Anne: Hi everybody, it's Anne Duffy and welcome to Dental Entrepreneur, the Future of Dentistry's podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me today, and I've got a very special guest. He is an icon in dentistry. I have known about him for so many years, and I met him years ago.
But I wanna tell you a little bit about him before we get started. Dr. Bryan Laskin is a Minnesota dentist and tech entrepreneur on a mission to connect dentistry and empower patients through innovation and standardization, co-founder and CEO of Toothapps. Cair, CAIR and Dental Standards Institute.
Dr. Laskin is a podcaster and bestselling author. His latest book, unfair Care, is set to be released October, 2025, which we are in, and I wanna say welcome Dr. Bryan Laskin. Hello.
Bryan: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. I love everything you do, and so it's an honor to be here.
Anne: Well, it's an honor to have you, you, uh, we, as we were talking before we got started, you're one of our famous DeWdes a man that supports women in dentistry, and we love what you are doing, and you've always been such a gentleman.
Bryan, I remember meeting you and think it was an SEN meeting like, made my first SEN meeting when you had, was that your first company OperaDDS?
Bryan: Opera. DDS, yeah. That was well, it was my first. Technology company.
Anne: Okay. So I just remember thinking, gosh, you're a dentist and you've got this AI company and you're at the beginning of, it felt like to me the beginning of tech taking over a lot of dentistry.
So kudos to you. have you always been really techy?
Bryan: Yeah. I like to say I was born in 1972, which is the same year that Pong video games came out. it was the sort of like cast in, in stone or maybe in silicone that I would be, into tech.
early on got involved with CAD cam CT imaging, training other dentists. it was really inevitable that my, entrepreneurial streak met. need, and that's how Opera was born. now I've just been kind of on this whirlwind of leveling up technology and helping other companies and growing companies that hopefully will make positive change for practices and for patients.
Anne: That's wonderful. I know you love dentistry in our profession and you have helped so many companies grow, with your expertise and that's very generous of you we appreciate that. dentistry is full of innovation and ideas and technologies, and yet we are often seen as lagging behind.
And I wanna know from your perspective, what are the most effective strategies for helping dental teams and patients change rather than resist it?
Bryan: Great point. Now, here's where I think dentistry's behind because we have this dichotomy in dentistry where there's areas that we are very far ahead.
we were one of the first, mass scale 3D printing applications. If you look at Alliant Technologies mm-hmm. and CAD cam. And, And what I like to think is that. Where dentists practice every day. we've come so far in clinical dentistry when I got outta dental school, it's like you put a filling in and hope that it didn't fall out.
Let's be real. Yeah. And, but, and soclinically things have come such a long way, if you step outside the operatory. We are so far behind even our medical colleagues, if we look at how our data's not exchanged, how we interact with our patients. the vast majority of practices arehave patients call them if they wanna like,make an appointment.
Anne: yeah.
Bryan: I don't know about you, but I don't know business that have actually picked up the phone and called right in the last year. frankly I think it's because dentists are busy and we pay attention to what our job is and we frankly aren't aware of what's going on at the front desks and outside the walls of our dental practice.
And that has put us very far behind. And so that's where I spend a lot of my time is trying. Get dentistry up to speed and then hopefully at least leapfrog our medical colleagues. 'cause let's face it, the medical experience is horrible. Yeah. It's worse than dentistry right now.
Anne: And how can that be?
like, people don't like change for starters so, I mean, it's really hard to get everybody to buy in and then their heads are down into the, practice, so they don't sometimes look up and see what's around them.
And honestly, they in the past didn't really wanna know what was going on at the front desk and the AI and how they could help, the patient flow. I loved your idea with the Toothapps because that seems like that's just a no-brainer. I'd love you to tell us a little bit about that, because what's behind that, app and that company that you built?
Bryan: Oh, thank you. And I, And I realize I didn't really directly answer your first questions. What can people do about it? Like, how can they incorporate change? And I think number one is if you're a dentist or if you're an office manager, or if you are a leader in a dental practice, people are following, looking for you to lead, right?
Mm-hmm. So, number one, change begins with you, You have to say that we're going to. Do better tomorrow than we did yesterday. We're not gonna just do what we did yesterday because it's easy. And so somebody has to step up and be the champion of change. one of my favorite stories is Usain Bolt, the Olympian.
He won, he had gold shoes that was made by 3M another Minnesota tech company. Right. Love it. Yeah.
Anne: It,
Bryan: uh, when he won. He broke the world record. But what most people don't know is that runners two and three also broke the world record.And so afterwards the reporter, went up to the two people that got two and three, whose Most people don't remember.
Right?
Anne: Right.
Bryan: And said, you also broke the world record. How did that happen? And their response was, we were trying to just catch Usain. yes. So people follow. the pack will follow the leader. So,Somebody has to be the champion it doesn't have to be the dentist, it doesn't have to be the office manager, but somebody has to take
the lead and be the Usain bolt of the technology.and to answer your second question about Toothapps and how that got started,we already mentioned opera that. Was born out of frustrations that I had in my dental practice to automate and solve some problems with my dental practices Toothapps was created because of problems I found in dentistry.
Growing a technology company, and that's the lack of what's called interoperability or data access. This idea of does it integrate with my practice management system is a stupid question to have to ask. There are standards in medicine and standards that we're creating in dentistry, how things should work.
This data that, the electronic dental record is legally owned by patients. And you as a dental practice are legally responsible for what happens with that data. And today. Unless you're using Toothapps, frankly, uh, 'cause I don't know another company that does it. You don't have visibility or access to that data, either as a patient or as a dental provider.
And so that's what we do, is we make that information normalized and available to the people that need it to provide the best care.
Anne: And to me, again, I'm sorry. It's just such a no-brainer because in the dental practice, I mean, from how I understand it, you don't get all the information from the patient.
They just forget. They don't know. And you need to have something that you can rely on, especially from health records and then sending, referrals out and all that. have to treat the whole person. And we've been talking about the oral systemic connection forever. But that has to do with your records too, right?
Bryan: Oh, I mean, think about this. The new last time you got a new patient Yeah. That moved from, Oklahoma to your, town, what records do you get? Nothing. And then if you take a full set of x-rays and there's a perfectly good looking root canal that has a radiolucency around it that isn't symptomatic, what do you do?
The answer is, you don't do or I didn't do. What would you would haveto do to actually fully treat the patient, which is get the records and get the history of that too.
The history. Right? The history, yes.when you refer to an endon, when they refer them back to you, all of this should be just seamless communication.
Yeah. Because a hundred percent of what we do. maybe 99.9% of what we do Yeah.Is based on a diagnosis that is based on data and we don't have it a lot of the time. Yeah.then you even mentioned another thing, which is we are all talking about medical dental integration. We don't have dental to dental integration, right?
Yeah. Let alone medical. So once we bring in the medical data and we have comprehensive dental information, The level of care that we'll be able to provide patients in our offices it's gonna be on another level. I think the lack of data access is the biggest, choke hold on innovation.
It's also the number one thing that is preventing us from providing more elevated care. And also it's the biggest choke hold on your revenue, because if you have things fail that's not revenue positive, right? Mm-hmm. it's not an inconsequential,
Anne: no thing,
Bryan: right? We just don't think about it because we go, oh, that's the data we had available yesterday, and it's the same today.
Anne: Oh my God, that's so wise. I mean, even back to the story of the root canal. So this person has probably had that, maybe they've had it for 15 years and they're just perfectly fine and the body does heal itself. And so even from just building your patient, flow new patients and the referrals, wouldn't you just love to go to a dentist that says well, you know, this has been going on for 15 years and I've seen your records and I think this is great, and we just,This is obviously working for you, right? And you would love that dentist. You would refer that dentist versus you come into a new practice and you see all these incipient areas of decay that have been there for 25 years and you fill them. I mean, It's just again, just like, oh my gosh, this is so genius and it seems so simple.
Bryan: So good for you. Yeah, appreciate that. I mean, and think about what if that. Peral Radiolucency wasn't there when the root canal was done a year ago. It's there now and there's a note in the records that says horizontal fracture around along the palp floor. So if it's problematic, extract into an implant.
Okay. Now we know what we need to do. Yeah. We need to extract and do an implant. Versus nothing. And just having this grow and become problematic. Yeah. So, So that's why I say it's revenue generation. cause everything has to have a diagnosis for us to do it and.
Today we just don't have that ability. So Yeah, I appreciate that.
Anne: It's gotta be there and it's gotta be implemented and executed. you've got some technology now that helps. So that has to get out there and there are so many opportunities to enhance the overall patient experience and I think obviously this is one of 'em, but what do you see as the biggest, opportunity in the next decade?
Bryan?
Bryan: I think the biggest opportunity that we have is to directly connect with our patients. We at Toothapps have created the product care, as you mentioned, which is a mobile application, kinda like MyChart people use mostly in medicine.
Anne: Yeah.
So.
Bryan: Patients can pay their bill. Do online scheduling securely a message with your practice?
They can also see those inal photos that you took and show them to their spouse at home. So it's right, the CT scan directly in their mobile application. AndWe call it connected dentistry. when I gotta dental school, 20 years ago, we were in a shift to digital dentistry.
I think we're in a similar shift to connected dentistry now. And what that means is that patients are going to be empowered to be partners in their care. that's not just on a, if they have a cavity, what filling material they use. It's also. They have periodontal disease, gastric reflux, diabetes, and headaches.
Mm-hmm. How do we comprehensively treat that patient from the oral health perspective? Coordinating with our medical colleagues and bringing the patient into that equation. it's kind of a broader picture, but I think it's mm-hmm. You know, if you think 20 years ago, what was digital dentistry looking like?
It was. CAD cam and a computer on your, calendar. We're in that phase of connected dentistry right now, so we don't really know where this is gonna lead, but I think empowering patients, to be partners in their care and bringing in overall health into our practices, I think that it's a fool's errand to think that physicians are suddenly gonna be diagnosing distal lingual caries in number six.
Yeah. Right, right.It's on us to know more about the comprehensive health of a patient.
Anne: Yeah, that's, very interesting and I think that the new generation, and even us, When you think about it, we want to have a little ownership in that you're gonna get more buy-in from the patient.
More understanding. you're gonna be with the times. I mean, I can't tell you how many times people in the medical, have had some medical procedure that they didn't understand. They don't even know what happened. They just got it done. And they find out, couple months later that maybe they could've done something else if they would've had more information.
And I think that we're taking those things on with the internet. You can,they found that in medicine they can Google everything. That's not going away, that is just gonna get more robust as people become more interested in their health and the care that they're getting.
So you're ahead of that game, and I'm glad that you're bringing that to the forefront that the patients can be involved.
Bryan: you mentioned my book that's coming out in a few days. Unfair Care. Yeah. Unfair Care is a guidebook to patients on how to get the best care possible.
Not just in dentistry, although there's a couple chapters on oral health the gateway to overall health mm-hmm. And how,medicine and dentistry in my mind, should play together. But overall, what I didn't see was aguidebook for patients 'cause people say healthcare is broken.
I don't think it's broken. I think it's rigged. It's not designed for wellness. It's designed for profit. And it's working exactly as it's designed. So in the system of how it's designed today, not hoping for some. Policy change 20 years now, but today, how do you actually get the best healthcare possible in the United States and beyond?
And that's what the book is about, because I, you know,oral health definitely. Has a major component to overall health. if I'm a patient and I want to be empowered to get the best healthcare possible, how do I do it? That's what this book is.
Anne: Wow. So this book is so broad then it's obviously not just for dental or medical professionals. This is for the grand population out there. And it will spread like wildfire, ' fire because a lot.Of medical decisions are made for you, not with you, and this is changing. We're not gonna, yeah, this is, we're not standing for that anymore.
Exactly. Yeah. Thisis for anybody who consumes healthcare, period. How do you actually get the best healthcare in a system that's designed to fail you? Yeah, it is. so in the book I talk about how it's designed to fail you, but probably more importantly, what do you do about it, right?
Bryan: Yeah. What do you as a human who's looking to not get. The worst care that that's prescribed. How do you actually get better care? Because we can't fix the system that it's in. We as human beings have to demand different things than we're demanding today. And the book if you follow what the book prescribes, you will.
While you get better healthcare for yourself and your family, you're also gonna be stacking the stones to shift the system. Because if everybody demanded it the way that I prescribed in the book, the system wouldn't work the way it works today. Right? Wow. It would have to shift to be in alignment with wellness that would be the only way for the system to be profitable for companies
Anne: and especially with the world it is right now.
Better jump on this. Train or you'regonna be left behind. I feel like it's gonna help everybody in the system. I love that. And, And I love the fact that your company called Care. We were talking about that too. I love that. I said well, whydid you, spell it CAIR?
So, that to our listeners. 'cause they're gonna see the new company come out and it. Actually I, see a little bit of that on the cover because you are on the cover of the Autumn Edition of Dental Entrepreneur, the Future of Dentistry, which I'm thrilled about, explain that and where you came up with that.
Bryan: Thank you and thanks again. I mean, I'm honored to be on, on the cover your magazine. I mean, what a, What a great publication and, again, big fan of everything you do. It's funny because my book, unfair Care was actually. was sparked by a, personal story from someone in my family that did not get the right care.
Anne: Okay.
Bryan: And while I was also working on data accessibility for dental practices in patients, then I just realized how much of a problem, it's not just in dentistry. And so care, the application, CAIR, allows patients to get their records and their information and then use AI tools to command their care.
So for example, if you have a patient that has diabetes and it's been ongoing for a while and they have periodontal disease and they're managing them together, you as. Dentists might not actually be contacting and looking at all their historic diabetes markers, right? You might not be looking at Most,
Anne: probably not.
Yes. Mm-hmm.
Bryan: I'm being generous. Right? I
Anne: know you're being generous.
Bryan: what we're doing, because there'sso much data. You know, I wear a whoop band, people have an aura ring. All this data is incredibly valuable, even to. Us in treating the oral health of a patient. How do we actually bring this information to provide the best care?
Well, The reality is that all of this data is customized to patient. And that's what we're doing in care, is we're bringing together all of these data sources to help you as a provider and the patient to deliver and receive the best care possible. And a big part of that is you know, what's AI good at?
AI's good at mass amounts of data and then bringing it together and serving it up to you. so that's what we're doing with care.
Anne: That's amazing. I'm excited for that. And that,When did you launch that?
Bryan: earlier this year so, uh, okay. Yeah. Care launched. It was originally called Toothapps patient, which led to a little bit of confusion.
Okay. 'cause which application to download? Toothapps or Toothapps. Patient. Okay. as a patient, and then also, know, if you have, let's say it's Johnson Family Dentistry, Toothapps. Patient is a little clergy. Okay. So we renamed it Care in I believe March or April timeframe.
and it's really taking off 'cause every business. Except for dental practices have an mobile application where they directly connect with their customers, right?
Anne: Yes.
Bryan: And it makes no sense that we don't, as a dental practice have that. If you care more, you make more. That's a double entendre sort of too, because Yeah, you're showing you care for people by giving them access and directly connecting with them. And then every time the patient pays their bill, they confirm their appointments, they send a message to you they, do an online scheduling, get third party financing.
From care the mobile application, it's something that your team doesn't even have to do. It automatically happens, right? Yeah. And so most dental teams are overwhelmed right now. Yeah. So if you can take that extra effort, put it in the palm of your patient's hand, you're doing a couple things.
You're making it more convenient for them. You're showing them that you're giving them tools that you care more for them, and that every time they use it, you're making more.
Anne: And honestly, theno one wants to talk on the phone anymore. I like talking on the phone to build a relationship, but once you have that relationship built, I really don't need to talk to you on the phone.
I need to text. everybody's busy. That just makes, so much sense and will make it easier. And I also,it shows you care about the patient. they're just not a number. Likeyou're building that relationship and it's a long. Ongoing relationship. So I think you'll retain more of your patients.
They'll think that you do care about them more, and a dental office will, put that in their system. Is that how that works,
Bryan: We're an open platform, right? so what that means is that we plug into any system where they can plug into us.
'cause we actually have wrote the standards on how the integrations work in dentistry, which is a whole nother talk show, right? But what that means is that whatever platforms you're using, you can use them. Plug them into Toothapps and then it'll be available for care for your patients.
And so yes right nowwe use these APIs. They're called the connectors for about 85% of the practice management softwares out there. But anyone can plug into us too, so we're a hundred percent. Interoperable we work with any systems we have a bunch of different things that we, can do we're completely agnostic about what applications you want to use in your practice.
All we're trying to do is empower you to connect everything together seamlessly and provide the information to your patients that they need to have. And we have a bunch of tools that are available in coming. To really level up. How we manage data in dentistry. Because it's, right now it's,completely broken.
that's a core issue that we're solving. I mean, Yeah. And while you do it, it just, costs less and you make more money and everything works better. mean, that's, and
Anne: everybody sleeps better at night and. The other thing that you said that I really love is you are actually empowering patients.
you want to be empowered in this day and age, we wanna be able to know what's happening to our bodies and why it's happening and where our money is going. And it's going for a good reason and that, everybody wants to live to be a hundred. Now I am one of those people.
My kids are worried that I'm going to live to be a hundred. So that is a problem. That is a problem. so let's go back to the book. I wanna finish up with this. Yeah. So, Unfair care, what happened? What inspired you to write this and when did you start writing itbecause it's, coming out.
Bryan: I started writing it about a year ago and, you know, this is my third book. And, my wife had a medical issue that she doesn't want me to talk about publicly. Okay. Uh, so, but,what happened was there was a test, I'll just say this. There was a test that, insurance denied multiple times.
Anne: Okay.
Bryan: And what we were told we couldn't have the test. And then when I said well, we should, 'cause this is a life or death test, frankly, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, Then I said we're taking the test. And they said, well, it costs thousands and thousands of dollars. And I said well, we have thousands and thousands of dollars to take the test, right?
Anne: Yeah.
Bryan: And my wife literally had to go in. Not knowing what it was gonna cost or to just say, I'm here, so we are gonna take the test. And what ended up happening is that test cost $3,200. Okay. Life or death test. But what I later found out is that if we had insurance covered it, the hospital would've paid $8,000.
Okay. And this isn't a story about my wife. She's doing fine now, but. It's a story about healthcare in the United, just in general, where it's driven by perverse incentives and problems where, I don't know the number of people that would actually, if they're told five times they can't have a test and that it costs thousands and thousands of dollars who just show up.
Right.
Anne: I.
Bryan: How many people have died because they haven't had that test. Yeah. That's a crucial time. Yeah.and it's not that test. It's many, many tests.
Anne: Yes.
Bryan: Many different tests for different conditions. along the way, the treatment that my wife had, you know, there's things like step therapies where you have to fail horrible drugs multiple times to get better drugs that I would've just paid for in the first place.
But they don't even give you the option. Yes. And so I had this sort of journey with my wife that made me go nobody has written a book as to how do you actually manage this. Right? Yeah. And so that's what I did.
Anne: Oh my gosh. I can't, honestly can't wait to read it and I can't wait to share it because you've got your story, Bryan, that thank you for doing something with that story.
But we've all got stories of ourselves mm-hmm. and our families that have been in the same situation. And are suffering because of it now. it's unfair and it's unnecessary. you know, Kudos to you for the courage and, I'm so thrilled that your wife is doing well and, and survived the unfair care thatit could have been travesty and again.
Unnecessary. So thank you for doing that. Thanks for all you do for dentistry. You are just so kind and generous with your knowledge and always stems from you just want it to be a better place to be in. And I, really appreciate that about you. Do you have any parting words, Bryan, for our listeners today?
Bryan: The only thing I wanna do is just reflect back what you said to you. Thanks for all you do for dentistry and for. Every time I talk to you you,you have such an abundant mindset and you're lifting up so many people that should be lifted up in the profession. And so thanks for all you do.
Anne: Oh, well thank you. Well, look, let's together, since you're a dude, capital D, lowercase, capital w, wda dude, I think together, the dudes and the dos are really making a difference. And we'll just continue to keep doing us. Okay. Sound good?
Bryan: sounds good to me. Appreciate it.
Anne: All right, everybody, listen.
Don't forget to look our fall edition of Dental Entrepreneur, the Future of Dentistry is coming out pretty soon, right around the time of your book. It's gonna be perfect convergence of genius. And so I can't wait to have you read Bryan's story and please get that book. Is it gonna be on Amazon?
I'm sure it'll be on Amazon. That's the best way to get it, Bryan.
Bryan: to un unfair care.com.
Anne: Unfair care.com. All right, Bryan Laskin, Dr. Bryan Laskin, thank you so much for joining me today and everybody out there again, keep doing you. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
