EP# 164 - Trust and Comfort: Dr. Ramirez's Patient-Centered Dental Philosophy

Ever wondered what it takes to build a successful dental practice from the ground up in a new country? Join us as Dr. Jose Ramirez, the passionate owner and dentist at Town Dental in Naples, shares his incredible journey from Venezuela to the U.S. Dr. Ramirez opens up about the hurdles he faced while establishing his practice and how strong work ethics and a supportive team played pivotal roles in his success. He also sheds light on common misconceptions about dentistry, tackling issues like dental anxiety and the perceived cost of care. Dr. Ramirez emphasizes a modern, patient-focused approach that prioritizes trust and comfort, ensuring every visit leaves patients informed and at ease.

But it’s not just about dentistry; get to know Dr. Ramirez as a remarkable new neighbor who has woven himself into the fabric of the community. We share heartwarming interactions and discuss the importance of fostering strong neighborhood connections to enrich communal life. Listen to a heartfelt thank you to Dr. Ramirez for his contributions and our open invitation for you to nominate your favorite local businesses to be highlighted in future episodes. This episode is a celebration of both local business and community spirit—an inspiring narrative you won’t want to miss!

Towne Dental
Dr, Jose Ramirez
3751 Tamiami Trail E
Naples, FL 34112
239-399-0925
townedentalnaples@gmail.com
https://townedentalnaples.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Cabo Jim.

Speaker 2: 0:08

Schaller. Welcome Good Neighbors to episode number 164 of the Good Neighbor Podcast Estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Dr Jose Ramirez from Towne Dental Welcome.

Speaker 3: 0:21

Thank you, jim, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Yeah, pleasure to get to know more people in the community and learn what they do. So without further ado, let's jump right in. And why don't you share a little bit about what you do over at Towne Dental?

Speaker 3: 0:34

Sure, well, I'm the owner of Towne Dental and one of the dentists there, and we have a brand new office. Town e Dental is a brand new office. Stanton is a brand new office. We opened about a year ago State of the art, beautiful, sparkly, clean office in the heart of Naples and we can't complain Our first year. We've had great success, great acceptance from our community and we feel that's due to our work, ethics and philosophy.

Speaker 2: 1:06

That absolutely speaks volumes for sure. So let's back up your story a little bit here. How did you get involved into the dental industry?

Speaker 3: 1:15

Sure, so I'm actually a second-generation dentist. My mom's a dentist and her brother, my uncle, is a medical doctor, and all my cousins are related in the health industry in one way or another, so I guess that's a big influence. I decided to go for dentistry early, you know know, finishing my high school years in graduated in 2008 in Venezuela this is South America and I came to the US about 10 years ago more like 14 years ago and decided to continue my career over here and it's been great. It's been great to be back.

Speaker 2: 2:02

Very nice. I love that. So we've all had some type of I don't want to say obstacle or maybe challenge along our journey to get where we are today. There's something you can look back at now and you know, maybe it might have been a little tough to go through at the time, but now you can look back and say I'm in a better place now because of it.

Speaker 3: 2:21

Sure, yeah, I can think of a few actually, but if I want to mention one or two, starting over, it's difficult. So coming from a, coming from a another country, and going back to school, getting a dentist degree here in the U? S and the license it's very, very tough, very competitive, but completely worth it. So that was one. And then, in terms of business owning, starting a business, especially from scratch, is very, very, very challenging. So I'm sure anyone out there who's also a small business owner can relate, but again, completely worth it. If you, once again, if you have the right work ethics, the right philosophy and the right team around you, you're only paving the road for success.

Speaker 2: 3:18

And that's the important part. Yes, there's a lot of people out there that have the knowledge and the skills to perform their job, but, like you mentioned, running a business is a totally different animal and you know, if you surround yourself with the right people you're going to be successful. So are there any myths or maybe misconceptions surrounding the dental industry that we could clear up for our listeners?

Speaker 3: 3:41

Yeah, there's, especially nowadays there's many of those. Most of our patients come in thinking that dentistry is it's a high anxiety setting and painful, and I disagree. I, we have plenty of ways to manage anxiety. Dental anxiety, we have plenty of ways to manage anxiety. Dental anxiety we have plenty of ways to.

Speaker 3: 4:06

Dentistry is not the same dentistry nowadays than what we remember when we were kids. It's completely different. The industry has changed entirely. In our office at least, we can do sedation we can do. There's obviously the regular numbing and aesthetic strategies, and not only that getting to know your doctor.

Speaker 3: 4:32

If your doctor spends a little bit of time with you sitting down explaining how things are going to go, and if you are well-trained on, or, I should say, well-aware of what to expect, dental anxiety suddenly goes away. It's not a, it's not a industry related thing, it's a more of a. Is your doctor ready to spend some time with you? Clear, clear up your, your, your, your doubts about what's going to happen and how to get you there and and then get the process starting, little by little, getting to know your dentist, your provider, getting used to how they work, and taking the first step. It's very, you know, it's very important, yeah, which we see this lacking, at least in some offices nowadays, with all the corporate dentistry stepping in very, very aggressively into the dental industry I'm not saying all of them, I'm just saying it. It can. It can, um, it can go sideways when it comes to the real objectives of running a healthcare profession. Okay, so spending time with the patient, um, making sure they trust you, making sure they're, they're uh, they know what's to come, and staking taking small steps, is very important.

Speaker 3: 6:05

The other misconception could be in terms of affordability. Patients think that by stepping into a dental office, they're going to all of a sudden enter this financial burden, and I have to disagree. In our office, for example, they're going to all of a sudden enter this financial burden, and I have to disagree. In our office, for example, we have very popular prices. We take most of the insurances, at least the PPOs. So if you come with insurance right there, you're just getting a major, major discount. But if you don't have dental insurance, which many patients don't we have our own ways to make it affordable. We have plenty of ways to turn your dental emergencies or your dental needs into affordable or something that we can work with your budget and get things going. So it is definitely not a situation where you're going to walk in there and then all of a sudden, you know, walk out without treatment or walk out thinking that you, just, you know, you just spent your cars and vacations money for the year on a couple of things, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 7:25

Yeah, it comes down to customer service doing what's right by the customer and making them feel comfortable, Absolutely. Now, do you see anything trending in the industry lately?

Speaker 3: 7:36

Yes, in terms of macro, dentistry is consolidating. Like I said, we have a major major players coming in from wall street, big companies buying out private dental offices and it's it's a wave that nobody can stop. What we can do is is is join, and by when I say join, at least in my opinion, is do something similar. If I have come up with a good work, ethics, philosophy, an equation that works, that our patients, we can tell by the way our community has accepted us and brought us in, I want to replicate that, bring that to a broader audience and with my philosophy, my way of doing things, which is not the same way as maybe a corporate manager in Wall Street would put the same priorities in place, I have different priorities for my patients than maybe a different corporation or different entity would have. Maybe, maybe not.

Speaker 2: 8:56

I'm not sure. It's not all about that bottom line. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 3: 9:01

Our patients are not a number. We know our patients by name. They are our neighbors. We know the food they like, we know the things they're going through with their family members and these are things that they've decided to share with us because we've become, in a way, we've established a good patient-provider relationship and they've come to trust us and we appreciate that that's something that doesn't come. We don't treat that lightly. We don't take it lightly. That's something that we've earned and it's for a reason.

Speaker 2: 9:41

Getting in on a personal level. That's the important thing.

Speaker 3: 9:45

Yeah, dentistry is changing in that way. Your mom and pop dental office is going to disappear in the next 20 years. It's going to become more like a medical setting or hospital type of thing, where dentistry or dentists are more of an employee rather than a business. It's not going to go away in a day or two, but it is in general right. Industry is shifting that way. Is it going to go full-blown that way in the next five years? I don't think so, or ten. But yeah, it's a wave and think it's. We can't stop it, right, it's the same thing.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Absolutely so. You mentioned you were from Venezuela. What brought you to Southwest Florida?

Speaker 3: 10:32

Yes, actually I was born in Cuba, okay, and, as everybody knows, especially here in Southwest Florida in South Florida, I should say, all Cubans, probably since they were born, are escaping communism without getting into politics. We moved to Venezuela. It was a place we found an opportunity to move to, and then things started to get a little difficult there. So in about 2010, we decided it was time for a new start and then we moved from Venezuela to Miami or to South Florida, and here in the Southwest I've been only three years actually. Yeah, I moved to Naples three years ago and I worked at a few other dental offices as an associate. That means I would go see my patients and leave, but I have no administrative responsibilities and that gave me a very, very nice idea of what our community is needing is lacking from the dental providers, and I decided to go on my own at Town Dental and, again, we've done great that is awesome.

Speaker 2: 11:55

So when you do have a moment of free time because I know owning a business can be very demanding what do you enjoy doing?

Speaker 3: 12:02

Sure. Well, I have two little kids, so I'm actually trying to make the most of my free time with them, just family activity. Family is everything for us Getting them to the park, the museum, going to the beach, so anything that's family related. You, you'll see me doing that when I'm not in the office.

Speaker 2: 12:23

That is important. Family time is important. So is there? Is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about towne dental that maybe they're not aware of?

Speaker 3: 12:32

Yes for sure. So, uh, dentistry is not a high anxiety setting. We've managed to get around that At Towne Dental. You're not going to be pushed or sold on anything. We're going to be suggesting treatment. This is a health-related profession, career. We're not here to push you into anything or feel financially stressed or that sense of anxiety. We can easily manage that things nowadays, especially in an office where you can get all your dental needs done under one roof by different providers, wonderful hygienists by different providers, wonderful hygienists and a great friendly staff that's ready to pick up the phone and treat you like a neighbor, like a patient, not like a number.

Speaker 3: 13:28

Absolutely, it's a matter of. I'm definitely not saying we're the only office doing that. There's plenty of offices out there who have this same system. You would know when you walk into an office like that and you can tell these people are different. I've been treated differently. I feel comfortable here. I'm not pushed to buy this or that. So if you're ever feeling that way, if you listeners, you're patient, you ever feel that maybe this is not the place or maybe I can find something, we'll be happy to see you for a second opinion.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Absolutely so how would our listeners go about contacting you if they were interested in learning more?

Speaker 3: 14:18

Yeah, of course. Town Dental T-O-W-N-E. Towne Dental in Naples. Towne Dental Naples if you Google that, we will come up right in the top Five-star Google reviews about 400 of them and our phone number is 239-399-0925. Just give us a call. Feel free to give us a call.

Speaker 3: 14:46

We stay ourselves. We stay very, very available. If you call. We'll bring you in same day, next day or, at the most, a couple of days from the time that you call. Unless you cannot make it, for whatever reason, we'll find a spot that's convenient and comfortable for you to come in. We are open Saturdays this is a rare thing here in Naples and we're also open in evenings, one day of the week, thursdays. So again, we're very convenient to step into our office. And, jim, we've just been trying to all those adversities that people usually find when they go to the dentist. We've tried to work around those. We're trying to work around the finances, try to work around the availability, trying to work around the stressful anxiety around dentistry. So all these things we've nailed down to a good system that works, that our patients feel comfortable with and it has shown up, and that is great, a great experience for everybody involved, and that's what it's all about at the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 15:58

Dr Ramirez, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor and I hope to see you out in the community soon.

Speaker 3: 16:06

Sounds good. Likewise, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpesterocom. That's gnpesterocom, that's GNPesterocom, or call 239-296-2621.