Pictured above: Dr. John Flucke, DDS presents the key features of Philips Sonicare Teeth Whitening Kits and demonstrates the product during a launch event at Chicago Midwinter on February 23, 2024.
Join Drs. Pamela Maragliano-Muniz and John Flucke as they deep dive into the new Philips Sonicare Teeth Whitening Kits. Designed specifically as an at-home whitening treatment, these kits feature semi-custom reusable trays for patients to mold to fit their teeth and a dentist-developed gel formula that is proven safe on enamel and gentle on teeth. Only available through dental offices, patients can feel confident that they are using a safe and effective solution with your guidance.
Learn how you can integrate this innovative system into your practice, offering your patients the benefits of a professional whitening experience from the comfort of their own homes. Dr. Flucke discusses his journey of how he introduced this system into his practice and shares strategies for recommending the right whitening solution for your patients. Don't miss out on this opportunity to stay ahead of the curve by learning about the latest in tooth whitening technology.
Episode transcript
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
Hey everyone and welcome to Chairside Connection. I'm Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz, chief editor for Dental Economics, and I'm so excited because, when you need to speak about the latest and greatest in new technology, there's nobody better than my dear friend Dr. John Flucke, joining us today to talk about the new Philips Sonicare Teeth Whitening Kits. John, welcome.
Dr. John Flucke:
Thank you, Pam. It is always good to see you. It's always great to be here. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
I'm so happy to have you here. Now I know you don't need any introduction and you're my friend so I'm just ready to dive right in, but for those like three people out there that don't know Dr. John Flucke, besides being one of the most amazing people you'll ever meet, he is a dentist and a Philips Oral Healthcare Key Opinion Leader. So Dr. Flucke, would you share with us a little bit about you and how you started implementing some of Philips products into your practice?
Dr. John Flucke:
Sure. So I'm John Flucke. I am in private practice as a GP in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a little suburb of the Kansas City area, it's in the southeast corner. And I am Chief Dental Editor and Technology Editor at Dental Products Report. I also practice, I'm down to two days a week now because I worked so hard. I've always been a big fan of the latest and greatest. Because of that, I've been a big fan of Philips Sonicare for, gosh as long as they've been around. They came to me when this new product was in development and they said, "Hey, would you like to work with it and try it?" I said, "Absolutely." And it's great because actually my wife is always my guinea pig for whitening products when they come along and so I took some of it and I tried it out on her. Some of that I'll talk about as we get into it, but I just love Philips Sonicare products. It's a great quality name. Patients know it. They trust it.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
So you mentioned tooth whitening products, and I know that's kind of the topic of what we're talking about today, but let's back up for just a second because selecting the proper whitening solution can be very difficult for many patients and it can be hard for dental professionals to pick the right system for the different individual needs that their patients need. Would you please discuss the differences between over-the-counter and professional whitening products or services?
Dr. John Flucke:
Well I think, as a dentist, we've all seen people that will come in for pre-care. They decided to use an over-the-counter kit. Either it didn't work very well or they didn't get the results they wanted or the worst case scenario is those folks that didn't realize that, "My composites don't lighten like my teeth do," and they end up with these blocky results because they've got an A3 composite and suddenly they've got an A1 smile and they said, "Nobody told me that it was going to end up like this." And of course, they're disappointed. "Well, we can fix it, but we're going to have to relayer all the stuff that you had done," or heaven forbid that they have any kind of anterior porcelain, which we know isn't going to lighten, then you've got the difficult conversation to have with someone to say, "Well we can make the three-quarter crowns or the crowns or the veneers or whatever, that we can make them match, but the only way we can do that is to start from scratch, take them off, start over."
I mean, obviously there's a lot of disappointment and if they come to us as professionals, we can give them a solution that works. We could also let them know ahead of time, "These are what you can expect. These are the limitations. You're a good candidate. You're a poor candidate," or whatever. And I hate to disappoint people.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
I do too. But you know what? I always worry, especially with some over-the-counter products, that some whitening products or some whitening endeavors are not really safe. And so I think it's really important for us as dental professionals to focus on the safety. And so let's talk a little bit about Philips Sonicare Teeth Whitening Kits because there are specific benefits that I think patients will really enjoy.
Dr. John Flucke:
The nice thing about the Philips Sonicare Teeth Whitening Kits is that, number one, they only come from a dental office. So we have that control. We can recommend it to people that we know are good candidates for teeth whitening. So it comes in two different colors and two different strengths. It comes in a 6% and a 9.5% hydrogen peroxide. It's a grab-and-go or a take home solution so you can actually recommend it to the patient and they can start that night if they'd like to. You don't have to take the impressions or make trays or anything like that, which is one of the huge pluses.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
That's really interesting. Now you mentioned only available through a dental office. So I can see dental offices or dental teams that think, "All right." They might feel one way or another about that. So from your perspective, what value do you see for dental professionals and for patients in facilitating this purchase through their provider?
Dr. John Flucke:
It's trust. I mean, they're coming in there and I tell patients all the time, "Dentistry is scary." People come to you as a professional because they trust you. You have that trust. And there's a couple of things with this. Number one, they expect us to give them the best recommendations that we can make. And number two, they expect those situations, those products, whatever it is that we recommend to them, to work. And one of the great things that I love about just the name Philips Sonicare is people know that name. I was trying to think of, I can't remember the last time I mentioned Philips Sonicare and a patient said, "What? What's that?" I mean, everybody knows the name. And so when you tell people that this is a product from Philips Sonicare, not only do they trust you, but they also get that immediate trust in the product because the product has such a great reputation, not only in the dental industry, but with lay people as well.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
I could not agree more. I also think, from a dental professional perspective, having the control to be able to hand them a product, explain to them how to properly use it, and then also be able to provide follow-up. I always laugh, sometimes when it's toothpaste or something else that you dispense in the practice and, say a patient disappears for two years, and you make a recommendation for toothpaste and they say, "Oh, I still have some left." Well you know they're not using it properly.
Dr. John Flucke:
Right.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
So I think that this is something that, having that control, knowing how many times they're refilling it or making sure that they're using it properly and also providing a product that's safe for them, you really can't put a price on it. So what is your most important takeaway for patients and/or other dental professionals regarding the impact of this innovative whitening system?
Dr. John Flucke:
Other than the trust and the control, what is great about it for dental professionals is that we can recommend it with trust, we know they're going to get good results, and the fact that it's a grab-and-go product, it decreases our cost, it decreases our chair time.
The product comes with thermoplastic trays that the patient actually dips in hot water at home. They mold it to their teeth. There's a little carrying case that comes with it so that they can then put those trays in there when they're clean and not in use. It also comes with three syringes in a kit. The syringes themselves are the double barrel mixing syringes that we're all familiar with in dentistry. They put a little tip on it. It comes with a card that shows them how to use it. There's also a nice little picture on the syringes with a little dot that shows, "This is how much material you put on each tooth in the tray." And each syringe is good for three uses. So when they get three syringes, you know they have nine uses. You know it's going to work in that amount of time.
One thing that I really love about it is that my wife has really sensitive teeth and I kind of refer to her as the canary in a coal mine. And so when somebody comes into my office, a salesperson, "Oh, we've got this new whitening product. Oh my gosh. It causes zero sensitivity." And then I bring it home and I hand it to my wife and I'm like, "Put this in for like 20 minutes and tell me what to think." A lot of the times she puts it in and she's like, "Holy," and she's taking them out, rinsing her mouth. Well the next day she gets up and she has a glass of orange juice and she's like, "ahh." What she told me was she said she used the 6%. The next morning she said, "Had just a little, tiny, tiny bit. I could tell it was doing something, but it wasn't pain." And that was the only complaint she had throughout the entire process.
One of the other things that's nice is it does come with a little shade guide that patients can stand in front of their mirror and hold it up and see, "This is where I started." And then as they progress, they can say, "Wow. Look how I finished." Because we've all had those situations where somebody comes into your office and they whiten and they leave with one shade and they come back and they're significantly lighter, but they can't tell. They say, "I don't think it did anything," because we don't notice gradual changes. We don't notice ourselves lose two pounds. We just say, "I don't think this diet's working. My clothes, whatever." And yet somebody sees them and they're like, "Wow, you've lost weight." So gradual changes as human beings we just don't notice. So I love the fact that they can actually gauge their own success.
But I also say that when you're in dentistry, now you're a prosthodontist, so maybe you feel differently about this, Pam, but I don't ever get up in the morning or my assistants don't get up in the morning and go, "Yay. More impressions today. More goop to feel. More alginate to mix." I'm not even allowed to mix alginate in my office because I am a complete pig with it. I start stirring and powder starts going everywhere. Got it all over me. I've got it over the floor. And no patient I think gets up in the morning and goes, "I'm going to go to the dental office today. Yay. They're going to put these impression trays full of goop in my mouth." That's completely eliminated with this product. They just mold the trays at home, put a little dot in each tray, put it into place, and they go lighter in nine treatments.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
I think that's fantastic and I also think, sometimes some of these other systems, you lose momentum, right? They want it right now and you're literally able to hand it to them and they can go home and start using it. So thank you so much for sharing some of the details of the Philip Sonicare Teeth Whitening Kits and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy to just spend some time with you and catch up and learn some new tech.
Dr. John Flucke:
Pam, it is always great to talk to you. It's even better when we get to discuss stuff like this. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Pam Maragliano-Muniz:
Oh my goodness. Thank you. The pleasure is mine. All right, everybody. For Chairside Connection, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next month.
