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AUDIO - HSP #275 - Terri Sundquist
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VIDEO - HSP #275 - Terri Sundquist
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Hear what’s new with Millennium Dental Technologies’ LANAP and LAPIP procedures.
I am a dedicated and professional specialist in Dental Hygiene with over 11 years of Dental Hygiene experience and 19 years of experience in the dentistry industry.
The LANAP® Procedure (Laser Assisted New Attachment Procedure - cementum-mediated new periodontal ligament attachment to the root surface in the absence of long junctional epithelium) is a patented, bold breakthrough technique for dentists to treat periodontal disease in a general or periodontal practice setting. It offers your patients a significantly less traumatic alternative to traditional periodontal surgery.
www.LANAP.com
Howard: Hey, this is very fun. I'm at the Greater New York Dental Meeting and I ran into Terrie who's a hygienist. I live in Phoenix. She's right next door in Mesa, Arizona. You were at my office a couple of weeks ago. You work for Millennium Dental Technologies.
Terrie: I do.
Howard: Their main product is an Nd: YAG laser which does the LANAP procedure.
Terrie: Yes.
Howard: I assume, out of the thousands watching you about half of them have never heard of LANAP. Tell them what LANAP is all about, and how did you get into it?
Terrie: I was very fortunate. I saw an ad on a jobsite looking for an independent rep. I applied for it, and here I am today. I started in August of this year. I've only been dong this for a few months.
Howard: How long have you been a hygienist?
Terrie: I've been a hygienist for twelve years.
Howard: Twelve years.
Terrie: I was an assistant for quite a few years, also. I've been in the industry for about 22 years total. I was in the Air Force first and they trained me on the job how to be a hygienist.
Howard: Really? You joined the Air Force and then they just said, we need a hygienist. Did they teach you themselves or did they send you to a school?
Terrie: Back then in 1994 when they trained me, they didn't send us to hygiene school. They trained us on the job.
Howard: It was the Air Force?
Terrie: Air Force.
Howard: What base were you at?
Terrie: I was at Aviano Air Base in Italy, and Clovis, New Mexico. Cannon Air Force Base.
Howard: They trained you in Italy?
Terrie: They trained me in Italy, yes. They trained me how to-
Howard: Their training made you a licensed registered dental hygienist?
Terrie: No. I only could do it for the United States Air Force and then I got out of the Air Force after my four years of duty, and I went to hygiene school at NWTC, Northwest Wisconsin Technical College.
Howard: Wisconsin?
Terrie: Wisconsin. I'm originally from Green Bay.
Howard: You went up there because you were Brett Favre's girlfriend?
Terrie: No.
Howard: Or was this Aaron Rodgers time.
Terrie: This was Aaron Rodgers time.
Howard: Oh, okay. You were up there during Aaron Rodgers-
Terrie: No, actually it was Brett Favre time.
Howard: Okay, so I'm not completely crazy.
Terrie: You're not off, no. Actually, originally I have a lot of ties to Green Bay. My grandpa was a Packer. He was an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers.
Howard: Are you serious?
Terrie: I am, and his cousin was Curly Lambeau.
Howard: No way.
Terrie: My claim to fame.
Howard: Why are you in Mesa, Arizona when you'd be a celebrity in Green Bay?
Terrie: We decided back then, many, many, years ago to let the City own our team. I don’t think I’d actually be much of a celebrity there.
Howard: Before we get back to those, I’m just going to ask you one Green Bay question that everybody wants to know. When are they going to put a roof over that stadium?
Terrie: Never.
Howard: Why is that?
Terrie: There’s something about going to a Green Bay Packer game in the wintertime, when it’s cold and snowing, that they just love about it.
Howard: What I heard, they’re all drunk. They’re all drinking whiskey.
Terrie: You would think you’d have to be to handle that weather.
Howard: Now I know the story. They’re all in there under a blanket drinking whiskey.
Terrie: Pretty much.
Howard: Pretty much, okay. Then you did hygiene for 12 years?
Terrie: I have been a hygienist now for 12 years.
Howard: Then you decided that you just wanted to move out of chairside and do something different? What were you thinking?
Terrie: I knew that I’ve been in this industry for so long, I have just this passion for dentistry. I always would love to have gone to dental school, but I’m 41 right now. Oh, I don’t think I could handle going to dental school, the cost of dental school. I said, okay, what else can I do? I don’t want to leave this field. When I found this opportunity to work with Millennium Dental Technologies I was ecstatic.
Howard: Millennium. Who’s the man and wife. I can see his wife, a blond-haired woman. Who’s the man? He’s a periodontist?
Terrie: Yes. Robert. No, he’s a general dentist, Dr. Robert Greg.
Howard: What’s his name? Dr. Robert Greg. Where do they live?
Terrie: Mm-hmm. I believe they live near Cerritos, California.
Howard: Okay. His wife, the blond lady, is she a dentist, too?
Terrie: She is.
Howard: Or is she a periodontist?
Terrie: She’s a general dentist.
Howard: Okay, so it’s two general dentists and they’ve owned this thing for 10, 20 years?
Terrie: Actually, originally it was a different general dentist and him that started it. Then Dawn Greg decided, I’m going to try this out and became a LANAPer also. Then over time they ended up getting married, so now they’re [inaudible 00:04:27].
Howard: Tell both of them my son Ryan is doing the podcast. Ryan can do … most of them are done by Skype so they could Skype me. They could each be at two separate locations, or if they’re married they could be at one. I would love to podcast interview them.
Terrie: I would love it.
Howard: The reason I came and drug you to my booth is because LANAP is a huge buzz word. I’m always getting a lot of questions from it. Basically tell them, explain to the homies, what is LANAP. Where does the name come from, what does it mean?
Terrie: LANAP, it’s laser-assisted surgery without the cut and sew. We can go, and we are the only FDA-cleared laser to more or less treat moderate to severe periodontal disease with our protocol. We have a specific LANAP protocol that we use and our doctors use it and that is what helps with patients. The protocol is what takes care of it. They learn and are trained how to handle and what exactly to do to take care of their patients.
Howard: When we were little all periodontal disease was around teeth. Now that we’re in our 40s and 50s now there’s periodontal disease around implants. There’s peri-implantitis. Is this a technology used around peri-implantitis? Is this something that can be used around-
Terrie: Absolutely. It’s called LAPIP. Yep. We have LANAP and LAPIP.
Howard: You have LANAP and LAPIP?
Terrie: Right here. Yeah.
Howard: LANAP is laser-assisted no … laser-assisted?
Terrie: Laser-assisted new attachment.
Howard: Okay, protocol?
Terrie: Yes. It’s laser-assisted new attached … of course this is when I’m going to do that, right?
Howard: Laser-assisted new attachment protocol?
Terrie: No. That is the protocol.
Howard: Then LAPIP is laser-assisted peri-implantitis protocol?
Terrie: Yes.
Howard: Okay. I’ve got to tell you something. When you’re looking at these implant success rates, what they’re doing is, they’re cherry-picking the data. They always take a person that lost all their teeth from streptococcus mutans and then they place the implants and the implants in the most dense bone anterior mandible. They never show you the research from patients who lost all their implants from P. gingivalis.
Terrie: Right.
Howard: Or P. gingivalis ate all the teeth and then placed those implants up in the maxilla soft bone. It’s always, I lost them from strep in the hard bone. Because if you have gum disease and you lose teeth from gum disease, and you put titanium in a mouth with gum disease you’re probably going to have issues with peri-implantitis.
Terrie: Absolutely.
Howard: Continue. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
Terrie: No worries. Actually, I remembered my word. It’s laser-assisted new attached procedure, protocol
Howard: Oh, procedure. Okay.
Terrie: Yes. What our laser does is, it’s specifically geared to attack bacteria; diseased tissue. If there’s a tissue area that has disease in it, our laser’s going to get down there and get rid of that.
Howard: That’s because the Nd: YAG is attached to the red color and the disease is going to be cleaned.
Terrie: Exactly. That’s why our laser’s so successful with taking care of these patients and having such dramatic changes with bone level. Let’s face it, there’s bone attachment. There’s new bone coming back up. With all these different dentists that are using it: general dentists, periodontists; they’re all seeing fascinating results. A lot of doctors were even getting oral surgeons onboard. I had a lady stop by today, yesterday actually, who’s an endodontist and she was excited over it, because an endodontist understands when you take that bacteria out of the situation, the bone fills back up. You have a big abscess and you take that infection away, that bone comes back. It makes sense. For her it was really easy to understand. Actually, ironically, her husband’s a general dentist so she was just really blown away by what our laser could possibly, potentially do for her patients.
Howard: Whenever we do a podcast it’s downloaded on iTunes from every country on iTunes, so my international viewers are probably wondering, is this chick Canadian? The answer is, Green Bay is right on the border of Canada.
Terrie: Right. I’m pretty close.
Howard: The next question you’re probably asking, did she star in Fargo? It’s like, no, but that movie was filmed in North Dakota. She’s kind of Canadian [inaudible 00:09:10], because they’re wondering, she can’t be American. You sound so Canadian.
Terrie: I do? Awesome.
Howard: Tell them about peri-implantitis. I think a lot of hygienists and a lot of dentists ask things like, not to be dumb, but how do you clean around an implant? Some people are afraid to scale them. Some people want to buy plastic instruments. Some are going to say, I bought the plastic instruments but it’s not really doing anything. Hygienists say, can you ultrasonic scale that? Then some are going to say, that will roughen the implant. Other people say, a lot of implants intentionally roughen the hell of the surface area to get more bone. Talk about the LAPIP.
Terrie: All right. With our LAPIP, and you’re right. As a hygienist there’s nothing more intimidating than when you see your patient come walk through that door and you look at their X-rays and you see, oh no. They have implants. Especially when you don’t have instruments to clean them with. One practice that I’m at, they specifically bought titanium scalers. They said, okay, we’re comfortable with you using titanium scalers.
Howard: The scalers are made out of titanium, or the scalers are made for titanium?
Terrie: Made out of titanium.
Howard: Made out of titanium.
Terrie: They have a new instrument so that we can actually use that. Millennium does not incorporate that. That’s just something that I found over time. With that, we’re actually able to get underneath the gum tissue and actually clean things. With the plastic instruments you ended up leaving so much. You ended up leaving stuff behind. It starts to break down underneath, so that’s why so many implant, I thought, were failing for awhile because of the plastic instruments we were using, at least that was my opinion or my belief on that was, these plastic instruments aren’t doing anything. At the same time, you’re not cleaning much with them because there’s no strength to when you’re scaling. There’s nothing that you’re removing with a plastic instrument. At least I couldn’t, personally. Maybe there’s other hygienists that feel different, but that’s how I had always felt about it.
With our LAPIP protocol we treat it where you lower the settings as if you were going to do LANAP. You lower your settings and there’s a specific setting that doctors are trained to use. When you use that setting to treat around peri-implantitis, the implant is going to … you’re not going to touch the laser to the implant, because it’s metal. You’re going to go around the tissue there, around that implant. You go around it.
We had a live showing of this, viewing of this yesterday and it was amazing because you could see him going around and just making this tissue much healthier. He’s getting all that bacteria out of there. I thought, wait, he’s using that Piezo and going underneath and using a Piezo around it. He’s not going directly onto that implant, he’s going around it, making sure things are cleaned up. Then of course he went ahead and you do your second pass. There’s a specific protocol that you have to follow. That’s what LANAP is all about, and that’s what LAPIP is all about is a protocol that you follow. It’s a perfect recipe. It’s like a cookie recipe. You don’t want to change your recipe if you already have the perfect ingredient, right?
Howard: Let’s get specific. This is dentistry uncensored [inaudible 00:12:36] and the reason it’s uncensored is we ask all the brutally rude and uncomfortable questions. What does this cost? How do they buy this? What does it cost?
Terrie: I look at it this way: That’s the first question I get asked quite often. I like to stop and say, “How much do you as a doctor charge for osseous surgery per quadrant? How much are you charging your patients to have this procedure done? If you were to do traditional osseous cut and sew, how much would that be per quadrant?”
Howard: You mean when you flap back the deal and do a quadrant?
Terrie: Yes. Realistically, LANAP is that. It’s surgery.
Howard: Is that what people bill for? Is that the insurance code they bill for?
Terrie: As a rep I’m not really required to state that specifically. They do train them in training, during our training program as to what exactly to code. When it comes to perio surgery, most times if you’re going anywhere between 1,000 and $1,500 per quadrant for osseous surgery, you’re going anywhere from 4,000 to 6,500 for a whole mouth, and this is a whole-mouth procedure. It’s not just a couple spot here, a couple spots there. If you want to do that, you can’t call it LANAP, you call it assisted with a laser and it’s some type of way to get the infection down, but you don’t want to call it LANAP unless you’re using it for the whole mouth. That’s why we go that route. If you look at it where, it would be … we’ll go the lower number, $4,000 for one mouth. Half the mouth would cover the cost of what the laser would be for every mouth. Yeah, we do have a lease option.
Howard: Is that the lease, you mean?
Terrie: Yes, we do.
Howard: What’s the amount, and how many years, and what’s the lease amount?
Terrie: We do have a finance person that talks specifically about that. The way I understand it is, normally depending upon how much the doctor pays for the laser; sometimes if it’s a doctor that’s getting brand new into it, he’s going to have to pay for the training and he’s going to pay for the laser. Usually when it’s not in the middle of a big dental show it’s about 109,995.
Howard: 109,995, so 110,000 bucks.
Terrie: Just under 110,000. When it comes to a convention such as something as big as the Greater New York and the end of the year, of course we do like to try and offer a cash consideration for our doctors or product considerations. Something to help get a doctor motivated to do this, because we want to see more patients get this opportunity.
Howard: [inaudible 00:15:26]
Terrie: I do. I met his wife at the lunch the other day.
Howard: Come here and talk. Let’s say hi.
Terrie: It was fantastic.
Howard: You know she lives in Mesa?
Terrie: She does.
Howard: Come here. You’ve got to get [inaudible 00:15:36]. This is my best friend from Crayton Dental School and he’s practiced dentistry for 20 years. You are my idol and role model in so many ways. Tom, are you using LANAP?
Tom: No, I’m investigating it.
Howard: You’re investigating it?
Tom: [inaudible 00:15:50] right now.
Howard: Yeah, yeah. I saw her one time. The 110,000 is that usually a five-year lease, six-year lease, seven-year lease?
Terrie: I want say, because of course I don’t have that in front of me.
Howard: Right. Just ballpark.
Terrie: Yeah. Four-year, five-year. Probably even as much as up to six or seven. I wouldn’t be surprised, but it’s a very low interest rate, 1.99%. That’s why we can get it to a point where if the doctor looks at it like, half the patient, half the mouth that I do is going to be covered.
Howard: The founder of this this thing, [Wurtzman 00:16:25]. It’s Bob Greg?
Terrie: Robert Greg.
Howard: What’s his wife’s name?
Terrie: Dawn. Dr. Dawn Greg.
Howard: Dawn, D-A-W-N?
Terrie: Yes.
Howard: Greg. Is her name Greg?
Terrie: Yes.
Howard: And they’re in Cissarino?
Terrie: Cerritos area. Cerritos, California.
Howard: You know what I always thought was weird? If they buy this for 110, what would you guess, 75 for the laser, 25 for the training, or what would you say?
Terrie: Yeah. Normally if it’s at the 110, it’s about 30,000 for the training and about 80,000 for the laser.
Howard: Okay, 30,000 for the training. I’m only saying this, not because I want to be a jerk, or rude, but I believe success is related to how many ongoing requests you have. I’ve heard so many people. I know a lot of my friends. In the 30 years I’ve been a dentist, the specialty of periodontics has changed the most.
Terrie: Yes, yes.
Howard: You look at the quadrants of perio surgery that were done in the 80s and you go down in the 90s. A lot of them, please just pull them and place implants. Kind of like in endodontics. [inaudible 00:17:30] You do a root canal, it looks great, you didn’t miss any canals. It’s failing. Most people say, why do an [inaudible 00:17:38] I’m just going to pull it and go straight titanium. This company is the most different in the sense that the training is all bought after you buy the laser and so many [townies 00:17:50] have asked me, “Why don’t they put a course on Dental Town, or why don’t you explain the training without having to buy the machine?” This company, you have to really buy an 80,000 laser before you get the training. I always thought, and maybe I could be completely wrong and this is not my business, but it just seems like if Robert and Dawn … you know, in Dental Town where we put up 350 courses. They’ve been viewed over half a million times. If those two guys would get up and give a one-hour course on this, it would get rid of all the mystery stuff.
Terrie: Yes.
Howard: I think it would bring a lot more qualified leads. I bet if they put that online CE course on those, maybe one out of every three, or four, or five people that watched it would want to buy a LANAP. Also you see that when you search on Dental Town for LANAP that we just did, there’s pages, and pages, and pages, and pages of threads of LANAP. I always think that one of the reasons there’s so much LANAP is because these guys don’t get any training until you buy the machine.
Terrie: Right.
Howard: Tell them that. Tell Robert and Dawn should come on and we’ll do a three-way, all three of us on a podcast and I’ll just ask them, why can’t I get trained on this before I buy the laser? Why do I have to buy an $80,000 laser before you train me?
Terrie: the main thing is, and you’ve got to realize, not every laser is created the same. Not every laser does what we want it to do. Not any laser can do what our laser can do. If you train a doctor to do LANAP and they think, oh, I’m just going to use the laser I already have, my diode. You’re going to have one angry patient. That’s the key. We have to protect our doctors that put money towards this training, because if we don’t protect those doctors it just puts it out there where Millennium doesn’t care, and that’s why.
Howard: The one thing I have to tell you in my backyard, and tell them to verify it, is that 25 years ago when these things were coming out none of the periodontists were using it. Now over the years, now I see a lot of my periodontists that I refer to are now absolutely adopting this and using it. It’s definitely gone from a bleeding edge technology to a leading edge technology. You say there’s periodontists that you know in Mesa?
Terrie: Oh, yes. Yeah. Realistically, with our company, two general dentists found this. Mostly the general dentists weren’t jumping onboard. Now we have about 50/50; 50% periodontists doing this and 50% general dentists.
Howard: Who’s a periodontist in our backyard? You’re in Mesa, I’m in Phoenix. Who’s the periodontist that lectures on it in our backyard?
Terrie: That would be Dr. Alan [Hannegman 00:20:33].
Howard: Alan Hannegman. Yeah, we need to get him on a podcast.
Terrie: Absolutely. He is fantastic.
Howard: In fact, you two should come by my house because Ryan and I film these in our dining room. You and Alan, when you get back home, you and Alan come by the house and you sit down and we’ll do an hour, you, me and Alan.
Terrie: That would be fantastic. I would love that.
Howard: Sound like a plan?
Terrie: I think that would be great.
Howard: Should we bring Tommy?
Terrie: Oh, sure. Absolutely. The funniest thing was, I was going to say to you, I met Dr. [Mattern 00:21:03] and his wife Sharon. I’d really, really like to invite all of you guys out for dinner so that we can all discuss this.
Howard: We should do that and we’ll do the … let’s do it at my house.
Terrie: Absolutely.
Howard: The deal is, Tom and I went to [Crayton 00:21:15], we both got out of school, we both opened up down the street from each other. We both had four kids, so every Friday I would dump my four kids off at his house and have Friday night off. Then on Saturday he and Sharon would dump their four at my house. For 10 years we all got off one night a week by dumping all of our friends off or a dental patient. Whenever we got a crazy, psycho patient then I would say, you need to go see Tom Mattern. He’s right up the street. He’s a lot better than me.
Terrie: I love that. That’s fantastic.
Howard: All right. Yeah, get Alan Hannegman who I’ve paid several times to speak at the Town Inn meeting. I think he’s an amazing periodontist. I know he’s big into lasers. He’s big into high tech, he’s a big educator. Go pick him up, come by my house and we’ll do an hour with the three of us.
Terrie: Excellent. One thing I do want to mention is, also with our laser, using the LANAP and LAPIP protocol with the periolase, MVP7, what ends up happening is we actually allow the body to heal itself. We actually allow the body to do what it’s supposed to do and that’s why we have so much success. We’re giving the body the perfect situation, the perfect environment and making that environment perfect so that these results that you see, that you’ll see all over that people think, oh that’s got to be Photo shopped. You can’t Photoshop X-rays, at least not to my knowledge when you’re looking at an X-ray. That is the beauty of what our laser truly does is, it allows the body to heal itself naturally.
Howard: Before you go, Tommy? Does Tom know your [inaudible 00:22:48] connection?
Terrie: I don’t think he knows my connection.
Howard: That is her parting words. Do you know her connection to the Green Bay Packers? Tell him your connection.
Terrie: My grandpa was … I did tell you this, okay. A Green Bay Packer. His name was … my great-grandpa is actually who it is. [Latoeur 00:23:05] is the last name and he’s cousins with Curly Lambeau. It’s pretty exciting.
Howard: If you buy a LANAP you get season tickets, front row center, to the Green Bay Packers. I heard it. That’s what you said? You heard it here on the Howard [inaudible 00:23:23] podcast.
Terrie: You said that. You actually said that. That’s really nice of you.
Howard: All right. Very good. I’ll see you in Phoenix.
Terrie: Thank you very much.
Howard: All right. Bye-bye.
Terrie: Go Packers.