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Why You Need To Test Your Water
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The Cost
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Pooled/Combined Samples
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QuickPass – In Office Testing
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Mixing and Matching (In Office and Mail In)
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Get Your FREE QuickPass
Michelle Strange: A Tale of Two Hygienists presents this week’s TIPisode: quick and easy tips to keep you up to date and presented by the experts in the profession. Now, get ready for your unofficial TIPisode, this week brought to you by ProEdge Dental Water Labs.
Andrew Nobilini: Hi, everybody. It’s Andrew and Mike from ProEdge Dental Water Labs. Really excited to be on this episode, or should I say TIPisode, where we are going to talk about probably the most exciting, mind-blowing topic ever, Mike. What are we addressing today?
Mike Rust: We’re going to talk about how to save money on dental unit waterline testing. This will be the highest rated podcast in the history of TIPisodes.
Andrew Nobilini: [Laughing]. Water testing. Yeah, we’re talking about water testing. It’s going to be — it’s just going to be amazing. It’s going to be so exciting. No. We genuinely are really, really excited to talk about it.
But one of the first questions that I get asked or we get asked — right? — when we talk about water testing is, uh, “Water testing? Um, why do I need to test my water?”
Mike Rust: Yeah. Why we — That’s right. That’s the first question people say. What — why am I doing this?
Andrew Nobilini: What’s the point of that?
Mike Rust: Well, and the short answer is really is [sic] to protect your patients, of course, which you care about, and also protect your practice, your reputation, and to protect yourselves, right?
Andrew Nobilini: Right.
Mike Rust: You want to document that your water is safe. We’ve learned that really contaminated dental unit waterlines — contamination happens because dental waterlines are small and the water sits stagnant for 99 percent of the time, and then the way we use water in dental unit waterlines, it only moves downstream a few inches, and the biofilm reattach, and hygienists know the story of how biofilm grows, reattaches, detaches.
So that’s why we test our water. We want to make sure that the treatment programs that we have in place and the protocols we have in place are effective so we can sleep good at night knowing that our patients are protected and our reputation of our practice are protected.
Andrew Nobilini: Right. Right, right, right.
And so — okay. So here’s the thing, right? So I’m going to play — I’m going to be the devil’s advocate, Mike —
Mike Rust: — Okay.
Andrew Nobilini: — to water testing, okay? So —
Mike Rust: — I’m shocked that you would be the devil’s advocate!
Andrew Nobilini: I’m shocked! Why would I be — why [laughing] is that my role?
Mike Rust: [Laughing].
Andrew Nobilini: Uh, okay. So. All right. I understand. Yeah. There’s an importance to water testing, right? It’s undeniable. I need to know that my maintenance protocol is working. And we know just from experience, Mike, that there is a huge increase with people — auditors going to practices and asking for water testing, right?
Mike Rust: Yep.
Andrew Nobilini: That’s almost caught us off guard where it’s like one of the first things they’re going in — they’re going in, they’re saying, “Okay, where’s your water test results?” And that’s what they’re catching most practices on is that they’re — they don’t have that documentation on water testing. It’s crazy.
So we want to help you. We want to protect you. But, to play devil’s advocate, water testing, it can be expensive, right? Is it worth always testing my water because if I’m always doing one vial per water line, I mean, it just — it adds up, right?
Mike Rust: Well, that’s — that is the perception, and it’s true. When we first started testing water, you had to mail it into a lab, and you had to get it there overnight on ice, and that means FedEx or some overnight shipping.
Andrew Nobilini: Right.
Mike Rust: There’s a $50 shipping charge involved if I want to test one line. I get that. But, Andrew, what if I told you that you could test your dental unit water for about the same price that you’re testing your autoclave now? That would — right? Nobody complains about that. They’re doing it every week.
Andrew Nobilini: That — that’s — that’s a game changer.
Mike Rust: [Laughing].
Andrew Nobilini: That is a game changer right there.
Mike Rust: So the devil’s advocate is, uh —
Andrew Nobilini: — I’m sold.
Mike Rust: You’re sold. [Laughing].
Andrew Nobilini: I’m sold.
All right. So, Mike. So, Mike. So we have three tips. Let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this. We have three tips that you can — and easy, easy tips that you can start tomorrow with your water testing that will save you money without sacrificing the reliability or the accuracy of the test, right? This is just a really clean, easy way, no-cut-corners method for you to save some money, and it’s proven by science. We’ve done tons — thousands of thousands of samples of data points here, and we know that this just a clean way to save some money, uh, without cutting corners.
Mike Rust: Andrew, you really are the devil’s advocate.
Andrew Nobilini: Ah ha ha.
Mike Rust: You’ve — you’re making sure that even though we give these tips that they are validated and by science.
Andrew Nobilini: They’re val — they have to be. They have to be. A hundred percent.
So, okay, Mike. So jump in. Let’s go through two real quick.
Mike Rust: Yeah.
Andrew Nobilini: And then I’ll cover the last one.
Mike Rust: Oh. That sounds great.
Andrew Nobilini: Yeah.
Mike Rust: So, combining samples, commingled or pooled samples from the same operatory, is a great way to save 50 to 75 percent right off the top. How do you do it? Well, one, instead of buying a water test for every single line in your office —
Andrew Nobilini: — Which can get expensive.
Mike Rust: — which can get expensive, just get one for every operatory or every dental unit, and then take a combined sample. Now, the trick is that you want to make sure that the samples that you take from all the devices in op one are the same size samples.
So, for example, in op one, you might have two air-water syringes and two high-speed handpiece lines. You know, doctor’s side and assistant’s side. Want to make sure [sic] that as long as those samples are of equal size, you can take four samples, put them into one pile, test that water. If you pass, you’ve proven — and the data, Mr. Devil’s Advocate —
Andrew Nobilini: [Laughing].
Mike Rust: — the data proves that if you pass that that all four of those lines are passed. They’re all safe.
Andrew Nobilini: Right.
Mike Rust: If you fail, and I know you’re going to ask this, Mr. Devil’s Advocate —
Andrew Nobilini: — Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I’m going to ask how accurate — I mean, are these really that accurate?
Mike Rust: Right. If you fail, you don’t know which one caused the failure, right?
Andrew Nobilini: That’s right.
Mike Rust: But you’re going to shock all those lines anyways.
Andrew Nobilini: True.
Mike Rust: Right? Because that’s the best three-step protocol. You’re going to shock every line.
Andrew Nobilini: Yep.
Mike Rust: And then you may want to re-test using individual samples to troubleshoot and find out which one caused the problem, which is often that Cavitron or that scaler because the lines are longer, the water sits stagnant, it’s harder to shock. Cavitrons fail 50 percent more often. That’s what the data shows, Mr. Devil’s Advocate.
Andrew Nobilini: [Laughing].
Mike Rust: Just kidding.
But that’s a great question, Andrew. Combine samples, commingled or pooled samples, great way to save money right off the top. And, uh, yes. The data shows that false positives or false negatives couldn’t even happen as long as the samples — couldn’t even happen about more than three percent of the time. But, if the samples are of equal size, you can hang your hat, and you can document that you did a combined sample from op one and passed.
Andrew Nobilini: Right. You could be confident.
Mike Rust: Yeah.
Andrew Nobilini: You could be confident that at least in that operatory your water is safe.
Mike Rust: Yep. The state of Washington, which will require water testing every 90 days this year in December, they say that combined samples are okay.
Andrew Nobilini: It’s an approved method.
Mike Rust: Yeah. It’s an approved method.
Andrew Nobilini: Okay. Cool. All right. That’s a great —
Mike Rust: — OSAP says so too. I think even A-dec’s instruction for use say take a combined sample from each operatory.
Andrew Nobilini: Wow. So it’s becoming more and more legitimized in just, like, the industry?
Mike Rust: Right. It’s more — so it’s like a standard practice.
Andrew Nobilini: Sure.
Mike Rust: Yep. Becoming a standard practice.
Andrew Nobilini: Sure. Okay. All right. So, combined samples. All right. So you’re getting me hooked on this whole idea of testing more regularly. Okay. So hit me with the second one then. What’s the second way to save some money on testing?
Mike Rust: So, uh, right. Use a test — an in-office test that doesn’t require FedEx shipment, right?
Andrew Nobilini: Okay. Sure.
Mike Rust: That’s how QuickPass is. Our in-office water test, it is designed for dentistry. It’s got neutralizers, and it’s designed to be accurate with dental unit waterlines. Um, and that’ll get you results in like three days. And because there’s no FedEx involved, right, it saves you all that shipping.
Andrew Nobilini: It’s more economical.
Mike Rust: It’s more economical. And, when you buy it, it’s occasionally on sale. You can get it down to around $10. Let’s say it’s $10 per test. You put four vials — four samples from four devices in op one, for example —
Andrew Nobilini: — So you do a pooled sample?
Mike Rust: Pooled sample. That’s $2.50 per test. That’s what peo — people are paying way more than that to test their autoclave every week, so there you go.
Andrew Nobilini: You’re right. You’re right. You’re right.
Okay, so that’s — and you can mix and match that, right? You can do the in-office testing with the mail-in testing because it’s still good to get a third-party verification, but you can set up your protocol to where you can kind of do both. You like mix and match it.
Mike Rust: Yeah. Right. In other words, we have people who have a really buttoned up protocol where they test with QuickPass every quarter, and then once a year, they do a mail-in test.
Andrew Nobilini: Oh, cool. Okay.
Mike Rust: We have ano — we have other people who will pretest before they spend the money for a mail-in test.
Andrew Nobilini: Just to see where they stand.
Mike Rust: Uh, they pretest with QuickPass, and if they pass, then they get the mail-in test, and they test with confidence knowing that they’ve got a great chance at getting a great result when their results that we send them or they check out on the dashboard [sic].
Andrew Nobilini: Right. Right. Okay, that’s awesome. Okay. So, all right. I’m warming up to this idea about testing regularly and making sure that I can be confident in my water.
Now, here’s the kicker, all right? So I’ll talk about tip number three because after you hear this tip, there’s just no reason why we shouldn’t be testing our water, right? Right? [Laughing].
Mike Rust: [Laughing].
Andrew Nobilini: And this is cool because, for everyone that’s still listening to the most exciting topic —
Mike Rust: — Both of them. Both of you who are still listening.
Andrew Nobilini: — [laughing] we are going to reward you.
So, hey. Tip number three is on the bottom of this TIPisode, there’s a link for free QuickPass, and QuickPass is our — it’s ProEdge’s in-office water testing, and we — obviously, we really believe in testing, right? There’s hundreds of thousands of data points that support why testing is important, and so we just — out of the goodness of our heart, we genuinely just want you to start testing and to be able to answer a question like, “Hey, is my water safe?” Right? “Is my treatment protocol working?”
And so bottom of the link. Check it out. It’s a free QuickPass. We would love to send it to you, get you started testing because we really, really believe that that’s just a great way to start.
Mike Rust: Yeah. You can’t beat free. [Laughing]. We’re talking about saving money.
Andrew Nobilini: [Laughing]. You can’t beat free. So here’s the deal. Okay, so. Uh — and there’s no strings attached.
Mike Rust: [Cross talk].
Andrew Nobilini: We genuinely want to help you out. We really do.
Mike Rust: We’re not going to [cross talk].
Andrew Nobilini: We really want help to you out.
So, to recap, we talked about combined samples. That’s a great way to start saving money. We talked about mixing and matching, right? Doing some in-office testing with some mail-in testing. And then, of course, on the bottom here of the TIPisode, you can start testing with a free QuickPass.
And here’s the deal too. Hey, we’re here for you. We see what you guys do every single day. We want to support you. We want to come alongside you. And so, if you have any questions on what the result of that test was or you want to get into testing and you have questions or you want to just have a conversation with us, our team is here. We’re for you. We don’t even — hey, you can use treatment products that don’t even have our name on it, and we still want to help you because we really believe in creating something together, a proven protocol where you’re passing that water test.
Mike Rust: Lots of good resources on our website, right?
Andrew Nobilini: Yup. Yeah.
Mike Rust: Uh, videos. We have a webinar on the first Friday of every month.
Andrew Nobilini: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. The webinar the first Friday of every month. Check that out. It’s on our website.
So thank you so much —
Mike Rust: — Free webinar. Free CE.
Andrew Nobilini: That’s right.
Mike Rust: There you go.
Andrew Nobilini: Free CE.
Um, so we want to wrap this up. Thank you so much for being a part of it. Thank you for —
Mike Rust: — Thank you, Andrew, for being the devil’s advocate.
Andrew Nobilini: [Laughing]. Thanks to those that have stuck around this long. Uh, man, it’s been great, and we hope that we can just have a little view into what you do every single day and just help you out with some three — three ways to save money on water testing. So thank you for listening. We appreciate it.
Mike Rust: Thanks, everyone.
Michelle Strange: Thanks for listening to another TIPisode, and thank you to ProEdge Dental Water Labs. You can learn how ProEdge helps you achieve safer water by visiting proedgedental.com.
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