You love him. You learned from him. He’s one of the most revered figures in Dental Sleep Medicine. But do you really know him?   The ZZZ Pack dove deep with Kent Smith, DDS, D.ABDSM, a true DSM renaissance man. He shares his reasons for starting Brady Billing, details the traits the most prolific dental sleep practices have in common, talks us through his appliance selection process, and floors us with details about how he spent his COVID downtime.   But that’s not all, folks.   Dr. Smith offers the secret sauce to a successful DSM practice (spoiler alert: there isn’t one!), tel ..read more

Everyone wants to belong somewhere — even the tongue. Dr. John Caulfield joined The ZZZ Pack to share his journey from treating teeth with neuromuscular dentistry to saving lives with sleep and airway.   Dr. Caulfield has more tools in his armamentarium than you have socks in your drawers, and one of these tools has eliminated patients' need for PAP or MAD. Pull up a chair as he drops knowledge on transpalatal expansion, nasal breathing, engaging consultations, and the benefits AND limitations of CBCT in airway analysis. Sleep tests, improving physiology and anatomy, and his own experienc ..read more

Like most of TMD and DSM’s foremost thinkers, Dr. Mayoor Patel’s journey started in Zimbabwe, led to Arkansas, and eventually to finishing dental school at the age of 22. Oh, wait, that’s a crazy, outlandish story - but truth is stranger than fiction.   Don’t believe us? Then wait until you hear what Dr. Patel has to say about the ONE thing he’s observed in all his courses that separates successful Dental Sleep Practices from those that fail to take flight. I’m just going to give you a hint - the initials are “RDH.”    And there’s more folks. COVID, depression, and parafunction ..read more

Madan Kandula, MD, blew the ZZZ Pack away with his iconoclastic approach to the typical sleep workflow. His pragmatism when referring to his 10 ENT offices in the Wisconsin/Chicago area as an “upper airway breathing practice” had Dr. Elliott ready to pay his relocation costs to Idaho.   Dr. Kandula dropped gems on the ZZZs about the barrier between dentistry and medicine, anatomic nasal and sinus blockages, the importance of nasal breathing, and a bunch of other things that will make you a boring dinner party guest but a much better clinician.   Want to know how his practice, Advent ..read more

Dr. Steve Carstensen wrote the book on Dental Sleep Medicine - literally. He and his co-author wrote the seminal The Clinician’s Handbook for Dental Sleep Medicine.    He broke bread with the ZZZ Pack to discuss how he continues to educate, disrupt, push, pull, and cajole our sleep colleagues to do more to tackle airway issues. His excitement is palpable when he underscores dentistry’s ability to look beyond the oral cavity and focus on medicine.   Dr. Carstensen’s collaborative efforts with the ADA’s pediatric airway task force has the potential to effect generational chan ..read more

So many dental sleep leaders don’t remember what it was like to implement, manage, and grow dental sleep medicine in a restorative practice. They lecture about it like it’s easy peasy - no biggie. The struggle is real. You know it. So do our guests...   Dr. Michael McCormick and Dr. Marc Newman share their real world journeys to make sleep an integral, life-saving, profitable part of their respective practices. Whether starting in Virginia or Indiana, their DSM paths to success take some different twists and turns.    One has used telemedicine to streamline sleep testing proces ..read more

Oral Appliance Therapy stalwart, Sonnie Bocala, ends the ZZZ Pack’s hiatus to discuss his company’s pandemic pivot and the Dental Sleep Medicine field’s Covid comeback. You’ll be stunned as he unmasks the collaborative project that brought many labs together for a truly admirable cause.    It wouldn’t be a Sonnie day though if we didn’t talk OAT specifics. You’ll hear which appliance he thinks is best, what makes Apex more than just an appliance manufacturer, cause and effect of appliance breakage and repairs, and tons more.    NEWS FLASH: Sonnie shares THE BIGGEST ENEMY TO ..read more

You’re managing your team, your practice, your patients’ care, and your referral relationships. It might feel like you’re doing well if you just manage not to go crazy. So, while you know that marketing is important, who has time to manage that, too? Huh, who? NOT YOU! Todd Warren shares how front-end marketing automation helps drive new sleep patients to practices, while back-end automation minimizes the amount of time your team has to spend fielding calls from patients that don’t fit your practice.  This helps keep your overhead down, so you can deliver valuable treatment to patients cl ..read more

There are more than 150 FDA-cleared appliances for the treatment of OSA. Who needs another one, right?    WRONG!   Chris Gillette spent the afternoon with the ZZZ PACK sharing how his decades of experience as a sleep technician led him to realize the many benefits of Oral Appliance Therapy while also identifying many of the design flaws.    This compelled him to develop, patent, and produce a new device – Bfit. What is it? How does it work? How is it different from the myriad other available devices? And most importantly, did it pass ZZZ host, Lisa Moler’s litmus test ..read more

Dr. Sam Cress  sold his general dentistry practice and began the process of opening a new sleep and TMD practice dedicated to providing his guests with desirable experiences from he and his co-therapists. Wait, what about patients, appointments, and hygienists?    Then COVID-19 struck. What’s a dentist to do? Tuck your tail and run for safety? OR BLAZE FORWARD? Dr. Cress is crazy smart and did the latter. Then the wackiest thing happened on opening day. Listen to find out about this test in resilience.  You’ll get a tutorial on positive mental attitude, grit, and optimal ti ..read more