The Compliance Divas Podcast
Our podcast covers current topics such as infection prevention and control, OSHA and HIPAA compliance for dentistry. We discuss the latest regulatory information, answer frequently asked questions and give suggestions for dental practices to make compliance easy and sustainable. The Compliance Divas are a trusted source for consistent, accurate information based upon current guidelines, standards, science, and recommendations.
The Compliance Divas Podcast
#226 From the Mouth to the Whole Body
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Dental practices are increasingly integrating broader wellness strategies to elevate patient outcomes and support whole-person care. Join our special guests whose passion is to enhance your prevention and total body strategies. Has your team embraced whole-body wellness?
- L'Diamante Consulting: https://ldiamantecoaching.com/
- Shine Workbook Journal for Dental Hygienists: https://tinyurl.com/ShineWorkbook
- Girl, Stop Half Assing Your Carers: https://tinyurl.com/CareerHygienists
Welcome! I'm Leslie Cannon. I'm Mary Gavoni. I'm Linda Harvey.
SPEAKER_04I'm Olivia Wan and together we are the Compliance Divas.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the Compliance Divas Podcast. This is Linda Harvey, and I will be your moderator for this episode titled Expanding the Role of Dental Teams in Total Body Health. You know, we I think we all recognize that by embracing total body wellness, dental teams really become vital collaborators in the whole interdisciplinary space in healthcare so we can improve the quality of the care that we provide and the quality of the outcomes for our patients as well. So it is my pleasure to introduce Danielle Avila and Laura Betancourt today as our special guest with El Diamante Coaching. So, ladies, please tell our audience a little bit about yourselves.
SPEAKER_04Thank you so much for having us here today. And honestly, one of my dearest friends. I'm so fortunate to have her in my life. We met each other back in hygiene school and graduated in 2008. And we've been alongside this journey of growth, and she's dealt with burnout really hard, and how we can not only grow within ourselves, but grow our profession. And now we're here today alongside all of you, and we're so grateful to be here. So thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you, Laura. That's great. And I remember the story of you two meeting at hygiene school. And I think that's pretty special because that's those are lifelong friends there. So, Danielle, what intrigued you about going into Dell hygiene school and then moving into this space?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a very um, that's a very silly question for me because it's not like this big science-y like nerd science nerd, and I like wanted to help serve. I don't know, it wasn't anything like that. It was more so from a young age, I knew that I wanted to find a job that I had flexibility in. And so my aunt is a dental hygienist, and I always saw the flexibility that she had in her schedule. And I knew that I wanted to be a mom, and flexibility was going to be really important for me to be able to be home with my kids. And so little did I know that I would actually love the serving piece and helping to heal other people, um, you know, just from their oral habits in their mouth. But yeah, here we are. And that is really what got me obviously into hygiene school was my aunt, and then meeting Laura, and then the burnout piece that Laura had explained, feeling that that burnout of that hamster wheel, not being able to grow within the four walls of that current operatory, and then deciding together that we wanted to create a space where hygienists could feel that there was no glass ceiling, that they were able to grow and to be able to lean into their passions, whether that be in the clinic or outside of the clinic, helping um patients or in sales or whatever their passion truly was. And so we have been able to create a space for that, but then also for offices to really be able to grow their hygiene teams and to feel empowered and to be on that same um, they have the same vision and mission and to be growing in that same direction is really important for us.
SPEAKER_03I think those are just beautiful, beautiful ways to express how teams can work together better for the enhanced outcomes of patients. So while we may focus on hygiene at first, I know that, and we've talked about this before, that it really involves the whole team. So, all of our listeners today, this involves you no matter what your role is on the dental team as far as working with and promoting total body wellness. So, with that, I'm going to ask our diva Leslie to jump in with the first question today.
SPEAKER_01Well, Linda, one thing that impresses me so much about Danielle and Laura is that they are best friends and that they have grown up in hygiene together, so to speak. And it's just amazing that they are talking about what you can do outside the four walls of your dental operatory. A lot of people think you go into hygiene, you're going to dentistry, and you're like on that hamster wheel and it's same old, same old, but they've uh truly proven that you can move beyond just the four walls of your operatory. And I'd like to know what motivated both of you to move into the area of total body wellness?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think it was a few different things. What's coming to mind off the top of my head is that Danielle and I were at a conference, the Massachusetts Dental Hygiene Association, and we met uh a fellow mentor and uh prevention specialist advocate, Sarah Crow. And she was talking to us about guided biofilm therapy, and it kind of just blew off um, you know, our the the the top like our lights and everything, the fireworks were lighting off. And we were like, wow, as as individuals, we always believed in whole body wellness and to have guided biofilm therapy to be able to provide that to our patients really started to unlock a whole other layer. And we knew that we needed to learn more about it. We needed to be able to provide that care to our patients. So we started diving in for ourselves, and then that only from there on led to how we could help others learn about this, how we could start speaking and teaching others and empowering other hygienists in dental teams that there is so much more available to us and knowledge is power. And when we have more knowledge, we can not only educate ourselves, but we can really help educate our patients to have better understanding on how their, you know, high blood pressure medication that they're taking could actually be caused from bacteria, you know, or that um could be caused from bacteria in their mouth and how everything's connected and how if we can help reduce that, it could maybe help reduce the their need to be on high blood pressure medication. So really just starting to bridge that conversation.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing. And and so, Danielle, can you tell us a little bit about your program and what makes it unique? And how do you actually even work this into your typical hygiene visit? And uh tell us a little bit about that, how you uh will connect this information to others who you are consulting with who are hygienists as well.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that's a great question. And I think that this is the basis of what Laura and I do. Obviously, like I was saying, making sure that everybody has a similar mission and vision is really, really important. But ultimately, at the end of the day, for a hygienist to feel more empowered in her operatory, he or she is going to want to make sure they have all of the tools in their tool belt to be able to treat that patient as a unique individual. And so that is really where the superpower of what Laura and I do comes into play because we have so much knowledge on so many innovative technologies and tools that we personally use within the op for our own patients. And so to be able to open the eyes and broaden the knowledge of our clients to see that it is much more than just a quote-unquote cleaning, they become more empowered, they become more confident, and then that's where we're able to kind of bridge that and bring in that whole body wellness into the appointments for the patients in that provider's chair. And it's just, I mean, obviously for the dentist, it's important, the ROI is important, but when you can embody this and you you believe it and you're a true prevention provider, like you just love what you're doing. And it's no longer about the ROI or the money, it's really about getting our patients out of that neutral zone and into that health and wellness, which is so, so important to Laura and I.
SPEAKER_03I love that neutral zone. That's a great phrase, Danielle, because that's what happens. Patients get in that neutral zone. It's like I'm going in for just a cleaning. And then also conversely, sometimes hygienists or actually any member of the team can kind of get in the neutral zone in their role and they just sort of on autopilot in a way. And that's when life becomes very dangerous in dental practice when that happens, but especially dangerous because the patient suffers, not necessarily always from a medical injury, medical uh, you know, some kind of medical safety injury or whatnot, medical error, but just the fact that they're not getting the full benefits that they need from their therapist, their dentist, a hygienist, their assistant, anybody, when you when you start having that kind of mentality. And I love how you're bringing in the different innovative tools and technologies because everybody needs to understand that in the practice so much so.
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SPEAKER_03Mary, I know you have some questions for our guests today.
SPEAKER_02I do, Linda. Thank you. And thank you so much, Danielle and Laura, for your time today. Um I am very excited about this whole concept that um if if we truly are preventive specialists, then we better look at all the aspects of prevention. And if we want to have our patients engaged with us and value their oral health, then we have to do something different than we've been doing. And so they don't have this, you know, mindset of, yeah, it's just a cleaning. Um, huh, that makes me crazy, or or a deep cleaning, which is the most offensive term in my dental hygiene vocabulary. It's like I I tell teams that I work with um that you know, deep cleaning is for carpet. It's not, it has nothing to do with your um with your oral health, it's therapy. And so at a time when, you know, maybe teams are experiencing shortages of team members, um, and some of the hygienists are feeling overwhelmed, and in other team members as well, what are the verbal skills that we need to empower them with to help the team members want to convince the doctors that this is the approach or the pathway we need to take, and to convince convince patients that this is the path they need to be on?
SPEAKER_04Great question. So I this is everything, right? This is the foundation in building blocks. So, going back to what Danielle mentioned earlier, one, we want to make sure that the team has one vision, one mission, and that they are all aligned in action and know why they are going to work every single day, why they're showing up, what type of care are they providing for their patients, and how when everybody is on that same page, it's easier to have that open line of communication. And it's so important from the patient's standpoint to have the same message throughout the entire office. So from when the moment they're walking in to that office, are the appointments being called the same? Like you just mentioned, you hate the word cleaning or or deep cleaning, right? Those the I can't have that. We the not not that doesn't sound good to our ears. So, what verbiage is the entire team using? Making sure that it's the same throughout, making sure that admin team is confident in in those that verbiage. Same with the hygiene team. How are they communicating to the patient what their assessments um are finding? You know, making sure that the uh hygienist is feeling confident and empowered in describing whether or not the patient is in health or health and or disease, right? Danielle was saying getting out of that neutral zone. It's that communication and those verbiages that are so important. Um, Danielle and I go through a list of um set of verbiage that we use to help gain uh the hygienist, the admin team, or the doctor to have that confidence and making sure that they're all rowing in that same direction. There was a question that you asked, Mary, that I didn't touch base on was like if uh uh you know the team is feeling overwhelmed or uh uh having a lack of high um hygiene team, I can you rephrase that so I can make sure that I touch base on that.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, thanks, Laura. You and I know that dental teams are probably some of the most change-averse people on the planet. So if we approach them with different verbiage, different philosophy, trying to get everybody on the team, then they're already in this overwhelm mode. We don't have enough time to sterilize all the instruments. Now you want us to do something different. How do we make this easier for them by pointing out the benefit to them? Because they're that's they certainly want to help the patients, but they first of all have that what's in it for me on their forehead. What kind of verbal skills can we use with them for that?
SPEAKER_04Okay, that's wonderful. So, first and foremost, it's going to start within each individual, and it's going to start with a mindset shift. So we have to make sure that everyone on the team is open because change is hard, right? Change is going to be difficult for everybody, and whether that be each member on the team and the patients. So we have to make sure that they are opened to that. And having that mindset shift will really help with that. Danielle, is there anything specific that you would like to add to that?
SPEAKER_00Um, just some of the key verbiage that I know that we utilize, you know, in our op, like you were saying, is, you know, oral wellness visit when we're talking to our patients about rescheduling, or in when we're talking to them at the front desk. Also periotherapy, which I think is so important. As Mary was um referring to, we don't call it deep cleaning anymore. We call it periotherapy. And that just sounds so much better to our patients. We now know verbiage, I feel like is so very important for our patients because we're letting them know that we're we're still learning and we're always learning. And we now see or we now know allows us to be confident in the things that we're going to address with our patient in that appointment and not living in the past, but living in the current appointment. And so I think things like that are so important when we're starting to change the way that we're talking to our patients about maybe some changes that are happening within the office or things that we're currently seeing. And so I think that it's important that providers of, you know, dentists, assistants, hygienists, front desk, like are all on the same page with the verbiage that we're communicating with our patients.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I love that. And um, a lot of times we talk and coach um the teams that we work with and hygienists that we work with to plant seeds, right? To make sure that we're we're not overwhelming our patients and or each other. And we're planting seeds and slowly implementing that way.
SPEAKER_03I love how you both just described the perfect way to help the teams progress through that change element so that it's not overwhelming and they don't tune you out or drop out or become um what was the word we used earlier about them just coming to work and you know, just not being there, um, the neutral zone. There's just stay in the neutral zone or move to the or worse, move to the negative zone. So I'm I feel like enough teams over the years have had enough pushback from patients about, well, that's not what I thought I was getting, or my insurance isn't paying for that. I don't want, I just want the free cleaning, or I just want a cleaning. And so I would think that would encourage every member of the team to want to have a solution for addressing that with patients because they everybody understands in dental practice. If you don't have patients, you don't have a job, you know, there's no practice. So I think they want to keep their patients and they enjoy their profession and and and just helping educate the patients to a better level of understanding about what all the terms mean and total body wellness and just introducing the patients to these new tools and technologies that that I would think that would be a plus the dental teams would want to hear about. What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I would agree. The more that Laura and I are out there coaching, we are seeing that hygienists do in teams do want to evolve, they want to grow, they are seeing that there is a paradigm shift happening within the dental space, and it is all about whole body wellness, and as we were talking about earlier, airway and myofunctional therapy, and really just treating each individually individual patient uniquely to their their needs and and their chief complaints. And so going back to also the question of the what you were talking about with the insurance and this change within within the office, and Laura and I like to just tell our patients that insurance is kind of like a gift card, and they're not really, they don't know what your your medical needs truly are. And so if we can get you back in every three or four months and we can get you from you know active gingivitis or active period disease to a healthier state, maybe you know, for the gingivitis patients, the insurance isn't gonna cover that every three, four months. But we know based upon our assessments, what we're seeing in your mouth, and the bacteria recolonizes every 30 to 90 days. This is what's best for you as a patient. And it's up to the patient to make that decision. And so we just can guide them and give them the best educated decision or best educated information to make the decision and then go from there. And so I do think that there is definitely, as Laura was talking about, a mindset shift that needs to happen within the team and really not allowing our own individual unique beliefs to drive the education or the care that we're providing to our patients. I know that the hygienist five years ago that I was would tell myself, no, they're not going to pay for that, so I'm not gonna educate them on it. And that's just breaks my heart. It's so unfortunate because it's not our job to decide what's best for the patient. It's the patient's job. And so if we can just remove our own beliefs and truly just educate our patient based upon what we are seeing and what we know to be true, it's up to them to become involved and to make the best decision.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I just totally 100% agree with that. That's so beautiful, Daniel. And also, I think it would help dilhygienists who maybe struggle and sometimes feel like they're getting burned out or tired, is that a passion can stay lit through education and evolving themselves and watching the the light bulb, if you will, go off in the patient as you're educating them. That's such a rewarding feeling when you're working one-on-one with your patients. So, ladies, I would like to delve into a little bit more about your services. You've mentioned talking to teams, you've mentioned about helping them to make that mind shift and talk about the verbiage. How do your programs work?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's wonderful. So typically with teams, we I mean, anyone that we work with, whether it be a one-on-one client or our group coaching or our the teams that we work with, we always try trying same with patient care, we provide individualized care plans for them. Um so depending on what the team's needs are. Typically, though, we work with teams in a 12-month contract. And we always start out with our why and making sure they have that foundation of um having that vision and mission, what their beliefs are, what the alignment is for the team, and really forming into the leadership, right? You have to lead yourself so that you can lead. Others. And that is so important no matter who you're working with, whether it be an individual or a team, and taking ownership of what you're doing. As a you know, prevention specialist, as a dentist, as an admin team, we have to make sure that we're able to take ownership of what we're doing and having that worthiness of ourselves and making sure that we're providing that for our patients. So typically when we work with a dental team, it is that one-year contract. And then we do offer our group coaching where we work with hygienist um and entrepreneurs and and they can join our group coaching where we meet twice a month and we offer a masterclass once a month, which is wonderful. So we'd love um actually we have a masterclass tomorrow all about um uh money, your money mindset, because that's a thing in within within our industry, right? Everybody deals with money mindset. Um and then we have our one-on-one coaching where people could work with us.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's wonderful. Thank you for explaining the different levels because I think it's so important because we may have listeners that say, My whole team needs to hear this. And we may have others that say, I just want to have a little coaching for myself so I can feel comfortable because my doctor is wanting to implement something and I don't know what to say or how to say it. And I think that's what what everybody needs, just that little kind of that kickstart sometimes. So, what we're gonna do is make sure that our listeners have access to your newsletter. So we'll put your website in our show notes today. So everything we've talked about, link to your website, link to the newsletter, and also would like for you just to say a few words about your new uh graduate mentoring, please, because I think that's really important if our because I can remember back when I was a hygienist, I was so green, I didn't know what I didn't know, even though you spend two years in school and think you know it all.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So we actually have, which is super exciting, um, one of our mentees, is that what it's called? A mentee, somebody that we've coached um for quite a while now. She works underneath us. Her name is Letitia, and she is all on new grads. And so we let her carve the path that she seemed fit because she is a new grad. She graduated maybe a is it a year, two? Wait, 2020.
SPEAKER_04And she just won 2025. Yeah, it's 25 years ago. Time just collapses. Um she just won the um Sunstar Award of Disc Distinction for a new grad too last year, which is so incredible. We're so proud of her.
SPEAKER_00So that is our new grad. So she is fully the one that is dealing with all of that. And we just knew that it was so important for there to be a space for new grads because it can be scary when you're coming from clinic. I mean, I don't not not a can. It is. It is scary when you're getting that first job out of school, or you're just uncertain of what's the right move for you out of a school. Do you you know, work for a DSO? Do you work for a private practice? Do you temp? What is what is meant or right for you? And so it's just nice to have some guidance and somebody that is, you know, on your side, takes you under their wing, and really just gives you what you need as far as the verbiage and the a framework for your new career.
SPEAKER_03I think that's amazing because it really does help new hygienists to get off on the right foot and learn those skills to be able to fit in as a team member and work together with whoever whatever team or location or setting they choose to work in. It's been wonderful having you, Danielle and Laura, today. I just I'm so thrilled that our listeners are getting to hear about um the El Diamante coaching. And I think you have a book too, don't you? And a workbook, don't we have a few more things to mention before we wrap up, actually?
SPEAKER_04We do. So we have our Shine Workbook, which is an interactive workbook. Um highly recommend uh, you know, hygienists to to um utilize to their fullest potential. It's really to help set themselves up for a successful day personally, starting again, hitting on the mindset, as well as having certain um habits to create as a hygienist to set yourself up for a successful day. And then we have our book, Girls Stop Half-assing Your Career. So it's a dental hygiene guide basically on how you can really live your life and maximize your career as a hygienist because it hurts our heart when hygienists say to us that they are burnt out or that they're they're ready to, you know, turn in their gloves. And I get it, there is time and place for everybody. I know that we've scaled back clinical hygiene, and that's okay because you have to serve what is meant for you at that time. And we still want to make sure that we're empowering the hygienists that are chair side to maximize their career and fall in love with it again and enjoy it each and every day. And that book really is to help empower and motivate um, you know, those individuals to do just that. So you could find them on Amazon.
SPEAKER_03Oh, Amazon as well. Okay, perfect. So we'll put if we don't put a link to Amazon, we'll at least put them on your um your website link, and then they can always search on Amazon as well. So thank you for mentioning both of those. I know there's just such a wealth of information by checking out their website because Danielle and Laura have done such an amazing job of really helping to take everything to the next level so we can understand because tools, technology, and everything is moving and evolving every day, including with AI. So we need to stay up with all these therapies and tools and techniques. And what better way than to have two amazing consultants helping your pro your team? So, Laura and Danielle, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_04Thank you so much for having us. It was a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely our pleasure. As a compliance divas, we bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating the regulatory world to keep you on course. We invite you to subscribe to our podcast through your favorite podcast channel or on our website, thecompliancedeivas.com. We welcome any questions that you might have through our email at support at the compliancedevas.com. And all the wonderful resources that we've mentioned during those podcasts will be in today's show notes. And speaking of the show notes, don't forget to scroll down and leave us a like or review. And we look forward to seeing you in the next episode.