And that's terrible for the practicing dentist.

Yeah.

I couldn't agree more.

We have a dental benefit system that does not reflect, uh, you know, the essential health impact that we make on our patients.

It's a coupon, okay? And the problem is, you know, we've 90-plus percent of dentists, practicing dentists take it.

And as long as that is the case, you know, they, we have very little, uh, um, lever to change it because they just know they, they have a adequate network.

Um, we've looked at, um, you know, gosh, we can go so many places with this.

Yeah.

I mean, gosh, I can't even imagine what it must take to get to that point.

Yeah.

So if it's okay, I'll start with the origin story of how it all began.

And really, it started out in a very unusual way.

And I entered dental school with a substance abuse problem, and I graduated dental school with a worse substance abuse problem.

I hit my bottom in my third year of practice, and I got in touch with the Michigan Dental Association's Well-Being Program, and they directed me to help.

And I attribute that phone call to really the beginning of my recovery and ultimately what saved my life.

How do you create a vision and also sort of stick with it and make it something that's going to – Create a career that is going to be an evolution, not of happenstance, but from design.

No cell phones

... you couldn't, you couldn't really find people that, that easy.

And he found my cr- you know, that I used it at a hotel, and I was holed up in this hotel, and he called my room, and I thought that was really strange on a three-day drug binge that somebody would call my room.

I got really paranoid and scared, as, you know, cocaine addicts are in, in general.

Um, but he, he, you know, was my, my best friend, and he said, "Hey, don't go anywhere.

The police are looking for you.

We filed an, uh, a missing persons report.

Yeah.