The influx of women entering the dental workforce and a surge in consolidation might go hand in hand.
Michael Schwartz, chair and CEO of Specialty Dental Brands, spoke with "Becker's Dental + DSO Review Podcast '' to discuss the link between women's amplified presence in dentistry and increased consolidation.
Note: This is an edited excerpt. Listen to the full podcast episode here.
Question: What are the big trends that you're watching?
Michael Schwartz: So we're still in the early innings of consolidation in our cottage industry. Numbers I see are somewhere in the low 20 percents. Twenty-two, 23 percent of dentists are part of DSOs. The vast majority of that is general dentistry DSOs: your Heartlands, Aspens, Pacific, [DSOs] like that. On the specialty side … if we look at our three specialties, you're probably talking 25,000 dentists in those three specialties. The consolidation there is less than 10 percent, you know, 5, 7, 9 percent. So what's driving that consolidation … the macro driver that a lot of people talk about is the student loan debt. There is a big gender transformation going on in the dental industry. When I got in 2008 and was talking to dentists that were looking to transition their practices, these were baby-boomer dentists. When they were in dental school, there were maybe one or two female students in their class with them.
Today we're seeing in the four-year dentistry school, programs that are as high as 60 percent [female]. A lot of programs are now 51, 52 percent female. When you get into certain specialties, pediatric dentistry, maybe 80 percent these days. I was just at a conference, there were two residency programs at the conference on pediatric dentistry. There was one man and 10 or 11 women. So I think you're seeing that dentistry is one of the few industries that provides that elusive work-life balance. If you want to not have to choose between having a family and working and having a career, dentistry does allow [that]. There's a lot of dentists that work two or three days a week that still make six figures and get that true balance. Traditionally, we haven't seen as many women who are looking to be private practice owners because they want that flexibility. It's really shrunk the buyer pool out there for the traditional dentist-to-dentist transition, and so that consolidation sped up.