as well. Some buyers in the orthodontic world, for example, they may start to inquire and they may go weeks, months, even a year before they decide. Okay, now I'm ready, for whatever reason that might be. So one of the beautiful things about this platform is even if they don't start treatment right away, you have their information. You can put them into an email drip campaign, you know, just to kind of stay in touch with them on a regular basis until they are ready. Then they remember you because you're the office that gave them the information they were looking for, you establish that trust with them and when the time is right, you know, they're going to come back to you. If you're doing a good job, you know retargeting them with with marketing and other things.

Richie Guerzon: Absolutely, and you could encourage them to schedule an online appointment with you, even if they have seen you already and do it through some other software through email. And that might help ease their fears and get them giving them information that they feel like they're missing or whatever it is.

Greg Pellegrom: Sure. So we've been asked right during during this time. What are what am I supposed to do with consultations if I can’t actually get them in to put the braces on, or scan them and start their aligner therapy. So what we've been hearing from a lot of the doctors is, you know, we're getting them to sign a contract electronically, or submit a down payment, and we're literally just letting them know, “Hey, the minute our doors reopen we are here for you and ready to get started.” Anything you can do to sort of- I hate to use the term lock them in- but get there get their commitment to you. Again, people don't want to keep shopping for treatment, and if they commit, they understand the situation, and let them know, “Hey, as soon as we're ready, we're going to have you in, and we're to start giving you that beautiful smile.

Richie Guerzon: Yeah, so really just giving them more chances to develop that relationship the way people want to do it. Right now things have changed so much. So email automations are definitely one way you could do it. We could create a lot of blog content talking about ways to interact with the doctor, I think that would be a good way to use SmileSnap. Why do you think it's so important right now to do it? Is it just something that just has to happen, do we have to have virtual consultations? Otherwise, we're just going to be left in the dust compared to everyone else that is doing it?

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, I mean, how else are we going to be able to communicate with these folks now during this time, and there's so much uncertainty around, you know as my practice going to open up in April? Is it going to continue to May? Is it going to continue to get extended into the summer? Which as we know for the orthodontic industry, I mean that is you know, that is making a time frame and July and August. And so we need to absolutely- I encourage everyone out there to take a look at what your virtual options are. There's several platforms. They all have a little bit of a different look, and feel, and flavor, you know, we've experienced a spike as I mentioned in the beginning- significant one, but what's been really rewarding for us is the response we've heard back from the doctors and the team members of saying I didn't even know this existed. Thank you so much for having this. It's really making a difference during this time to manage our existing patients. Some have some of even said why don't you make me do this sooner? And hearing stories of getting new starts on the books. So anything to help weather this storm and you know, our fees are steady there at monthly or annual subscriptions. There's no contracts locking you in, for all AAO members right now, we are waiving the $299 setup fee. That's normally a one-time fee. And if you're an AAO member for the month of April, we waive that so you can get started for as little as a hundred and forty nine dollars a month. And again, there's no contract on that, but it gives you a good way to dip your toe into virtual consults.

Richie Guerzon: Yeah, Zidi was asking if there's a way they could sample the software before you purchase it. So there isn't a trial but you're waving the onboarding fee.

Greg Pellegrom: Correct. There's no on boarding fee. But this has always been the case. You can sign up at SmileSnap.com and you get full access to the backend of the software. So you can see in there how to add team members, create template treatment plans, add multiple locations, customize the widget. We give you full access for no charge. The only time we do require the credit card is when you go to get the integration code to embed it on to your website.

Richie Guerzon: Also, you can spend all the time you need to set it up. And how does it work with multiple offices on the platform? How do you deal with that?

Greg Pellegrom: So if it's multiple locations, okay, five locations or less, but they're under the same website and brand. All you need is one account. Occasionally we’ll encounter a multi-brand, multi website situation. Yeah, and there it does require you to have multiple accounts because you don't want the same branded widget on one website, on the other.

Richie Guerzon: Oh, yes the branding needs to match to make it feel like it's part of the whole website.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, it does and we can embed those subaccounts under one master. So there's a single login for the account owner. We've really built this platform to scale, so it can work in group practice models, it can it can work with small, midsize, large, DSOs, you know, it's built to scale.

Richie Guerzon: Stephen is asking if the video features available to all subscribers at this time. It sounds like it wasn't right. You're rolling it out today.

Greg Pellegrom: Right. So we're starting to roll out the Pro Plan today. We're starting with our existing customers first. So if it's not fully available today, trust me, we're working around the clock each day. It's getting closer and more available to have that live video. I think by early next week we're going to have everybody converted over to it, as well as onboarding new customers into the platform.

Richie Guerzon: ZD wants to know if there's any different prices for Canadian customers.

Greg Pellegrom: Not at this time, but if you want to email me directly, we can have a conversation around that. My email for everyone is Greg@SmileSnap.com. So it's GREG@SmileSnap.com.

Richie Guerzon: And they were asking how it gets embedded in the site. So right now to gets embedded as a script we're using it for one of our clients right now. I was the one who embedded it. So I plugged it the website, we use WordPress. So we just have that insert headers and footers plugged-in, and it just is in all the pages of the site. That's basically the only way to integrate with the site right now, right?

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah. I mean, was it easy on your behalf? Would you say?

Richie Guerzon: Oh, yeah, you just copy and paste the script in there.

Greg Pellegrom: And once and we give you that script to give to your web agency, once it's in there, the agency's pretty much done, unless they want to build additional buttons and links and things throughout the pages.

Richie Guerzon: Yeah, because the doctor actually did the colors and the branding for us, I made sure it was correct, of course because we're very detail-oriented but it was right, and it was easy for me. I just put it in there.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, everything then gets controlled on the back end of the software in your account. So if you ever wanted to make changes to the intake questions, the branding, the colors, the verbiage, any settings, you don't have to go to your web agency for it. You can just go into your SmileSnap account and make those changes.

Richie Guerzon: Sure. He's asking for- is there anything live you want to show us? Is anything on your screen you want to share just to show us a little bit of the back end?

Greg Pellegrom: So I wasn't really prepped and prepared for that, but what I would love to do is if you go to our website, the best thing to do is either schedule a live demo, which you can do that in the lower left-hand corner, and one of our account executives will walk you through a demo of the software, or you can just request to have a recorded version sent. It's about 20 minutes long, and you can kind of watch that on your own. So that's probably the best way to actually see the software, is either a recorded or live version, and we're happy to get those to you.

Richie Guerzon: Gotcha. I was wondering about the users. How many users do you get with the regular plan? How does that work?

Greg Pellegrom: Unlimited users. So we have seen a significant increase in traffic because they're using this for current patients right now which is awesome, and we want to see patients flowing through this day and night, seven days a week. So we don't limit to the number of consults that you can do, a number of team members that you have on the platform with you. If you're a multi doctor practice, we don't charge per doctor. We're really just trying to get this into as many practices as we can, and get people comfortable with utilizing, you know, this technology and figure out how to implement it.

Richie Guerzon: Gotcha. Someone wanted to know if you can explain all the different levels. Is there just the standard or the Pro, or those are two levels of service right now?

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah, right now there's two. So one we're calling it, the starter, and that is everything that we've had on the platform not including the new video feature with virtual visits. That's 149 a month for $14.99 if you want to pay for a full year of the service, so it's about a 15% discount or so.

Richie Guerzon: Oh so you’re getting up two months free when you do that, roughly?

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah then on the on the Pro Plan, it's 249 per month or $24.99 for an entire year of the service. So, I mean, we think we've put it at a price point where you know, if you get a couple of starts out of that it's more than paid for itself. If you're able to remove some of these visits that come into your practice, and you know, most practices have metrics on you know, what it costs to have somebody into the office. So whether it be a recall patient, a retainer check, maybe an aligner check, or you know, you'll know which patients you can do these things virtually with, and which ones need to have coming in all the time. Yeah, we think it's a real value at where we've priced it.

Richie Guerzon: How does it work with different languages? Is there any obstacle there, or are you just inputting whatever as long as using English?

Greg Pellegrom: So yeah, good question. Our roadmap is long, and it keeps getting longer the more hands we put this into. But you know, let me answer the question first. Language is right now is English only, you can in the intake questions, convert it if you want but it's not going to be right. We know we need to get to Spanish and other languages very, very quickly. It's been my approach from day one that we're going to let our customers guide the development of this platform because they know what they need for their practice. They know what they need for their team. They know what they need for their patients. And so we are very open to suggestions and feedback. Being a rep in the field for 15 years, I've developed this kind of thick skin suit of armor, if you will, you're not going to hurt my feelings. I will be more upset if you don't tell me what you need. So yeah, we value feedback.

Richie Guerzon: Dr. Lucen is asking the difference between pro versus intro, is it just the video feature is the main difference?

Greg Pellegrom: That's the main one.

Richie Guerzon: I mean, that's a great feature. So with Pro you get to the use the video, and you can work with the existing patients. Let me just read this because this- does this software take the place of simple consult former Ortho caliper, or is it in the adjunct to it? What are the differences?

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah. So, you know, we consider them to be in the same space as us. I think the proper thing for any practice to do would be to get a demonstration of both and make the decision what's best for their practice, you know, they've been around a little while there's definitely some differences. You know, what we have seen happen in light of the coronavirus is there's other companies that all of a sudden are claiming to do this. So my one ask of all practices is do your due diligence really big into the company dig into the product and the platform and make sure it's a good fit, and make sure that they understand the space and how to help you be successful with this tool before you make a decision. One of the things we've seen for a long time is practices trying to do this themselves, or what we call the DIY method where you know, they'll have their web agency build them a page and take some photos like this and maybe they'll create a video and at the end of the day I know this because I've had dozens of conversations is that it's not a good user experience. They will struggle to get you good photos, most of the time they won't even finish the process. Our tool and the photo tutorial really walks them step by step. The way we get good photos-

Richie Guerzon: I thought that was a good idea because I have another client using Rhinogram, and I'm trying to get them on so that we can hear from them and it doesn't explain very well how to take the photos. So I mean we put it in a webpage language to do so, I thought it was smart to put it in the actual widget.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah and Rhinogram’s a great text communication platform, you know, there's a lot of practices using it. Again, our Focus was on that virtual consult. And the way we get good photos through our tutorial and this is the most important, is when the user is taking it from their phone, when they take it we place what it should look like and the one they just took next to each other. So visually they can see, do I look anything like I'm supposed to? And down below, there's two choices: looks good continue, or try again. So if they're a little selfie challenged and they need to do this two, or three, or five times. It's really easy to do.

Richie Guerzon: So you put in the process assuming maybe it takes a retake. That's really smart. If you don't know how to do it you’re like, “Oh, well, whatever,” and then you just send it on. I gotcha.

Greg Pellegrom: And then real quick, I was just going to say to all of these photos, they don't even reside on the user's phone, they’re immediately encrypted, and uploaded to Amazon web servers. So we're maintaining HIPPA compliance on that PHI even, and then the only way you can access them is through our software to get them back into the platform.

Richie Guerzon: That’s great that that’s HIPPA compliance, how about the video? How is that when HIPAA compliance?

Greg Pellegrom: So we're using a platform for that, and we've subscribe to their HIPPA compliant version. All users will have to go in through a secure web portal. So they'll have their own unique username and password to get in.

Richie Guerzon: Absolutely. That's a good reason not to try to do it yourself without using-

Greg Pellegrom: Well, there's been some relaxation of HIPPA around video platforms right now. So hey if it's working for you now, that's fine. Just know at some point HIPPA is not only going to go back to where they were and in these laws, but I think they're actually going to take a much deeper look into all Telehealth services that are out there and start creating more, you know legislature around it. I don't know if they're going to get more stringent. I don't know if they're going to get a little bit more relaxed to make it a viable option for practices. That's to be determined.

Richie Guerzon: One way or the other, why wouldn't you try to play it safe in my opinion, you know instead of put your practice at risk of something like that it's not very much. So how long approximately does the process take from just starting in the widget to getting them sent to you?

Greg Pellegrom: Are we- well, I'm not sure if we're talking about the setup process, or with the patient. Usually we can get solved this thing for the customer-

Richie: For a potential new patient.

Greg Pellegrom: So to go through the process on the front end the UI, UX has maybe five minutes for someone that's really good with a cellphone. Might be up to 10 minutes with somebody that might have to take several photos. But instantly, text alerts are going to the patient, and to the practice along with emails. So we begin that engagement. We've had some doctors respond before photos are finished being uploaded and I've had to reach out to these doctors and say, “Hey, I know you're excited. But you got to pump the brakes let them get their photos done and like sorry. I just, you know, I get a text on my phone and I love to look at you know, I love to look at teeth and one photo and yeah, you’re ready for braces, let's go.”

Richie Guerzon: Oh, yes let's talk about that. How's that? How's the office getting the notifications? How does that process work? It’s a text that someone's getting who have your signed the person that's in charge of this.

Greg Pellegrom: Yeah. So we will notify you via text and or email. You have control over which team members receive which alerts, and how they receive them.

Richie Guerzon: Oh, so you can kind of set permissions. There's usual levels in there. Oh, that's good. Someone's asking if the video consoles can be recorded and archived somewhere.

Greg Pellegrom: I don't know the answer to that yet. I think it's something that can be done. But I don't know for sure because it has to do a lot with storage capabilities, and things like that. So that's something I need to look into. I don't know the answer. I'm sorry.

Richie Guerzon: Oh and I assume none of this integrates with practice management software, right? We'd have to take the information from your dashboard and put whatever we need to into our practice management software.

Greg Pellegrom: Correct. So this question does come up a lot. We don't have any specific practice management software integrations at this point. We are building a full library of APIs and what we hope happens is that there's enough of a demand from the practices that some of these companies will come to us, and say, “hey we would like to work on some integration. There's not a tremendous amount of information that needs to get transferred.”

Richie Guerzon: Yeah. So I think it will be pretty easy for them to go to our library of APIs to grab what they need, but right now what you can do is we do have an export function where you can take all this patient information and drop it into as an Excel file into your practice management software.

Richie Guerzon: One of our producers from OrthoSales Engine is chatting me and letting me know that just as a workaround to the language barrier. If you have a WordPress site and you put the Google translate plug-in in, it translated it very well. Use the software especially something like Spanish, just usually Google translate does very well with like a Latin-based language for sure.

Greg Pellegrom: Well, thank you for that. Remember, I'm the dental guy. I'm Not The Tech Guy. So I just learned something.

Richie Guerzon: So to get started with smiles snap, you just go to the site request a demo, record a demo, and then see-

Greg Pellegrom: You can sign up right there on the site Richie. So upper right hand corner. It says sign up, create your account, access the software. Certainly happy to do a live demo or send you a recorded demo, but that's the easiest way to get started usually and we've had people sign up and have it on their website in the same day. Our onboarding process right now is push down a couple of days to do a live onboarding, but we do provide you with a full kind of a 30-minute onboarding video. If you want to do some self onboarding yourself. The software is very user-friendly. So a lot of people have taken up on that option. We are moving as quickly as we can to ramp up more customer success or onboarding specialists to help with this. It's just that you know, we've been inundated, and these are good problems to have. We're trying to move this as quick as we can to support everybody.

Richie Guerzon: Yeah, and so the prices are 149 for the starter, 249 for the pro and annual you basically get two months free so it’s $14.99 at $24.99 if you just paid all once for a whole year.

Greg Pellegrom: And a lot of people have asked you now, can I just start with the starter at monthly, and if I like it because look cash flow is a concern right now, and it should be and most people are signing up for the monthly. But can I, down the road, if I want to move into the annual plan or upgrade? Absolutely, we prorate that for you and we're happy to have you move up or move down plans as you see fit as to how it fits your business.

Richie Guerzon: Great. And then I was thinking if anyone does sign up and they need help getting this script onto their WordPress site. Just ask me. I'll do it for you. I'll give you a free website review. I'll tell you what, I think I love and what I think you can improve on it, and I think that can just help everyone out. It's super simple. I'm happy to show anyone on this broadcast of how to do it and do it for them. I think it's really easy. All right there anything else you want to share about SmileSnap?

Greg Pellegrom: I've covered it all I mean we're you know, we've gone over 45 minutes. I appreciate everyone's time, my truly, my thoughts go out to all of you dealing with this difficult situation as practice owners to your team members. I think as a community. It's been really beautiful to see people come together and help one another share information. We're stronger as a team and you know, just love to help support your practice any way that we can, so don't hesitate to reach out again Greg@SmileSnap.com, and I wish you all a great rest of your day.

Richie Guerzon: Well great. Thanks so much. We'll put your email contact information website on the recap. Everyone will send that out tonight at 6 or 7, if you need that, and let me know if you guys have any questions and you can ask Greg anytime. Thanks again, and we'll talk soon.

Greg Pellegrom: Alright. Thanks Richie. Take care.