Friday, November 3
8:00-8:30am PST: Registration
8:30-10:00am: Having an Extraordinary Team and Workplace, Ankur Gupta, DDS
10:00-10:15am: Break
10:15-11:30am: Having an Extraordinary Team and Workplace, Ankur Gupta, DDS
11:30am-12:00pm The Line in the Sand, Michelle Hucke, DDS
12:00pm-1:15pm: Lunch
1:15-3:45pm: One Year to a Streamlined, Productive Implant Practice and Long-Term Patient Health, Ankur Gupta, DDS
3:45-4:00pm: Break
4:00-5:00pm: Ask the Experts, Round Table Discussion
7:00-10:00pm: PARTY with live music from Rhythm Edition Band, food and drinks.
Saturday, November 4
8:30-9:30am PST: Knowing Why: The Key to Case Presentation, Liz Nies, RDH
9:30-10:30am: Superbugs, CDiff and Treatment in the Post-Antibiotic Age, Tanya Dunlap, PhD
10:30-10:45am: Break
10:45 -11:15am: Making the Case, Donna Green, RDH and Dr. Jim McCreight
11:15am-12:15pm: Inflammation Driver: Oral and Systemic Disease Case Presentation Workshop
12:15-1:30pm: Lunch
1:30-3:30pm: Inflammation Beyond Bacteria, Megan Barnett, MS, CNP
3:30-3:45pm: Break
3:45-4:45pm: Occlusion and Periodontitis, Tony Tomaro DDS and Alan Friedel DDS
4:45-5:00pm Wrap up!
Having an Extraordinary Team and Workplace, Ankur Gupta DDS
How is it that flawed, ordinary, already busy individuals, led by a flawed and ordinary leader can somehow create an extraordinary practice? It starts with spilled coffee. Join Dr. Gupta as he introduces a visionary approach to our work as dental professionals, providing clear, specific challenges that you’ll take back to work on Monday as the first steps in creating an extraordinary workplace, team, and patient experience.
Learning Objectives:
- Create a specific, actionable, long-term vision for your practice
- Determine the consistent barriers to an extraordinary practice, and create a specific plan to eliminate those barriers
- Utilize a creative and effective incentive system, and create a step-by step plan to achieve and implement long-term practice improvement
The Line in the Sand, Michelle DeFelice Hucke DDS
You get into dentistry to help patients but, sometimes, concerns like infected, bleeding gums get overlooked in day-to-day practice. Dr. Michelle Hucke became so frustrated with the unacceptable becoming acceptable that she drew a line in the sand and asked her team to join her. In this interview style presentation, she explains how she presented a standard of care and developed best practices that maintain the high standard.
Learning Objectives:
- Create a Standard of Health for your patients and your practice to ease patient education, expectations, and consistent care
- Consider your own Healthy Mouth Baseline and communicate it clearly to patients.
- Decide if you need a "Get on the Bus" conversation with your team.
One Year to a Streamlined, Productive Implant Practice with Long-Term Health, Ankur Gupta DDS
In this presentation, Dr. Gupta shares the most effective strategies for restoring general dentists to communicate, plan, and market dental implants in their office. This lecture will provide fully-implementable steps from the very beginning of the process, gaining patient interest and trust, to the most cutting-edge techniques and solutions in the realm of dental implant restorative therapy.
Learning Objectives:
- Discover communication and case presentation that will get patients excited about implant therapy
- Explain the ideal communication process between surgical specialist and restorative dentist, maximizing successful and predictable long-term restorations
- Implement the newest and most dynamic strategies that are effectively being used by the leaders in dental implantology
- Address the difficulties and potential conflict when introducing a new service/profit center in an already busy office
Knowing Why, Liz Nies, RDH, BS
The best case presentation communicates why a patient needs treatment without a salesy pitch. Your goals to improve their oral and overall health and perhaps even boost their confidence with fresh breath and whiter teeth do not have to compete with their goals for comfortable treatment that makes them look good. Learn how to explain the why behind Perio Tray™ therapy without good or bad value statements to move your patients to take the steps needed to improve their health.
Learning Objectives:
- Discover the number that makes case presentation make sense.
- Empower your team with simple statements like "It's important to treat an active infection."
- Remove yourself your own need to be liked from the case acceptance equation.
Superbugs, C Diff and Treatment in the Post-Antibiotic Age, Tanya Dunlap PhD
Antibiotics prevent millions of deaths each year and remain the primary treatment for potentially fatal bacterial infections. Yet inappropriate prescription rates and overuse of antibiotics have led to resistance that has created a global health emergency and kills at least 700,000 people a year. If no action is taken, it is predicted to increase to 10 million deaths per year by 2050 - making it deadlier than cancer. This review of the current emerging threat of “superbugs,” including C Diff. showcases dentistry’s role in contributing to and reducing this threat.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the term post-antibiotic age
- Recognize overprescribing, misuse of antibiotics, and agricultural use as contributors to antibiotic resistance.
- Review indications for antibiotic prophylaxis in the dental practice
- Review non-antibiotic treatment options
Inflammation Driver: Case Presentation Workshop
It's easy to flag oral bacteria as a cause that induces periodontal disease. Inflammation plays an important yet hard-to-define role in the process too. Current research that posits oral inflammation as a driver for systemic health charges the dental profession to focus on inflammation. This workshop provides a framework for dental professionals to practice case presentation skills.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the difference between acute and chronic inflammation and the explaining the importance of dental care to patients.
- List examples of systemic disease thought to be driven by periodontal inflammation
- Evaluate cases, develop treatment plans and practice case presentation for the sample cases.
Beyond Bacteria: How to Identify and Treat Non-Bacterial Triggers of Periodontitis, Megan Barnett, Functional Nutritionist
In a post-antibiotic era, bacteria are just one trigger of inflammation that needs our attention. Fungi, viruses, and even micro-nutrient deficiencies can all prime an inflammatory pump. These triggers often fly under the radar and complicate your treatment. A more thorough screening approach and evidence-based tools for targeted improvements in nutritional status can help your patients access comprehensive healing and optimal oral health.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify critical nutrition and non-bacterial infectious factors impacting oral inflammation
- Understand nutrition and supplement strategies that support oral and gut-mediated microbial immune response
- Use three simple tools to curb inflammation and improve procedural outcomes
Occlusion and Periodontal Health, Tony Tomaro DDS and Alan Friedel DDS
Once a key component of dental school curriculum, occlusion is almost entirely overlooked now, yet malocclusion can play an important role in the development of periodontal disease and of so many other dental conditions. Drs. Tomaro and Friedel will share with you the importance of identifying and treating occlusion issues that will improve patient health and function.
Ankur Gupta, DDS
Armed with what he considered adequate knowledge, hand skills, and a personable demeanor, he watched as his practice floundered, finances became un-predictable, and his lower back and spirit toward life became worrisome. Rather than continue the trend, he made a guinea pig out of his office, family, and self; attempting any and all personal and professional “experiments” in self-improvement. More than a decade later, he enjoys excellent new patient numbers and case acceptance, a solution oriented dental team; and most importantly, a meaningful and positive identity. He happily shares the failures and successes with dental and community groups throughout the country, always ending his presentations with practical, implementable, step-by-step ways to be better. Dr. Ankur Gupta is a 2004 graduate of the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. After completing a one-year General Practice Residency in Cleveland, started a practice from scratch in 2005.
Michelle DeFelice Hucke, DDS
Dr. Michelle DeFelice Hucke’s passion for dentistry came from growing up in a dental office founded by her Dad in New York decades ago. After graduating from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine, she returned to her hometown and worked with her Dad for years. For the last decade, she served patients in St. Augustine through St. Johns Family Dentistry, the practice she owned with her husband, Dr. Ron Hucke. Dr. DeFelice Hucke maintains her love for and tradition of great dentistry and works constantly to stay trained and experienced with the latest dental techniques. She is a member of the much-heralded Pankey Institute for dental practice excellence as well as the North Florida Dental Association. She currently lives near the beach and enjoys spending time with her husband and twin daughters.
Liz Nies, RDH, BS
Liz Nies has 35 years of experience in dentistry, 31 in clinical practice. She has served as a director of clinical hygiene for a large Dental Service Organization. She currently works as a coach for Perio Protect, LLC This is a good fit for Liz because she also has had a consulting career working with dental teams, improving their communication skills and case presentation. With Liz’s approach the entire team participates to help patients understand the treatment they need and why, but the goal is to keep the message simple.
Tanya Dunlap, PhD
Tanya Dunlap is a Vice President at Perio Protect, where she has worked since 2005. She is responsible for the educational, marketing and commercial programs at the company. Previously, she served as the Perio Protect research liaison, working with researchers and microbiologists testing Perio Protect in controlled clinical trials. Her expertise on this adjunctive periodontal therapy is grounded in the research data, explaining how the prescription trays work and which patient candidates can benefit from them.
Megan Barnett
Megan Barnett is an experienced functional medicine provider, nutritional coach, clinic owner, research writer, public speaker and educator with over eight years in the field of nutrition science and functional medicine. She has worked with Perio Protect provider Kelly Blodgett for several years identifying nutritional causes for patients to prevent and reverse chronic symptoms and promote health and longevity.
Alan Friedel, DDS
Dr. Alan Friedel is a general dentist based in Miami Florida where he has a full-time private practice with an emphasis on geriatric dentistry. Alan is Chairman of Operative Dentistry at the FLAIDE AEGD Residency program and also served as the past president of the Florida Dental Association. Within the American Dental Association, Alan has served as the chairman of the Council on Dental Benefit Programs and chairman of the Code Revision Committee. He has been a Perio Protect provider since 2012.
Arthur (Tony) Tomaro, DDS
Dr. Tomaro received his D.D.S. in 1980 from The University of Michigan and previously his BS and MS in Biology/Histology there. He enjoyed 26 years of private practice in Grand Rapids, MI. He then relocated to Las Vegas to become the Director of Clinics at the Las Vegas Institute and opened a private practice there in 2008. He presently enjoys providing dental care in Chicago at University Dental Professionals.
Dr. Tomaro has completed extensive dental and other academic training and is considered an expert restorative and esthetic dentist. His extensive and comprehensive knowledge of TMJ and his ability to understand complex occlusion has prompted dentists to not only refer patients to him but to seek him for their own personal treatment. Dr. Tomaro serves on the editorial board of national dental publications and is an independent consultant and clinical researcher for many dental manufacturers and laboratories. Dr. Tomaro was awarded an ADA lifetime membership, was past Chairman of the Nevada Dental Association, is a present member of the Illinois State Dental Society, and the Chicago Dental Society.
Perio Protect, LLC. Nationally Approved PACE Program Provider for FAGD/MAGD credit. Approval does not imply acceptance by any regulatory authority, or AGD endorsement. 7/1/2021 to 5/31/2025. Provider ID 305521
*Special rates for groups. For group pricing please call us at 314-256-0772