How to Become a Sports Dentist from a Former L.A. Lakers and Kings Team Dentist

The Transcript

Art Wiederman, CPA And hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA. Welcome to the podcast today. My name's Art Wiederman. I am a dental division director in the Southern California office of the CPA firm of Eide Bailly. Very excited to be part of Eide Bailly. We've been part of Eide Bailly for about two months and we're recording today is Friday, the 2nd of October. So we're now into the fourth quarter of 2020. And again, I think we're all glad to be into the fourth quarter of 2020 with everything that's going on in life.

But I will tell you, this may be, we are approaching 100 episodes on the Art of Dental Finance Management. And this, quite frankly, folks, I think is going to be the most fun one that we've ever had. And it's also going to be very informative. My guest today is a long-term client of mine, a dentist who practices in Torrance, California. Dr. Jeffrey Hoy. Now, Dr. Hoy happened to be the team dentist for the Los Angeles Lakers for 28 years and the team dentist for the Los Angeles Kings for 30 years. He was also a team dentist for the L.A. Sparks and the L.A. Galaxy and oh, God knows how many other teams. Now, I think that was all four of them.

But we're going to talk today to Dr. Hoy. We're going to talk a little bit about what is it like to do sports dentistry. How can you get into it? How can it help to enhance your practice? And he's going to tell some stories about what it was like to be the dentist for the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings. And as we record this, because Jeff and I decided we had to be done by six o'clock tonight because as we speak, the Lakers are playing the Miami Heat in game two of the NBA finals. And I don't think either one of us are going to miss that. So we'll get the recording done before then. But before we get to Dr. Hoy, I want to give you a little information, tell you a little bit about our partners.

First of all, Decisions in Dentistry magazine, which is a wonderful, wonderful dental magazine that that has partnered with us over the past year. They have great clinical content. And if you wanted a complimentary consultation from any member of the Academy of Dental CPAs, which I'll tell you about in a minute, you can just go on to www.DecisionsinDentistry.com. And they have wonderful, wonderful continuing education courses. They have a package where you can have access to over 140 of their courses. Courses such as Impact of Characterized Mucosa and Dental Implant Treatment. I practiced that three times before I said that. Teladentistry Amid a Pandemic and Beyond. And Cone Beam Imaging and Oral Facial Cleft Therapy. And you want to go onto their website. You can get a consultation, one of our members of the academy and do subscribe if you haven't to Decisions in Dentistry magazine and go onto their website.

And I am a proud member and founding member of the Academy of Dental CPAs, 24 CPA firms across the United States that represent over 9000, probably over 10,000 dentists now. So if you're looking for a dental CPA, we at Eide Bailly, we have a great dental group and work with over 700 dentists and the academy, again, as I said, works with close to 10,000, including our firm. So you can go onto our website www.ADCPA.org.

I do have one update for you today because again, we're date stamping these during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services, we did our prior show on the reporting requirements, which make you want to just bang your head against the wall. But they did come out with an update a couple days ago.

First of all, any of you who were not in practice either hadn't bought a practice or had started a practice between January 1 and March 31, you were not eligible for this. Well, now you are eligible to file for this. Remember, this is a two percent grant that you can get. In addition to that, if you received an incorrect payment. You're supposed to get two percent of your gross revenue. So, if you did two million dollars in your practice, you'd get 40,000 dollars if you wanted to. If they only sent you a 18,000 dollars, you could apply and get up to that two percent limit that you could do.

And in addition to that, there's about 20 billion dollars left in the budget of this program. You will now be able to apply for and they are calling this, I'm not going to get into great detail. An equitable add-on payment, taking into account changes in your revenues and expenses due to the coronavirus. I would go on to www.hhs.gov. G O V. I would look at these changes. I would also go on to our website at Eide Bailly, which is www.EideBailly.com. And we've got a ton of information about this program. If you, if for these changes or this additional funding you have from October 5th, which is Monday, through November 6th to apply for this Phase 3 funding.

Alright. Let's get to my guest. Oh, one more thing before I get to Dr. Hoy, I also wanted to remind all of you, we've gotten great response from our podcast that we did with Joe Stoddard and Heidi Lanin on the Research and Development Tax Credit.

So if you have not already, if you have a practice where you're doing research, development, new processes, new techniques, new materials, new procedures in your practice that might qualify as research and development, it's pretty liberal conversation that we have that the government lets us have as far as this credit, go on to the website. And again, let me write this down www.EideBailly.com/dentalrd.

It will give you some articles about the credit. And it will also take you right to a worksheet with about 15 questions, it'll maybe take 10 or 15 minutes, to fill out about your practice. You push the submit button and one of the folks from our research and development team will go ahead and help you and determine if you are eligible for this wonderful credit. We've gotten, you know, literally tens of thousands of dollars for several clients. And a lot of you have submitted, if you haven't, go ahead and do that.

Alright. Now, if you haven't figured this out over the last two years, folks, I am a ridiculously huge sports fan. I've been married to my wonderful wife, Lynn, for 35 years. And the fact that she hasn't basically taken a hammer to my head for the amount of sports that I watch and record and all the stuff. I have lived in Southern California since 1975. I've been a diehard Los Angeles Lakers fan ever since then. I was dancing in the streets on the corner of Manchester and Prairie in 85 or 86 when the Lakers won one of their nine NBA titles.

And it was amazing. And I've had Dr. Jeffrey Hoy's my wonderful client. He and his wife Christy are two of the finest people I know. And Jeff has been the dentist, the team dentist for the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings as I mentioned, right around 30 years. And we're gonna talk today to Jeff about some stories he's got, what it's been like to be the team dentist and some advice that you might have for, that he might have for you if you want to get into this. I mean, I was at Laguna Hills High School where my boys went in South Orange County, California. We had two dentists whose kids were on the football teams and they were part of the chain gang and they were the team dentists. And they got a lot of traction from that. So without further ado, Dr. Jeffrey Hoy, welcome to the Art of Dental Finance and Management.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Hi, Art. Greg, glad to be here. And great to hear your voice. First of all, I want to congratulate you on the 100 podcasts you've done. You make it seamless, I want to say.  In so much as I've lectured internationally and nationally on topics related to sports dentistry, I will say this is my first podcast and we won't let the audience know what we had to go through to get my non-technical self to this point, which includes calling Edison out to remedy a power outage earlier today, as well as going through three devices to try to find one that would actually connect with your podcast app.

Well, that being said, hopefully I'll make it sound seamless from here on.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, you know what? There's a lot of things you and I control. The internet and Southern California Edison are two things that we do not control. I greatly appreciate you taking the time. I'm going to tell a quick story. So one of my clients is actually, we have about probably five percent of our clients in our CPA practice are not dentists. And one of them is an attorney and a big Laker fan and happens to be the guy that Dr. Hoy was kind enough for his 50th birthday, he was kind enough to get a signed autographed copy of an NBA basketball signed by all of the Los Angeles Lakers, and that was just one of the kindest of things that he ever did, and to this day, he still remembers that. But I was using his seats and I brought my 11 year old son, Forrest, who's now 26, and he got picked to be one of the Lakers high five kids, which meant he got to go sit on the bench during the pre-game when the Lakers came out. He got to high five them. So, you know, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, they're coming out. He gets to high five them. And then he comes back to his seat. And Jeff, Christy, your wife, came down and to say hi and, you know, give big hugs. This is, you know, 15 years ago. And Jeff, you get a championship ring every single time the Lakers win. Right?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Yes. Yes, and that's one of the very, very generous perks afforded by the Los Angeles Lakers organization. And it's just incredible, my collection of pride and joy jewelry.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, exactly. So we're sitting there, Jeff. Right. And I think I've told you the story. Christy comes down and oh, this is your son, Forrest? Well it's nice to meet you. And he immediately sees the ring because the ring is huge. It's a big ring. Right. And she says, oh, yeah. I have like eight or nine of these. And my son, Forrest, being the capitalist that his is, he says, "you have eight or nine, so can I have that one?' He really thought Christy might just give it to him. I go, Forrest, no. You can't do that.

But you and I can talk basketball and Lakers and all this stuff. So why don't we start off. Tell us about your journey and your career and then, you know, maybe how you, well just tell us about your journey as a dentist and, you know, where you went to school and about your little bit about practice and all that stuff.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, I attended the University of Southern California School of Dentistry and, where I graduated and received my dental degree. Following graduation, one of my dental colleagues and I pursued a practice down in San Diego. Now I live in in Torrance, California, which is geographically about 10 miles south of LAX, so.

So living in Torrance, San Diego, which is about 100 miles away, was not that far. Long story short. Things didn't really pan out in San Diego. And at the time, my accountant, who was not yours truly Art Wiederman, had a client who was looking for an associate. And he told me a little bit about the practice. And fortunately and coincidentally, the practice was located in Torrance, California, which ended up being about four miles away from where I grew up. So how nice that was. So I moved back to Torrance from San Diego and joined the practice in in Torrance. The practice of Dr. Lawrence Paben and Gordon Kanooth Parsners.

So come to find out, they were the team dentists for the Dodgers, the L.A. Rams, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings at that time. And this was in the 1980s when there still was a Los Angeles Rams before they left. So subsequently, Dr. Paben retired and I was fortunate enough to step in and help Dr. Kanooth with the practice. Dr. Kanooth took over the responsibilities of attending to the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings hockey team. And I would assist him in going to the games and following him around and kind of getting the ropes, knowing the people, seeing what to do. And this was in the 1980s, folks, when everything was a little bit. Well, actually a lot more primitive than it is now in regards to just about everything, technology, dentistry, you name it.

The dental or the medical room up at the Los Angeles Forum, the Fabulous Forum was kind of a converted broom closet. And I know the size of it was was tremendously small. It barely fit a dental unit in the room. And that was about it. There was maybe enough for somebody to sit in the dental chair and two at the most other people in the room. Well, fast forward. Dr. Kanooth retired in the mid 90s and from my experience, gosh, upwards of 10 years following Dr. Kanooth and and getting to know the appropriate people up at the Forum and the teams, the Los Angeles Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers, I was invited to continue as the team dentist for both the Los Angeles Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers in 1995.

So. That was a great experience. I was able to enjoy being the team dentist for both those teams at the Fabulous Forum and then in 1999 when Staples Center was being constructed. I was actually approached by the designers to help them design a medical room, which I did. And the medical room up at Staples Center was one that I designed with my office designer and we equipped it and it was state of the art at the time. So that, in a nutshell, is how I got into sports dentistry. And I might add that the path leading to sports dentistry is different depending on who you talk to. Everybody, different path.

Art Wiederman, CPA We'll talk about that. But I want to I mean, I may just sit here and talk basketball with you the whole time. I mean, you couldn't have been the team dentist for the Los Angeles Lakers in a more exciting. I mean, you were the team dentist during show time, you know, with you know, I don't know if I ever told you, Magic Johnson and I have something in common and it's not our athletic prowess. Magic and I were born on exactly the same day and exactly the same year. So I know how old he is. And, you know, just watching the Lakers and in the 90s and then, you know, Kobe and Shaq. I mean, you must have some really cool stories. I remember you told me one time, Jeff, that you had four of the Laker team members. We're not gonna mention any names, but. And some Hall of Famers in your office. And you also had reunions. Talk about that for a minute.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Oh, that was fabulous. And that had occurred actually through the years numerous times with both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings hockey team, where part of my duties as team dentists was to attend not only to all the home games, but also to attend to the players and their families and the general management and their families and so forth on just a routine basis. So we would have players and their family and so forth, coaches and their families and general management, et cetera. They would rotate through the office when they were due for cleanings and routine dental work. And every once in a while, we would have several team members that would coincidently be scheduled at the same time. And this one time, we couldn't have planned it better, but it seemed like everybody in the office was a Laker.

Art Wiederman, CPA And as it should be. Right? By the way, no offense on this podcast to anybody listening in Miami. I do apologize, but you're outnumbered. We got two big Lakers fans on the phone here. So I do apologize to my friends and the wonderful dentists in the state of Florida and in Miami. Go ahead, Jeff.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, I'll tell you, we have a certain affiliation with Miami and that Pat Riley, who was Mr. Showtime, ended up in Miami, along with several other Laker players. But this one time in the office, we had several Laker players and I don't know if you've ever watched a talk show on TV, late night talk, when Robin Williams appeared as a guest. The host, whether it was Jay Leno or whoever would have to just sit back and let him go. And that's how I felt at work this one day when the Lakers were in. I just had to stop and just. We had three or four rooms full of Laker players, and they were all. It was like a locker room scene where.

Art Wiederman, CPA I could just imagine.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Yeah, remember this, well, oh, yeah, I did this, and you did that. And I wouldn't have done this if you didn't do that. And they they were getting into it. It was just hilarious. We couldn't have planned that better.

Art Wiederman, CPA I remember you and Christy were kind enough to invite Lynn and I to the Staples Center to a game one time. And you took me downstairs and you showed me the dental room, which was pretty impressive. And then you introduced me, now I'm a big guy, I'm about 6' 3".

You know, my friends who haven't seen me in a while because of COVID, you're going to see less of me. I've been working really hard on losing some weight, but I'm down from where I was, but ... you introduced me to this very, very tall man who, when he put his hand out, he could put his whole arm in my hand. And all he said was, how are you doing? And it was Shaquille O'Neal and that's when you introduced me to him. And I was very, very cool. But.

So tell me about that. Give me a typical day. Like, you know, you go to work all day. So this is hard. This is not easy work, by the way. You go to work all day and then you leave the office at 5:00. You're going to drive from. See when you were at the forum, Jeff. It was, what, ten minutes, right?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy It was a little further than that. And particularly at that time of day in the evening 6:30/7:00. Yeah, there was a lot of traffic.

Art Wiederman, CPA And then they moved it. But then the Lakers left the Forum and went to downtown, which is right down the 110 freeway in Los Angeles to the Staples Center, right in the middle of downtown. So what would be a typical scenario? You get to the stadium one hour or two before, tell us about a typical scenario of when you'd go to a game and how that works.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, after putting in a full day at the office and all you dentists know what I mean when I say full day. I would have a change your clothes in the car, change my clothes, get into my game attire, which was a suit and tie and sport coat and so forth, drive up to Staples Center or the Forum and kindly both venues provided dinner for all allied staff and professionals. So we ate dinner before the game and then checked in, made sure everything was okay and went to our seats and watched the game and the experiences were different between the L.A. Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers.

L.A. Kings. I could always count on something going on at any moment. With the Los Angeles Lakers, the same was true. Something would go on at any given moment. But the somethings that would go on in any given moment were fewer and farther between of course than with ice hockey.

Art Wiederman, CPA Right. You took care of both teams, when you're the team dentist for the Lakers, you're taking care of the Lakers opposing team, right? That's what you've told me.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy That's right. And during the regular season, sports, this goes throughout the league, throughout all professional sports. During the regular season, the home team will provide medical services to not only their players, the home team players, but also the visiting players. And that runs through the regular season. Then during the playoffs, when the teams travel, they usually travel, the teams usually travel with their own sports medicine team, which includes the dentist. And so when playoffs come, we don't necessarily take care of the visitors like we do during the regular season.

Art Wiederman, CPA OK. So what would happen if somebody had a situation where they needed somebody from the team? One of the teams would come and get you. They'd know where you're sitting in the stadium and you'd go down. I mean, I don't imagine you did anything intricate while you were at the stadium other than probably just getting somebody out of pain. Right? And then they come back to the office or what would happen?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, actually, they would not. There was only a few times that they would actually come to the seats to get me. And that's when something occurred that was on the court or on the ice. If something occurred on the court or on the ice, we were watching and the athletic trainers knew right where we were. And they'd wave a towel. And that was our signal to hightail it down to the medical room and see what was going on. So we would probably arrive. Our seats were very convenient to get to in the medical facilities, as you might imagine. So we would arrive probably right around the same time that the players and the athletic trainers would arrive in the medical room and we were all there ready to go. That was one of the things we did pre game would be to go in the medical room and set everything up that we would need during the game.

Art Wiederman, CPA Okay, and so I would imagine, I mean, considering you went through two Stanley Cup championships with the Kings and what was it, nine rings for the Lakers? I mean, what's it like to be involved in the NBA championship or winning a Stanley Cup? What was that like?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, first of all, let me address the NBA championships and that is, there's just nothing like it. My first year with the Los Angeles Lakers, 1988 actually was the second half of their back to back championships. They had an NBA championship titles in both 1987 and 1988 and 1988 when I was with the Los Angeles Lakers, my first year, they won a championship. So it was a great inauguration to sports medicine for myself. And that was just fabulous. Fast forward. That was also the last championship they won for 12 years. So we went through quite a drought with the Lakers during the 1990s with Magic Johnson surprisingly testing positive for HIV.

Art Wiederman, CPA I remember that day. It was on my brother's birthday. I almost cried when I heard that. I really did.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy I did, too. That was quite a dark period for the Los Angeles Lakers. The next championship they won was the first year at Staples Center in the year 2000, and that was the first year of their three-peat. And those years at Staples with the Lakers in the early 2000s were just were kind of very reminiscent of Showtime in the 1980s with Shaq and Kobe and the cast of characters. And I'll tell you, it was it was a fabulous time to be with the Lakers. And that you mentioned earlier, I couldn't have picked a better time to be with the Los Angeles Lakers. And, Art, you're absolutely correct.

Now, as far as celebrating, you know, there was the parade and very, very luckily, the medical staff was invited to participate with the parades but we were on the double decker busses and going down downtown Los Angeles. And it was so exciting to be part of that that I was just very, very lucky. Now, at that time, I had been with the Los Angeles Kings for 20, 20 years when the Lakers were winning their triple championships. Fast forward to 2012, the L.A. Kings, to make it to the finals for the for the second time. The first time they made it to the finals, was in 1993 and they lost to the Montreal Canadiens.

So then a very big period of drought occurred with the Los Angeles Kings. And fortunately, in the new building, Staples Center, the Los Angeles Kings made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2012. And at that point, I was with the Los Angeles Kings for 29 years before they won their first title. And I'll tell you, that was as exciting as anything I've experienced in sports. And especially to win the Stanley Cup at home at Staples Center. I'll tell you, one of the greatest feelings I ever had that I could remember was standing on the ice and hoisting the Stanley Cup.

Art Wiederman, CPA Oh, my God. Yeah. You sent me a picture of that. You sent me a picture of that you texted me a picture, that was very, very cool. And my accountant Raquel Goya, my dear, dear friend who's worked with me for over 30 years, Raquel who's done your bookkeeping all through your career pretty much. She was a huge hockey fan. So she really appreciated that, too. We've got so much more. I want to spend the most of the rest of the show talking about what it's like to get into sports dentistry, because we will probably go over an hour because I don't care. I love talking sports.

There is one thing I wanted to bring up, and it was that horrible day in January that we all experienced, Jeff, when we heard the horrible news that Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashed in the Los Angeles area and he lost his life. And so you and I talked about you wanted to share somethings. Tell us about Kobe, whatever you want to talk about him. You knew him really well. You knew Vanessa, his wife and his daughters. Talk about it and share.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, first of all, relating to that day in January, I remember getting a call from a colleague of mine asking me if I'd heard any updates on a possible crash that Kobe Bryant was involved in. And I said no. I immediately turned on the television. It was on a Sunday morning, right? I saw the wreckage and I, I, I just knew that Kobe was OK. I just knew it because Kobe always comes out smiling and he's OK. So later on it was it was confirmed that they're both Kobe and his daughter and the rest of the occupants of the helicopter had perished in the crash. And along with the rest of the sports world, Los Angeles, I was just devastated.

Art Wiederman, CPA I thought about you first thing when I saw that, I said, oh, my goodness. Yeah. So go ahead. I'm sorry.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy It's just. I still, there's still a part of me that that finds that just hard to believe. Kobe was just such a great guy. And I'll tell you, I've never met anybody that was so focused and so talented and so on a mission as Kobe. Between his talent and his work ethic, he could've accomplished anything. He was tough as nails and he would arrive ready to go at practices, be there, just be hustling. Just. He would do anything to get an edge. Anything he could possibly do to get better. He would do unflinchingly.

Another player that I was around that reminded me of, of Kobe with that same work ethic was Wayne Gretzky, who Wayne always was the first one to arrive at practice. And the last one to leave. And he always, always just part of his makeup was encouraging everybody else. And I'll tell you. Between Kobe and Wayne Gretzky, they would literally pull the rest of the team along on and without them, the teams just would not have been what they turned out to be.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, not only was Kobe's work ethic second to none, he just looks like the nicest guy you would ever, the kind of guy you just want to hang out with. Is that the way he was?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Yes. Kobe would pretty much keep to himself. He had tons of friends, but when he was at the games, which is when I would see him, other than just routine times, he would be so focused. He had this kind of aura, this aura bubble around him that just, it was just this energy field that he was taking it all in and he was just concentrating. He was so focused on his mission and his mission was to be the best and to win. And aside from that, when I would see him outside of game time, he was just a casual, mellow guy. And you're right. Somebody that you just want to hang out with.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, that's wonderful. It's a loss to the entire, not only the sports world, but the entire world. I mean, if you have if you have a child and you want to talk about work ethic, that's a role model to have. Jeff, let's get into talking about sports dentistry. So you talked about how you got into it. So how has it enhanced your dental practice? And then I want to talk to you about, if we have doctors out there who want to get involved, how do they do that? I know you teach courses internationally on this. So how did it enhance your practice while you were in practice?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, the main thing it did was it gave me a certain amount of credibility. Also, it was it was somewhat of a practice builder. People would want to go to the dentist that took care of the Lakers or took care of the L.A. Kings. But people would know if they had a sports injury or if they had just a traumatic dental injury, they would know where to come. And along with being trained in sports dentistry, which I'll get into a little bit, I was specifically took on a lot of knowledge in regards to the diagnosis and treatment of traumatic dental injuries. And so it kind of put me at the forefront of treating traumatic dental injuries. And I would get calls from colleagues in the area that would either refer patients or ask me for my advice pertaining to treatment and diagnosis of traumatic dental injuries. And it was just, it enhanced my life in general.

Art Wiederman, CPA So it made your practice much more enjoyable than, not that it wasn't enjoyable, because I every time I would talk to you, I know you've always enjoyed your practice. But this made it just a cut above. So how, Jeff, so what kind of training, if someone wants to get into sports dentistry, what kind of dentist, what kind of training do you need to do this?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, let me start by just defining sports dentistry.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, that's a good idea. Go ahead and do that.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy First of all, as a member of the Academy for Sports Dentistry, we, and when I say we, I mean, the Academy, is definitely at the forefront of sports dentistry. So I'll get into a little more about one's involvement with the Academy in just a minute.

But first of all, start by saying that sports dentistry is a branch of what we have defined sports dentistry as being a branch of sports medicine that deals with prevention, diagnosis and treatment of dental injuries and oral diseases associated with sports and exercise. So that's a very workable, yet simple definition of sports dentistry. Now, if one wants to get into sports dentistry, my absolute number one recommendation would be to join the Academy for Sports Dentistry, and you can do that by Googling Academy for Sports Dentistry or the email address, or the website address is AcademyforSportsDentistry.org. So it's one word Academy for Sports Dentistry and for is spelled f o r - AcademyforSportsDentistry.org.

And I will tell you at the Academy meetings, we have team dentists certification courses. We provide lectures and symposiums on sports dentistry topics. To be a sports dentist would require that someone is a licensed dentist and in compliance with the dental practice act of his or her state. And also be a member in good standing of the Academy for Sports Dentistry.

It's recommended that you attend and complete the team dentist certification course. And that is very big. And I'll get into that certification course in just a minute. Also complete a minimum of 15 hours of continuing education related to sports dentistry every three years and those continuing ed requirements can be easily accomplished through the Academy. It's recommended that you acquire knowledge and expertise to educate your allied sports medicine professionals. Now, what that means is you're a part of a sports medicine team when you take care of professional sports team or if you take care of any other organized sports team. There will be allied professionals, there will be team physicians, there will be athletic trainers. And there's a way that you deal with everybody. And this is information that's very important and can be acquired through the Academy for Sports Dentistry. As you might imagine, you should be very proficient in the fabrication of mouth guards. Sports dentistry strongly advocates the use of mouth guards in all collision or contact sports.

It's recommended that you're well versed in the diagnosis and treatment of oral injuries. Now that information is provided in dental school. It's also provided in a number of other areas as continuing ed. Established a dental support team. And what that means is when you're the team dentist, you should have several allied dental specialists on your quote unquote, dental team. That would involve and endodontist, a periodontist, an oral surgeon and so forth. And those are your guys. Those are guys that you can call on at any time of day or night to help you out if you need help. Also, which goes along with that is cooperate with your allied sports professionals, which I mentioned earlier. You're getting along and you're interacting with athletic trainers, with sports physicians, with radiologists, with emergency medical technicians, et cetera, et cetera.

And the one thing I'll jump ahead a little bit here. One thing that is very noticeable as you go up or down the ladder. From organized sports. High school, college, professional, et cetera, as you go up the ladder from weekend warriors, high school athletic teams, college athletic teams. The sports medicine teams get a little more sophisticated at each level.

Art Wiederman, CPA That's what I was going to ask you about, is the difference between, you know, I mean, you don't just start out. You say, gee, I'm a big sports fan, I'm now going I'm gonna be the dentist for the Lakers. I mean, you wouldn't start there. So what's the difference between doing it at a high school and a college level versus the level that you had to do it at?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, the main difference is the sophistication. And I don't know if that's really the correct term, but the extent, rather, of the sports medicine team in the high school, as you relayed earlier, with your son's involvement in high school football, the parents. May be involved in medicine or dentistry, and you go to see your child play high school football. You're a dentist. You may be coincidentally, you may be the only health care professional in attendance. So it's incumbent on you to know at least the basics, you know what to do if somebody has a C spine injury, what to do, even if you're a dentist, you need to know what to do and what not to do. You don't go moving somebody around when they're flat on their back and they say they can't feel their fingers or their toes.

Like I said, you may be the only sports professional at that, or sports team professional at that event. As you move up the ladder, you will have required sports medicine participants at that event. I know the NHL, the National Hockey League, requires a dentist to be in attendance at every professional game. They require, the NHL requires a dentist, an ophthalmologist and a team physician be present at every single hockey game.

Other sports, other professional sports have those same stipulations. I know professional soccer requires that a team dentist be on the sports medicine team. Basketball has requirements. All the leagues have their specific requirements and college has that specific requirement. High school has the requirement that a physician must be in attendance. So as a dentist, you wouldn't be required to know everything if you were in attendance at a high school game. But you may be one of the only health professionals at a particular game, at a high school, at the high school level. So in summary, it as you move up the ladder, the sports medicine team gets more extensive.

I know the Los Angeles Lakers, when I was with them, we had two orthopedic specialists and a general physician. We had, we even had a dermatologist. And you would think, well, what would you need a dermatologist at the game for? You would be surprised how busy our team dermatologist was. Every single game, he's looking at something. Also a team dentist and emergency medical technicians. An ambulance is required at every game. You know, there is requirements that you wouldn't ordinarily think of. But fortunately, somebody else has thought of all this and go along with the program.

Art Wiederman, CPA These teams have tens of millions of dollars tied up in these professional athletes. So it does make sense of it that they're going to have all the health care professionals there. So let's say, Jeff, we have somebody listening on this podcast and our listenership has grown like crazy. We have lots and lots of people listening and they listen and say, wow, this is just really cool. This sounds really fun. How do you get started? What would you recommend to a young dentist or maybe a dentist in the middle of their career, and they say, you know, I'd really like to move into sports dentistry. What would you recommend?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, first of all, you need to really take a look at your motivation, and that is evaluate your interests. Are you a fan? Do you really want to get involved as a fan? Because I know teams, you know, teams prefer a strict professional demeanor. You can't act like a fan, even though sometimes internally you're jumping for joy. You're still a professional. But in becoming a sports team dentist, first of all, there are only so many sports team dentists at the professional level. Of any league. There's 30. There's 30 hockey dentists. There's 30 NBA dentists.

So when you look at the number of dentists in the United States, there's thousands and thousands. And of course, everybody thinks that it'd be fun and great to be the team dentist for a professional sports team. Fortunately, that's where I pretty much started out my sports dentistry career.

Art Wiederman, CPA And you started at the top.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy That was just very, very lucky. I was very lucky. And I know a few other individuals that are taking care of sports professional sports teams that have started at the professional level. But let me tell you that is the great exception to the rule. I also know just as many or more dentists that would like to be a professional sports team dentists that are taking care of high school and college teams. Now, I will say this about taking care of a high school team. And I have taken care of several high school teams as their team dentist.

First of all, these kids at the high school level are very, very, very excited and very teachable at that level. They're looking they're looking for any edge. They're looking to get ahead. They're looking to do what they need to do to get good at what they love. It's much easier to, for example, to get a high school player to wear a mouth guard than it is a professional athlete. And the reason is by the time a professional athlete has achieved professional status, that athlete has pretty much got their game together. And if you try to implement anything new to their game routine, they're going to resist. They're going to say, well, I haven't needed a mouth guard up to now. I'm fine without one.

Art Wiederman, CPA Unless you're a guy like Steph Curry who uses it like it's bubble gum, right?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Yeah. That's right. And he's not the only one. I've got kind of a museum of mouth guards that I collect from players when they get out and they just chew them, they just chew them flat. And that's why we replace them every year. But the high school players will take your advice much more readily than professional players, in my experience.

Art Wiederman, CPA And Jeff, isn't it also true that this is a great opportunity to build your practice in your community? In other words, you make mouth guards. And I know, you know, there's another dentist out there, Dr. Ray Padilla here in Los Angeles, who teaches courses. I'm sure you know Ray really well, he was the team dentist for UCLA and a couple of other college teams and they talk about teaching you how to make them relatively inexpensively. And then you get all the kids and all the parents bring the kids in, if they're not driving, you know, because you're 16 years old here and 15 and a half, 16 years old in California, and they're not driving and the parents bring them in. And then there's a whole bunch of new patients for you. Right? Isn't that, is that another way to build your practice?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Yes, it certainly is. When you, when you're earmarked and noticed as a team dentist for a high school team, you'll get lots of referrals as high school kids all live in the same area. And that's a great way to build your practice is through providing mouth guards and there is a technique or a path you can take. And I talk about this in my lecture at the Team Dentist Course, where you would approach an athletic director or an athletic trainer of a high school team or even a coach of a high school team and offer your services.

Now, I got to tell you right off the bat that you're not going to make a ton of money as a team dentist. That's why I initially said evaluate your interest. Why do you want to become a team dentist? If it's to get a championship ring and ride on a double decker bus downtown L.A., you're going to be disappointed because those opportunities are very, very few and far between. On the other hand, there are hundreds and thousands of high school teams that would very much love to have the support of a local dentist, someone they know that they can turn to if they have a need or an injury or whatever, or just they need some mouth guards. Go to the team and offer your services. Say, you know, I would like to wear mouth guards and they'll say, well, you know, we have these boil and bite mouth guards that we get for Big 5, and you say, "I can make them custom made mouth guards from a model of the athlete's mouth that's going to fit only them and it's not a boil and bite."

The difference between the two mouth guards is the fit and the comfort. If a mouth guard is not comfortable and if it does not fit accurately, the players aren't going to wear it. It's going to be a nuisance. It's going to be a distraction. But you can make them a mouthguard that's going to fit and be comfortable to the extent that they can talk, speak to their teammates, they can breathe. They can play without it becoming dislodged. And that is a huge thing.

I know when I was taking care of the Harvard Westlake sports football team, we had players that would graduate and go back east to college. I had one player that went to Yale University from Harvard Westlake, and he came back year after year wanting me in my private practice to make him the same mouth guard type that I made him when he was in high school. He says it's the best mouth guard I've ever had. And that technique of making mouth guards, you can learn as a dentist.

I know you mentioned Ray Padilla. Ray Padilla taught me how to make mouth guards many, many years ago. And Ray Padilla is a great advocate of wearing mouth guards. He took care of a high school team for many, many, many years and made mouth guards for the teams. And he would advocate to approach a team and offer your services and offer to make mouth guards. And the cost to the dentist is basically your time.

Art Wiederman, CPA Ray said, I had breakfast one day when I was speaking and he was speaking at the California Dental Association one year and he said it costs the dentist five dollars to make a mouthguard. If that. And you obviously don't charge the schools, you do it as a courtesy for the kids. And I mean and the great thing about it is if you're practicing in the community for 20 or 30 years, these high school teams, you know, most of, not only do you have varsity, but you have junior varsity, freshmen. You have sophomore teams. Some schools have four teams in one sport. And it's not just it's not just basketball, it's football, it's water polo, it's lacrosse. I mean, the number of patients that can get involved in this pretty, pretty extensive, isn't it?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I know when I took care of the Harvard Westlake athletes, we made mouth guards for, of course, the football team because that is required at the high school level. For teams, football teams to have mouth guards. We made them for the lacrosse team. We made them for water polo. And you might not think water polo. You might not regard that as a collision sport. Let me tell you, water polo is vicious and I had a player one time give me a call that he lost a tooth. He was in a he was in a water polo match in Honolulu, got his tooth knocked out. They found it in the pool. And unfortunately, it had been out of his mouth too long to replant.

But you'll learn how to replant a tooth through the academy and through the continuing education courses. That is a that's a big thing.

Art Wiederman, CPA Can anybody join the Academy, Jeff?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Yes. Anybody. And you don't even have to be a dentist to join the Academy. We have athletic trainers that are members of the Academy and we have dental hygienists and you name it. The Academy is open to everybody. And I would suggest that you have a strong interest in sports because it's very sports oriented, as you might imagine. But, yes, anybody can join the Academy. And once again, it is the AcademyforSportsDentistry.org.

And as I mentioned earlier, the team dentist certification course, of which I've been a faculty member for approximately 10 years. I lecture. I'm one of the lecturers for the team dentist certification course, which we provide at our annual symposiums. And the team dentist course leads to a certificate which certifies you as a team dentist. And the reason this certificate is very important is several sports organizations have mandated that any dentists that serves in their organizations, the professional soccer organization, is one of them that requires their team dentists to be certified through the Academy for Sports Dentistry.

Also NATA, which is the National Athletic Trainers Association, requires that dentists that are that are affiliated with NATA athletic trainers also be certified as a team dentist. Now, let me just go off to the side one little bit here and talk about NATA, which is the National Athletic Trainers Association. They are an organization with 30,000 athletic trainers. And one way that sports dentistry has evolved through the years is there are now athletic trainers, certified athletic trainers at even the high school level, as well as the college and professional level. Now, keep in mind, there are 30,000 national athletic trainers. And by distinguishing yourself as a certified team dentist, these athletic trainers will seek you out and recruit you to be a team dentist for whatever sport or whatever level of sports they're involved in, whether it's the high school, the college or the professional level. So that's a real good way to get your foot in the door as a sports team dentist.

And the Academy for Sports Dentistry does have a relationship with the National Athletic Trainers Association, where we provide speakers for their annual meetings. They provide speakers for our annual meetings. And they also have adopted our certification course to meet their criteria of a certified team dentist. So that's a really good way to get your foot in the door.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, Jeff, I wish we could do this podcast for about five more hours, but unfortunately, we're coming to about the time that we're going to have to close it down. As much as I hate to do that, I just have a couple more things. I need to give a shout out to Christy. She must be a saint. And the reason I say that, first of all, I've known Christy as long as I've known you. But second of all, you were you were gone, I mean, it's 41 games a year for the NBA. About the same for the NHL. And you were also doing some other, I mean, at one time, didn't you have four teams at one time that you were the professional teams that you were the dentist for?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Art, this was the crazy time of my life. And I didn't realize it at the time, because I was having so much fun. But first of all, let me address Christy.

You've mentioned Christy several times throughout the podcast. And I've wanted to jump in and just tell you, tell your listeners, you already know, how supportive she has been through the years. Christy and I have been married for over 30 years. And the entire marriage I was involved in professional sports team dentistry. She has been tremendously supportive. And by the way, Christy is a registered dental assistant, so has accompanied me to, I would say, upwards of 90 percent of the games I've gone to. And I've tried to estimate how many games I've covered through the years.

Art Wiederman, CPA Wait, wait. Let me I'm going to count, let me pull my calculator out. We'll have to multiply a bunch of numbers.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy I had to do that. I figured that just the number of games I've covered at Staples Center has been somewhere between 12 and 1500 games at Staples Center, and that's since 1999. And probably close to that number at the Fabulous Forum. So I've probably covered easily upwards of 2500 to 3000 sporting events through my career. And that, and like I said, I didn't realize it till I look back on it and it's mind boggling.

I would have people ask me at the time, how do you go to work all day and then go and spend four or five hours at the Forum or at Staples Center. Come home at 11:30 12:00 at night. Go to bed, get up and do it all over again. And I would say, well, you know, you just do it. And now I look back and I wonder how I did it. But at this time that you were referring to Art, it was about a 10 year period between about 1995, 96 to about 2006, 2007. So maybe just a little over 10 years. I was taking care of four professional sports teams.

Art Wiederman, CPA Mind boggling.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Los Angeles Lakers. Los Angeles Kings. I was taking care of also the Los Angeles Sparks, the WNBA, Los Angeles Sparks. And on the off season, either the L.A. Chivas soccer team or one of the other off season professional teams, I think at one time I figured that I had taken care of seven professional sports teams.

I was taking care of four teams and two, the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings, their seasons would coincide. From late September through April ish. And I say April ish because it depends on the playoffs that happened in May and June. But those teams would be home at the same time. And sometimes they would be away at the same time. But when they were home, I would have consecutively, I would have maybe six, seven games in eight nights.

I would have Lakers, Kings, Lakers, Kings, Lakers, Kings, Lakers, Kings. And that was from September through April. Well, in April, the WNBA would start up and I'd run April through October with the WNBA and with the Chivas soccer team.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, and the thing is, that makes a really good point. And again, I've known Christy as long as I've known you. The woman is an absolute saint. Wonderful to deal with when you guys would just have been the most wonderful clients that I've had the honor to work with for, you know, 25, 30 years. And you've got to have a supportive spouse if you're going to do this or it's not going to work.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy There is no there is no possible way it would have worked without the support of my wife.  Absolutely no way.

Art Wiederman, CPA She golden. So last question and then we're going to kind of wrap this up.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy That's why I made sure she got championship rings as well. She got the woman's ring, I got I got the men's version.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, that's wonderful. Last question. And then we're gonna have to call it a podcast. Would you do it all over again?

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Oh, there's no question about it. I have absolutely no regrets. I, as they say, left it all on the floor or the ice. No regrets. I would, in a heartbeat, do it all over again. It was just as we've talked about during the podcast, it's put a bright spot in my otherwise bright career. And it just gave me even more something to look forward to.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, Dr. Jeffrey Hoy, again, thank you for the honor and privilege of allowing me to help you through your career and to hear all these stories and to feel a little bit of a part of it. And folks, you just got an amazing 60 minute course on if you're going to be a sports dentist, this is what it's going to take. So, Jeff, hang on before, you know, I'm going to make some announcements before the end of the show, but thank you so, so much for taking your valuable time and sharing this great information with our listeners.

And one more time, give out to the website of the of the sports team, on the sports dentists' organization that you're part of.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy Well, thanks, Art. And before that, I want to just thank you for the invitation. And let's consider this part one, because I'd love to come back and talk more.

Art Wiederman, CPA Oh, I'm going to be doing this for years. You will, certainly. You're kidding me. You give me a chance to talk sports? That's like putting me into Wetzel's Pretzels and just say sit there for four hours. Or See's candy or something like that. So anyway. But no, thanks.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoy For all of you that would love to get involved at some level in sports dentistry, please contact the Academy for Sports Dentistry. And it's all one word AcademyforSportsDentistry.org. And I hope to see you at one of the meetings. If you do come to one of the meetings, please come up and introduce yourself and let me know you're there. The members are great.

I know I'm rambling on. Most of them are involved with some level of sports dentistry and they have teams they're involved with. And everybody you talk to has a unique story and it's just a fabulous group of people. So I hope you do join.

Art Wiederman, CPA Jeff, thank you so much for all you've shared with our listeners. And everyone, this has been great, this is as much fun as I thought I've had behind the microphone, because I could talk sports all day long. Again, if you want to get a hold of me in my office in Tustin, call us. Call the office at 657.279.3243 or email me at awiederman@eidebailly.com. Listen to our partner Decisions in Dentistry, great clinical content, continuing education courses. Look up our Academy of Dental CPAs www.ADCPA.org.

Jeff, thank you so much. Great, great podcast. If his was your first one, you're a pro. I'm telling you, you did a great, great job. And anyway, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for the privilege of your time. Please tell your friends about our podcast. We're growing exponentially. You know, many, many dentists we're getting great comments about it. We've got. I'm not going to jinx it. I got my 100th episode. It's not in the can yet. It will be in a couple weeks. Once I have it recorded, I'll tell you about it. But it's exciting for me.

So that is it for this episode of The Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA. Thank you for listening. And we will see you next time. Bye bye.