🔬 See what's living in your patients' mouths and watch your case acceptance change. 🌐 tosh.care

🦷 Ready to reset your oral health in 6 minutes?

Start here: 🌐 www.mouthymatters.com/start-here

Most dental practices treat the mouth like a mechanical problem. Scale it, plane it, polish it, send the patient home with a floss lecture, and call it a cleaning. Dr. Joseph Denning, DDS, looked at that model after turning 40 and asked himself a question that changed his entire practice. Am I treating my patients the same way my doctor failed me?

In this episode, Tosha sits down with Dr. Denning from Lake Hill Dental Care in Burnt Hills, New York, a dentist who has built a whole-body practice around actually seeing what is living in his patients' mouths, and then managing it like the biological ecosystem it is.

Dr. Denning talks about the moment he saw oral biofilm under a microscope for the first time at a seminar and bought five microscopes for his practice before he even fully understood what he was looking at. He talks about a skeptical team that turned into true believers the moment the first microscope was plugged in. And he breaks down why he stopped having deep cleaning conversations entirely, because the terminology itself was never grounded in the actual biology of the disease.

What comes through in this conversation is a dentist who has fully made the shift. He is not treating surfaces anymore. He is managing an ecology, identifying the invasive species, removing them, and coaching his patients to maintain the balance. And he has a lot to say about why patients feel sold to in dental offices, and what a genuinely patient-centered conversation looks like instead.

Key Takeaways

The reactive medical model fails patients and practitioners alike. Dr. Denning's turning point came when he realized he was practicing the same "your bloodwork is fine" mentality he experienced as a patient, checking a box of well or sick instead of actively optimizing health.

Seeing is believing, for teams and patients. His team was skeptical until the first microscope lit up a screen. His patients were curious and engaged from day one, because co-discovering what was living in their mouth together removed the feeling of being lectured or sold to.

Scaling and root planing is a concept built on the wrong assumption. The problem in a diseased mouth is not a rough surface. It is a disrupted bacterial ecology. Managing that ecology is an entirely different clinical conversation, and a far more honest one.

Patients are smarter than we give them credit for. Dr. Denning has high-level conversations about oral bacteria, systemic inflammation, and whole-body health every single day in his practice, and his patients follow every word.

Hygienists have been overtrained and underutilized. One of the most rewarding parts of shifting to a proactive, whole-body model has been watching his hygiene team step fully into their clinical expertise and become the stars of the practice.

Connect with Dr. Joseph Denning

Lake Hill Dental Care, Burnt Hills, New York
lakehilldentalcare.com
On IG: 📱 @lakehilldental_

Connect With Tosha:

On IG: 📱 @toshardh

🔬 See what's living in your patients' mouths and watch your case acceptance change. 🌐 tosh.care

🦷 Ready to reset your oral health in 6 minutes?

Start here: 🌐 www.mouthymatters.com/start-here

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. Opinions from guests are their own. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.