Each DSO and dental group has its own style and approach to growth, expansion and development.
For Southlake, Texas-based Allied OMS, it's taking on its first round of outside capital to enable its expansion.
For Pittsburgh-based North American Dental Group, the focus is on making a concerted effort to expand its joint venture programs in 2025 to keep its partner dentists engaged.
Executives from these five dental groups recently connected with Becker's to reflect on their growth from 2024 and share how they plan to continue that momentum in 2025.
Jeff Staser, CFO of Straine Dental Management (Sacramento, Calif.): From an expansion perspective, I think that we see a lot of opportunity out there. What we're looking for, from an acquisition perspective, is a partner and somebody that we know is willing to go with us on this partnership and share in the equity events that are forthcoming. Our eyes are focused on what the future is going to hold, because we're trying to create something that's going to last versus just a buy-and-flip strategy.
Dan Hosler, founder and CEO of Allied OMS (Southlake, Texas): 2024 was a transformative year for us as we took on our first tranche of outside capital, enabling us to expand our reach and impact. We acquired several new practices, recruited 11 residents into existing Allied OMS locations and proudly opened our first de novo. These milestones are a testament to the strength of our model and the trust doctors place in us. We also laid critical groundwork to replicate this success in 2025 by building infrastructure and identifying new opportunities for growth.
Ash ElDifrawi, chief commercial and brand officer of The Aspen Group (Chicago): We continue to open more locations to make sure people have access to care as well. We continue to make investments in ortho. We want that business to continue to grow, so that's really about getting all of our doctors comfortable with new technology and the adoption of that. We spent 2024 setting the foundation for a lot of these capabilities and all these investments we made. Now, it's about expanding that [and] getting all of the doctors better so our patients can have access to all these things we made investments in.
Paul Reda, CEO of North American Dental Group (Pittsburgh): We also want to focus on growth via expansion and joint ventures. Joint ventures are really imperative to keep our doctors engaged throughout their career life cycle. They're kind of told through dental school that you go to dental school and you buy a practice. That landscape has shifted. More and more dentists are coming out of dental school and going to DSOs, but we want to keep them here. Three years is great, but I'd rather them stay here and build a career here, and we have those opportunities. Some other DSOs that are well known are built off JV models, so it's common in the industry. We'll also look to grow strategically in the smaller DSOs. We're just about over 230 practices. We think we can absorb 40-50 practice groups as well, so we think there's opportunity.
Alisa Ulrey, COO of U.S. Oral Surgery Management (Irving, Texas): A goal for us this year is really around growth, and that's really twofold for us. It's both in the realm of organic growth and in the name of mergers and acquisition growth. We're not only focused on expanding our network of partner practices, but we're also managing and leading on how we continue to have existing practices thrive and grow organically. So we've been really working on things such as, how do we optimize our operations? How do we improve referral networks? How do we prioritize the strategies to really help our practices grow organically while also delivering that care?