The Patient First Podcast with Dr. Bryan Laskin

With health insurance costs spiraling out of control, employers can feel powerless to help their employees get the coverage they need.

The situation becomes all the more tragically ironic for companies in the oral healthcare space.

If you are a group or DSO with more than 50 employees depending on you to provide them with healthcare coverage options that meet their needs without breaking the bank, then this episode is for you.

I...

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, Founder of Dua Good Job Parul Dua Makkar, BSc, DDS, FACd joins me to share her story and discuss how dentists can prioritize patient wellness to the financial benefit of their practices.

Oral cancer screenings—and the difficult conversations that accompany them—are a vital yet easily overlooked part of dentistry. Dr. Makkar has drawn on painful personal loss to develop the educational r...

There’s probably no better team member to take the lead in empowering patients with knowledge about the oral-systemic link than dental hygienists, and there’s probably no better team to help hygienists do that than L’Diamante Coaching.

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, I sit down with LD Coaching Co-Founders Danielle Avila, BSDH, RDH and Laura Bettencourt, BSDH, RDH to learn more about how these mindset hygiene career ...

Get ready for my most exciting and ambitious project to date; my new book, Unfair Care—Get the Healthcare You Deserve in a System Designed to Fail You.

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, I’m thrilled to announce the upcoming launch of my latest book in a series of industry-shaking publications. 

Unfair Care is designed to equip everyone with the critical thinking tools they need to navigate their own healthcare decisions...

If we want truly integrated care and more medical-dental collaboration, then we need to be having more conversations.

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, Allison Stolz, MD, a primary care physician with decades of experience, sits down with me in the studio to talk about some of the hottest topics in regards to medical-dental collaboration and integrated care.

You might be surprised as I was to hear some of the things she...

It’s time to change “data-driven growth” from a buzzword to reality.

Justin Strong, Founder and CEO of Room 118, is here to help us all do just that.

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, I grill Justin on how his decades of experience have powered Room 118, a full-service dental marketing agency for dentists, to success. Justin shares some of his magic in the form of insights on what it takes to build a strong brand in den...

At what point does imitation cross the line from flattery to appropriation? 

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, I highlight various pieces of evidence that prove how a core concept I engineered years ago has started a movement in the dental industry.

As people continue to get on board with the concept of Connected Dentistry®, they need to be informed of the true origins of this registered trademark.

I’m Dr. Bryan Laskin—...

As a practicing dentist, Dr. Khamir Patel is all too familiar with the challenges of juggling manual data entry with treatment time and the typical vigors of running a business and managing a team.

He’s also passionate about integrating innovative technology into healthcare, making him an ally of the Connected Dentistry® movement.

Dr. Patel’s experience and insights ultimately led to the development of SmartChair.AI, a literal stop...

What if everything you’ve heard about entrepreneurship in dentistry is wrong?

According to one of the most successful business people in our space, entrepreneurship is something every dentist should aspire to and it is about far more than striving for more money.

Emily Letran, DDS is not just a successful clinician—she’s also a seasoned business person who readily shares her wealth of knowledge with others through coaching and co...

Few people in oral healthcare have the rich and storied background of Ann-Marie DePalma, CDA, RDH, MEd. Ann-Marie has extensive experience in clinical practice, education, dental software, and volunteering, and her experience lends valuable insight into the interoperability challenges we face in dentistry today.

Ann-Marie joined me on The Patient First Podcast to share her story as an oral health speaker and educator, as a clinicia...

There’s always another aspect of dentistry that can be improved through innovation, and this is perfectly demonstrated by Debora Carrier, RDH of The CPR Sisters. Deb and her sister have developed an innovative and highly personalized CPR training curriculum that helps dental professionals get the maximum benefit from the training without added performance anxiety.

In this short and sweet episode of The Patient First Podcast, I inte...

Just as advances in technology are moving the practice of dentistry forward, so advances in clinical care are making a huge impact in the quality of care patients today receive.

And sometimes, more advanced clinical care means going back to deceptively simple basics.

The dynamic Aimee Vail, RDH, MHA/Ed and Special Markets Manager for Centrix joined me in the Toothapps® booth at the 2025 Chicago Midwinter Meeting to record this l...

In this current climate of healthcare worker shortages, many dental practice owners struggle to find and retain the talent they need to sustain efficient operations while delivering high-caliber care to their patients. As a result, most dentists understandably feel they can’t afford to be picky when it comes to hiring temp workers.

Fortunately, the highly rated Kwikly Dental Staffing takes care of the vetting for you so you can re...

I always say that the two greatest charlatans in dentistry (after dental insurance companies, of course) are marketers and consultants.

But this one marketing consultant breaks the mold. In fact, she’s the one who set the bar in the first place.

Nancy Lashley Sullivan began her rich and storied career 25 years ago when “dental marketing” wasn’t yet a concept. While the landscape of marketing in dentistry has changed over the years,...

The third-party payer system for healthcare in the United States isn’t as broken as you think…it’s much, much worse.

Although virtually every American citizen has had to contend with the needlessly yet deliberately complex circus of healthcare insurance, few have dug down as deep as author Frank Lobb to uncover the truth of how the system works.

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, Frank and I discuss the chronic illness a...

More important than being a skilled clinician is being a caring one. Dr. Michael Sonick is an internationally renowned periodontist who has learned this through personal experience, as both a patient himself and as a very successful practitioner.

And what’s really interesting is how technology like Toothapps® can actually support dentists in experiencing the benefits of being caring, people-centric providers.

Instead of de-personal...

Although the concept of “teledentistry” has taken off in recent years, many dentists are still in the dark about its potential and the surprisingly simple ways they can begin implementing it.

At this year’s Yankee Dental Congress, I sat down with the dynamic dental personality Melissa K. Turner to talk about the benefits of teledentistry and what she is doing to help more practices and patients benefit from it.

In this episode of T...

Toothapps® is solving problems and bridging gaps in communication and in the continuum of care in dentistry. 

In fact, it’s developing new ways to do this so rapidly, even current users of the Toothapps software are surprised to learn about what it can do.

In this interview with Corey Hastings, DDS, MS, MBA and Owner and Operator of Blue Sage Management Group, you’ll learn how Toothapps is helping his team execute his vision for ...

HIPAA training and talk about data security might not be the most exciting topics in dentistry, but they could lead to more excitement than you want, if you neglect them.

In this episode of The Patient First Podcast, Copper Penny Consulting CEO Amy Wood shares her own horrifying true story of what can happen when a dental patient’s personal information makes it out onto the Internet. She explains how this experience drove her to fi...