Cybersecurity, patient schedules and artificial intelligence were among some of the topics dental leaders discussed with Becker's this month.
Here are nine insights dental leaders shared with us in July:
How 1 CIO's team thwarted a cybersecurity attack at an oral surgery MSO
Chad Ehmke. CIO at U.S. Oral Surgery Management (Irving, Texas): Well, I don't think the dental industry is unique. Year over year, global cybersecurity attacks have increased. There's an increase in ransomware attempts. There's an increase in phishing … These attacks can very frequently be targeted towards specific people. For instance, they might go onto LinkedIn and see somebody new has joined U.S. Oral Surgery Management. Next thing you know, that person's getting emails from people [and] it looks like they might be legitimate emails, but they're not. They're getting smarter about how they're doing it. They're learning, and it's turning into an entire industry.
How the dental industry has evolved over the past year, per 18 leaders
Rashed Din. CEO of Maya Dental (Chicago): The biggest shift over the past 12 months has been the increased emphasis of organic growth and the focus on year-over-year same-store sales growth. With increased capital structure costs amid somewhat inelastic sell-side demands, getting deals done has been tougher. This has resulted in the need for organic growth to drive value creation opportunities.
How patient no-shows, cancellations are affecting dental practices
Manny Chopra, DMD. Center for Dental Health (Cincinnati): Our dental practice has been facing challenges with patient cancellations and no-shows, impacting our overall daily operations. These cancellations have resulted in decreased productivity as appointment slots go unfilled. This situation has also affected our ability to provide timely treatments to our patients. To overcome these issues, we are actively working on implementing patient reminder systems, improving scheduling training and pursuing better communication with our patients to encourage more consistent appointment attendance.
The double-edged sword facing DSOs
Barry Lyon, DDS, Chief Dental Officer for the division of orthodontics and pediatric dentistry at Dental Care Alliance (Sarasota, Fla.): The pent-up demand for dental care since the pandemic has shown little signs of diminishing. As a result, competition for hiring providers is keen among DSOs. This double-edged sword of increased needs for dental services against a shortage of providers has kept DSOs constantly seeking providers to meet that demand.
DSOs are also facing external challenges as all aspects of healthcare are constantly evolving. Regulatory issues, insurance company policies, changes in patient demographics, including the aging of baby boomers, require DSOs to constantly adapt to developments and trends.
What 4 dentists are most focused on for the second half of 2023
Michael Perpich, DDS. Northland Smiles (Deerwood and Little Falls, Minn.): My main focus will be to schedule both doctor and hygiene appointments efficiently so patients can get the work done that they need and maximize their insurance benefits. This will also include help from the entire team confirming appointments or moving patients up when cancellations occur. We need to get patients healthy!
6 industry leaders weigh on in how to effectively implement AI in dentistry
Heather Foster. CEO of Heritage Dental Group (Dallas): Private practices and DSOs can harness the power of artificial intelligence to transform the dental industry. AI can automate administrative tasks, enhance patient care and improve treatment outcomes. AI can significantly reduce the burden of administrative tasks in dental practices through automation, which frees up staff members' time, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks. Additionally, AI can automate billing and insurance claim processes, minimizing errors and improving efficiency. AI can also improve patient care by providing personalized treatment plans and recommendations by analyzing patient data. AI algorithms can also analyze dental images, such as X-rays or scans, to identify abnormalities or potential issues that may be missed by human eyes. This can help dentists make more accurate diagnoses and develop effective treatment plans. By implementing AI technologies, dental professionals can optimize their practices, increase efficiency and provide better services to their patients.
Allied OMS appoints chief medical officer: Q&A with Dr. Jonathon Jundt
Jonathon Jundt, DDS, MD. Chief Medical Officer at Allied OMS (Southlake, Texas): There are five main goals I'm tasking myself with in this role. First and foremost is patient safety and outcomes. That's paramount. That's why we exist. Second, would be the actual provider safety and wellbeing. We know surgeon burnout is an issue, [so] facilitating surgeons in their daily work and as they go through their careers. The third is research and data acquisition and also utilization of that data. The data generated in our practices every day is valuable and pertinent to the patients and providers. So maximizing that data and research is going to be my third goal. The fourth one's going to be more fun, and that is evaluating new technologies and implementing those technologies across our group, whether it's augmented reality and surgeon training and maintenance of skills [or] different robotic technologies that are on the horizon. There are a lot of genomic advances in the head and neck cancer realm that we can incorporate. Finally, the more granular day-to-day affairs. There are probably going to be some disciplinary mechanisms as well as an internal morbidity and mortality review through a peer-privileged process, which is in place throughout healthcare to help improve outcomes.
How 1 teledentistry company is enhancing benefits education
Vilas Sastry, DMD. CEO of Teledentistry.com: We are licensed dentists, and so as such, it's not like we're Silicon Valley kids coming up with an idea in the garage and then just launching it out there and seeing what happens. This is healthcare at the end of the day. So we have licenses, we have liability, so we have to walk the legislative lines very carefully. With new technologies coming out at the pace that they are, legislation is playing catch up. It's our responsibility as clinicians to anticipate what those legislative actions are going to be and navigate our strategies in advance of the legislation being passed. Recently in Nevada, they passed a rather sweeping teledentistry law, which was absolutely awesome. It protected the good aspects of teledentistry, such as what we're doing, which is education, emergency-related services and screening services. That's the way in which I foresee more legislation coming down the pipeline to further strengthen the kind of teledentistry we are providing.
'They're making the decisions': How 1 PE-backed DSO is empowering dentists
Kristen Cusack. CEO at Phase 1 Equity (Southlake, Texas): When you look at how much of the market has been penetrated as far as DSOs and things like that, there is still a lot of opportunity in both of those areas. They are specialties that are doing well. I don't think anybody's recession-proof, but they're definitely very resilient. And that's been proven time over time that they come back very quickly, and dentistry in general does that. As we could see even from the pandemic and those kinds of things, the bounce back for those specialties has been really strong as well.