Effingham, Ill.-based Heartland Dental plans to add more than 130 practices to its network through de novo offices and affiliations.
Heartland Dental is one of the largest DSOs in the U.S., with more than 1,700 offices in its network.
Mark Greenstein, chief growth officer at Heartland Dental, recently spoke with Becker's about the DSO's recent growth, its plans for 2024 and his outlook for the DSO landscape.
Note: These responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What are your DSO's top priorities in 2024?
Mark Greenstein: In the coming year, Heartland Dental aims to grow our de novo and affiliation footprint by more than 130 supported practices.
We are also focused on deploying VideaHealth [and] Dentrix artificial intelligence technology across all supported practices to enhance patient care and support for doctors and teams.
Another priority is to expand Heartland Dental University (HDU) to provide even more clinical, operational and leadership courses and training opportunities for supported doctors, hygiene providers and dental office teams.
Q: What are two or three key strategies in place to expand and grow your footprint?
MG: We plan to affiliate with the nation's leading practices and doctors in the best markets by expanding our development team capabilities and forming strategic partnerships with the nation’s highest quality brokers and intermediaries. We also plan to partner to build and relocate 95 to 100 new, ground-up practices, each with 10-12 chairs, in the nation's fastest-growing markets and prime-anchored real estate.
Additionally, we aim to affiliate with small groups with demonstrated clinical and operational excellence, multi-year growth potential and robust infrastructure.
Q: What are the biggest challenges facing DSOs today?
MG: One of the major challenges is recruiting doctors and hygienists in high-growth markets, particularly as the demand for services accelerates.
Many DSOs face hurdles related to access to capital due to high interest costs, although we have found valuable support from KKR and our partners in this regard.
While Heartland is having a record year, sustainable, profitable growth always requires a lot of effort in the face of challenging payers with limited increases, higher labor, supplies and lab costs.
Q: Many DSO execs are expecting slower growth amid a challenging economy. How do you think economic challenges will impact growth in the overall DSO industry?
MG: At Heartland Dental, we see differently. We are seeing more demand for oral care than ever and the opportunities to add providers, technology and education has never been greater.
Q: What are the top trends you are following now?
MG: We are closely monitoring trends in AI for both clinical and operational workflow support, Invisalign, revenue cycle management, provider recruitment and intraoral scanning to support digital workflows and patient communications.
Q: What is your proudest accomplishment of 2023?
MG: I think we are proudest of our supported providers, their results and retention. Heartland Dental and our supported practices are proud of the 85% industry leading retention, a result of our commitment to them as our customers and their engagement and commitment to oral care, their communities, their teams and Heartland Dental.
Every day we do everything we can to support doctors and their teams. I am also very proud of our culture. It’s the center of Heartland and to maintain it while we grow at a fast pace is hard but is a priority for us.