Orthotown November 2021 - 34

Office Visit
in D.C. and Prince George's County, where
I followed George Allen and Joe Gibbs
and the now Washington Football Team.
Their winning years brought true joy to
the whole area.
What do you think is
the biggest challenge
orthodontics will face
in the next 5-10 years?
What do you think the
solution is or could be?
The fact that almost every general
college in a faraway state and came back
for adjustments every one to three years.
She finally came in to be debanded after
getting her PhD and starting a family. The
most amazing thing was that after so many
years in braces, she still had healthy hard
and soft tissue!
Outside of practice you're
a Renaissance man, dabbling
in physics, philosophy,
literature, history and more.
Your practice philosophy
is easy to discern, but
what about your philosophy
for living?
From the little I know from my years of
living on Earth, in my humble opinion no
philosopher, religion or science has yet come
up with the answers to the great questions of
life, but a stable set of beliefs is essential to
sanely navigating life's relentless challenges.
Each conscious being has to kayak
through the rivers and sometimes oceans
of life, doing the best we can with what
knowledge or life skills we have, guided by
lessons learned along the way.
34 NOVEMBER 2021 // orthotown.com
Thanks to science, we know that we
live on a uniquely life-infested, large mosaic
pebble that is hurtling through space along
with very many (billions or trillions) of
other bodies whose motions are controlled
by the forces of gravity. We have no idea
whence or heretofore we come and go after
life here. The golden rule-to do my best
to treat other beings as one would deem
it to be treated-seems to yield the most
happiness, which we all profess to be in
pursuit of.
Let's talk sports. You're a
big fan of the Ravens and the
Orioles, and you've been in
Maryland long enough to see
the ups and downs of both
franchises. What memories
come to mind when you think
of your teams? What players
would you love to see walk
through your practice door?
I especially enjoyed the playoff runs,
and of course the Super Bowl years. We
actually had one former Oriole as a patient!
Before I moved to Howard County, I lived
dentist is now doing some orthodontics,
courtesy of clear aligners, could be a problem
for the profession, but we know that they
will always refer the complex cases to an
orthodontist. We have to continue to
educate both the public and the general
dentist on the benefits of being treated by
an orthodontic specialist.
There is also the fact that orthodontic
treatment fees in general-and especially
reimbursement fees for Medicaid,
insurance-covered, and some PPO/DMO
patients-are very minimal and do not
reflect the continuously rising cost of
essential advancing equipment, staffing,
hardware and software for even the basic
orthodontic practice.
How do you market your
practice? What works?
What doesn't?
When we started out, we spent a lot
of money on Yellow Pages, Valpak, school
calendars and the like. We stopped using
them probably 10 years ago.
We now rely mostly on word-of-mouth.
We no longer do any formal advertising;
instead, we go to local community health
fairs, support local sports teams, and
try to buy from local vendors and small
businesses. n
http://www.orthotown.com
Orthotown November 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Orthotown November 2021
