Increasing dentists' work-life balance, allowing them to focus on the clinical side of dentistry and promoting collaboration are three ways that leaders feel DSOs improve the dental industry.
The leaders featured in this article are all speaking at Becker's 2024 dental conferences. This includes our Spring Future of Dentistry Roundtable, which is set for June 19-21 at the Swissotel in Chicago, and the Fall Future of Dentistry Roundtable, which is set for Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
If you work at a DSO or dental practice and would like to be considered as a speaker, please contact Randi Haseman at rhaseman@beckershealthcare.com.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What impact have DSOs had on the dental industry, and how will they affect the dental space going forward?
Haim Haviv. Founder and CEO of Hudson Dental (New York City): One of the key impacts DSOs have had is allowing doctors to go back to being doctors and worry less about business ownership and operations. Moreover, with greater financial resources compared to independent dental practices and more time to focus on management, DSOs have been able to invest in advanced equipment, technology and training, which can enhance quality of care. Moving forward, I believe we will continue to see enhanced patient experience and care driven by technology at every step of the patient journey.
Rose House. Regional Director, Operations of P1 Dental Partners (Indianapolis): DSOs having the bandwidth to assume all of the critical business-related functions empower dentists to do exactly what they love most, which is practice cutting edge dentistry! Going forward, how DSOs will continue to affect the industry can be summed up in 3 words: expertise, innovation and execution.
Alan Law, DDS, PhD. President of the Dental Specialists (Woodbury, Minn.): Ideally, the structure and resources of a DSO should foster an increase in high-quality care, with appropriate systems in place (e.g., peer reviews, standards of care, protocols). There is also an opportunity for collaboration among professionals and specialists. This is what we have in place with Park Dental Partners. By providing administrative support for dentists, DSOs can also improve work-life balance for clinical providers and increase the ability of practitioners to focus on clinical dentistry. Dentists should look for practice opportunities that provide a high-value proposition for new dentists and existing dentists, and DSOs should be in the mix. I suspect DSOs that can demonstrate high-quality care and a high-value proposition for dentists will continue to drive consolidation.
Trevor Lines, DDS. Business Development Consultant of RevTribes (Gilbert, Ariz.): DSOs have changed what it means to be a dentist. When I graduated in 2003, there was really only one perceived acceptable career path, private practice ownership, along with all of the debt, hassle and headaches of owning and managing a small business. That is no longer the case. In the coming years, DSOs will shift from aggregating practices to take advantage of economies of scale to up-leveling dentistry by upskilling dentists and creating optimal team dynamics. This will require DSOs to learn and teach the skill set of coaching. Those who do will be hyper-competitive. Those who don’t will stick to their current business practices in a changing environment, while watching their margins shrink, then disappear.