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VIDEO - HSP #276 - Mark Hollis
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Why Mac practice? Learn how running your dental office on Apple technology can make your practice efficient for you and fun for your patients.
In 1987, Mark Hollis, a practice management consultant in New York City, began to research practice management software for several clients and friends, including a dentist and a family practitioner.
Mark determined that, thanks to their ease of use, Macintosh computers would be best for his clients. He bought a Macintosh II and began looking for suitable software for his friends. A year later, after attending numerous trade shows and seeing many demos, Mark discovered HealthCare Communications, Inc. (HCC). Mark knew that their software was the one that met his criteria, and soon MediMac, DentalMac, and ChiroMac became an integral part of his practice management consultancy.
Mark Hollis had continuous experience with MediMac, DentalMac, and ChiroMac marketing, sales, training and support for the next 15 years. He and his organization supported and consulted with over 600 clients in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 20-30% of all dentists and physicians who used MediMac, DentalMac, or ChiroMac nationwide were Mark's clients, due in great measure to the superior ongoing local support he and his staff provided.
During the past decades, Mark was responsible for designing and implementing a number of marketing and training initiatives for Apple Computer. For example, he authored a business plan for the Apple SBSS (Small Business Selling System) initiative creating a duplicateable reseller/developer model relationship. This model partnership leveraged the marketing and personnel strengths of each to advertise and produce over 200 Apple seminars, which Mark presented for HealthCare Communications.
Mark delivered the very first vertical market seminar in the nation in an Apple Market Center. This model was followed by other HCC sales representatives throughout the US and significantly contributed to the success of HCC. At Apple's request, he developed and implemented a national training program for Apple MicroAge resellers interested in the healthcare market. He worked with an Apple Evangelist to the healthcare market to create and deliver a seminar program across the US at Apple Market Centers and SBA offices. Interested doctors who attended these activities were put in contact with local representatives. Many of Mark's sales and marketing initiatives provided the model for numerous HCC marketing programs. He was given numerous awards by HCC for his contributions and for being the top sales representative in the US.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) requested that Mark construct and deliver a practice management course to dental students at their school, which he did for several years. Mark has also delivered several presentations at various dental and medical meetings.
Mark continued to work with DentalMac customers, providing training, support, and service. He maintained a cooperative relationship with the MacHealth™ division of WebMD, and worked together with the Lincoln Nebraska staff to maintain customer satisfaction. He, along with his wife and business partner Mickey, have been steadfast in their commitment to their clients, to MediMac, DentalMac, and ChiroMac, and to the Macintosh platform. Mark found many ways to enhance what his clients were able to accomplish with MacHealth software.
Mark was an Apple VAR for 12 years and participated in Apple's Science and Technology initiative. He was an Apple Product Professional, Apple Solutions Expert (ASE), a member of Apple Consultant Network (ACN), and a Macintosh Trainer for 10 years.
By 2004 Mark felt the need to advance the software and support to a new level to create the next generation of Practice Management. His thinking was shared by the original programmer of MediMac, DentalMac and ChiroMac, Patrick Clyne. Together they founded MacPractice, Inc. in May 2004.
Howard Farran: Hey, I am at the greater New York Dental meeting. I just finished my lecture, and I saw Mark Hollis, who is the CEO and co-founder of MacPractice. I snagged him for an interview. I said, "I want to PodCast you." I always thought it was very strange ... I start off, that ... I'm 53, my four boys Eric, Greg, Ryan and Zach, are 26, 24, 22, 21. Whenever you go on a ski slope, you always know who's old, because we're on 2 skis. The kids are always snowboarding. You never see a young kid on 2 skis. They're all on Mac, and we're all on Dell or Microsoft.
Every time I go lecture, when the AV guys set me up, I say, "So what percent are Macintosh or Dell? Am I kind of an old fart, being on a Dell?" He says, "Well, if you're your age, they're all on Dell. But if you're young kids, they're all on Mac." When I go into dental schools, they're all on Macintosh. They're all on iPhones. 100% of them are. I don't see anybody on a Dell. When they go to work for an old man in a practice, he's always going to be on Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Softend, it's all going to be on a Dell.
Then you see these young kids coming in, they bring in their Macintosh. I saw you, and you're ... I went to Creighton.
Mark Hollis: Oh, really?
Howard Farran: In Omaha, Nebraska. I know DentalMac started in Lincoln.
Mark Hollis: Yes. It's in Lincoln. The company is in Lincoln.
Howard Farran: And your partner started it originally in Lincoln? Or ...
Mark Hollis: My partner started developing DentalMac ... His brother in law was a dentist. He was in a basement with 2 other people. At the time, computers cost ... You know, a $10,000 computer. That's how much it cost. They had 2 computers, they worked 24 hours a day, 3 programmers in shifts so that they could sleep 8 hours. Each one would take off 8 hours so they could work 24 hours a day, and they developed DentalMac, which was the first software for dentistry that had ... In a graphical user environment. This was prior to the introduction by Microsoft of Windows.
When IBM was still working on ... Under the mistaken impression that Microsoft was going to actually work with IBM to have a graphical user operating system. He developed this application, sold it to a company called HealthCare Communications. HealthCare Communications is in Lincoln. He was the Director of Development, owned some stock in the company at the time, but not controlling the company, controlling the operation of the company. They had about 6500 offices. This is at a time ... We're talking about before the big commercial. The famous commercial, the 1984 commercial by Apple. At that time, they had 6500 practices, although probably I would say less than 50% were even automated in character based solutions in docent units.
It's a pretty big deal. The problem is that the company was mismanaged, but it was the leader. Then Dentrix actually started ... I remember when Dentrix started. They had almost no users, and nobody knew if anything was going to come of it ...
Howard Farran: It was in Provo. It was in Provo, Utah, where Gordon Christensen was. They launched it when Windows started.
Mark Hollis: That's correct.
Howard Farran: Were they on Windows 3.0 version?
Mark Hollis: 3.1, I think, was their first release. They had about 300 users. It took them about 3-4 years. The real burst was when they were purchased, obviously, by Schein. That was when they really exploded, because they had access through the deal.
Howard Farran: I have to tell you that the reality is ... If you go to Dentaltown, and you pull up practice management software, all the threads on Dentrix that's owned by Schein ... What is it ... Patterson owns Eaglesoft, Kodak owned Practiceworks ...
Mark Hollis: Which is now Carestream.
Howard Farran: Which is Carestream, which is Softend, which is what I have ... They don't seem to really have any happy customers. It seems to be just big, griping, moaning, complaining stories. Opendental, out of Oregon, has got a lot of raving fans. I've always thought ... Whenever I see anything in your company, I just thought, "Man, you have an easy play, because the future ... All the dentists, they're big Mac fans. They already love your Mac." I don't see anybody ever saying, "That Dentrix. You should get Dentrix, or Eaglesoft, or Softend, that's a good idea." It just seems to be all complaining. What is the future of Macintosh with running a dental office today? What's the state of it today?
Mark Hollis: Here's what's exciting. I think there was a benchmark that occurred at the ADA, just a couple of weeks ago. Basically, in order for a dentist to be able to purchase software for the last ... Since we've been in business, and for a number of years before that, it's necessary to know that you could have digital radiography that could work in your practice. That you had not only one choice, but that you had a variety of choices at a variety of price points. The guy that sees that the low end solution that's inexpensive is of a diagnostic quality sufficient for him, he's got that choice. If he wants the highest end system, he's got that choice. That was not available on a Macintosh when we started 12 years ago.
The reason it wasn't available was because there wasn't a market for the manufacturers to sell. There wasn't a guy that was willing to walk around and go to their booths every single trade show, and say, "It's time to develop your equipment and create native drivers. We can work with you to make that work and give you access to a marketplace where you can actually sell it." Over 12 years, that's what I've done.
I've got a book, I didn't bring it with me, actually I meant to do that. There's a list that we give, a guide to the show, for dentists who are interested in having a Mac solution. Or already have MacPractice. It's a guide of all of the solutions that work natively, and some PC versions that work, that we've cooporated with and manufactured a creative bridge. They can use that on their Mac and use it with MacPractice. It's integrated. What happened 2 weeks ago is that ... I think what's a revolution is the new product ... I don't know if you've seen the new very small product, the PSPIX Phospor Plate Solution that came out from ACTEON?
Howard Farran: No.
Mark Hollis: Okay. Whether you're Phosphor Plate or not ... Almost all of Europe is Phosphor Plate. That's what they use.
Howard Farran: That's where you're shooting a film X-Ray, then you're scanning it to a digital solution?
Mark Hollis: Yes. It's a film ... It's a digital film. You can use that same film 500-1,000 times easily, depending on how you treat it.
Howard Farran: Why do you think Europe likes that solution more than a digital X-Ray sensor?
Mark Hollis: I'm not a dentist, so in a sense, I'd rather reserve ... My opinion might not matter as to why I think that is. I'll tell you some of the benefits of those people that look at both, and tell me, "Why would I choose this versus choosing that?" One thing is, if you drop a piece of film, you can pick it up and probably reuse it. If you stepped on it and really damaged it, you lost $40. That's one reason. Another reason is because you can use a size 0, size 1, size 2, size 3, and you can put 3 size 3s in and do an occlusal into a sleeve, and you can have them sitting right next to your device. There's no wires. There's incredible comfort, because of the fact that it's not rigid like the sensor.
You're probably aware of this. The first real sensor solution that was available in the world, really, was Trophy. It was available in France. The government actually subsidized it, which is a weird thing ... Why our government does not subsidize using digital radiography, when it has a benefit to consumers, it has a benefit even to the public in regard to reducing the cost of ...
Howard Farran: The reason we don't subsidize is because Ronald Reagan believed in free trade. When the manufacturers came up to him and said, "Japan is subsidizing TV manufacturers, I can't sell TVs against a Japanese company that's getting subsidized," Reagan didn't care. He just kept saying, "Free trade, free trade." The Koreans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Taiwanese, the governments all invested in their industry. Since Ronald Reagan, we've lost 50 million manufacturing jobs, and you still hear Republicans saying, "Free trade! Free trade!" That's the answer, but we're not supposed to be talking about sex, religion, politics, or violence.
Mark Hollis: Thanks for the information.
Howard Farran: Yeah. Republicans ... Every time they say, "Free trade," we'll use 10 million more jobs.
Mark Hollis: The Europeans in Europe, they've had the longest experience with digital radiography. They have all gone from sensor to Phosphor Plate. If you look at the evolution, you'll see that they've done ...
Howard Farran: The sensor is high cost. How much is a sensor?
Mark Hollis: A sensor can run between ... On the very low end, $4-5,000.
Howard Farran: How much is the insurance?
Mark Hollis: They can go as much as $16,000.
Howard Farran: How much is the insurance here?
Mark Hollis: Some companies will charge as much as $1600 per sensor, per year.
Howard Farran: For insurance?
Mark Hollis: For insurance. That doesn't mean, necessarily, it might, depending on the contract, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get a free sensor when you drop a sensor.
Howard Farran: Basically, the answer to the Phosphor Plate is, "It's lower cost."
Mark Hollis: It's lower cost, it's easier for the patient to tolerate. Every patient tolerates it. It means that, instead of having to go find a 0 sensor because your patient's mouth will not accommodate a 1 or a 2, you've got it right there.
Howard Farran: I've always said that if you send 100 dentists to a dental convention for 3 days, they will spend all 3 days trying to figure out how they can go into debt and raise your overhead.
Mark Hollis: I know.
Howard Farran: That's just what they do.
Mark Hollis: Right.
Howard Farran: If you ever go to a dentist, and say, "Hey, I've got this really neat idea how you can lower your overhead and do everything more simple," they're like, "I don't know." But if you say, "Man, I've got a $10,000 machine, that if you put $2,000 down and financed it for 5 years, every time you do an impression it'll cost $10 more," They'll go, "Wow. That sounds very interesting."
Mark Hollis: I'd like to meet some more of those dentists. Anyway.
Howard Farran: That's just how they roll. They just love to increase their overhead, they love to make a mountain out of every molehill.
Mark Hollis: This is a great solution, also as an additional device. What I wanted to tell you that is an indication that MacPractice has arrived, is that this product was introduced 2 weeks ago. Simultaneously, Mac native and Windows native. After 12 years of convincing manufacturers who had a solution that had a Windows driver. It was Suni ... We developed the driver, and then we did that because they were willing to work with us ... Then other companies wanted to now be on the platform and have access to our clients.
Howard Farran: How many clients do you have?
Mark Hollis: We have about 30,000 users and 4,000 practices, but they're not all dental. We're also the leading developer of medical, chiropractic and eyecare on the Mac. About 1500.
Howard Farran: Medical, chiropractic and ...
Mark Hollis: Eyecare.
Howard Farran: Eyecare. On the Mac.
Mark Hollis: On the Mac.
Howard Farran: How many dental offices ...
Mark Hollis: About 1500 dental practices in the United States. We're about 30 countries.
Howard Farran: 1500 in the United States, and 30 countries. Are you the leading Mac player?
Mark Hollis: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Howard Farran: Absolutely. Amazing.
Mark Hollis: Yeah.
Howard Farran: How much does it cost to use the Mac software? How much is it ... If a dental student wants to start their office on Mac?
Mark Hollis: The prices range between maybe 6 and 15,000, depending on what options. I don't believe in bundling. I don't believe in selling somebody something that they don't want, because it's a lower price if they buy it today. I don't want to buy the guy at the trade show that sold them something, and they find out they didn't need it, didn't use it, but they paid more money, isn't that great. I would rather sell them a product at a fair price. I'd rather sell them ... It's the same price that they'll pay a year and a half when they realize that they now want it. I'm not giving them some incentive trying to sell them something that they don't want.
I've been in the business for 30 years. I've sold it both ways, and I just don't like bundling. Basically, that's why there is such a range of pricing. It really depends on what they client wants.
Howard Farran: What do you think of the business model where some software companies say, "I don't want to sell a car, because I always have to be selling more and more cars. I'd rather get all of my clients to give me a little money each month so it's better for budgeting, and forecasting, and programming." Some software companies have done that over the years.
Mark Hollis: Obviously that's the way Cloud vendors do it. They pay a fee. The problem with that is that once again, you've got clients ... Typically when they do that, they also sell a bundle. They generally do not sell ... With certain options, and this is your price. You don't have much of a wide variety of what you pay. Leasing has been available in the United States for I don't know how many years. How many years I've been selling tax qualified leases. The benefit is, if the client buys ... If they want to make payments, that's great. You buy the software, you buy your hardware, you buy your training, and you buy it in the month of December. Let's say that everything costs $20-$25. You get a section 179 tax deduction right now. You don't want to pay for it right now? Great, no problem. Get everything that you want, get a section 179 tax deduction, and then pay $4-500 a month for 5 years, but at the end of it all you're paying is the annual support fee. You get the tax deduction, you get to make your payments, like you just said right now.
The payments don't go forever. The payments aren't the same forever. You're going to pay for support, because you want to have it current. You want to have it on the most recent operating system. You want all the new features and upgrades. But you don't want to have to pay for the software over and over again. I've done comparisons with products like Cloud vendors that sell their solutions like that. In a single doctor practice, it takes about 6 or 7 years before it equals if you actually bought the software and paid for the annual support. It's pretty equal. After that, it's astronomically higher for Cloud solution. If you take 2 doctors, in about 3 years ... Somewhere around 3 years, in the third year automatically it's astronomically higher. Now, at the end of 5 or 6 years, they've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for something that they could have paid over the same 5 or 6 years, maybe $40,000 for.
Howard Farran: I want to ask you another thing. Every consultant that I've known, for 20, 25 years says, when they go into an office and they look at the user generator reports of what software functions are being used ... In every office in America, 80-85% of all the software has never been used, ever. Do you agree with that or disagree with that?
Mark Hollis: I think that dentists ... Many dentists do not understand the value of training. They have a tool that's incredibly powerful, they looked at it when they bought the solution. They bought it based upon it doing certain functionality, but they may or may not actually implement the functionality. I think that ... As human beings, all of us are resistant to change. The dentist is resistant to change, but also the front desk is resistant to change. Very frequently, the dentist does not act as a good leader in terms of moving past that resistance. The software has to do a lot of things that somebody may not use, that a particular dentist may not use, because of the fact that it has to be versatile.
I think that dentists think that they all run their practice very similarly, but if we took an analysis of dentists and how they run their practice and we compared, we would find that there was maybe ... I think that we'd find that there was an intersection of about 40-60%, but we'd find that there's a very large percentage where they vary greatly from one to the other. The only way to really do that successfully is to be able to have that choice. You call up and say, "I want to do this with my software, but I never thought about it when I bought it. Can I do that?" Yeah, I can do that, because we've had 100 other dentists that wanted to do that. You didn't want to do it when you bought it, but you can do it now, and you don't have to change softwares to do it. All you really need is maybe a little bit of consulting, and little bit of training, which is a lot less expensive than replacing your software.
The only other option for that is to have a million different versions of the software program, that only had what that customer is going to use. However, by selling my software a la carte ... For example, Howard, if you were to buy our software right now and you said, "Look, I need to replace what I'm doing with Softdep. I've got to do billing, I've got to do scheduling, I'm going to do charting, I've got to do digital radiography, does your product work with my sensors?"
We replace your software, but you also look, and you say, "One of the reasons that I'm going to MacPractice is because I also am not really ... I'm not having my patients help me enter their data into my system. I want to do that. I want to hand them an iPad, and I want them to enter their data into my system, so that I stop paying my staff to enter the data into the system. I'll pay you $200 a year, I'm willing to do that, but I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to pay you $200 a year when we get to it, and then I'm going to put an iPad, and I'm going to put my patients to work and they're going to love it, because they can take their own photo, they can sign their HIPAA release forms, they don't have to re-handwrite information that they already gave me when they made the appointment. Everything is there. They can put all their clinical history, they can review it, tap the button, and then it goes directly into MacPractice. I didn't have to pay my staff to do it."
You say you want to do that, that's great, but you might not do it day one. You might do it a year from now. You might do it the next year, but when you're ready, your software is flexible to be able to add that. The other thing is, I didn't charge you for it until you told me you were ready for it. By having the flexibility of having it a la carte and having these different options that you can choose to do ... Do you know about secure messaging? Are you familiar with secure messaging?
Howard Farran: You mean for HIPAA?
Mark Hollis: Well, secure messaging that would qualify for HIPAA. Or prevent you from not qualifying for HIPAA, and prevent you from getting a $50,000 per email fine. We have secure messaging built in, but we don't make you have it. It's an option. You want it? It's $10 a month, in order to be able to have a secure email address, and then $10 a month for whatever person, if they don't already have it, that you're going to communicate with, if it's another dentist.
You might not appreciate the fact that you want to have your patient use a certified electronic health record portal, a patient portal, but you might appreciate it later. You can pay for it when you want it. When you appreciate it, you can come to us, and say, "You know, I heard about this really great thing. Can I do that with my software?" We say, "Oh yeah. Here's what it does. We can turn it on for you, but we haven't been charging it for you until you were ready for it."
Then we're going to make a suggestion. We're going to say, "You know, if you really want to be effective with this, Howard, the best way to do this is not just to have us turn it on, the best way for you to do it is either have your regional representative ... Pay them to come in for a couple of hours, or half a day, and do training and help you learn your software better. Or call our corporate trainers. We'll charge you on an hourly fee, by the minute, and help you learn how to actually use it, and help you change the behavior in your office to be more effective.
I think that's the key. It's having training available, having really capable software, being able to choose when you want to implement it, and not being charged for it whether or not you're using. I think the key thing you're saying is, they have the software, they're not using it, but they're paying for it. My goal is to have these additional abilities.
I was thinking about it this morning. It's hard ... Doctors don't necessarily believe it, but the bottom line is: The more money that they are paying MacPractice, the more money they are saving. There's not one thing that we put into MacPractice that isn't either required, like secure messaging ... But it prevents them from getting a $50,000 fine, so what's $10 a month to prevent you from getting a $50,000 fine? Everything else we do, basically saves them money. Clipboard. $200 a year, but what's it worth to have your patients enter their own data into your system? No scanning, no copying. All the clinical records go directly in. Everything is available electronically. Who entered it? Who'd you pay to enter it? The patient entered it. You didn't pay anybody to enter it, and the patient loved it. What I do, and this is my ... I've been doing practice management consulting for about, maybe, 20 years before I got involved in that MacPractice ...
Howard Farran: What kind of practice management consulting?
Mark Hollis: I started with a buddy of mine here in New York. I hard a hard time. It was on 30 Central Park South. He was having a hard time buying his practice, because his building was going Co-op. Basically, I had a lot of business experience in a lot of small businesses. I won't bore you with all the long string of things I did. I said, "Look, Bob. Let me come in. Let me see if I can understand what's happening in your practice. Let me see if I can understand dentistry, and let me work through some things for you. Let me see if I can help you."
We started looking at things. This is actually how I found Dental Mac, and how I started ... I decided between a Mac and a PC. I decided, he would never be able to learn how to use a PC. If he gave his front desk person a PC, he'd have the same problem he had right then. Only his front desk person knew what was happening to him. If his front desk person wanted a raise, he had no choice. I said, "If I give him a PC, it's going to be exactly the same thing. He's still going to have no choice." I said, "At least with a Mac, maybe, he'd be able to sit down and run some reports, and be able to understand what his receivals are without having to ask his front desk person to do that.
In any event, I started working with him to do that. That's how I got involved in the business. I then saw an opportunity ... Instead of just working with him ... He became kind of passive aggressive. People start calling you for everyone. "What light bulb should I get? I forgot what you told me." I would do the research for him. I decided that the software was a way of being able to make a big difference in many practices, a big positive change in many practices, and then be able to step away. When the client was ready, they might call me for consulting or additional training. Then I would come in, and I would make another big difference.
I've never, ever sold my services, nor does my company ever sell the product or service that does not generate many, many times greater than whatever we charge. What you were saying about buying something that generates less, or increases your cost but doesn't increase your revenue, I totally agree with that. The solution that we provide ... When I think of a new feature ... I think of something that could help a dentist be more effective ... I've got to figure out a way to pay for it. It costs money. You've got to have someone develop it. I've got to pay engineers. You've got to have someone support it. You've got to stay with it. Even if I only have 10 people that buy it, those people expect me to continue to support it, no matter how many people bought it. I'm not going to force everybody to pay for it just because I think it'll be useful and only 10 people want it. I've got to figure out that cost, but the bottom line is: That cost is never greater, it's only a small fraction of how it benefits the customer, and how it benefits their patients.
That's how we develop the entire software program. Basically, making an investment that saves money, increases productivity, reduces the amount of time involved, improves communication, and improves the lifestyle of the doctor. I know you were talking earlier about dentists ... A lot of dentists ... That there's so much stress on them, and they have trouble dealing with it. The key thing is: They want to treat patients. They want to get this other stuff out of the way. The goal is to basically take care of everything else, so that that can step out of the way and they can treat the patients.
Howard Farran: Who is ...
Mark Hollis: That's my goal for them.
Howard Farran: Your 1500 users, are they usually new users right out of school that like Macintosh? Or are they a lot of older guys who are switching from something else and going into Mac?
Mark Hollis: The interesting thing is ... I told you, I've been doing it for 30 years. At one time, I had 650 offices myself, that I supported on DentalMac, MediMac, and ChiroMac. I was in the New York Metropolitan area. I installed them, I trained them, and then I provided ongoing support as needed for them. Because you're on a Mac, there wasn't a lot of ongoing support in terms of hardware, but they would hire me for consulting and they would hire me for training. That was my practice management consulting, was 650 clients. A pretty sizeable practice. Basically what happened is that Kodak but DentalMac, and WebMD bought MediMac and ChiroMac. All of them decided that ... There was a couple of things. One thing is, they didn't understand Mac users. They said, "Well obviously, the only reason these people are on Macs is because they don't know that there's a great Windows product."
I tried to tell them, "I don't think you understand. I do know that some of them started before there was a Windows product, but they know that there's an alternative on Windows, and they appreciate a Mac. Clearly you don't know the difference, and therefore you don't understand why they're on a Mac." They basically chased them away. In Kodak, I saw that something like 85-90% of all of the DentalMac users that they purchased they purchased DentalMac ... 85-90% of them were on another software program. Any program except SoftDent or PracticeWorks.
Howard Farran: What do you mean, "Except SoftDent or PracticeWorks?"
Mark Hollis: Because they resented Kodak for having abused them and not supporting and continuing to develop DentalMac on a Mac. Kodak was the last company they were going to buy software from. What Kodak was trying to do ... They were going like, "Oh, we'll buy the users, we'll give them a product that runs on Windows, we won't update DentalMac so they'll need to go there." They did everything they could to avoid doing that. If they bought a PC product, it was some product other than theirs. Many of them stayed on Mac, so the majority of those clients became MacPractice clients. Almost 98%, 99%. Maybe even more than 99% became MacPractice clients. That's kind of the core. What we did is, we fulfilled the promise other companies made that did not deliver to the Mac users. We have a very loyal following of people that want to have a Mac solution.
Howard Farran: What do you think your current 1500 users like most about using DentalMac? Do you think a lot ... What percentage ...
Mark Hollis: Of MacPractice.
Howard Farran: MacPractice. What percentage is because they just like Mac, and they like Apple, and it's that same user friendly feeling?
Mark Hollis: It's a very interesting thing, in that there are enough people that love a Mac that they will compromise ... There's a potential that they would compromise and have an inferior product because it's on a Mac. My goal from the very beginning, although I was aware of that, is that that would never be the premise of MacPractice. MacPractice's objective has always been to have ... We love the fact that a client wants to be on a Mac, and that we're taking advantage of Apple technology, and that they appreciate and understand the benefit, the low total cost of ownership, the fact that it's up all the time, all the things that our users say of our product.
Howard Farran: You say, "Low cost of total ownership." A Mac is more expensive. You say, "total cost," because you think they're more expensive, but they last longer? Is that what you mean by "total cost?"
Mark Hollis: It's absolutely true that they last longer, but in addition to that, the lower cost of support. There are been studies that have shown that a Mac requires 10% of the support of a PC. An example is, some of your ...
Howard Farran: Explain to my homies what you mean by support. You mean IT support?
Mark Hollis: I'm taking about on-site IT support.
Howard Farran: Installing anti-viral software?
Mark Hollis: Which almost none of my users actually do, install anti-virus software. They also ... The anti-viral software doesn't work, so they also don't pay IT people to come and fix even though ... To take care of the fact that they connect to the internet immediately
Howard Farran: So explain to dentists who do root canals. Why does Mac not get viruses?
Mark Hollis: There are a number of theories as to why Mac does not get viruses. Here's one theory. One theory is that there aren't enough users. I don't know, at this point there's 30-40,000,000 users on a Macintosh, but for reason, that's not interesting enough to people that develop viruses. That's one theory. Another theory is that OS X is more secure, and every version gets more secure. That's another theory. I just know that it's true that if you were to go on the internet and look at viruses and how they affect Mac vs. PC, it's clear.
Howard Farran: You say 30-40,000,000 use Mac?
Mark Hollis: I think it's 30-40,000,000 at this time, I haven't seen it recently.
Howard Farran: How many would use Microsoft?
Mark Hollis: Oh, it's hundreds of millions. I don't know. Maybe billions.
Howard Farran: That does seem logical, because you've seen in the lottery. When someone has a chance to win $1,000,000, nobody plays. Even though $1,000,000 would be a total game changer in the average life of an American. Then when it gets to 10,000,000, no one plays, but as soon as it goes to $100,000,000, then the sale go crazy. I always think it's funny. As if 1,000,000 or 10,000,000 wouldn't change Grandma's life? She's not interested until it's 100,000,000.
Mark Hollis: Right, right.
Howard Farran: Then at 100,000,000, she's running to the 711.
Mark Hollis: That could be true, but all of those are theoretical. It doesn't really matter. The bottom line is that our users are up more often. One of my representatives in the Pennsylvania area told me that he had some clients that were asking him about, "Could you do a contract for me?" Very common in the PC world. People have their IT people on a retainer, and they pay them a monthly fee, whether they need them or not, because unfortunately they need them enough to have them on a monthly retainer. He was actually investigating and going through all his numbers, and examining his several hundreds clients, and looking at how much they paid him over several years, and he said, "On average, they're only paying me $4-500. It's not worth it for them to pay me on retainer. I'd be taking advantage of them." There are years in which they pay nothing.
I don't know if you know John Ferencz? A very well known prosthodontist here in Manhattan, has maybe 20 Macs? I don't know how many iPads. Maybe 10 or 12 iPads. He's on a video on MacPractice. He has a very high end system. He was asked this question on the video. Said, "How much do you spend per year for on-site support?" He said, "I have to think about it. I don't think there has been a year on which I've spent even $1,000 on on-site IT support." I think that you would find that PC users ... I hear very high numbers. Nothing comparable to that. It's not only the cost of the IT support, but that's enough.
In terms of total cost of ownership, if you were willing to ... If you paid 10% more for something at the beginning ... I'm not going to tell you that it would be 10% more. MacPractice software would not be 10% more, the training's not 10% more ... Perhaps the computers might be more, but they're better. Macs are better. You know?
Howard Farran: I'm going to keep going with that.
Mark Hollis: It's what you pay afterwards that's the total cost of ownership.
Howard Farran: How close are we getting to the Cloud where this won't be doing any computing anyway, and it'll all be on the Cloud?
Mark Hollis: I know this is going to go contrary, perhaps, to what you think, but when I have people call me about the Cloud ... I don't have people that are on a Mac System that call me about the Cloud. The people that are calling me are almost all of them trying to get rid of their PC server that's in their office. They have problems with their PC server. It doesn't have a client operating system that they can understand, so they have no choice except to call their IT person.
They have a lot of expense. They have a lot of downtime. They have a lot of problems. What they're really trying to get rid of is ... They're not really trying to put what they have in the Cloud, what they're really trying to do is trying to get rid of that PC server and everything that's associated with it. I ask them these questions. I say, "Let me ask you. Do you happen to have a PC server?" They say, "Yes." "And you have problems with it from time to time?" They say, "Yes." They give me all these things that they're ... I say, "Well, you called me because you thought that you could have something that was more reliable, because you have a Mac at home, and you know that you don't have problems. You'd like to have that same reliability in your office. I'm telling you that you can have that greater reliability in your office. You're asking me this question because you're kind of on automatic, asking me about the Cloud, because you want to get rid of the PC server, but when you called me ... My software doesn't run on a PC server. My software runs on a Mac, just like the one that you have in your home, that's very reliable, that you already want."
I think for the largest number of dentists, I don't think they want to have their patient records in the Cloud. I don't think they want to be subject today, to whether or not they can work, depending upon whether TimeWarner works, or whether their ISP works, or whether they've got a strong internet connection. I don't think they want their staff to be slow because there is some kind of a break. I don't think they want to change one IT support ... First of all, you still have to use a computer, so you still have IT support. The only computer you got rid of was that server. You still have to have a terminal, plus then you've got this issue about the fact that everything is going to be somewhat slower. Everything has got to be protected, because everything, even if you're an office not connected to a remote office, but you're in that office, you're still needing to protect everything, because the only way for you to access everything is by connected remotely.
If I told you ... This is the most amazing thing to me. If I told you that I was going to physically take your server, personally, and I was going to give it to my friend, but I wasn't going to give you my friend's name, his number, where he lived, or even what country he was in, and has all your patient records and you don't even know if you'll get your patient records again unless you pay me every month for the rest of the time that you're in practice, and then you have to pay me for 7 years after that so you can continue to have access, would you even consider it? That's what the Cloud is. Does any doctor that's using a cloud solution ... Do they know who the hosting company is? No, they don't know who the company is. Then they say, "Well it's great. It's at the hosting company, and then it's also copied some place else." Do we know if that's in Iran, is it in Iraq, is it in Russia, is it in China?
Howard Farran: What's interesting about hosting is ... It looks like amazon.com is walking away with it, the Cloud storage. I was noticing on their earnings last year that half of their revenue came from Cloud storage. The Cloud storage is growing so fast, that before long ... When they started off, I thought of them as the company that sold books. Then they added shoes, and appliances, and now it's like they're turning into a Cloud storage company. Why did Amazon walk away with that, and not Google or IBM?
Mark Hollis: It's very interesting. Number 1, they have a low pricing model, and they may be actually buying the market. You're aware of the fact, because I know you write, you're aware of the fact that Amazon ... Now that they basically, you could say, virtually own the publishing market, they are in the business of telling people whether or not they'll publish a book. Do we actually want that? That's basically what we're talking about. We're talking about a company that distributed things below cost to drive everybody out of business, drive your local book store out of business ... You can't go look at a book, you have to buy it through Amazon, or you have to drive 50 miles in order to go a Barnes & Noble, because of the fact that it's out of business. They closed that operation, because Amazon drove them out, because they were willing to sell a book for less than cost.
The book might be at the cost, but they're going to ship it to you for nothing. Now they want to charge shipping. What are they going to do in the Cloud if they drive everybody out of business? The fee that you're paying now is going to increase. They're basically doing ... That's their model. Their model is to buy the market at whatever they possibly can, even if they have to lose money to do it. Then, they'll determine what's best, and they'll charge whatever they want. What are you going to do? Where's your patient information?
Howard Farran: You're talking to thousands of dentists out there. If some dentist ... I see this a lot. They went through dental school on a Mac. If that's the proper thing to call it, a Mac.
Mark Hollis: Yeah. Sure.
Howard Farran: They went through dental school on a Mac. They're now working for Old Man McGregor, and he's on ... I just never see him happy on Dentrix, Eaglesoft ... I've used SoftDent for 20 years. I've noticed that every dentist that ever worked for me in 20 years left, not one of them said, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna use that software that old Howie had." Not one of them. They all hate it. Tell them. What's the pitch? Why should they go with you?
Mark Hollis: We've been in the business for 30 years. We're a profitable company from the first day that we opened MacPractice 12 years ago. We have enough users to be able to support our development. We have 135 employees in Lincoln, Nebraska. We're dedicated to the development of software. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Howard Farran: I was going to say, of those 135 employees, how many of them are Big Red fans?
Mark Hollis: 100% of them are Big Red fans.
Howard Farran: Oh my god. I went to Creighton. I have never seen a state endorse their college football team more than Nebraska. I don't think there's a state that endorses their professional NFL team as much as Nebraska. Those are the crazies hardest core fans.
Mark Hollis: We're in the Haymarket district.
Howard Farran: Oh yeah?
Mark Hollis: Yeah, so we have to be very careful. When you come in on Saturday or Sunday, it might be hard to get in our office.
Howard Farran: Yeah. I love Lincoln. It is a beautiful town. You're in Lincoln.
Mark Hollis: We're in Lincoln. We have 30,000 square feet. We've got a commitment to the market. We have 40 ... I believe personally in my experience over 30 years that the best kind of training is on-site. Somebody who can actually see what's happening in your office, help your staff understand how they're going to do with MacPractice what they did with Dentrix or Eaglesoft, or PracticeWorks previously and actually get them up and running hands on, see what the practice actually does. We have 40 regional people that actually are full time people, that work and go into client's offices and do training and installation. They do sales, and then they're available for ongoing training and ongoing consulting as needed.
Howard Farran: Who's your star practice management consultant?
Mark Hollis: We've had this conversation a year ago. We were talking about ... You're not satisfied with the kind of reporting that's available. You would like to see different reports, and ...
Howard Farran: I just think it's crazy that no practice management software is connected up to accounting software.
Mark Hollis: Right. We talked about this earlier today.
Howard Farran: Who's your star consultant? Do you have one ... Do you have a lead star consultant?
Mark Hollis: We don't have one.
Howard Farran: You have some good ones?
Mark Hollis: Well, I think what's happened so far with us is that our clients have bought MacPractice. I guess I'm the star consultant, but I don't purport myself to be a consultant to my clients.
Howard Farran: You started off in dental office consulting.
Mark Hollis: That's correct.
Howard Farran: That was 30 years ago?
Mark Hollis: That's 30 years ago, right. I'm involved in the actual development design of the application. I do input, but I listen to other people. I'm not egotistical.
Howard Farran: I'm trying to think of a kill two birds with one stone. I think what might be good for you is to create an online CE course on practice management consultation. Every dentist wants to have a busier office, with less stress, that nets more money. They all want to run more efficiently, see less patients, for money money, for more net income, lower red, whatever. If you showed them what you picked up on practice management over 30 years, whether that took an hour or two hours ... Explaining it, why you are demoing your Macintosh / Apple software, you might teach everybody how to be better practice management, and then sell some software on the side.
Mark Hollis: I think that's a great idea.
Howard Farran: Yeah, I think it'd be great.
Mark Hollis: I think that's a great idea. The other thing I've talked about doing is working with consultants ... I've worked with Sally McKenzie a little bit to look at the kind of information that she likes her offices to have, and her consulting team. I like to work with other consultants to see if we can tweak and we can work to do the best we can to be able to provide what other consultants think. Consultants don't necessarily emphasize the same thing. They have different ideas as to what's important, but there's no reason that we can't work with our product.
One of the things that we've done Howard ... I don't know if you're aware of this, but we are ... EagleSoft and Dentrix and Practiceworks, none of them have invested their money in making their product government certified for electronic health records. It's not really important to all dentists, but it's important to about 14% of dentists, and it's important to Americans. We spend I don't know how many billions of dollars ... It's probably close to $30,000,000,000 that we provided to put in providers practices, including dentists, who see Medicaid patients and Medicare patients. Medicare obviously doesn't affect many dentists primarily, it would primarily be oral surgery.
As consumers, this is treating the under-served, when we talk about Medicaid for dentistry. We've invested in doing in doing that. Our product is government certified. That means that our product is more secure than a software that's not certified. That means that secure messaging is built into our application. It's not an add-on, it's not something that's outside the product, it's built in to the application, because it's required by the certification in order to do that. It means that our customers that choose to see patients, the under-served patients, are able to actually use the software, demonstrate meaningful use, and receive incentives of as much as $63,750 per provider in their practice from the government. We don't think that that group of dentists should be ignored. Particularly in pediatric dentistry. That's about 70-80% of pediatric dentistry, Medicaid patients.
Howard Farran: Obamacare mandated that when you sell health insurance, that children under 18 should have a dental provision.
Mark Hollis: Right.
Howard Farran: That's covered so many children now, that now there's no way these children can be seen. California's State Assembly is the first state to be having lots of meetings on this. They're already deciding that they're going to have to double the fees paid on the Medicaid state California plan for children, because the fees were so low, there were so few providers, the unmet need was just a monstrosity.
Mark Hollis: There are a lot more general dentists that are seeing children. This is another issue. I'm seeing children, why' shouldn't I get $63,750? I want to emphasize that it's by provider. In other words, you could have several providers in the practice. Maybe just one of the providers sees the Medicaid patients. If 30% of their encounters in a 90 day period are Medicaid, just 30% for that provider, you get 63,750.
Howard Farran: Is Sally McKenzie ... Is she a big fan of your software?
Mark Hollis: I don't .. Sally McKenzie is also a publisher. She does The New Dentist, it's her publication. I meet with her and I talk about The New Dentist. I think she's a fan. She's very enthusiastic when we talk about MacPractice. We talk about the government incentives, and we talk about what we've done. She's excited about it. I don't want to paint her as ... I know her in that context.
Howard Farran: I remember going to her birthday party in San Diego. That was one of the most fun parties I've ever been to.
Mark Hollis: She's a fun person.
Howard Farran: She is.
Mark Hollis: She's got a great personality.
Howard Farran: Yeah, she's a dynamo. Hey, anything else you want to say to the ...
Mark Hollis: We're a company that stays up to date with technology. Apple has been changing its operating system every year now, for several years. I don't know if you know that. It's not inconsequential that you have to make your product work in the most recent environment. We're also a company that is the leading developer, as I said, both medical and dental. I noticed ... There's some incredible number of courses on sleep apnea. That's great, you're going to treat sleep apnea. How are you going to bill for it? It's a medical procedure. How are you going to make a bill for it? Your software can't do that. Particularly since ICD-10. It would have been complicated enough with ICD-9, diagnosis codes prior to October 1. Our software has ICD-10 built in, so that actually it assists in coding. We're already using it with thousands of providers throughout the United States, because all of the chiropractors and physicians used it. It's right in MacPractice DDS. There's no additional cost, and it allows them to keep that 10% that they might be giving a billing service for doing the sleep apnea services.
Howard Farran: What if someone wants to talk to you? Do you recommend email? Phone? How does someone contact you? What is your website?
Mark Hollis: It's MacPractice.com.
Howard Farran: MacPractice, M-A-C practice.com.
Mark Hollis: It's very easy. The name of our product is MacPractice DDS. The name of our website is MacPractice.com, the name of our company is MacPractice.
Howard Farran: My practice? Or ...
Mark Hollis: MacPractice. I'm sorry.
Howard Farran: The name of the company is MacPractice, the name of the software is MacPractice, but the website ...
Mark Hollis: The name of the website of MacPractice.com. I'm sorry if I said it incorrectly.
Howard Farran: What did you say? MacPractice DDS?
Mark Hollis: MacPractice DDS is the name of the software. Our dental software is MacPractice DDS.
Howard Farran: What's veterinarian? DVM?
Mark Hollis: We don't have a veterinarian software right now. The medical is MacPractice MD, the chiropractic is MacPractice DC, and the eye-care is MacPractice 20/20.
Howard Farran: Right on.
Mark Hollis: Go to MacPractice.com. Go to the main page, because it's a great way. When you work ... When you're developing, purchasing a software program, you are entering into a relationship with the developer. You need to know who the developer is. You need to know what their capabilities are, are they going to still be around, are they committed, do they have the resources to deliver on promises they make to you? Are they going to continually innovate? Take a look at MacPractice. Evaluate it as a company. Go to MacPractice DDS, the homepage for that, and look at all the things that we've done. We're developing specialty pages, some of which are already there. You can see things that just particular for pediatric dentistry, or general dentistry, or oral surgery, or endodontics.
All that information is already there. Register there, and take a look at the QuickTime movies of our application. At your own leisure, or whatever time you want to. When you get an email, I'll actually be the one that looks at your registration. I will copy your local representative. That's a full time person that just works with MacPractice clients and MacPractice products that's in your region. That person will then be available to you to provide you with referrals, to answer questions that you might have, to give you an on-site or remote demo of what you may not have seen in the videos. It's a very easy way to be able to learn about the software. You already will have my contact information if you register at the website. You'll be able to correspond directly with me, if you want to, and ask any questions. That's it.
Howard Farran: Sounds great. Ryan, do you have any questions?
Ryan: No. That sounds very interesting. I love Macs.
Howard Farran: I know he's ... My son is behind the PodCast, he's 22, and I believe all my sons are on Mac?
Ryan: No, half of them.
Howard Farran: Who's on Mac?
Ryan: Me and Zach.
Howard Farran: You and Zach. The 2 youngest. The 20 and 22 year old, Mac. He's been telling me for his whole life to give up the 2 skis and get a snowboard, and throw in my stupid Dell and get a Mac. Maybe one of these days, Ryan, I'll surprise you and you'll teach an old dog new tricks.
Mark Hollis: Did you know, Howard, that you can run Windows on a Mac?
Howard Farran: No, I did not. Oh, you can run Windows on a Mac. Yeah, I know you can buy a Mac that runs Windows.
Mark Hollis: Any Mac that you buy can run Windows. Any Mac that you buy. If you go to Sirona's booth, they're running Windows on a Mac. They're using Macs. Why are they using Macs? Because the Mac is better. Otherwise, they'd be running Windows on a Windows machine. Correct? If you go to Planmeca, they're running Windows on a Mac. They also have Mac native software as well.
Howard Farran: The Mac computer is just more like a Mercedes Benz.
Mark Hollis: Yes. It's like getting a Mercedes Benz for less than 10% more than getting a Volkswagon. Their difference is so small ...
Howard Farran: I have to admit, I switched from my Motorola flip phone to an iPhone, and that was a game changer. Once I went to an iPhone, I could never go back to a Motorola, or a Nokia.
Mark Hollis: You now have a customer experience of Apple.
Howard Farran: I get it. Did you see the movie?
Mark Hollis: Oh yeah, I saw the movie. Actually, I sent all my employees to the movie.
Howard Farran: The new one? What was the new one call?
Mark Hollis: Fassbender. Steve Jobs.
Howard Farran: Fassbender?
Mark Hollis: Michael Fassbender, I believe was the actor that played Steve Jobs.
Howard Farran: Was the movie good to see? What did you think of the movie?
Mark Hollis: It was interesting, because I've been at every Keynote that Apple gave. At every Mac World since ... I don't know, I guess for 30 years. I stopped going to Mac Worlds a number of years ago. Maybe about 5 years ago. I was at that Mac World where he does the presentation, and he chews out Steve Wozniak. I've met Steve Wozniak. Patrick has met Steve Jobs. A funny story is ... Steve Jobs said, "Can I demo DentalMac? I want to demo your software." Patrick looked at him and said, "I don't think You want to demo my software. Let me demo the software." Steve looked at him and said, "I understand." It was beta software. You saw that whole scene in ... Did you see the movie?
Howard Farran: No, not yet.
Mark Hollis: Oh, okay. In the movie, he blows up because of the fact that the software did not work the way he wanted it to. That's what Patrick did not want to happen.
Howard Farran: He was kind of a crazy guy, wasn't he? How would you describe him? Intense?
Mark Hollis: He was intense. He was a perfectionist. He had some weird traits. Personal traits.
Howard Farran: What were his weird personal traits?
Mark Hollis: There are stories about the fact that he smelled, that he was not hygienic. He had a very interesting ... He was adopted, so there's a whole psychological thing of maybe feeling unwanted.
Howard Farran: Separation anxiety.
Mark Hollis: Yes. He knew his father. His father lived in La Jolla, I think.
Howard Farran: His biological father?
Mark Hollis: He found out who he was, and he would go to his restaurant. He was a vegetarian, or a vegan, I don't remember which. Anyway, he would go to his restaurant and order. In one of the scenes, he's in the restaurant, and they know that's his father, but his father doesn't know that he's Steve Jobs' father. He's been going there for years and eating there at the restaurant. I will say this. I will say that he definitely changed the world with his perfectionism. He was hard to live with, he was hard to work for, but he demanded perfection. He didn't take no for an answer, and I can identify. I can identify as an entrepreneur. I'm not saying that in any way I'm Steve Jobs by any means whatsoever, but I think some of the personality traits of somebody who's driving to have the best product that they possibly can ... Somebody who thinks that they have certain gifts and talents for creating a product that suits many customers and understanding that ... Somebody listening to people and incorporating their suggestions, which is what we do every day.
I think there are probably a lot of software developers or entrepreneurs that are truly inspired to do what they do that can identify with that. I don't think I'm alone there.
Howard Farran: Most psychiatrists will say it takes a little bit of crazy to lead to a lot of success.
Mark Hollis: Yeah.
Howard Farran: If you're just a real normal, moderate, easy going person, you're not going to round up a lot of troops and get them to tackle the hill. It usually takes something else. A little of something, whether that's a passion, a vision, a little bit of craziness ... One of my favorite books of all time was The Hypomanic Edge. A little bit of crazy leads to a lot of success.
Mark Hollis: Does that mean you have a little bit of crazy, Howard? I think so.
Howard Farran: Ryan is my son. Ryan, am I a little bit crazy? What percent bat shit crazy is your father?
Ryan: A lot of bit crazy.
Howard Farran: What did you say?
Ryan: I said, "a lot of bit crazy."
Howard Farran: A lot of bat shit crazy. All right, well thank you for your time.
Mark Hollis: Thanks, Howard.
Howard Farran: Have fun at the greater New York.
Mark Hollis: Thanks, I hope we have an opportunity to do this again sometime.
Howard Farran: Absolutely. We will.