POS Instructor Dr. Fawaz Habib is a general dentist from Northern California. Get to know Dr. Habib and learn how he balances treating orthodontics in multiple practices with several associates.
ANDI SHULTZ: Hello, I'm here with Dr. Fawaz Habib. He has been a POS instructor of ours for quite some time and today we're going to have a conversation. I invite you to join us. So Dr. Habib, what made you want to start learning orthodontics?
DR. FAWAZ HABIB: When I was in dental school we had an orthodontic rotation and that just really fascinated me of how much you could do with orthodontics to change a person's face, change a person's smile, and basically change lives. We didn’t have a lot of exposure to orthodontics during our dental degree but we were given all the books to read and go through and just looking at some of the pictures in those books, it made me want to go into orthodontics.
ANDI: Had you taken ortho classes before Progressive Ortho?
DR. HABIB: No, this was the first class that I ever took and it's been the only one that I've taken to develop orthodontics in my practice.
ANDI: How did you decide to join POS?
DR. HABIB: Well like most dentists around the US, you get this brochure from Progressive Orthodontics that is very detailed, a lot of pages and it goes through the details of the seminar series, what is taught in each seminar. Just looking at that brochure I felt comfortable that is was very comprehensive and it would cover everything that I needed to know to incorporate orthodontics in the practice. But I still didn't jump the gun. I had a friend of mine who also got the brochure and I called him about it and he said yeah I'm looking into this into this program too with Progressive it seems pretty comprehensive. We usually do CE together but he ended up signing up a year ahead of me. Maybe I'm a late adopter so I was a little intimidated by the time and effort it would take to do the class. A year later I swung by his office to borrow something and I saw all his orthodontic models and pictures of patients that he had treated in just a year's time how much progress he had made and when I saw that, I got back to my office and called Progressive right away to sign up. So I think that helped having someone who had gone through it to vouch for what the program was about and that it would be comprehensive enough to learn every aspect of orthodontics.
ANDI: Yeah, that's great, and you're currently working in two practices, correct?
DR. HABIB: Yes.
ANDI: How do you balance working in two practices?
DR. HABIB: Well I have a great partner in my wife she helped me out with a lot of the management aspects about the practice and I have a really great team supporting team of assistants and office managers who've been with me last 15 or 16 years. It's the same group of people so I think we have a good team and that makes it really easy not only to manage two practices but to also manage a lot of different aspects of dentistry keeping them all in-house and providing our patients with real exceptional care.
ANDI: Do you do ortho in both practices?
DR. HABIB: I do. I do ortho in both practices. Our practices are very comprehensive. We do a lot of adult ortho and that's to get them into a better restorative position. We do a lot of implants. We do a lot of surgeries and you know of course most dentists would do a lot of cosmetic procedures so we try and provide real comprehensive treatment care where patients don't have to go to many different places just to take care of their teeth.
ANDI: That's great. Do your associates do ortho in your practice as well?
DR. HABIB: Yes, all the associates that have joined, once they see the patients that we are treating orthodontically, even if they never had any desire to get into orthodontics they do want to take the class. They all end up at Progressive and they end up learning things. When they go and open their own practice they feel like they picked up a lot more from working with us.
ANDI: For doctors who have associates that want to then get into ortho, do you have any advice that you would give to them?
DR. HABIB: Yeah so with orthodontics, it really makes you a better general dentist. It really helps expand your horizon of what you can do with a patient's smile. You can improve the position of their teeth to get better restorative results. On the business side it does open up a lot more revenue streams. Things that you would not do before, procedures you would not do before, they end up on your plate as well. Now the thing that's really important is when these patients start coming in for orthodontics and they start seeing the change in the way their teeth look and how the bite feels, you end up getting a lot more referrals. A lot of procedures in dentistry unfortunately, like extractions and root canals, even crowns and fillings, it's not the most pleasant experience and they don't really go out of their way to refer you patients. But with ortho, when a patient sees a transformation in a year and a half, with no anesthesia, no pain, nothing really too complex involved, you see a lot more referrals. You see a lot more referrals to your practice because of orthodontics.
ANDI: That's great, and you mentioned that at your practice you're doing implants, restorative, a bunch of different types of dentistry. What has fueled your passion for continuing to learn about all the different types of dentistry?
DR. HABIB: Normal gets a little boring. You've heard that saying before, normal gets boring. Every time you add in a new procedure, it gives you a new challenge and also you start doing things that are a little bit outside your comfort zone. My main reason for getting into a lot of these different aspects that weren't part of my practice before is when I came to the seminars and I met other dentists and they told me oh I place 200 implants a year, or I do periodontal surgeries. Just learning from their experience gave me the confidence to incorporate all these to my practice as well.
ANDI: That's great, and if there is a doctor who is kind of on the fence of whether they should or shouldn't invest in their ortho career, what advice would you have for them? How would it benefit their practice?
DR. HABIB: Like I said before, it will open your mind to things that weren't possible for you before. It'll make you a much better general dentist, a much better restorative dentist because you're able to treat complex cases and get teeth in a position that makes it easier for you to do the restorative work. Also on the business side, adding so many different revenue streams to your practice would make it more profitable and would make it more fun to do.
ANDI: Last question, in 60 seconds or less, what would you say are the keys to orthodontic success?
DR. HABIB: So the keys to orthodontic success, what we’re taught in Progressive is diagnosis, diagnosis, and diagnosis. That's the most important part. You spend most of your time learning about the case, and it's not just teeth, it's the patient's face getting a good facial balance, improving the profile, making them look better, look more youthful and of course achieving a really nice smile and getting them to be confident with how they look. It would also help you improve how you see your restorative part.
ANDI: That's great. Thank you so much for your time today and thank you for joining us.