Kiltesh Patel is Founder and CEO at tab32, a cloud-based technology platform designed for better oral healthcare outcomes. The company provides the patient health record and practice management services for dental practices, and member outreach and education programs for population health. Prior to tab32, Kiltesh was the Director, Health Sciences at the University of California where he utilized data for medical informatics, genomics and translational science research activities. Earlier, he joined Mapquest.com/AOL as the Architect and was instrumental in developing migration strategies of legacy technologies and positioning products in highly competitive international markets. https://www.tab32.com
VIDEO - DUwHF #1288 - Kiltesh Patel
AUDIO - DUwHF #1288 - Kiltesh Patel
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Howard: It's just a huge honor for me today to be podcast interviewing Kiltesh Patel MS, MBA, he has 20 years experience in business and information technology within healthcare his career has focused on product development commercialization along with strategic planning and building high performance teams he graduated from the Rady's School of Management University of California San Diego with an MBA and obtained his MS and BS in computer science from Sadar Patel University in Gujarat India is that right Kiltesh, Gujarat?
Kiltesh: Gujarat that's right.
Howard: I've lectured in India several times absolutely
Kiltesh: You have?
Howard: Yeah Kiltesh is the founder and CEO at tab32 a cloud-based technology platform designed for better oral healthcare outcomes the company provides the patient health record and practice management service for dental practices as a member outreach and education programs for population health. Prior to tab32 Kiltesh was the director of Health Sciences at the University of California where he utilized data for medical informatics genomics and translated science research activities. Earlier he joined MapQuest.com aol architect was instrumental in developing migration strategies of legacy technologies and positioning products in a highly competitive international markets. Tab32 is the industry's number one cloud dental electronic health records software dental EHR and dental practice management system dental PMS. It is a simple and easy to use dental EHR platform for providers to get started immediately. The cloud dental software is a fully featured software with comprehensive tools to manage demographics scheduling charting insurance Ledger's reports and much more. So I remember gosh it seems like yesterday you were in the newspaper in the San Diego, The Times of San Diego and it was five questions for San Diego startup in tab32 that was when you were in San Diego and now you're in Sacramento so did you leave before or after the Chargers left?
Kiltesh: After
Howard: So the Chargers left and you said forget it I'm out of here.
Kiltesh: So yeah, more or less but what happened was that the tech team that we had was in Sacramento and we being a tech heavy we thought that we would initiate rather than asking them to move to San Diego we would build our tech team out of Sacramento so that's what happened and we finally said okay let's have a Sacramento as our headquarters.
Howard: You know it really doesn't make sense when you go into like as say a McDonald's and you that every single McDonald's has their own Intel computer their own hardware their own software firewall I mean cloud just makes a better sense but as a dentist is this bleeding edge technology or just leading-edge technology is it gonna be or is it here?
Kiltesh: It's already here so I mean if you think from the perspective of their cloud is going Gardner one of the leading research institute says that thirty two billion is already on the cloud and within the next four years it will be 10 X 300 billion we are talking about so I mean cloud if we like it or not it's already moving and coming it's like that right that we don't go to teller in a bank anymore right it's all cloud based and that is where the cloud is and where that tab32 comes in is it's like again from the Gardiners perspective and report that came out that Google was one of the top in their quadrant out of among three companies to build an infrastructure which is truly a bleeding it's cloud infrastructure and that is where you know we have built our infrastructure completely cloud-based bleeding edge you talk about big analysis big table no avaScript and all those technologies that allows you to rapidly scale that is where you know tab32 is and it's a bleeding edge technology I mean we could talk a lot more but that's where the cloud stands and you know there is a lot of also misinformation or misrepresentation that exists which is you know cloud base vs. cloud hosted and I feel that this there is a subtle difference of cloud hosting it like taking your computers and the servers that you were just mentioning to the cloud and hosting it and then accessing through VPNs or whatnot or even browser in many cases if it is a web application but with the cloud truly what it allows us is to scale rapidly it then allows us to really build an infrastructure that is truly scalable across the across the country you you name it right or from the perspective that you need number of locations it's all scalable from that perspective as well.
Howard: So I use softdent for 30 years and just kept crashing it just kept crashing it just crashing and it's my programmers over here a dental town that program dental town and they they go dude it's a 30 year old dinosaur they bake but my problem was when you view something from 1987 I mean I use softdent older than all four of my kids it was very tough, what would you say to old people like me who've been on the same legacy system for 30 years and they're there thinking they don't even know what you said they don't know what cloud is and what you said the difference in putting on the cloud or cloud stack but I'm gonna go even before that of all the things that are on your resume I mean my god you've been in this space forever tab32 Wow how did you go from aol.com to two decades later tab32, how does that work on a journey?
Kiltesh: Well so well the a personal journey but what happened is that happened even before Google map existed so this is back in 2000 early and then I moved for awhile into the healthcare and been working with medical informatics you name it like all the record-keeping for the patients and genomics and other aspects of it where you know there is a lot of need but I felt like those needs could equally be translated into dentistry where it stood when I looked at it five years ago now...
Howard; but why dentistry I mean even in healthcare why not dermatology why not cardiology?
Kiltesh: We looked right right so we looked at two things one was dermatology another was the gynecology there were many other areas which were ancillary from the broader healthcare mainstream perspective and I felt that dentistry was something where there were few distributors or couple distributors rather providing the services and they're selling as key use basically 150 different thousand SKU software being among them and felt like there was a need here that could help and elevate the way the dentistry is really done or served and could be provided a better solution from a technology perspective that could also open up a broader not just from a tech replacement perspective but to be also truly allowing to serve the patient through the various experiences or the care across the care continuum so that's really you know I came into the industry from the broader healthcare and making me trying to build this platform out.
Howard: You know so I've been writing the software companies my whole career because you know when you go to lecture at a dental dental company like you know you go you walk into the Marriott well they don't pull up some screen with a thousand icons they they open up a process and they're like what is your name do you have a credit card an ID they ask you like seven things to check you in and when you leave they check out, when you go to Hertz rent-a-car you know everything is they everything makes you do everything faster easier higher quality lower costs in a smaller more succinct way and then you go into dentistry my god you open up the screen there's on dentrix there's like four thousand eight hundred and twenty billion different functions that the dentrix rep will even tell you that he can run going to your software and show you that you've never used 85% of it a single time and it's like well if you can't if we've never used 85% of a single times and can you take all that out of there so I can train someone off the street how to use it in five minutes I mean I mean you you find people that have been on dentrix for five years and you say well how many reports of dentrix have does it have five 50 100 150 200 mm-hmm and she says I don't know it's like you've been on this one software for five years and you can't tell me anything about it it's just so noise and and oh my I I get my blood pressure boils when I talk are talking about you know I'm a software so I'm kind of curious like why were you injured in dentistry and what is your vision for this so what it sounds like what are your biggest visions is getting at cloud so at least you don't have to will that help in ransomware we just had a big ransomware issue in Wisconsin where a lot of my homies thought they were doing the right thing they were using that the security from the Wisconsin Dental Association they thought they did everything right and then they all got ransomware so if I was hosting it on the cloud but you said something else cloud servers versus cloud hosting.
Kiltesh: So there are my people issues going on and your question is quite loaded from the depth perspective so let me take break it down into multiple pieces over here one is being are we trying to replace a legacy technology and the answer is really no we are not trying to replace any legacy technology what is happening Howard is that if you look last 10 20 years just like you have mentioned the innovation in technology almost remains at almost none in the dentistry organelle software or practice management systems so what has happened over last 15-20 years as there has been a silo the functional software's coming into play like you suddenly are dealing with your online booking system separately you are dealing with your communication system separately you are dealing with your radiology attachments and all kinds of different Softwares that have come around in support of practice management but what has happened during the same period is that you know you end up working with too many vendors and it has really allowed or not allowed I would say but what I would say is it has created a number of vendors there that has created inefficiencies in the practices when you are dealing with this five different things so what we have done is we have taken a step back and that is where I said that no it is not just a replacement of a cloud software what we are taking is we are cloud is just a means to serve the purpose for us but what we have done is we have looked at complete care continuum from patients experience perspective and that is what we have built out on the tab32 look so that's how we think from the disruption perspective that what you need is not this five different things to do your job but how can we create those efficiencies that sets you on the path for growth and profitability so when it comes to tab32 we think as a whole care continuum and that is where we serve so that probably hopes you helps answer one of the questions that are we trying to replace legacy systems and cities you said no but mostly it's it's leveraging the cloud to meet the ends is what it is and then second thing that you'd mentioned somewhere was about ransomware. So the ransomware basically sits on the local machine when when the server is within the practice or even hosted on the cloud for example and you happen to click some random emails or something and ransomware hits to your machine for that reason and it locks your data and then you need to pay the Bitcoin or whatever so what happens with that is that either either you have a backup or or you just have to pay the bitcoins but that is where you know those 400 offices in the Midwest got compromised and it's a it's it was a bit of a situation for those practices but with tab32 basically what you are doing Howard is that you're taking the whole infrastructure out from your office so let's see even if ransomware hit the computer in the dentist office all you do is just reset the computer and next time it's up it's all good there is no issues the reason is data just doesn't sit on the on the on the local disk or local it's all on the cloud and then I think the last piece that you touched upon was the difference of cloud base versus cloud hosted so so it differences very subtle when you take for example dentrix vs open dental or whatever it is which is a client-server technology and you host that server on to a rented machine on the cloud then then that's the hosted solution basically our cloud hosted solution versus we're tab32 is not really that it's a truly multi-tenant cloud leveraging functions built on Google infrastructure clouds offer truly a cloud-based software so I hope that helps you answer all those two or three points that you made.
Howard: Yeah so well it's really weird in dentistry because the dentist is over trained I mean you know we have eight years of college and I'm not sure what of the four years of undergrad really applied to the dentistry the hygienists have four years of college the dental assistants online went to one year college but the ladies up front they they don't have any formal training for this and they're the most experienced person I mean they answer the phone but all these softwares and all these practice management systems they don't they don't measure or tell you how many incoming phone calls they don't record the phone calls you know that they're all coming to us by a smartphone but none of these softwares tell us how many people land on our website how many converted to us so I think DSOs have a major advantage because this individual dentist has to wear so many hats that he can't wear them and a DSO can get a layer of management wear this so I was wondering um how how will this um help them work smarter how will it help the workflows so that less people can do more productive work?
Kiltesh: Right so I think what you're alluding is something that relates to not just to DSO but just operational efficiency and how do I really sustain my operation in such a highly competitive market these days because of lot of influx of variety of reasons here so what we have done is from the ground up built those patient engagement workflows within the system so when you come to tab32 you can literally book an appointment right from your website so what happens today for a dentist is that when a patient is searching hey you find me again is near me you do open and go to Google do that you go to your website but unfortunately you have a form to fill up so you fill up the form and and nobody knows if you know that form gets ever replied or you call and if it is after 5:00 maybe office is not even there so that creates that black box so what we did was we right from the system itself built an online booking system so you could do varieties of ways but not just booking as booking or requesting and there is a subtle difference also that I would want to point here that booking an appointment and requesting an appointment is two different things and we have both those systems implemented so a booking means that you actively looks at your calendar and makes sure that you don't have conflict and books and confirms an appointment with the patient requesting is still requesting as the name sounds right but what we have done is we have added that into the flow and then we have also gone to an extent that you know sometimes you know because let's say your geographical area has a lot of no-shows then how can you avoid those no-shows while booking online is also taken care of by collecting a co-payment or some kind of fees that offer and from the patient so we've taken care of all of those things and if you think this is a sales funnel so a lot of people end up on your website patient generally and this is you and me as well when we go to a website our attention span is 15 into 30 seconds that is about it so if I don't book you or if I don't get you there then most likely you know I'm gone so that is where tab32 comes in allows you to book an appointment right from there where you are on the side of the provider and it directly integrates within the territory to system and not just that right it does lot many other functions like for example if you're online and you booked an appointment we want to make sure that we collect information on you like your insurance information your health history your dental back history background and whatnot so our system automatically also makes sure that patient is aware or the prospective patient is aware they filled out the form online and it automatically ties that back into the patient's clinical chart so it creates that whole set of efficiency and that's just one layer of efficiency and engagement that we are talking we've gone too deep into a lot of other processes with the post visit and and we care as well onto the platform which is all integrated seamlessly which creates you know all-in-all efficiency from an engagement perspective but more importantly if you think today the dental practice the practice is is the four walls of the practice are blurring in the age of this internet and consumerism you really need to be where the patient is and journey of that care just as an end within the practice it continues after as well so we have taken care and deeply understood this workflows of how it really could be meaningful engaging to a patient and then implemented that across and that basically what it does is it allows you to really if even if you're a solo or a multiple practice allows you to provide that consistent patient experience from the platform.
Howard: It almost sounds like I'm tab32 is two things it's a cloud dental electronic health records software dental EHR and a dental practice management system that does your you know scheduling charting insurance Ledger's reports and all that is that kind of, what is the difference in the cloud dental electronic health record software dental EHR versus the dental practice management system dental PMS?
Kiltesh: Right so traditionally where I come from the background of an EHR is basically thought of as a clinical health records or the health records and the practice management is more sort of as a scheduling system in your accounting system so if you put this together in dentistry it's all called practice management and I know that some of the companies earlier in the day used to sell clinical as a separate module as well so that's where we came from saying it's an EHR but now that it's merged into dentistry it's of one system which is dental practice management system and also I want to do you know highlight here that it's the system that we have built out is not and practice management system it basically is five-in-one what I mean by that is you have a patient communication and engagement platform right out of the box you have your radiology and we are the only one in the industry who can provide offline imaging solution even though it sits on the cloud just like your Google Drive the third piece of it is the electronic claims right within the system and the electronic attachments right within the system so these are like all four or five things combined you get one system and on top we have also implemented analytics or slash accounting however you want to name it within the platform that gives you out-of-the-box analytics component on the platform.
Howard: Now did one of the reasons you move from San Diego to Sacramento is because the CDA is there was that the big driver or does that have nothing to do with it?
Kiltesh: No it has nothing to do with it.
Howard: Really, I guessed it would have had something to do with it but not really?
Kiltesh: No not really
Howard: because you're only three miles from the CDA.
Kiltesh: Yeah right around the corner but haven't met anyone there no.
Howard: Really
Kiltesh: Yeah except the conventions.
Howard: Your whole website you always call it patient first software what why and I love I I really do love the way you use the experience the experiential economy I mean Harvard has been talking about that for so long that when a product gets commoditized and dentistry has then experience matters and what and by the way what I mean by commodity is homies is listen to this very clearly because you got a really understand is you have to listen to the patient the customer when you listen to the customer and they're talking about their best friend had their appendix rupture and they rush into the hospital and you take all the comfort stations of the family will is she okay did she live no one talks about well did you take her to the hospital in Mesa or Tempe or Scottsdale there's no discussion up because doctors physicians dentists hospitals we got so good that people just figure well if you're gonna have a baby or your appendix ruptures or you need your wisdom tooth out isn't that what doctors do so we became so good that if your insurance says well if you go to if half of America goes to these dentists it's gonna be cheaper then you go out-of-network will people just follow the insurance they follow Network because they think well there's no way you could be working in a hospital in Sacramento and and when my girlfriend shows up with a ruptured appendix I mean isn't that what you do didn't you go to school for like ten years so we actually got so good because if you go back to the 50s everyone knew that that doctor was a quack that one was better that one worked with the Mayo Clinic this guy should be in jail but that's that's not the way anymore we're so good we became a commodity so now experience matters what does the what does the term experiential economy mean to you?
Kiltesh: It is exactly those things however that you have described is that just because of the internet and the pricing transparency or the service transparency and the efficiencies that it has created the negotiating power for analysts is really you know his or her contract and those prices are out really in the open difficult to to manage and and you know maybe that's the way it should be or maybe not but that's a different topic here but the pricing information out there does not really allow you to and this is where me this is a bit of an a business school word here that does not allow you to discriminate on that factor out of this different factors that are available to to differentiate your business so that is where you know when the pricing factor business or allows you to discriminate the other factor or the key factor that leaves you or separates you as an hour and and other dentist or dentists would be would be would be the experience and and and that is you know exact definition that I would see and where we come from is that it's extremely critical today being an Internet the way it is the walls being blurred of a practice the experience starts from the home of the patient today it doesn't start over the phone or when patient comes which was 10 years let alone ten five years ago it starts at the in the home of the patient it continues even after the patient has gone back home right that all together for us is an experience and experiential economy and you see it across the board this is where it is going you name any vertical it's not just dentistry even you know we're seeing this tremendous in different ways in ecommerce sector and whatnot so so this is happening across the board and like just bit of in health care which is slightly different in that sense but you're seeing that also some of the factors like ophthalmology is exactly going into that direction as well right so so those are some of the things that are changing and they're changing rapidly it's an I wouldn't call it a wave it's a title that is happening.
Howard: I was wondering, you're the founder and CEO of this company right?
Kiltesh: Mm-hmm
Howard: but a board-certified famous period on us Michael s Grossman is is he's your executive chairman what was his relationship how to outed why does a board-certified periodontist the executive chairman in tab32 what's his role in all this?
Kiltesh: Well so he has been instrumental in lot of areas but he is background just to give you a little more where he comes from be head dental indemnity plans and a lot of other things like discount plans he was I think arguably the first in California to start those plans and his company got bought out by one of the big insurance company and that's when he came on tab32 and we both saw that there is an opportunity here within the dentistry where does it you know under the practice in a silo and we could really leverage this to benefit for a great recruit so that's how he came onboard with the tab32 and he is an executive chairman and that is his role and company.
Howard: and to the young the young kids coming out of school my gosh they they did everything in undergrad to get into dental school they did and everything in dental school just to graduate they finally graduated they're working now and they're gonna spend about five years working for some DSO Patterson whatever I mean Hartland you know all those different is those when they're gonna leave their associate job and they're gonna start their own practice what should they be thinking about in as far as practice management software why should they be thinking about tab 32 as opposed to denture its Eagle softer who would you say your main competitor is?
Kiltesh: Well so in the legacy space you just mentioned the dentrix would be one other one would be the softdent that you had mentioned I think you are softdent right so those Eagle soft other one in the web application space I could say curve general or planner DDS could be another ones on the web application space for our competition and the message that I would send across is two things one when you're opening your practice make sure that you you you invest in technology enough not that you have to buy these bulky servers and and the configurations but you need the up-to-date technology the reason one being you know the way consumer consumes or the patient consumes the service dentistry in this case is very different than it was even five ten years ago so you need up-to-date tools in your arsenal and make sure that the experience is highly factored in because that is how you differentiate yourself and we have talked a lot about this experience factor that differentiates you from the others in the space and tab32 is a place where you would go to do four or five things you know in a in a you know in a in a single platform or on a single platform from all the way from a booking an appointment to making sure that money is in the bank once the service has been completed even after for the post cares so that is where tab32 comes and it's a very contemporary technology and I would say it's it's one of the first in the cloud space which is truly a cloud based technology and not just makeshift or hosted web app or even web application or the hosted solution.
Howard: Now I'm gonna ask you quite a question when I'm done you're gonna think I'm crazy so I'm just going to tell you first I am crazy but this is a serious question, every time there's anyway long story whenever there's a ransomware outbreak or there are some people who think that someday you know the internet will go down that it'll be a war between Russia, China , the US and visit ever worry you that the internet will go down?
Kiltesh: No it doesn't worry me I mean just back of my hand right how long have you been doing banking Howard?
Howard: My whole life
Kiltesh: Whole life right have you ever realized that you when you log in it's on cloud all your money is on the cloud it's even bigger than the industry and market right the whole money all the money is in the cloud I mean nobody knows really it's a digital money even though we are talking about currency but it's still digital so banking has already been on cloud for a while and we are comfortable with that.
Howard: but like China or North Korea or Russia or the United States you know in a in a cyber war that can shut down the internet or when people say things like that do they not understand the Internet?
Kiltesh: It's difficult to shut down an Internet in such a scenario but even that being said let's see if there was a blip and let's say you got disconnected to an internet for couple hours but rest be assured that your data is safe your data sits on an infrastructure which is highly secured type to software which is a banking grid security or in that sense is sitting on those infrastructure so when you get back to Internet you get all your information right back so it doesn't really I mean that concern shouldn't be a concern otherwise you know you should start putting the money that you put in the bank in your home as well because that's exactly the same concern.
Howard: Another big issue is open source interoperable data migration one of the fastest drawing dental software companies in America is Open Dental and just because it's open you know if your brother's a programmer he can he can custom where as you go to dentrix and Egalesoft it is a closed system is yours an open system designed to talk about open system open source interoperable data migration what I do is I throw so many loaded questions out there that hopefully there's something that you'll want to answer.
Kiltesh: I will answer as much as I can, so open source I would say which is open analyzed well I would think that there was a time and day when I thought that was really cool to give you access of or possibly a way to query your data or built an infrastructure on top of it because all the other systems which are all of legacy right now then takes all of them didn't really allow you to do much when it came to the data and working with those data pooling out reports recalls and whatnot be in a lab so I thought back in time it was really cool since we have progressed and this is like you know five ten years we are talking there there are systems which allows you to do right out of the box so so I think open source is not necessarily the key at this point yes ten years ago it was probability one of the cool thing I feel like 10 15 years ago now it's not so much of a key because cloud allows you to do that in from an infrastructure perspective and also the part is interoperability that you are you just mentioned I think in your question as well so that is where you know we feel that interoperability is extremely important moving forward because...
Howard: Explain what that means in case someone doesn't know.
Kiltesh: Right right interoperable is something which two systems can communicate it's it is that simple in a language that both understands right today if you look at all the legacy systems dentrix eagle soft they won't talk to each other or let alone talk to each other but their data itself is so hard to even migrate from one system to other without you know some percentage of data losses and that's the reality of the situation so if you and and you know with your from your platform actually I would propose that and you know we are very proponent of standardizing the data which allow us to do this interoperable functions across various different needs then we would want to lead that effort and create those infrastructure for the community that allows the data to move among these different platforms or various other things and tab32 in fact is in interoperable we have built our system based on the latest healthcare fire interest fire piece jasonized infrastructure so what means how it is that you can take our data and run with it unlike you know other systems where they don't even acknowledge or give you a data in a you know in a in a standardized format from the migration perspective or from moving from one system to other system.
Howard: Another key area is the you have a practice management software system like dentrixs, eagle soft or softdent which you say is not interoperable but you're quick but you run all your books on QuickBooks professional online and so when a dentist is done for the day I'll say well how many people do you say and he'll say 20 and I'll say well for the whole day what did what did you collected do you collect 2,000 bucks did you make 500 well none of that none of that talks to his quickbooks online and so I feel like every single dental office is schizophrenic multiple personalities bipolar because they got half their brain in QuickBooks into it calm and half their books and a practice management system how do we work our way out of that?
Kiltesh: So from tab32 what we have done we understand that problem and that problem basically is not just an accounting perspective but it is more of your analytics perspective which is you know did I was i profitable today did I see the even for that example right did I see the right patient with the right insurance that would allow me to be have a better margins than somebody who had a fewer less margin so that analytics what we have done is we understood we have figured out all the metrics behind it and build it right within the platform so what it does is it tells you exactly what was your production where did you on your production what was your collection where did you have to write off which ones where and and we go to a level and it goes into details like you know by the providers if you are multi provider office multi location it's all covered within analytics engine and gives you this hundred different widgets to really work with but we go in in fact or debt to give you that what is the square footage earnings of your practice that's the basic unit number if you look at the DSO markets a lot of them are running with this number like what is your square-foot earning that is how our analytics engine goes deep keeping the accounting text purpose is separate right which is this is more of an analysis of a practice itself.
Howard: Well yeah I mean square for earnings that is that is just standard operating procedure when you're trying to study Walmart's and targets and all that kind of stuff. I always think you know if I was a company like you and I was selling something that made sense from a business point of view wouldn't the DSOs be more intelligent to focus on because they got a layer of management that just thinks business whereas dentists are so busy running off to the pankey Institute and Kuois and spear and clinical that they don't have you had much success with DSO do DSOs use you, how's your successo there?
Kiltesh: So to give you the success we have so the company has been for five years and we took good amount of time two to three years to build the product out and it's still ongoing because you know there is never end to a change in technology and making product better but to little over two years we have been into the business and the market with the platform technology we have amassed over million patient more than a million outpatient records we are talking about four hundred practices in less than two years over fifteen hundred users actively using tab32 platform on the breakdown perspective we have solo providers we have DSOs on our platform are one of our biggest DSO is 30-plus practices on the platform already using software we also have varieties in enough in a way that at we also have a lot of school-based dentistry on addressing like a statewide and a school-based and dentistry a couple of big franchises who are really backed by the equity groups are also on the flats so so we are addressing this because we know that we have created the right kind of technology in an analogy it's it's a kind of a multi-tenant system which is a high-rise condo highly customizable that allows to serve this different various needs within the dentistry or within the market.
Howard: That is very interesting so succinctly my homies want to learn about bone grafting they they want to learn how to place an implant they just they're chefs man and they want to get in the kitchen and bake succinctly how are you different?
Kiltesh: The difference is twofold one we are completely on an experience which is you know from start to beginning from pitch in first perspective which is our core feature across all the practice management's for example I just show you here and then I'll go into the second piece my laptop is dead but I think you have a lot of sorry not laptop but our tablet is dead but you have seen the pictures they are what it is on our website as well if you go it's simple what you need to see it's intuitive built so we have it built like you mentioned earlier as well that there were screens of icons and you are only using 20% of that functionality we've built our system that way you only see five or six icons in a care workflow what you need most from the clinical perspective is patient's insurance information patient's medical history patients x ray information and clinical information along with the progress not those are the five icons that you see when you are on the tab32 so we have thoughtfully designed our workflow so that is where we differentiate ourselves among ten tricks and all of the others where you see sets and sets of icons sometimes it makes and sometimes it doesn't make sense. So that's one big area that we differentiate our cells from the competition and then the second area that we highly differentiate ourselves is more on the focus where you are looking at one technology platform instead of four or five different things that are vendors that you need to get your data it's basically in nutshell and operational efficiency besides you know growth and profitability that entails overall does not help answer succinctly your question?
Howard: Yeah and what did you what did you think of the five questions for a San Diego startup tab32 that the times of San Diego left what did you think of that interview?
Kiltesh: Oh my god that has been a long time for me I think it happened probably 15 if I'm remembering correctly 15 it's been a while since I haven't looked at it but I'll still say that that was a conceptual stage and this is an execution stage and what has happened is we have grown our business and getting stronger and stronger from that date to today.
Howard: I also I know there's a World Series on tonight it's the seventh game and so I'm not gonna hold you longer than I still got a few questions. You see a lot of where companies popping up they're popping up everywhere which again is it I get underneath the problem that you need all these dashboards because if you have half your information and quickbooks online and you have half of your information and in your dental practice management software and then and then the staff doesn't know what's going on so what is your thought about dashboards do you do you think a dashboard should work with tab32 do you think our tab32 should merge with QuickBooks Online 2 to merge that data so you don't need a third party vendor or well what is your how do you get your amazing brain around dashboards?
Kiltesh: So that's what I had mentioned to you in the analytics question that you had asked me dashboard it is already part of captive it comes out of the box you need to go and have yet another system or a vendor that really does your analytics or dashboard our dashboard is very comprehensive like I said analytics engine runs on and the front end is the dashboard which is the UI that we are talking about and it goes deep dive number of crowns number of implants number of referrals which you had mentioned even earlier that hey how do you really make sure that the patient that lands on a website comes and sees me and how much money I made those kinds of dashboards are also implemented in the tab32 right out of the box and dashboard is basically just on UI which isn't a sure of that analytics.
Howard: What is the UI?
Kiltesh: User interface, graphs and other things right.
Howard: I know my dentist and a lot of them I mean here's what I've been strongly with all humans they fear opening up their own practice at a dental school so they go work for somebody else until they're so miserable there's so miserable they don't even want to live anymore and they have to get to that state before that's enough to get them over the fear of opening your own office and I just tell them just just do it now just absolutely do it now don't don't wait till you hit rock bottom another big fear is I hate my practice management software but they believe in the conversion that when they power it up they're there you know that when they open up your chart it's not gonna say Kiltesh Patel it's gonna say macaroni and cheese and and all the data is crazy um how does your conversion look?
Kiltesh: Yeah so conversion like I said before as well that we are working on improving the conversions and just because do you know the companies or the legacy software's out there are not really transparent and and and their data is encrypted sometimes so it's hard and difficult question but I would say that the conversion always in this is for any true migration you go search internet or Internet and you will I did that most migration has some kind of data loss five percent two percent ten percent and it is true for the industry as well you go to any software there could be a data loss but what are those data loss are they critical or not so what we do Howard is digitally work and we do a lot of these migrations for softdent and what not eaglesoft ten tricks and all we look at core informations like make sure that let's get your accounting aging report let's get all the demographics let gets all the progress and clinical information the scheduling portion so we look at all of these things check with the practice and make sure that the data is intact and you know sometimes here and there issues happen and we go back find those data or we figure out a strategy to work with it and how practice move into the direction of the cloud but more importantly Howard I would want to take a step back and see that you know yeah it goes crazy when you are going migration but that's not strategic what has happened is that you need to position your practice more strategically than trying to be a prisoner of that data in the migration what you want to think is can i grow with existing infrastructure or tech structure to where i need to be if i am starting this practice if I'm starting this practice new or if I'm starting at taking over somebody's practice I really need to grow this practice to this X dollars or Y dollars when you put that strategy together and you see that hey if I need twenty percent or ten percent of even growth does my existing infrastructure how can I live with that and make it work or do I need to take a step back and really do a ground-up implementation strategically to make sure that you know we are ready to grow because most entrepreneur is mostly honest really are stepping in it's crazy for them but you know they have dreams as well to have second third fourth and fifth practices or to become a big DSO as well and that is where you know that strategy comes really into help saying let's look at the larger picture and make the right technology choice given the problems nuances.
Howard: I promise you I'll shut up and quit asking so many questions but I set up one one final question because back to accounting back to QuickBooks Online another you know if the DSO people are right I mean Hartland is coming up on a thousand offices and a lot of people say well could Hartland run a thousand offices on QuickBooks Online I mean when you look at the S&P; 500 they're all on the software out of Germany what is their SAP software or what it would
Kiltesh: SAP
Howard: SAP yes and then Microsoft which is over on your side on the coast I'm they bought Great Plains accounting and and so a lot of people think is it is accounting gonna be like QuickBooks Online for like a small mom-and-pop business and sap accounting at a Germany for the entire SP 500 is on that and they're all incorporated out of Delaware what about a middle market what about a Heartland could a Heartland or an Aspen or a Pacific Dental could they run 500 to a thousand offices off QuickBooks Online and view connector that to tab32?
Kiltesh: I suspect that it would they would definitely need more managed accounting because mostly a dentist and this is more of a nuances within the accounting as well and we're talking purely from the accounting perspective is that there is a cash basis and there is an accrual basis and at four million or five million federal needs to you need to change it to accrual basis that could change a lot of reporting structure so for the bigger and larger DS's its lot more complicated then probably an online QuickBooks can handle and I'm pretty sure they have different systems to manage this thing compared to you know if you're growing and if your a dentist probably QuickBooks might an answer to it but again I mean it needs to be looked more thoroughly and I'm not an expert in an accounting really to help answer that question but I can definitely answer the analytical questions of how can i how can I help to grow the practice through doing this X thing or Y thing or how how could you relate your insurances and what type of insurances can earn you better those things tap32 you can do but I think that would be a boundary where tap thirty-two would come in and come in with and then let the causation and other issues be handled by more professional something.
Howard: So you're saying quickbooks online that the driver is when you need to switch from cash accounting to accrual accounting and you think that sort of the five million dollar mark?
Kiltesh: I think four or five i think whatever that cetera i'm not an expert here but whatever that federal guidelines are where you need to report accordingly so i think and again i'm not saying that you could do one or not all I'm trying to say is somebody more expert needs to be brought in.
Howard: but you're trying to write you're trying to run the details of a dental office in a business and you really have focused on that I mean I came out like a gentleman by thirty days MBA 1998 and that is that they asked real meat-and-potato questions like they hate payroll they don't want to do their payroll and ADP does one in every six Americans payroll check how do you if someone had tab32 what would you recommend how they do payroll?
Kiltesh: So ADP is a good system Intuit has another good system they are all online based system that they could use and the logs are the entries for the peoples or the staffs our could be locked within the tab32 and then you know exported into the into a tour ADP to do the payroll side of it and text withholding and whatnot that comes along with our.
Howard: and the practice management software I mean the practice management accountants say that when they go into a dental office of then being embezzled against now remember that's a that's a weird sample size because obviously you're you're a dentist and America and you don't have any money so you need a consultant so that I'm sure that I'm sure a lot more of them are getting embezzled from than dentists who live in America work hard and have cashflow do you what are your thoughts on tab32 and embezzlement?
Kiltesh: Right so what we have done is that we have put in the audit tracking for every single entry and if you make any changes or even if you read any record we are recording that behind the scenes so what happens is that the administrator of the system has access to all this information, let alone if you try to delete a check then it will flag it so there are or even the payment any type of him and not just checked but any type of payment it will log it and there are logs that will help the embezzlement Express because embezzlement could happen at many degrees not within the platform but sometimes not deposited in the bank and whatnot or cash being check being cashed out at elsewhere right so tab32 has that framework or the foundation rather not a framework the foundation that helps that helps the forensic expert to look into the details and get to the cause of it.
Howard: and my final question you went to the rady School of Management right now that the Chargers love do you think they should change it to the Tom Brady School of Management how would that go over?
Kiltesh: So the Brady foundation has been very instrumental in San Diego our nest ready is one of the big donors in the school and he has done a lot for the community there and like Children's Hospital he has a huge hospital already he has done large other philanthropic activity at the in San Diego and I feel like you know his support to the school was also extremely important for the school and it supports the school itself is an entrepreneurial school promotes the entrepreneurialism and in the curriculum so so I felt like I feel that support and that blessing is extremely important for the community in San Diego and in many thanks to him actually.
Howard: Ernest ray what is Rady I mean Rady what how did he where did he make his mark what where did he make his, what kind of business did he have where did he get the money?
Kiltesh: So I have met him once but I know that he has he is and he has his own equity group and funds and he is big in construction and other things.
Howard: Well hey thank you so much for giving me an hour of your life today, thank you so much for posting on dentaltown like I say dentist you know they want to be surgeons that work with their hands in an opportunity or your you come in you have a problem we want to fix that but in order to do that we have to wear so many hats and business and marketing and accounting and finance and then I'm just always trying to help my dentist homies get us spend more time working on a patient instead of figuring out all this stuff and I and you've helped very very much with a lot of specific questions thank you so much for coming on the show today and talking to all my dentists.
Kiltesh: Well thank you so much Howard for an opportunity to come speak in your podcast and I hope I try to answer as much as I could but I'm still available on the forums and everywhere .
Howard: How does someone contact you if they have a question?
Kiltesh: Right the forums are there the dental forums are there on your site or they could also being me on LinkedIn and they are actively responding to all the questions and it's open profile so anyone can send a message across as well as or even they can call tab32 editor comes any phone number if need arises and I'm happy to take a call and again thank you so much Howard and it was wonderful and thanks for the opportunity.
Howard: No thank you have a rockin hot evening