This month, dental professionals spoke with Becker's about technology, medical-dental integration, DSO growth and more.
Here is what 10 dental leaders told Becker's in November:
How Smile Doctors is empowering its doctors
J. Hedrick. CEO of Smile Doctors (Dallas): We want, first and foremost, cultural alignment and doctors who are committed to providing the best patient experience. At the end of the day, we believe in the ultimate patient experience. They can be doctors who have already proven that they can build a successful practice. It de-risks it for us and them because they've already done it. Now they can do it without having to hire the contractor, find the site or negotiate the lease. All the things that are a headache, we can take off their plate. We also want to give a path for orthodontists who come out of school with a lot of debt and do not have the financial resources to go buy an existing practice. It lowers that barrier to entry for them. We do want them to work with us for 12-18 months before we do that because for us it is about that cultural alignment and building the organization with the best practitioners in the U.S.
How DSOs are recruiting in competitive markets
Barry Lyon, DDS. Chief Dental Officer for the Division of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry at Dental Care Alliance (Sarasota, Fla.): Ten to 15 years ago, the level of sophistication for recruiting teams was pretty basic: place ads and hire providers. Today, because of increased competition, DSOs need to think out of the box and, instead of waiting for candidates to come to them, the DSO goes to the candidates. Recruiters visit dental students before graduation and the annual meetings of specialty organizations are well-attended by recruiting teams. Dinners, continuing education courses and office visits are all a part of the team’s approach.
How the power of technology could change the dental industry, per 2 leaders
Daniel Romary. Chief Information and Analytics Officer of North American Dental Group (Pittsburgh): I'd like to see improved adoption and standardization of digital revolution/digital workflows, including 3D printers for crowns, night guards and aligners, using AI for radiographs and increased cone beam usage. We can also improve the patient experience and expectations based on access to new and emerging technologies and clinical innovation by more effectively implementing, adopting, and leveraging AI capabilities. Additionally, by using the improved availability of teledentistry, access to care would be improved.
How medical-dental integration would advance dentistry
Michelle Henry. Director of Dental Hygiene of Singing River Dentistry (Tuscumbia, Ala.): I would love to see the dental industry be the leader when it comes to medical and dental integration for the patient's health. We will need to place importance on training the medical industry on why we should be included on their health questionnaire. For example, we ask all the medical questions concerning the patient's health during their dental visit on our medical history questionnaire. Routine dental visit dates should be included in health records. When we visit our medical doctors we are asked for dates of routine screening such as mammograms, chest X-rays or colonoscopy.
DSO 'buying spree' could hit a wall in 2024, 1 exec says
Josh Davis. Chief Development Officer at Imagen Dental Partners (Scottsdale, Ariz.): I've got a short window of time that I've been in the dental industry, so the biggest thing I think was COVID-19. Pre-COVID, doctor sentiment was generally different around independence versus partnership. I think that swung significantly in 2020. Folks faced with potentially losing their life's work rethought the value of hedging their business and bringing in some professional management to help them take some of the chips off the table in terms of the value that they had created in their business to date. That's probably the single biggest thing. Then, you saw that significant ramp up in 2021 through 2022, the buying spree, and now folks are sort of retracting and trying to figure out, "How do we reorganize and rejigger this thing so that we can deliver our own value proposition and continue to grow?" So I think it's just been the evolution of the mindset of doctors.
Why the 'Walmartization of dentistry' frustrates 1 practice owner
Rajdeep Randhawa, DDS. Innovative Dentistry (Colts Neck, N.J.): The constant decline of the dental profession over the last 70 years or more is definitely much more alarming with the ADA, which represents the majority of the dental profession, willfully surrendering the interests of their member dentists to the all-for-profit insurance industry by writing ADA codes with minimal fee structures that haven't changed much over a long period of time. Intensive ADA codification has led to the ultimate "commoditization of dentistry," where patients shop around for dental procedures like they are shopping for different products on Amazon or other shopping websites like eBay without regard to the skills, education or experience of the dentist.
Sage Dental plans to expand in new states in 2024: Q&A
Jim Mizouni. Chief Development Officer and Senior Vice President at Sage Dental (Boca Raton, Fla.): We have some opportunities lined up. We're probably going to expand into Tennessee and Alabama in 2024. We do want to be contiguous. There are certainly other groups of our size where maybe they've got some locations in Arizona and Michigan, some locations in Pennsylvania and some locations in Texas. That's not how we want to operate. We want to be able to get density and proximity. We're not going to jump from Georgia to Pennsylvania. We're going to go from Georgia to South Carolina or Tennessee or Alabama. We're also going to grow with some concentration. We want to get enough density so we can support them operationally and clinically.
How dental insurance coverage is evolving: NADP exec
Michael Adelberg. Executive Director of the National Association of Dental Plans: Many of my members now offer additional benefits for people with certain chronic conditions. For example, people with diabetes get extra teeth cleanings. There is also an increasing number of plans that let people roll over unspent dollars from year to year. Dental plans are not seeking to squeeze down the generosity of a particular benefit. Dental plans will offer what the employer pays for. Dental plans are perfectly happy to offer very rich dental benefits when employers pay for it. Ultimately, that's what guides the richness of the benefit. Meanwhile, dental plans typically continue to pay 100% for the preventive services that are central to oral health.
How 9 dentists prepare for a busy day
Mark Rashidi, DDS. Clinical Faculty Member at the Roseman University of Health Sciences College of Dental Medicine (Henderson, Nev.): A group huddle in the morning is of utmost importance to attune all team members for the challenges and points of opportunities of the day. This is critical for the practice in order to maximize its impact in hitting all the goals set for the day. Without having this roadmap, it's like driving blind, and it's easy to miss great opportunities, which will go unrealized. The second part of that will be delegating individuals with defined tasks in relationship to each aforementioned challenge and opportunity. The more in detail this can be defined for the team members, the better chance of their success, and as a result, hitting the overall goals of the day for the practice. I love the saying, "Failing to plan, is planning to fail."
What to expect from dentistry in 2024, per 4 dental leaders
Daniel Lingenfelter, DDS. Fitch Mountain Dental (Healdsburg, Calif.): In 2024, I think dentistry will continue to see improvement in reimbursement as more insurance companies are getting pushback and more providers drop insurance for a fee-for-service model. I think we will see more technology improvements such as artificial intelligence treatment planning and design work for digital milling and printing. I also think it's likely to see more outsourcing due to staffing shortages and increased cost of supplies.