Paul Intlekofer is President of SFP Capital, a VC firm, and CEO of MMG Fusion, LLC, a software company helping dentists manage, market and grow their practice. He holds a BA in economics from Johns Hopkins and a JD/MBA from Maryland. Paul has helped start-ups, emerging companies, and public companies create innovative products and achieve significant growth. Paul was also a founding member of an internet/technology start-up, rdental, LLC, which was ultimately acquired by WebMD, and became WebDDS. Paul started out as an attorney with Venable, LLP.

Paul Intlekofer, JD, MBA

MMG Fusion has designed an online system to better market, manage, and grow dental practices. The system is designed to attract new patients, improve their experience, and facilitate daily tasks.

MMG Fusion was developed based on analysis and understanding of dentistry compared with large consumer product or retail businesses.

Motivating someone to choose one business over the competition

Making it easy for someone to decide to buy or schedule

Creating a positive experience and repeat business

Making people willing to share positive reviews

Most of a dentist’s work involves specialized clinical care, with limited time for management.

Dental office employees are not marketing experts.

Dentists cannot access resources of larger public companies.

Practices can achieve the marketing and operational success of larger companies via automated software technology with machine learning. MMG Fusion’s products are customized for the dental profession and designed to work as one system that understands the dental market, patient behavior, staff, and office workflow.

The MMG Fusion system was designed with input from dental opinion leaders, office owners, experienced executives, and software engineers. The company’s chief product officer (and lead software engineer) owns four dental offices. This allowed MMG to test and refine products in multiple locations with different dynamics to create an optimized system easy for staff to use and implement.

MMG’s Market Suite helps practices to be visible online, to be chosen from among competitors, and to easily make new patient appointments. The principles applicable to large companies with big marketing budgets also work in growing a dental practice, and now the resources to do so are available in one place. Those principles and matching MMG tools include:

Search engine optimization (SEO) and directories help a practice get noticed because 85% of patients look online for a new dentist.

MMG offers levels of websites that provide value and results for any type of practice, because it is important for a website to make a positive first impression.

MMG manages SEO and Pay-Per-Click advertising for any size practice, because digital ads using Facebook or Google AdWords are important.

MMG’s ChairFill automatically creates personalized ads and targeted marketing campaigns.

MMG’s Reputation Management makes sure a first impression is the best it can be, because positive reviews are important.

MMG’s Call Analysis/Call Conversion tool helps ensure that staff members are converting calls.

MMG’s system makes it easy to schedule an appointment online.

MMG’s Marketing Tracker allows practices to make more informed decisions, so advertising money is spent on what works.

Each component of the Market Suite builds from the next. MMG Fusion’s integrated system amplifies practice results, so 1 + 1 + 1 does not necessarily equal 3, but possibly 4 or 5.

Attracting new patients is crucial, as is keeping them and giving them a great experience. The first step in that process is the patient’s selection of a dental practice. When it comes to making this decision, 86% of potential patients read reviews before selecting a dentist.

MMG Fusion’s reputation management tool monitors 13 review sites in its dashboard and offers weekly and monthly reports for download or distribution via email. Patients automatically receive review requests via text, email, or a combination, which is based on best practices.

Practices can segment which patients receive review requests based on prior interactions and appointment type. This allows a dentist to delay sending that request until after the treatment plan is complete. The platform offers methods to improve patient response and consistently increase review quality and quantity.

MMG’s reputation management tool also collects patient feedback through customizable internal surveys. Practices can use this as a benchmarking tool and to measure net promoter score, a core key performance indicator for many clients.

If the option exists, 85% of patients would set up an appointment online. Ease and convenience of scheduling an appointment are crucial. On average, patients scheduling with the MMG Fusion tool can find and choose an opening and confirm their selection in less than 60 seconds.

Online scheduling should be available on a dental website. Through MMG, links can be generated to schedule anywhere there is a digital presence, including email, text messages, social media, or local directories. The goal is for a patient never to be more than one click from scheduling. Seventy-five percent of online appointments are booked between 5 PM and 8 AM. Without the option to schedule online, many potential patients will choose a different dentist.


Having a streamlined enrollment process for new patients creates a great experience. MMG’s Patient Portal is a paperless system that saves time with new patient registration. Patients may e-sign a consent form, complete and update their dental and health history and use online scheduling, check insurance eligibility, make payments online, and get Uber rides. Such convenience leads to patient satisfaction and retention.

MMG’s Patient Portal gets patients more involved in managing their oral health by using a personalized oral health score which puts open treatment plans front and center. The sliding scoring system makes it fun and engaging for patients and keeps them focused on coming back for treatment and increasing their score.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D imagery, patients can see completed work and what treatment plans are still open. By educating patients with visual cues and engaging them through personalized information in their Oral Health Score, patients achieve better outcomes.

MMG Fusion’s Patient Engagement tool, integrated with practice management software, allows practices to communicate with patients via email, text, or voice calls to send appointment reminder and confirmation requests.

In addition to reminders, confirmation requests, and recall messaging, this tool generates one-time campaigns offering practices the potential for enormous return on investment (ROI). Year-end benefit reminder campaigns, new service announcements, and more can be customized with the assistance of a dedicated account manager. HTML files can be uploaded to the content library, with those messages being scheduled for distribution.

Nearly every MMG client used this tool to stay connected with patients during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, to communicate practice status updates and to share new check-in and check-out procedures.

In today’s digital marketing environment, the ability to target and customize marketing allows businesses and offices to think in new ways. Targeted, customized marketing is used effectively by large companies. MMG’s “Grow Suite” includes ChairFill and Marketing Tracker. These give a small dental practice the capability to search for specific patients with unfinished treatment and to deliver customized emails, texts, videos, and promotions in order to optimize schedules and maximize growth.

STEP 3: Machine learning With Virtual Office Assistant, Ava

MMG’s Manage Suite was designed to help automate practices and increase productivity. It starts with Ava, a virtual office assistant. The customized MMG Unified Communication system allows for easier communication, including a patient screen pop and every conceivable phone system feature. It allows robust, intuitive collaboration among staff. A Task Management function assigns responsibilities and measures completeness.

The foundation of the MMG Unified Communications is a tool connecting the staff, allowing them to engage in conversations via text, email, or webchat to obtain and share important information and further enhance patient experience. Email and SMS messages are sent and captured from the patient’s profile page, creating an electronic paper trail, and staff can attach files and forms to send to patients to review.

Similar to an interoffice communication tool like Slack, team members can also collaborate and share internal messages on a patient’s profile, whether to ask for support or update a on a completed task. These messages are color-coded and only visible by practice team members and the hierarchy of users within the enterprise.

Using screen pops to alert users of new messages, staff can be notified within the MMG Fusion dashboard or on their desktop. The screen pops add to the efficiency of the Unified Communications platform by reducing the number of clicks needed to get to the reply, making it easy for staff to access the communication history.

With webchat enabled, messages from potential and existing patients also pop up in the dashboard and responses can be sent back from the same screen. If there aren’t any team members available to reply, Ava’s AI webchat tool requests contact information from the visitor and creates a follow up task for a member of the team. This information is populated into the patient profile allowing the team member to plan ahead.

MMG uses Ava’s AI to assume and assign office responsibilities. Ava detects outstanding tasks and tries to perform those tasks automatically. If Ava can’t, Ava creates a task for the right staff member, and then tracks the task to completion. For example, Ava can create a task for staff to call a patient to reschedule when a patient cancels an appointment and doesn’t use the online schedule tool to rebook. As tasks are assigned, they’re added to the performance reports for each staff member so ongoing training can be effectively provided, as necessary.

Ava provides dentists and their staff with all the tools needed to manage any practice, lower overhead, motivate staff, and improve patient experience. Ava works with staff, and with the practice’s other software tools, to allow dentists to focus on treatment and care. Ava helps turn the Monday morning huddle into a shorter, more productive meeting. MMG’s Market Suite, Manage (Ava) Suite and Growth Suite (ChairFill) does it all for a practice.

Articles

MMG Fusion built a system for making office growth automatic and staff more productive. 

Automating Practice Tasks Aims to Improve Productivity, Bottom Line

	Each month, Dr. Lou Shuman consults with a dental digital marketing specialist to discuss the latest developments in website optimization, SEO strategies, social media trends, online reputation management, marketing and more.

	This month, Dr. Shuman sat down with Paul Intlekofer, JD, MBA, CEO of MMG Fusion to talk about his latest innovative technology gamechanger ChairFill and how it can grow practice production through an ingenious turnkey software program.

Trending article: How to take control of your practice with MMG Fusion

What motivated you to create a product like ChairFill?

	The founding partners of MMG Fusion have been working in and around the dental industry for years. Our products and services have all been developed with a “by dentists, for dentists” mindset. We saw that our individual tools and services were helping dentists to manage, market and grow their practices as intended, but had the potential to do so much more. We also knew that our intelligent software mindset, and our focus on automation gave us a unique view of problems in the dental space and how to solve them. 

	After evaluating the marketplace and speaking with many of the top KOLs we saw that a practitioner’s focus after providing quality care was on keeping their chairs filled with the right kind of patients. And they wanted to do this while spending only a reasonable amount of money and staff time on marketing, branding, and patient reactivation. 

	We applied our unique technology and mindset to what we saw as the largest problem facing practitioners, and ChairFill was born. 

	MMG ChairFill is a personalized marketing software system with a brain. Thinking and running all the time in the background, ChairFill will automatically grow a patient base and achieve practice production goals by:

	• Monitoring available chair time to fill in the right kind of patients at the right time

	• Selectively mine an existing patient base for the most profitable patients and proactively fill a schedule in advance

	• Detect last minute cancellations and fill those openings in the schedule 

	• Automatically run your highest ROI “Smart” marketing campaigns to continuously acquire new patients 

	• Build a positive brand presence, reputation and image for the dentist’s practice.  

More from the authors: The enormous impact of SMART technologies on dentistry

	ChairFill does not just seek to fill in cancellations, but is proactively using our other tools to fill out the dentist’s schedule with new patients and existing patients. The software is constantly analyzing, recommending, and executing marketing campaigns as well as mining patient records. ChairFill is customizable to be able to achieve specific goals. A dentist can set specific goals such as target highest margin patients. 

	ChairFill also provides unique methods to be able to communicate with prospective patients: Voice, text and even recorded VIDEO of the practitioner or staff. Additionally, it provides dental specific incentives to increase/ensure the practice is achieving their goals.

	Does ChairFill address brand management?

	ChairFill manages all social media properties, directories, ratings and reviews smartly to ensure the practice to ensure the practice enjoys a positive and wide online presence; is highly ranked across 70 directories; and is getting the best reviews and ratings across the internet. Negative reviews are addressed as well.

For more information on ChairFill, please go to www.mmgfusion.com

How ChairFill mines your patient records to fill your schedule with the most profitable patients.

Automating practice growth with machine learning

	Each month, Dr. Lou Shuman consults with a dental digital marketing specialist to discuss the latest developments in social media trends, SEO strategies, website optimization, online reputation management and more. 

	This month, Dr. Shuman sat down with the CEO of MMG Fusion, Paul Intlekofer, JD, MBA, to talk about the impact of SMART technology in dentistry.

What is SMART technology and how can it be generally defined?

	SMART technology is Self-Monitoring Analytics and Reporting Technology. As it relates to the dental industry we are referring to autonomous patient acquisition and practice growth tools. This is technology that integrates into practice management software and simplifies, centralizes and creates efficiencies within a practice. These various tools communicate with each other and serve as an “automated practice manager” for the dentist. 

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Why should dentists care about SMART technology?

	SMART technology provides a dental practice with a 24/7 employee for a fraction of the cost. It is always operating, it is always accurate, and it is always working to drive practice growth, save you time and money, and keep you ahead of your competition.

What is new is the smart technology sphere?

	Many SMART tools have been on the market for some time: Reminder tools, review and ranking tools, SEO, social media, call tracking and various analytics dashboards that display practice metrics. What’s new is the ability to integrate all of these tools not only into the practice management software, but into each other. Recent advances in technology have allowed for this new level of communication and integration. This is what enables these disjointed marketing and analytics tools to become a SMART practice growth engine. 

How difficult is SMART technology to use or implement?

	The short answer is that SMART technology is not difficult to use or implement. It was designed to simplify your life and create efficiencies. Intuitive dashboards insure that you don’t have to be a professional marketer, or data analytics guru to use these tools. If they are too complicated to use within a dentist’s busy schedule, then they are useless.  

	In many cases the tools and integrations do the work for the dentist so the dentist is monitoring and reviewing the intuitive dashboards instead of being forced to input data or complete tasks in order to see results. These tools truly can serve as an automated office manager who works 24/7 and allows even the busiest practitioner to always have their finger on the pulse of their practice.

Trending article: Getting real about social media marketing for the dental practice

How can SMART technology drive practice growth?

	A SMART appointment reminder or patient communication tool is a great example of SMART technology driving practice growth. When integrated seamlessly into your practice management software it can help you to monetize your existing patient base through re-care, re-activation and automated email campaigns. The software will segment patients that are overdue for regular treatment or may have left parts of a treatment plan uncompleted and targeting them with communications reminding them to come back into your practice. 

	Another example uses integrated marketing tracking and analytics to replicate success. A practice using SMART marketing tracking can effectively track their marketing back to not only leads generated, but also patient’s generated, and individual patient production and revenue. The practice then knows exactly what works and what doesn’t-and to even to what extent. They can use that knowledge to invest in successful marketing while moving away from marketing that they know is less effective. Stagnant and repetitive marketing in a competitive environment is a recipe for wasted money and limited or no practice growth. 

Continue to page two for how SMART technology can bring in new patients...

What about new patient growth? How can SMART technology work to help a practice bring in new patients?

	Some key drivers of new patient growth that are often overlooked are ranking and review tools, and negative review removal tools. In this digital age where the “internet of things” surrounds us we are more and more dependent on third party validation. We no longer blindly trust internet marketing and ad promises that we read. We rely on other people’s reviews and their experiences to help us decide where to seek treatment. A product that collects and projects positive reviews to the public can be invaluable for generating new patients for a practice. 

	While positive reviews are invaluable, we also can’t overlook the impact of negative reviews on a practice. Many practices are unaware of the negative reviews that exist about their practice. Some negative reviews can be associated with prior owners, or there may be many negative reviews from a single displeased patient. In any case, these negative reviews can do serious damage to a practices ability to generate new patients.

	Many more practices are also unaware that these reviews can, in many cases, be removed. Negative review removal can provide a true reputation reset. A smart tool can automatically monitor the web for these negative reviews, flag them and begin taking the necessary steps to remove them. This in turn improves the practice reputation, setting the stage for new patients to feel comfortable joining the practice. 

Trending article: 7 things your practice needs to know about the new Facebook business page

What final thoughts should dentists remember about SMART technologies and tools?

	Dentists should remember that these tools are here to help them, or even force them to keep in touch with their marketing and patient acquisition efforts. Like anything else you need to stay on top of your marketing programs, A and B testing, monitoring results, making changes based on those results. SMART tools allow any dentist with any ranging level of marketing skill, to effectively manage and grow their practice in today’s competitive and ever-changing marketplace

 to see a demo of SMART technologies, or to see SMART technologies in action live, visit Paul and the MMG Fusion team at the Chicago Midwinter Meeting at booth #4940.

SMART technologies are changing the way dental practices are managed-for the better.