The Dear Doc PodCast – Meet the Expert Shawn Hall of Sodium Dental

Written by Alli Diangelo | December 10, 2019

https://www.facebook.com/686559445125537/videos/503847366837852/ Sodium Dental – The passion of creation This is what happens when two friends come together with a passion to help create technologies that help make dentistry a breeze. Sodium dental is a leading force in helping dentist with their technology issues. Whether all your technology comes from Sodium or other sources, we can make sure it all works together. Sodium dental is a digital x-ray sensor manufacturer, computer systems integrator, digital diagnostic equipment sales, service and training company. Sodium dental consults on appropriate HIPAA security for systems installations, network systems, and secure data retentions.  Let’s take a look back and see how Sodium dental was started. 2:00 when Shawn Hall was asked to explain his story, he began to explain his technology background he built his first computer at 12 years old. He was into electronics and got into computers at a very young age. Shawn was very into programming and liked building websites in the days when you had to host your own Apache server and IP address to have a website on the internet.  5:10 Odyssey of mind, An Engineering design competition for middle school and grade school kids. Teams would build structures, do vehicle projects and incorporate robotics wherever possible. Shawn found the application of technology to be more interesting than just the technology itself.  11:19 Fast forward, Shawn Hall had gained great information technology experience working for fortune 500 companies. Hall worked specifically for dental technology companies from 2006-2011. Hall found that he had ideas and a specific vision for how technology can best be used in dentistry and with Partner Jake Scheiterlein he decided to take the leap of opening Sodium Systems LLC in 2011 that has two divisions both Sodium Dental and SodiumVet. With years of experience learning from leaders in dental technology Sodium Dental was able to take that knowledge and turn it into new innovations in sensor repair and the upcoming new designs in digital x-ray sensors. Shaped by examples of hard work and integrity in the industry such as David Wilson owner of Digital Doc, Sodium Dental makes it a priority to innovate, design and manufacture dental technology products. In an industry of sales companies posturing as manufacturers Sodium Dental strives to be different. 19:52 NOMAD, an interesting story about Nomad cutting out independent distributors. Shawn Hall explains that in his past working experience he sold a great deal of Nomad hand held tube heads and one day was called up and told all of a sudden that they were cutting out all small independent dealers.. NOMAD, is by Aribex, it is a handheld, battery-powered intraoral x-ray system that produces high-quality xrays as a source for use with film or digital x-ray systems.  NOMAD Vs. ZEN-PX2, Shawn Hall has learned so much over the years and now knows the ins and outs of dental technology. He has done the research and will only sell the most dependable tools to his clients. He has confidence in all his products and Sodium dental offers the Zen PX2 Portable X-Ray Tube Generator Portable Dental X-Ray System. It is Compact Outside and Smart Inside Excellent Image Quality Elegant and Simple Design Film and Digital Sensors Easy to Use 1 Year Warranty. Check it out, Click here  21:03 Distributor Agreement, Tier 3 supplier hmmm, do you understand what that means, well Hall does a great job explaining a story that had happened to him while trying to place an order. Hall explains the importance of how technologies are held at different tiers. This holds back dentist they do not even know the products that won’t be offered to them because distributors often sign exclusives with products they don’t then offer the customer, so the product essentially goes away.  Go hear the rest of the story on the pod cast! Podcast   26:24 Is this device legal?, X-ray sources some portable tube heads did not have an FDA # as asked by Christopher Hoffpaquir, DDS in the podcast. The key item to check is whether the medical device has an FDA number. Whether it is an intra oral camera, tube head or xray sensors it should have an FDA device registration.. If it goes into the oral cavity and or part of diagnostic process it is a medical device. Which Hall stresses FDA approval is a very serious matter and products should be FDA cleared in order to be used on patients when procedures are being done.  When products are not always labeled. You have to guess what class the FDA considers your device to be.  29:02 Dentists Liability, The liability inherently lies with the provider to make sure they are using FDA registered devices. The most risk falls on the provider in the case that a doctor is sued by a patient or a complaint is brought to the dental board. That’s why all Sodium dental devices are FDA Approved. Check out our new Aurora Sensor. 33:50 Same old same old, DO dentist realize half of the products they buy you can buy the same product under six different other names. Check out the podcast to hear how certain sensors can be similar to one another. How Dexis Sensors have not really changed they may have a new name, but the technology has stayed the same.  36:15- Choosing the Company Name, Shawn Halls and Jake Scheiterlein company name could have been like every other dental office name. They could have just called the company dental technology or dental technology systems. They wanted to be original so they used the help of the periodic table that’s right pretty fascinating! Fun Fact would have been Cobalt Dental but it was just too aggressive of a name.  Check out the Website 37:27 Intra Oral Cameras, Hall talks about the big elephant in the room how some cameras are $300 a pop. This issue is cheaper cameras are not always the best product for your practice and they are not worth it when they are not reliable cameras.  There are also cameras being sold by independent companies like Sodium Sodium dental Intra Oral Cameras . Sodium sells cameras for $1,000-$2,000 price range. These cameras have better quality and durability opposed to cheaper alternatives.   39:31 iPhone camera Technology, this idea as to why are our smart phone cameras better than our dental cameras. Hall explains this as a development process and sensors have come a long way. The only reason you don’t have a camera as good as your iPhone camera as an intra oral camera is because of the high cost of putting a new product through development and clearnace. It is better business for the distributors to control the market and what you can be sold tan it is to invest in R & D.  41:53 Coming soon Sodium digital x-ray sensor, takes a year and a half to get this type of product out and we are working on it. Image quality has been the same for nearly 20 years and we are hoping to solve that problem with our next generation of sensor to be released in 2025. 47:52 Line Pair Per Milliliter, This is a topic that is never talked about but a number that is thrown out there to compare sensors. The problem is that a theoretical number is thrown out instead of showing the actual line pairs per millimeter.  57:34 The Standard, why are dental products so expensive, Shawn Hall says it’s because dentists are so hard to market to. Hall understands that hearing from salespeople or visiting booths at dental shows can be daunting. The problem is that large distributors find this to be beneficial to them because they can control what products the doctors see and are being exposed to. 59:51 Talk about ROI, this section is all about how companies jump through hoops to market and promote themselves. To reach out to dentists and Sodium dental is doing their best to be recognized. Sodium Dental will be attending the upcoming Chicago Midwinter 2020. Here at Sodium dental, we look forward to helping you with any technology needs you may have.  Contact us at 800.821.8962 … View Post