DSOs are being faced with the task of fighting notoriety as certain practices are scrutinized in the field.
Some of the top concerns dentists have about DSOs include the loss of clinical autonomy and too much emphasis placed on profit versus patient care.
Robert Rubino, CEO of Sharon, Mass.-based Qualitas Dental Partners, told Becker's that the biggest challenge for DSOs today is reputation management, adding that companies must be careful with how they treat their team members because the field is "checkered."
"The dental community, like a lot of sectors, is very tight. So if things are not going particularly well for one dentist who joined a DSO, it gets out there fast," he said. "I think DSOs have to be thoughtful about their treatment of their teams and treatment of patients. Both patient and team members should be at the heart of everything they do. The current narrative out there suggests that this is not happening everywhere. We believe those models are flawed and underperform."
Mr. Rubino said a big mistake DSOs make is focusing too much on improving efficiency without reinvesting in its teams.
"That's a thriving business when you reinvest your efficiencies, but to go out there and just cut costs and try to pocket the savings, that's not a winning model," he added. "First, it doesn't win hearts or minds with anyone. Second, your good people leave or become disenfranchised. Patients do not like when your teammates leave or become disengaged. Patients will leave your practices accordingly and stop referring friends and relatives. So the big thing I would say is, be careful of a slavish devotion to efficiency in an effort to pocket the savings. You do that at your peril."
Jason Luchtefeld, DMD, a dental industry coach, shared similar sentiments with Becker's.
Dr. Luchtefeld is the founder of coaching firm Inspero, where he helps DSOs and private dental practices improve their performance and reach their goals. He said too much focus on numbers over team members can end up hurting DSOs in the long run.
"You have to be successful, however, I'm seeing too often it comes at the expense of the humans involved. There needs to be a lot more emphasis put on, how do we take good care of our people?," he said. "When decisions are made that are based on reducing the supply overhead from 7% to 5%, and then the assistants are complaining because they can't take an impression because they can't order something they ran out [of], that kind of decision-making is really like stepping over dollars to pick up pennies, when you're ignoring the team [and] how the team is taken care of in order to save a percentage."
A big task for DSOs is proving to dentists how their models can help their practices, instead of hurting them and having a negative impact on the overall dental industry.
Ash ElDifrawi, chief commercial and brand officer at The Aspen Group, told Becker's that the overall DSO field is currently facing a corporate stigma that it is struggling to overcome.
Mr. ElDifrawi said corporate dentistry is often looked at in a negative light, but there are many examples of other corporations that have had a positive impact in their industries.
"[DoorDash] took something that was pretty crappy and inconsistent, delivery and so on, and turned it into something, but they didn't do that by being greedy. They did that by spending billions of dollars on the customer experience," he said. "So what corporate tends to do, if you do it right, is actually make it better for consumers, and then, hence, make it better for providers, not the opposite. So I think DSOs have to continue to be able to convince and demonstrate to providers that this is a better way of doing this, not a worse way of doing this."