This week, the Dental Amigos welcome Dr. Rihan Javid, psychiatrist, lawyer, and co-founder of Edge Health. With a unique blend of clinical insight and entrepreneurial drive, Dr. Javid helps dental and medical practices scale through strategic remote staffing.

In this episode, Dr. Javid shares his journey from medicine and law to launching Edge Health, and dives into how remote team members—trained through Edge Edu—are transforming dental operations by relieving staffing pressures, improving efficiency, and enabling growth.

To learn more about Dr. Javid and Edge Health, visit their website atwww.onedge.co or check them out on Instagram (handle is @onedge.co). Listeners who want to reach Paul can do so at Paul@DentalNachos.com and those who want to reach Rob can do so at Rob@RMontgomery-law.com.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

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Bumper  

Welcome to the dental amigos podcast with Dr Paul Goodman and attorney Rob Montgomery, taking you behind the scenes of the dental business world, all the things you didn't learn in dental school, but wish you had. Rob is not a dentist, and Paul is not a lawyer, but since Rob is a lawyer, we need to tell you that this podcast is for informational purposes only and shouldn't be considered legal advice. Listening to this podcast does not and will not create an attorney client relationship, as is always the case, you should formally consult with legal counsel before proceeding with any legal matter. Learn more about the dental amigos at WWW dot the dental amigos.com and now here are the dental amigos.

Rob Montgomery  

Hello everyone. I'm Rob Montgomery, and I'm joined, as always, by the Head Nacho himself, Dr. Paul Goodman.

Rihan Javid  

Great to be talking, Rob.

Rob Montgomery  

It's great to be talking with you, Paul. And welcome everyone to another episode of The Dental Amigos Podcast, the only podcast hosted by a dentist and a lawyer. Very unique, yes. Today we are joined by Dr. Rihan Javid, co-founder of Edge, which is a remote staffing agency in the dental and healthcare industries. In addition to being the co-founder of Edge, Rihan is a psychiatrist at Permanente Medical Group in California. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in Political Science and Government in 2000, and law at Northwestern University in 2004. He received his medical degree from Touro University, Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2015 and has practiced medicine for nine years. He's a healthcare provider primarily located in San Francisco, with other offices in Stockton, California, and Tampa, Florida. He's completed extensive training in Psychiatry and Neurology, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders. Dr. Rihan Javid brings his experience as a medical practitioner and understanding of recruitment difficulties into the dental world. Rihan's work with Edge and co-founder and CEO Ify Walla includes introducing the benefits of remote employees in the medical industry. Edge provides high-quality staffing in healthcare and dentistry to its clients. Clients include Allied Physicians Groups, United Medical Doctors, DHR Health, NovaDerm, and Endocrinology Associates. So Paul, I would say that Rihan is a triple threat — a lawyer, a physician, and an entrepreneur. I think we're probably not giving him even enough credit, but really interesting guest, and we're excited to talk to him today. And now, without further ado, here's Dr. Rihan Javid. Welcome, amigo, and thanks for being on the show.

Rihan Javid  

Great, thank you. Honor to be on the show. Big fan of the podcast and big fan of both of you guys. So thank you.

Paul Goodman  

Thanks, Rihan. I love working with you. Our first question — it's a hard-hitting one — is: if we were in your town, where would you take us for nachos? And what's your favorite topping?

Rihan Javid  

So the easiest part — favorite topping: jalapeños. 100%. Love my spicy nachos. Whether it's like a spicy cheese with jalapeños, but it's definitely jalapeños number one. Where would I take you guys? So there's actually a Middle Eastern place that has these chicken nachos with more of an Arab flavor. They've got a little bit of hummus — oh, nice, interesting — but it's amazing. It's different, and it's very unique, but it's pretty amazing though.

Rob Montgomery  

Cool. That sounds neat. I would actually be interested in—

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, I could tell Rob is down right now. So whenever there's an Iftar — like a breaking of the fast in the evening — everyone always looks: are the chicken nachos there?

Paul Goodman  

Oh, wow. I like that.

Rob Montgomery  

Worth the wait. I think it sounds like, right? So Rihan, before we get into the meat of what you do and what Edge does—how is it that you went from being a lawyer and a physician to getting interested in the staffing sector? Where did you see the opportunity, and what drew you to this?

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, I think I've been an entrepreneur in many respects. I think, you know, just like my background—like, my dad's a big entrepreneur. We came here with almost nothing, and he's a mid-sized farmer in the Sacramento–Lodi wine country. I've been around business my whole life. And so I think it was always something I looked at. Even when I was graduating college—I graduated in 2000—and I think one of my regrets is I should have stayed in Silicon Valley instead of, you know, going to law school. So that was always kind of my thing—always been around entrepreneurship and just wanted to see where that would fit in. In 2021, my co-founder—one of my really good, best friends—Ify Walla (I think you know Paul well, and you’ve met him too, right? Great guy). He had an insurance company. We were sitting down, and he’s like, “Man, I just can’t find anyone for my insurance company to work there. It’s hard to find anyone with the background, experience, anything.” I was like, “No, it can’t be that tough.” So he called the room in order—there were about 20 of us there—and he’s like, “Raise your hand if any of you guys know anyone who’s ever wanted to work in insurance when they were in high school or college?” Obviously, no one raised their hand. And I was like, “Okay, good point.” So yeah, he went to the Philippines, went to India, went to Pakistan, a couple other countries. We’ve been to about 25 countries together. And we realized—man, the talent here is amazing, right? Maybe they don’t have experience, maybe they don’t have some of the background, but they have the work ethic. You know, English skills are really good in a lot of these countries. And so, going to all those places, we realized Pakistan was probably the best. There are a lot of similarities with American culture—a lot of American cinema, movies, a lot of folks already come to America, and vice versa. So he hired four people for his office. I think his office had about 30 people at that point. Within, I think it was about nine months, it increased his revenue by 10% and increased his profit by 25%.

Rob Montgomery  

Wow. What year is this? I’m just curious.

Rihan Javid  

So that was around 2020—okay, end of 2019, beginning of 2020—when he brought it into his own office. And then, after about six to nine months, we were kind of like, “Oh man, let’s commercialize this,” right? So we started on the insurance side. June 2020 was our first hire. And then we did that, and I think about three to four months later, we started ramping up the healthcare and dental side. And that really took off around March of 2021.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, and it's interesting—your timing with COVID is notable. I'd imagine that you really had a good opportunity where people were becoming comfortable with hiring employees who weren't in their office. I mean, obviously it's another step to say, "Now we're hiring somebody in another country," but the whole idea of remote work around that time was not unusual.

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, it was. I think—lucky break. I think at some points, unfortunately, it's fortunate for us, unfortunate for the rest of the world, you know. So we obviously wouldn't wish it on anyone. But with that timing, there was a lot of opportunity. And these groups realized, hey, people want to work from home. Some people—you know, I think a lot of dentists were like, "Man, a lot of my staff didn't want to come back to the office." They wanted to work from home. They had other sources of income, whatever it was. And so even their regular staff were like, "Okay, maybe not best to work from the office—or work at all. Let me take some break. Let me figure this out." So obviously, there was a big shortage, and that opened it up—both the mindset, but also the technology that evolved around that time. Zoom, Google Meet got a lot better. WhatsApp got a lot better. And all that stuff actually helped us a lot too. So yeah, I mean, people were just very confident too.

Paul Goodman  

As the only dentist here, I've made some funny memes along the way. I remember this distinctly—it was like a tiny violin when someone said, "When you work in dentistry and your non-dentist friends say they have to come back to the office." Because the joke was, dentists have been in the office, right? When you're a dentist, a hygienist, and a dental assistant, you have to show up—literally and figuratively—face to face and see your patients. The end part to this for our practice was, you know, the pandemic happens, and not everyone came back for a variety of reasons—childcare, leaving dentistry. So the people who did come back had extra work to do. And there were all these jobs that you didn't have to be face to face with. And that's why I'm proud to be a board member—thanks for that. I feel honored. I feel special when I say that—of Edge. But I said to my team, Rob, I was like, "We need somebody to do these things. We don't have to be in front of the patients. Let's hire someone from Edge." And it was really awesome for our team. The end part was—because Rob, maybe I think you're just thinking of it differently—most dental offices aren't used to this at all. It wasn't easy for me to even get this tested. Because many people say, "What are our patients going to say if they're getting called by someone who's not in the office?" And we had Dua—who actually now works with me at Dentist Job Connect—but when she was working with us at our dental office, she was just awesome. Guess how many patients, Rob, asked, "Who's Dua and why isn't she in the office?"

Rob Montgomery  

Zero?

Paul Goodman  

Zero patients, right? So, like, the concern of the dental office team was just totally unfounded, right? And...

Rob Montgomery  

Or they're the only ones that realize that she's not there.

Paul Goodman  

You know, we could probably talk about this topic as a whole podcast—the pros and cons of being siloed, right? You know, not being with your team. But the pros for this particular dental thing are this: this person could just work on things and not be distracted by the patient, and then the people in the office wouldn't have the distraction of having to do follow-ups to remind people of their six-month checkups. We had Dua respond to all of our positive patient reviews. We had—commonly, I don't know if this is a surprise, Rihan and Rob—but we recommend dental treatment, and people say, "I'll think about it," because it's not their favorite thing to do, right? And you lose out on revenue and the ability to help people. So we had Dua, at one point, just follow up on people who had $1,000 of unscheduled treatment. And this was just an amazing thing that was happening for us. So, as you really drag the dental world into the age of using technology to help them, Rihan, I appreciate that.

Rihan Javid  

But also, the other thing I think Paul didn't mention is she's actually a dentist. I was like, yeah—so amazing part. And I remember when you guys first started, I was trying to get her integrated, trying to get her up to speed and everything. And she's like, "Oh yes, people are calling and they want questions." I was like, "You know, you can't give medical or dental advice per se, right? But you can go over their plans." And people were really impressed with her knowledge of what needs to be done and all that stuff. And it was pretty great.

Paul Goodman  

Yeah, so Dua as our original one is actually a dentist. And you can kind of see—maybe you can enlighten us as we go through this, Rihan—for our listeners who are dentists thinking, "Why would a dentist work as a remote team member in the U.S.?" You know, maybe I think I understand this, but like, are the opportunities working with Edge more advantageous than doing dentistry, Rihan, in Pakistan?

Rihan Javid  

Yeah. So I think you've probably noticed—in both the U.S. and abroad—there are tons of Indian and Pakistani dentists. And that's one of the things, really, in South Asia—probably the biggest import or export to America is doctors. And you know, there are so many dentists, so many doctors in Pakistan. Pakistan's still a developing country. India maybe is more developed, but still has similar socioeconomic factors. And at Edge, we actually pay about the 98th or 99th percentile for people. And so she was actually making probably about three times what she would be making in Pakistan as a dentist, especially as an early-career dentist. And so, you know, I'm a psychiatrist. I actually—just like Paul—I went in every day during the pandemic. You know, if I didn't go in, didn't get paid—inpatient psychiatrist. So when we first got pharmacists, we got dentists, we even got a few doctors at the beginning. And I'm like, "Man, this is..." It was a little bit sad for me. I was like, "Man, this could be me very, very easily," right? Depending on, you know, if I came to America, whatever. And people were like, "No, no. This is a dream opportunity. I'm able to move out of the village, I'm able to move out of my parents' house, I'm able to get married, I'm able to buy a flat or a house, I'm able to buy a car, have a family." And once people started saying that, it was like a no-brainer at that point. And Dua just actually had her first child two days ago, I think.

Paul Goodman  

Yeah, it was a big celebration. He had Dua, and her husband works for us too. And it was big. And kind of what's cool—Rob, in question, this is that the benefit is, you know, do these team members become like your real team members? Talking about somebody that you're working side by side—I was just coming from national headquarters, and we had our Edge Health team members participating in all parts of our life, you know, on Zoom. And what's cool is Dua is going to have this break for her baby, and we now have a replacement for her who's really been awesome so far. So Edge—I've actually never seen this anywhere else—but they give you a totally replacement team member, and she was actually training before Dua left. That's great. So it's pretty awesome. I wish I had that for qualified team members.

Rihan Javid  

Yeah. So yeah, Dua—she's leaving for a month, right? Or not? About three months, I think, right? Yeah, maternity leave. And so, you know, if you have someone in your own practice leaving for three months, it's a big hole. And all of a sudden, your other employees have to step up and usually become overworked, overburdened. And so we really make sure that it's a smooth transition for both the person going on long-term leave as well as the practice, and that the practice doesn't suffer.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, it's just fascinating, because we're definitely—I mean, I've had my practice now for 28 years—and just seeing the challenges we've had from a staffing standpoint, as well as all my clients, you know, it's really... We're somewhat in unprecedented times in terms of labor force expectations. And you know what? This just seems like such an obvious alternative if you can't find people to work, which has become a thing. It's yours.

Paul Goodman  

Anything that doesn't have to be done in front of your customer, patient, or client—you can collaborate with an Edge Health team member, right? So I tell my team all the time—and we've grown our Dental Nachos and Dentist Job Connect to five team members from one—because as you grow, you find more things that you need done, right? And it's just been awesome. And I—you know, we'll ask Rihan—how it's becoming normal. Right in the beginning, it was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you have someone remote in the dental space." Through our Dental Nachos collaboration, I just see people championing—championing—how excited they are to have their Edge Health team member dealing with insurance. What are some of the other things they deal with for dental practices?

Rihan Javid  

Yeah. So it's a wide variety of things. It can be anything from answering calls, handling daily inquiries, booking new patient appointments, fielding emergency calls and routing them appropriately, entering patient information, updating patient charts and demographics, recording insurance details, verifying patient insurance benefits, processing pre-authorizations, submitting claims, follow-ups on outstanding claims, billing, collections, generating invoices, coordinating payment plans, educating the patient, explaining treatment plans, tracking procedures and collections, managing social media—I think Paul, you have that—managing social media, patient review requests. But really, I think one story kind of exemplifies this. So my co-founder—Ify—he's got four kids. And so that's probably—I think insurance covers what, like $1,500 to $2,000 per year, right? So it's up to $12,000. He had to call eight different practices before he got someone to pick up. And imagine that, right? So how many times does that happen? He's probably not the only one—that happens every day. And so if you've got a family that's got like $10,000 or $12,000 to spend and you're not picking up the phone—that's a fail. And just that one phone call pays for her salary—for Edge—for six months, right? So I think in that respect, I kind of look at it that way too.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, that's wild. Where do you see the resistance coming from—from dentists and practice owners? And I guess that's a question for both Rihan and you, Paul.

Paul Goodman  

I'll let Rihan go first.

Rihan Javid  

Okay, yeah. I think it's changed a lot. At the beginning, it was a lot from the staff. You know, there's always, like, unions, right? So the staff—I guess you could say your own personal staff is kind of a union. There's resistance. People are fearful. But, you know, we've done a really—I think—a much better job of answering that and allaying fears from the staff. That, you know, these people are not there to take your job. They are there to help you and make sure that you're able to focus more on the patients and really give the patients the time that they deserve to make it the best experience possible. Going to a psychiatrist or a dentist or any doctor really can be a pretty scary experience for a lot of people. And if you can have your front office staff or your in-person staff really take care of that, let us take care of the back end and make it a lot easier. I think that's the biggest thing that we've gotten a lot better at, and I think people become accepting. And then I think maybe Paul can probably tell us from the other perspective.

Rob Montgomery  

I mean, to me, it just sounds like it's really—it's growth, you know? And so if this helps grow your business and grow your practice, the employees should appreciate that, because growth is good for job stability. It's not like these are replacing the people. They're just enhancing the business. And within business, enhancement means more profitability. You're able to treat more patients, there's more money, there's more opportunity for the staff—it would seem.

Paul Goodman  

I totally agree. My addition to that, Rob and Rihan—CB, you've mentioned the, you know, that Moneyball thing where managers said, "I would just manage with my gut," and they said, "Now there's more than your gut to this whole thing," right? And I'll add this in—it's a test for your team. What are managers? They're really teachers, right? They have to teach people to do things. So I think where some of the resistance was, Rob, is that if your office manager just wings it every day but makes it look great, and you don't know what they're doing and how they contact the patients with overdue hygiene and do this—and then they're now saying, "Hey, we're going to give you this help, and you have to teach them"—it's a moment to see if they know. If they can give them the script, right? Because, yeah, right—you know, these... And it's not a criticism, just that you'll have team members say, "I'm so overwhelmed, I have so much to do," and you say, "Okay, well, these are three things that you're going to train someone to do. Spend a week training them to do it, and then you don't have to do them anymore." And then the ones who get it love that—right? "I don't have to follow up on review requests. I don't have to run..." There's the ones who do the gut management—to use that example—aren't always as open-minded to the teaching and that. So that's—I think it's a good test for your... I mean, what you said, Rob, is right. You can't—I mean, Rihan, when I spend time asking too about the growth of Edge—growth is uncomfortable, right? I mean, it's not a comfortable thing. But as soon as you say—you know, we say to you—if you said to a bunch of dental teams tomorrow, "You're going to see 20% more patients," they're not going to jump for joy, because they're not always incentivized financially to see 20% more. So you have to explain to them how growth is good, right? So I think it's like a real dragging dentistry into the modern day of business systems—not flying by the seat of your pants, right?

Rob Montgomery  

Which is not scalable. That's what I'm hearing. Like, if everybody's out there just kind of winging it their own way—as the person that's in charge of this whole operation—that's not a great thing.

Paul Goodman  

No, we've talked about that many times. And also, you know, for good reasons, not-so-good reasons, uncontrollable reasons, tragic reasons, exciting reasons—somebody who's running your business may not be there, right? And then if they walk out with all of the training and all the "I know how to do insurance verification and authorization," I mean, you've seen it. You know, with your clients, they're left in a literal daily crisis. I mean, you know, some redundancy is great too. Why don't you also teach this person how to do these things rightly, right? So I think those would be the two resistance factors that dentists face, but they're overcoming them. I think some out of optimism and some out of no other choices, right? I mean, Rihan, you said this, Rob. I mean, I get messages, Nacho posts—like, you know, Rob and I are old enough—you too, Rihan—like, they didn't have self-checkout at CVS in the past, right? Now you're doing it yourself, right? I'm in charge of the scanning. You know, I think some dentists are like, "Could I have that at my front desk?" And I don't think they're saying it because they're too cheap. It's because they just feel demoralized by not having enough faces to have on their team.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, that's a problem.

Paul Goodman  

And, you know, I just read—I'm sure you guys deal with that daily—from people who come to you out of reactive crisis mode. I'll call it.

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, no, definitely. It's—you know, I think we like to explain it like, obviously, when you're in crisis mode, we're there for you. But really, if you can build it into your practice before that happens, and you get these redundancies, right? So your practice manager, your office manager, knows how to do it—and that might be the only person, right? But if you have your remote team members also able to do it—your practice manager is not going to work 365 days a year, right? It's just not going to happen. You might work 365 a year. Rob might work 365. I might, right? But unless you're the owner, it's just not going to happen. And so you do need that redundancy to make sure your practice functions and works every day.

Paul Goodman  

Yeah, I wanted to ask you, Rihan, because we talk a lot about entrepreneurship here. We have startup dental practices. Tell us a little bit about the growth of Edge. I mean, I've been there since the beginning, but just some of the challenges and rewards and things that, you know, if you were talking to somebody who wanted to grow their own idea—tell us a little bit about your journey with that.

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, so I think—yeah. So we're actually on our second startup, with Edge as the first, and then working on AI revenue cycle management for healthcare. And, you know, one of the things I’ve worked with—I think probably every one of your friends, coworkers, everything realizes—if you don't have a good team, it's just not going to work very well, right? And so when we first started four or five years ago versus now, our team is a lot better. And I think anytime you start, you have to realize that if you hire five people, two or three of them might not make it, right? And I think that's just natural progression. It really hurts, right? You know, these people do become like your family and stuff like that. You want to put in all the effort you can to make sure that they're successful. But some move on on their own. Some are really great at early stage, and as you get bigger, maybe they're not the right fit. You need to either find them a new job role within your company or somewhere else. So I think that's probably been the biggest learning experience for myself—you have to surround yourself with a great team. And if you do, it makes it a lot bigger, a lot easier. Also realize that there's really no cutting corners. You do have to put the hard work in, right? So when we first started, I could do the medical stuff. Dental—I mean, I had some idea, but not really. And so we actually had a really great—actually, it was Ify's, the CEO's, the co-founder's second cousin's wife—who is a dental hygienist, office manager. She came in here—I think Paul, you met her. Awesome.

Paul Goodman

Yeah, she's great.

Rihan Javid

And she was able to develop a preliminary training program. She was able to do the prior authorization, billing, claims—all that stuff. And you know, that really helped. But you need the team members. You need a really strong team. You can't cut corners. You have to put in the work. And there's going to be, you know, two steps forward, three steps back some days. And some days it feels like you're treading water. Some days it feels like the waves are too strong. But you can't measure it day by day. You have to put the days in, but you measure by—whether it's quarterly, six months, 12 months—are you in the right direction? And I found, if you put the work in, you have the systems in place—or you try to put them in place—that's how you're going to be successful. There's no cutting corners. You gotta put in the work, and you gotta keep going every single day.

Rob Montgomery  

So I'm interested when you talk about training, you know, with Edge—and this is your team—but then what you guys do for dentists and dental practices? It sounds like these people are coming—and Paul, you and Rihan can answer this—yeah, they're pretty much ready to go, right? Like, how much training do you have to do? And I guess, you know, everybody's got little knits and different processes and workflows. But like, if you know, on a scale, you know, like, are they 70% trained? 80%?

Paul Goodman  

Currently with Edge, how do you guys—are you getting requests for people who have dental knowledge? People that they're just going to train from scratch? I know Rihan has the background—tell us more about what Edge does beyond that.

Rihan Javid  

Yeah. So, yeah—it depends on the role, right? But everyone comes in—we have a five-week training program called Edge Edu these days, and it's before you start. So it's basics of U.S. healthcare—dental and medical. How insurance works—both medical and dental insurances. Different setups of offices, how dental offices run, the different staff—all that stuff. U.S. billing, claims—you know, everything, basically, that you need to know. We have both virtual and in-person—so much of it will be virtual, and then we'll have live, both remote and in-person classes to really do that. We have quizzes and tests multiple times throughout the week, and then there's a final test. And so yeah, I think we get probably around maybe 1,000 applicants a month. And out of those 1,000, we end up hiring probably around 30 to 50 people per month at the beginning. Now, I think we're probably about one and a half to two times that. And so they're still—you know—they're going through that. We also have a buddy program where, you know, if they're like, "Okay, I'm going to work with Dr. Goodman. He's probably an endocrinologist, or he's an orthodontist," or whatever he specializes in, right? So they'll work with a buddy and try to pick up on that. And so, you know, that's very important. But the very first thing I think you gotta realize is—most of these jobs, they're interacting with customers. I think a lot of times, whether it's phone calls or treatment plans, prior authorizations or billing companies. And so we really look for communication skills. You know, the English has got to be—yes, it's not going to be native English—but it's going to be like 9.8 out of 10, right? Like someone who's fluent in English, with very minimal accent. And then, you know, if you need a Spanish speaker, we have people in Peru—we do the same thing there. But really, we do the five-week training, make sure everyone's able to pass that, do well on it. And if there's any weaknesses, we call those out. And if there's professionalism concerns—like the person’s not showing up, they miss a thing—that's a big red flag, and we go and try to talk to them. And so it might be okay—you had some issue one day. You do it twice—you know, you can do that to us, but you can't do that to Paul. You can't do that to the dental or other medical office. So we do try to focus on speaking skills, professionalism, and the knowledge before they get in there. We try to say it's somewhere between 75 to 85% ready to go.

Rob Montgomery  

That's pretty cool. I mean, unless you're hiring somebody that's really experienced in your office physically, you're quite likely going to have to train them even...

Paul Goodman  

What's kind of cool about it, you know, is that—I joke with Rob about the challenges between dentistry and being a lawyer—but we have a membership club patient, Rob, who—you know about membership clubs. To process their transaction, it's five seconds, right? We just say, "Oh Rob, your cost for dental care is 500 bucks. You're on a membership club—it's 450. How would you like to pay for that?" And then you just pay. You take someone who's in PPO—that processing is so complex, so long. And what I want to say is—the training that they give to the Edge Health team members for any dental insurance training is 100 times better than what a dentist has ever gotten. Yeah, right. So what happens is—just to paint these pictures—people retire, people acquire a practice, the person quits, and the person doing all that insurance is just gone, right? And now it takes—they say it takes a village to raise a child—it takes a village to process an insurance check. Yeah. So the fact that you get any training from them—because you just start to cobble together, as the practice owner, insurance training. And then also, without being judgmental of some long-term office team members—they can be stuck in their ways at times. And just like probably reading a set of IRS codes—there have been some changes over the years, right? Thankfully, we don't have to do that, yes—but just reading a set of any instructions from the early 2000s is different today. So I think it's awesome that you can kind of learn together and have... And also—I mean, you know, Rob—you say you have more control of your business. Because then sometimes you're held hostage by one team member who knows how to do this one thing—and it's hard.

Rob Montgomery  

Right. Yeah, that, in and of itself, is so appealing. And I wonder too, as you say this, it's something I'd never thought about. You're talking about training for these employees in insurance—is there any dentist, is there any outlet anywhere where you can get that training? Sadly, no. I mean, let alone training you how to train someone...

Paul Goodman  

Not anything that exists. And I know they do a lot with medicine too, Rihan, you know? So that's a whole separate type. But like, no, there really isn't. It's like, you know, there's manuals, there's—you know, you work with... Sometimes you outsource your billing. They teach you. But it's very Oregon Trail days. I remember that from our base. Like, the ability to find information on your most important thing that has the most risk, right? You do it wrong—it's a problem. You do it wrong—you don't get paid. I will be empathetic and compassionate with my fellow dentists—it's very, very difficult. There's no, like, "This is the one place you go to do this." And the fact that they spend even just the five weeks—because a lot of this is on-the-job learning anyway, right? You're dealing with an insurance company—they do it this way. And I mean, maybe just—if you know—we... I don't know how many medical doctors follow us, Rihan, but how does it work in the medical world? Similar to the dental world when they're getting Edge Health team members?

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, very similar, right? So, you know—five-week training. We scan for the English skills, the intelligence, the hard work, the professionalism. And then, yeah—somebody comes to us, or we go to them, and they're like, "Okay, let's do it." So we do the demo, and then usually anytime within one to five days, we'll have three or four people ready for you to interview based on your requirements. You do lots of one for phones, insurance, training, billing, revenue cycle management—whatever it is. And then out of those three or four people, you see who’s the best fit for you, right? So we can assign someone for you, but it really needs your buy-in.

Paul Goodman  

Just so you know, Rob—and as our audience knows—my awesome team does all the Edge Health interviews. They meet with multiple people, just like any interview process. And certain people are a fit. It's not—you know—some people are just more of a fit than others for different companies, right? And what they do. You gotta be on the phone more—maybe somebody wants to be on the phone more. And I just think you guys have done a great job with putting people in front of the team for them to pick. You said something, Rihan, I want to bring back up, Rob. So you said sometimes you hire three people and two don't work out, right? In an entrepreneurial world—I love this point—because sometimes my team says to me, "Rob, well, we don't have the budget for three amazing people, right? We don't have the budget. And if we hire three amazing people, we're going to lose $50,000 next year." And I go, "Let's take that risk, okay?" Because it's usually the exact opposite, right? I go, "Guys, when have we hired and batted 1,000%?" Right? So I think what you said is so valuable, Rihan, is that entrepreneurs and business owners—I'm not recommending being overstaffed and not making enough money—but just know the reality. You're usually lying awake at night or having a crisis because you don't have enough people, right? You know? I suppose one day I want to live in that opposite world. I want to walk into my dental practice or my Dental Nachos or Dentist Job Connect and say, "Paul, it happened. We just have too many amazing people here—running out of money." Right? Because I know you said it for a reason. Some people move across the country. My associate—who's great—just moved across the country because her husband got a job. These are people who have real lives outside of your business. Yeah, right. So I just wanted to point that out—that many business owners are scared to overhire, when one day I want to live in that world.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah? Just curious. Go ahead.

Rihan Javid  

Yeah. Oh no—just touching on what Paul says. You do have to have a team, right? You have to have the accurate team. And, you know, if you're hiring in the U.S., it's minimum $50,000, right? You gotta throw in insurance, benefits—all that stuff. And our fees, with everything, it's a fraction of that, right? So we're maybe 40%–50% of what you would pay in Texas or Florida, and probably 30% of what you'd pay in Philadelphia and New York and all these places. And so it does give you a little bit more wiggle room. But I think one of our big value propositions is—we do have this five-week training. We do have a post-selection training. And so we're able to weed some of that out. So is it 100%? No, it's never going to be 100%. But could we get it more inside that 85%, 90%, 95% success rate? Which is pretty damn hard to do, I think, overall.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, they've already been vetted. I'm curious too, Rihan—you're talking about the person that works with Paul, who's a dentist in Pakistan. What generally is the employment history for your team—for the Edge people—and not your team at Edge, but the people that you place, I should say? And what is their typical educational background?

Rihan Javid  

So I think about 99.8% of our people—and there's like two people, maybe three—who do not have college degrees. Wow. So that's important to us. But the most important thing is the English-speaking skills, the professionalism, and the hard work, right? So I think if you get those three things, I think that's really great. You probably notice—like your own staff—whether it's on the legal side or the dental or medical side, most jobs don't require college education, right? So I think most of our people are way overqualified for the jobs. And that was a big fear for me at the beginning. I'm like, "Man, you're way overqualified for this stuff." And they're like, "No, no. It's what we need. It's where we are—financially, whatever." And so that's the most important thing—aptitude, willingness to work hard, and then being willing to go through the training, doing that, and then starting. So I think those are the things that we look for the most. I think that's probably the most important thing, right? If you have someone whose English is subpar, they're not going to work out—no matter how great they are.

Paul Goodman  

Right, yeah, that's cool. I mean, Rob was saying—we'll wrap up in a few minutes—but I want to share something. 100% of the people who work at Dental Nachos are not using their college degree because there was no college degree for working at Dental Nachos. But I actually think that's just a really cool thing.

Rob Montgomery  

I was a minor in social media—yeah, influencing.

Paul Goodman  

But I think, you know, that's just kind of the cool, creative ways of these worlds where you have Edge Health at Dental Nachos. And if people are motivated, people are enthusiastic—and I think you, you're the C-word—it's about being able to communicate with people, right? And it's whether it's communicating on Zoom, whether it's communicating through text message, communicating through phone calls. And that's allowed us to scale what we do—both Dental Nachos and Dentist Job Connect. And we had an Edge Health person in our office. I mean, imagine if you had—so I mean, I would love to do another webinar with you guys with good ideas. I mean, imagine, Rob, if a dental practice—what if your startup dental practice, startup dental practices that are trying to exceed people's expectations—just hired someone and made sure they followed up on every new patient. Just said, "Hey, I know you visited XYZ Dental. We just want to see how your appointment went, if you had any questions." I wish I could go back and do that. There's nothing stopping me at Pennington Dental from doing it, but I'm just sort of—you know this—we're old and crotchety now, right? But imagine how your patient would feel if you did that for them.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, right—if you're trying to grow your business, yes.

Paul Goodman  

Just startup—"Hey, how'd everything go?" We used to do that, and it was great, because people would say, "Oh, I didn't know my insurance covered this." Now I want to go back to doing that, because, you know, it's no excuse that just because you're a mature business, you can't do that. But there's all these cool things that you could do if you had more people who are adept at communicating.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Rihan, thanks so much for taking the time to come on today. If our listeners want to learn more about Edge and what you do for the dental industry, what's the best way for them to do that?

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, I think probably the easiest, best way is to visit our website. So it's onedge.co—O-N-E-D-G-E-dot-C-O. And then our Instagram handle is @onedge.co also. Yeah, they can do that. They can look us up on LinkedIn. But basically, on the website, there's a form they can fill out, and we're pretty good about contacting the same day—but definitely by the next day. And if you're interested, we can get you a remote team member usually within seven to ten days. If you're hiring someone yourself, it probably takes six to eight weeks. But our pledge is seven to ten days if that's what you need.

Rob Montgomery  

And Rihan, with that—so people, can they start with one and see what it's like?

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, you can start with one. You can start with two. We actually—one of our first customers back in the day—they're like, "Okay, I just need three," right? United Medical Doctors—you mentioned at the beginning—they're like 30 offices. We presented them with 12 people. They took all 12. They actually interviewed about seven of them, and after seven, they were like, "Man, these people are great. Let's take everyone."

Paul Goodman  

If someone was listening to this, and stayed till the end—if you want my advice, as a guy who deals with a lot of dentists—find someone your office manager can have as a stress-relieving buddy. Your office manager has so many things on their plate that they do that have nothing to do with the patient in front of them. And if you could find someone for that person that they could offload things to—like we talked about—they will love you. Your practice will grow. You'll have more sanity. So that is my parting advice for getting started.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah, good stuff.

Rihan Javid  

All right, man, I agree. I mean, I've done that myself—for both my practice and for Edge. I have one or two team members. Really, you gotta be able to delegate and really focus on what's important. I think that's what your office manager needs to make it successful.

Paul Goodman  

Thanks, Rihan. I really appreciate you sharing. Love our collaboration. Yes, it's going to be appreciated.

Rihan Javid  

Yeah, no—thank you. You guys are obviously two very valuable members of our community. And we're very proud to be part of the Nacho community also.

Rob Montgomery  

Great, awesome. Thanks, Rihan. Good stuff there, Paul. What do you say—just try something. I've written the Nacho...

Paul Goodman  

Test, not guess—right, right? Yeah, obviously. And also, this is the whole point of all the things we do, right? There are solutions to the pain that you have—just test them out. And I mean, as someone who's been a dental practice owner for 20 years—these pains are consistent, right? Your in-office team focusing on the patient but being distracted by other things is something that's been around since the beginning of dentistry. And now we have something to help with it.

Rob Montgomery  

Yeah. And I feel like—I think about this from the current climate for the privately owned dentists. And obviously, there might be DSO people listening too—that's fine. We like DSO people too. But, you know, for the dentist owner who's thinking about, "I need to compete,"—it's no longer just "I hung out the shingle and waited for the patients to come and they saw the ad in the Yellow Pages." That's not a thing anymore. You gotta do better, right? And if you look at the traditional staffing of a dental office—who are the people that are going to help do that additional stuff to be able to compete against other larger, sophisticated business operations? You know, like group practices and DSOs that have those resources. And also people that are coming from different industries that are very comfortable leveraging these resources. So, you know, this is one of the things—if you're going to compete in any business—you don't want to put yourself at a competitive disadvantage. Get out there and do what they're doing too. But if there's a way that you can add value with a much lower investment—what does that ROI look like?

Paul Goodman  

Lower and flexible. It's lower and flexible. So I think you're exactly, exactly right—and dentists should pay more attention to it.

Rob Montgomery  

With no commitment, right? So the month you try it—you like it—it's good. And I mean, to me, what really resonates with what Rihan was talking about—getting somebody that is substantially trained, almost entirely, but most of the way there—like 80-ish percent—and then you throw your stuff on top. That, in and of itself, is worth it—100%. Thanks everybody for listening. Good to talk to you, Paul.

Paul Goodman  

Thanks, Rob.

Bumper  

Thanks for listening to another great podcast with the Dental Amigos. And don't forget to tune in next time to have the dental business demystified. If you're looking for more information about today's podcast, you can find it on the dental amigos.com if you're looking for Paul, you can find Paul at drpaulgoodman.com and if you're looking for Rob, you can find him at yourdentallawyer.com This podcast has been sponsored by Orange Line Media Group, helping dentists and other professionals create content people love. Find out how we can help you take your business to the next level at www.orangelinemg.com. Till next time.

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