Artificial intelligence in dentistry has been a key focus for almost every DSO out there, but especially for the middle-market companies.
Pittsburgh-based North American Dental Group, which supports 240 practices, recently rolled out Overjet’s IRIS Smart Imaging software to all of its locations, adding to the investment by DSOs into dental AI technologies.
Paul Reda, CEO of NADG, and Wardah Inam, PhD, CEO of Overjet, recently connected with Becker’s to talk about the rollout, the middle-market AI movement and dental industry trends.
Editor’s note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What impact will the new AI program have on a whole at your DSO as well as at your individual practice?
Paul Reda: If you don’t have this as a DSO right now, you’re behind the times. And candidly, any patient who goes to a practice that doesn’t have this type of technology, they should find another dentist. This is the minimum you have to have to meet the standard of care for our patients. What we’re focused on is giving our patients the best experience. Experience is different from service. When I go to get a root canal, I expect that to be done. That’s a service. Patients remember an experience. They remember a doctor, explaining their treatment to them, showing them on the x-ray with Overjet. ‘Hey, this is what’s wrong. Here’s the risk. This is how we’re going to help you.’ People will remember an experience. They expect a service. This has helped build our communication with our patients, our trust, and ultimately give them a better oral healthcare experience.
Q: Do you see the middle-market companies being some of the largest adopters and champions of AI?
Dr. Wardah Inam: I think right now, not only DSOs, but every company is looking at how do we use AI to improve our operations, reduce costs and increase revenues? There’s more pressure on these DSOs as well. They’re going in this environment now, rather than the environment where we had easier money a few years ago, so they’re trying to get any advantage that they can. With the labor costs increasing, with the tariffs increasing the cost of the equipment and supplies, there’s a lot of cost pressure happening. It’s necessary for these groups to start investing in technology as a way for them to reduce costs and improve their productivity.
Q: What are you doing at NADG to combat the challenges facing DSOs today, outside of AI integration?
PR: You have to do the right thing for your people. I want to pay our team well enough that they feel comfortable, that they just want to do the right thing. I think that’s the first thing. I think you give them the best tools, right? We’re putting CBCT scanners in all of our practices, all of our practices have iOS scanners, we have Overjet, we’re putting SprintRay printers in our practices. So we’re giving our teams all the tools to be successful. We’ve rolled out certified health kiosks and online scheduling for all of our practices, so now patients can check in online easily. They can schedule online. It’s easy for billing, it’s easy for getting their information, which all focus on, how do we give the patient experience the best thing? It costs money.
Ultimately, we hope patients come into a North American Dental Group practice and say that was a great experience. You tell your family to come, and that’s the best referral, and that’s how we’re going to do it. We’re not going to win it on a cost game. This is not a cost savings to victory. It won’t get you there. Now you want to be financially responsible, but we’re looking at it this way. How can we see more patients, give them a better experience and win on a top line game?
Q: Are any other dental or healthcare industry trends, whether that’s AI focused or not, that you are keeping an eye on going forward?
WI: Right now there’s a lot of technology that’s being built and things are moving very, very fast. It’s more about making sure that things are built well and adopted, and we’re looking at the entire workflow rather than just throwing pieces together.
PR: We want to focus on our people and our patients. And I don’t think it’s binary. Sometimes you’ll hear the DSO talk about how they want to focus on our patients, or we want to focus on our people. I think it has to be focused on both, and I don’t think you have to be one or the other. That means taking care of our doctors, our hygienists and our front desk staff, while also giving our best experiences to our patients. That is our sole focus. We have labs, we have supplies, we have the equipment. It’s giving our teams the best experience and our patients the best experience.
