Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:10
Talk about the culture for a second. What do you do? Obviously, watching some of these videos, the staff have been with you for over a decade. What do you do to help with the culture?
Dr. Sami Webb: 18:24
You know, early in my career, I was definitely more of a micromanager because I wanted these systems set up. I wanted everything perfect. And, you know, I had high expectations. I rode them very hard and I was micromanaging. And I did learn along the way that that wasn’t helping me and that I had a lot of great people, and I needed to let them grow and become leaders.
And so that was a mistake I made early on. If I could go back and change that, I would. But it’s interesting because sometimes you feel that being hard and having those expectations, you know, back then they used to hate it. And there was a time where I kind of stepped back and I said, okay, I’m going to, you know, let them go and let them do those things. But you can see them almost start to panic just a little bit as you step back.
And they’re like, well, Dr. Webb used to hold us more accountable. And I think of it like children. They, they, you know, they all think they don’t want rules. But at the end of the day, kids thrive on structure and rules. And, you know, so does my team.
And so I think that over the years they’ve come to respect me for the quality of care I provide. And they know that those expectations I set are to take care of those patients in the best way possible. And I have a lot of long term team members. And, you know, we take good care of them. They have benefits, bonuses, all the things.
But at the end of the day, it’s how you make them feel. And early on in my career, on every single pay stub I used to give them, I would write them a note and, you know, I give them handwritten cards. I try to let them know how much they’re appreciated and valued. And I remember one time I had a team member say, Dr. Webb, I get. So this was back when I had to do handwritten checks.
Keep in mind, this was, you know, back then before payroll systems. And she told me, she said, I get more excited about the note that you put on my paycheck than I am about the paycheck. And you realize that they want to feel important. They want to feel part of something special, something bigger.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:51
Yeah, no, thanks for sharing that. It’s a testament to people being there for so long. Now, I do want to bring up you. You have received some criticism before, specifically around. But you know what I’m talking about.
But talk about some of the criticism you’ve received.
Dr. Sami Webb: 21:13
Yeah. So I mentioned earlier to you just that I’ve always believed in taking care of people, care of children, and I’ve never tied anything to money. I never really cared about what I made. I always knew that if I took great care of people, that the money would follow. And so early on in my career, great.
I knew that I needed to care for the children in western Nebraska, and it didn’t matter how. But I was going to do it. And so I became a medicaid provider very early on, and I lost money on every single kid that I saw. The reimbursement was so terrible. And I did it because that’s what brought me joy, because these kids came from families where they didn’t have much good in their life.
They didn’t have a reason to smile. But this was our opportunity to make those kids feel special every single time they came in. Give them a smile. Give them something to feel good about. And so we would spend our time really making those kids feel like they were so special, like they’re the only ones there for the day.
And, you know, my team over the years has said, man, you know, medicaid’s hard. Why do we take this? And I’ve always told them, we always will. And, you know, even in this industry going into epoch four, there’s a lot of providers that say, oh, Medicaid is bad. And I, I will always take Medicaid and I always treat these kids.
And a few years ago, I received the Medicaid Provider of the Year award in Nebraska. And it was just telling. I mean, it made me feel good to know that, hey, your efforts are being recognized, but we feel a sense, you know, to really take great care of all these children.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:57
Yeah. There’s always interesting cases. And when it comes to, you know, I have family, my dad and brother are dentists, so I totally grew up in this thing and you hear some of the stories of it’s not just about their mouth, but it’s about self-esteem, people’s self-esteem. I’m wondering if there’s any stories around that that you’ve seen kind of transformation in someone because of, you know, people are self-conscious about this stuff.
Dr. Sami Webb: 23:26
Yes. I mean, one particular story that comes to mind is a teenage female that came into my office in one of my satellite practices. And, you know, we went through the COVID period and people are used to wearing masks. And I found that she loved wearing her mask. And because she didn’t want people to see her teeth or her mouth, and it was like two years past COVID, and she came into the office wearing a mask.
And it struck me that that was her, her safety net, because now masks were acceptable, and now she could hide what she didn’t like about herself. And I couldn’t even hardly get her to take her mask down so I could look in her, look in her mouth, and to examine her teeth. And she wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t smile. And as we started getting her teeth straighter, she started coming into the office without a mask. Pretty soon she was smiling.
She was talking and she completely transformed as a person, you know. And those are those times that, you know, like what you’re doing is having an impact on somebody’s life. So that’s one of the most resonating stories for me.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 24:47
So as if you weren’t busy enough, talk about Go Epic. Okay. EPIC4 so people can check it out. You know goepic4.com. But where did EPIC4 come into the picture?
Dr. Sami Webb: 25:00
So as I started evaluating my practice and looking ahead and knowing, hey, I’m out in the middle of Nebraska. I don’t know if I’m ever going to find anybody to take over my practice, somebody that could buy it or run this. I started thinking about my own exit strategy, and I quickly learned that I’m probably going to have to sell to some sort of corporation or larger entity. And I began looking at other organizations, but there were so many things that weren’t resonating with me, and a lot for me. A lot of it fell on the associate piece and how they took care of doctors, and I came from the Shulman Study Group, which was a large study group of orthodontists across the country, probably 150-plus orthodontists in this group.
And we had been friends and colleagues for many years, and there were a lot of us in the same boat, you know, what are we going to do? And we’d all been kind of looking at other organizations, and we decided to come together and create our own with our own vision, our own mission, and set it up the way that we wanted to. And so that’s kind of where EPIC4 Specialty Partners came from. We are a group of orthodontists and pediatric dentists, and we feel like we’ve created something really special. And I know a lot of people listening aren’t going to really know what a dental service organization is, but it’s to take away the administrative burdens for people and provide a lot of the back-end support, you know, whether that be the payroll, the HR, the ordering.
You know, I got tired of reconciling my QuickBooks and, you know, all the things that wear us down as practitioners. So we take over those administrative burdens so that these doctors can focus on their patients and their practices and some and somehow have a better practice life balance than those of us who have been out there on our own.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:07
I’m looking at this here, Dr. Sami. We look at the services like someone joins, right? And basically there’s a whole back end of suite of services that help. And also, you know, you can do it more at scale because you’re helping all these practices. So we look at clinical mentorship compliance continuing education, human resources HR.
Insurance. Credentialing. Procurement. So these are the things that the benefits people get. What am I missing. What there of why people join. Find this interesting like whether someone’s a dentist or orthodontist or whatever, but like, you know, basically going into an organization that has infrastructure in place that takes the burden off someone. So if anyone’s in any industry, you know, listening to this, it’s like, well, how can you apply this? I think of it. How can I apply this to my business? Right.
But, but so why else do people join?
Dr. Sami Webb: 28:17
I mean, you think about these private practitioners. I mean, it’s already happened in medicine and other areas. But I mean, the burnout is real and you’re trying to compete against other practices. Other, you know, corporate organizations. You’re trying to learn the business of dentistry, which you’re never taught in dental school.
That means you’re going to work. You’re seeing patients. And then for me, I was going home at night and I’m working all night. All weekend. You know, getting up at 345 every day in what you’re finding is these doctors are burning out.
You know, earlier on, those of us who have been in practice have figured this business out. We have already created the wheel. So for a lot of these young doctors, there’s no reason to go out and, you know, reinvent a wheel that other people have already spent their careers figuring out. And it’s a way to take away some of those burdens, let them enjoy their practice, but also provide, I mean, a good. It’s a good financial decision.
So joining a company like this, doctors are rewarded for all their hard work. The legacy that they’ve made and getting equity in a young company, you know, we’re not private equity backed. We haven’t had any recap events. So it’s a great way to build wealth.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:56
And Talk about that for a second. I know we don’t have to share like specifics on structure or anything, but like in general, how does it work from like financial? Because you were mentioning before we hit record there is like an equity. How do people think about it? Because I’m sure a lot of these dental service organizations and groups work differently.
Dr. Sami Webb: 30:17
Yeah. So everybody has a different model. A lot of these organizations are providing some of those back end services for us. One of our biggest pieces was this associate piece and we don’t even like to call them associates. We like to call them partners because when they come into EPIC4 they truly come in as a partner and not an associate. What we have found in a lot of these DSO models is it becomes a revolving door of doctors.
So doctors will come in, they’ll work for a few years, fulfill their obligations and then move on. And this group of people believe so strongly in quality care and the legacies that we’ve worked so hard to build, that we want quality doctors in our practices for the long haul, and we want to have a great legacy to live, to leave behind. And so what we did was we took part of our company, and we are gifting shares to associate doctors that come into EPIC4 so say, I want to step away from the chair. I’m 65 and retire, and I have a doctor that’s going to, you know, be taking my spot. These associates that are coming out of school now, they have the average orthodontist coming out of residency right now, has $600,000 in student loan debt.
And, you know, they can’t afford to buy a practice. They need a long-term home. And they need somebody, a, you know, group that there that’s going to mentor them. But yet they also want some sort of ownership in a company. Well, what we’ve done is kind of taken away those financial burdens.
Most of the other companies, they have to buy equity in the company to become, you know, an owner in the organization with EPIC4 again, we set aside a large portion of our company to gift shares that they have to do nothing for. All they have to do is come to work, treat our patients well, and do what they love, and they gain automatic equity into the company.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:28
For all the other services that you provide in the back end. Are they paying like a monthly fee typically or no?
Dr. Sami Webb: 32:35
So this is a partnership model. So say a doctor in Texas wants to join EPIC4 what they will do is they will actually sell their entire company to EPIC4. And we have different models, but we don’t like to really consider it, you know, like a sellout. This is more we like to use the word partnership because they’re partnering with EPIC4 everything in their practice is going to stay the exact same.
But they will, you know, get some cash for their practice. They’re also going to have an equity piece. And all the doctors, all the original founders of EPIC4 came in as all equity. So nobody took any money off the table. We put all of our chips on the table and we said, you know what, we’re going to bet and we’re going to bet on us because we’re going to do this right, and we believe in what we’re doing.
So we take that equity piece very seriously, and we are going to protect those doctors’ equity in the company.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:39
You know, obviously it’s not a fit for everyone and you’re choosy on who comes in. So who is a fit? What is someone listening or they know someone obviously from orthodontics or pediatric dentist perspective. But I don’t know if there’s a certain size or who’s a fit for EPIC4.
Dr. Sami Webb: 34:00
I don’t know that Size necessarily matters. We want people who are cultural fits. We want quality doctors who are interested in growing. We want people that we can work with and trust, and we want profitable practices. And really, as far as even age range goes.
We have people in our company from, you know, 40 years old all the way to 67 years old. So a large range of people. And, you know, on our website we’ll talk about different stages of practice and whether it’s an explore, enhance exit, you know, and they can watch those videos just, you know, depending upon where they’re at in their career, how EPIC4 may be able to help them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 34:51
First of all, Dr. Sami, thanks for sharing your journey, your stories. I’d love to hear maybe some of your mentors in business and a few lessons they taught you, because I know that over the years, consultants and mentors have been important for you.
Dr. Sami Webb: 35:11
Yeah, I mean, one of my mentors is was a private practitioner named Dr. Paula Hari. She was one of my faculty in residency, and she’s just been by my side through my entire journey and very supportive. Shah was one of the best consultants. I’ve used her for years. She’s changed my life and my practice, my team.
As far as an EPIC4, we have just surrounded ourselves with, I mean, top notch people and our advisors with aligned dental partners. They have been absolutely amazing. We could have never done this without them. I mean, who even says they love their attorneys? But we absolutely love our attorney, Rob Marchant from Benesch Law Firm.
And I will say that we are probably one of the largest mergers in orthodontic history. We merged, you know, 53 locations on one day, and it’s been a massive lift. And we couldn’t have done it without this group of people. And we are proud to say we’re headquartered in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. And the team that we have put together are, I mean, our top notch.
You know, Katie Camacho serves as our operations manager, and we have our director of finance. Everybody there, local people with I mean, the work ethic is just incredible. And that’s what we’re proud of. Here in the breadbasket of America are the quality people that we’ve surrounded ourselves with.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:45
Dr. Sami Webb, thanks for sharing the journey. It’s been pretty incredible. I want to encourage people to check out goepic4.com. To learn more, you can check out webbortho.com to learn more. And Dr. Sami, thanks so much.
Dr. Sami Webb: 36:59
Thank you so much, Jeremy — I appreciate it.
