Atlanta-based Benevis is focusing on recruiting dental students and supporting dentists with mentorship to help recruit dentists to underserved areas.
Bryan Carey, the CEO of Benevis, and Jane Whang, DDS, the regional director of clinical at Benevis, recently joined the Becker's Dental + DSO Review Podcast to discuss their methods of recruiting dentists to underserved communities.
Editor's note: These responses were lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: What are some of the biggest issues you're following in the dental industry this year?
Bryan Carey: There just is a shortage of qualified workers for healthcare entities, particularly, our really valuable hygienists and dental assistants, so we're working closely with schools in terms of make sure they're aware of the opportunities at an organization like Benevis, and even starting our recruiting earlier so that earlier year candidates become aware and we could continue to cultivate them.
Dr. Jane Whang: one of the things I find exciting is that a lot of our new graduates are excited to and interested in joining DSOs like Benevis, which is great, because we need a lot of providers who are interested in just partaking in the mission that we have to care for our patients. I think part of it is that now the dental community has understood the importance of how DSOs can play a great part in increasing the access to care for our patients, but also a lot of new grads are interested in the mentorship that a lot of DSOs such as ourselves can provide. Many of our new grads, when I interview them, I've found that they are interested in that, and that's one of their priorities when searching for a job after dental school. We have state dental directors and district dental directors and regional dental directors like myself who are interested in helping new graduates get the experience and the growth and the support they need to be effective and just successful dentists. So, that's exciting.
What makes it me a bit nervous is that we have all of these dentists joining, but as Bryan alluded to before, just in terms of the support staff, the auxiliary staff members that need to support the doctors, like hygienists and dental assistants, where we continue to face challenges in certain offices and certain regions of the organization.
Q: A big issue with staffing shortages is that many new graduates tend to flock toward larger cities for more career opportunities and higher pay instead of rural and underserved communities. Are you seeing a difference there with the recruitment of dental graduates?
Dr. Whang: It's definitely a challenge, depending on where our office is located, but I think because of that, we do a good job of making it equitable. If it's a lucrative or popular area like D.C. or other bigger cities, then the incentives may not be as great, but we balance it by offering greater incentives in rural areas that may not be as popular. An incentive the doctors do also have is that maybe after a year or two of getting the exposure in areas where we don't have enough dentists, they can then transfer to an area they are more interested in. Many of our newer dentists are excited about that and open to that if they know they have that as a growth pattern.