The drive to consolidate dental practices is intensifying, but many organizations struggle to scale without compromising clinical integrity or provider satisfaction. In a session at Becker’s Future of Dentistry Roundtable, Alex Caine, Head of DSO Partnerships with Dandy, interviewed Kyle Hollis, DMD, Chief Clinical Officer of SGA Dental Partners, about how a values-based, clinician-aligned strategy has allowed SGA to expand rapidly while preserving quality care and culture.
The conversation centered on how to resolve the inherent friction between growth and operational excellence. As a fully digital dental lab, Dandy has developed a lab model that empowers DSOs to align leadership and clinicians around a shared, scalable foundation for growth. With more than 150 locations across 10 states, SGA Dental Partners has emerged as a model for scaling without sacrificing provider autonomy or patient outcomes.
Five takeaways:
Note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
1. Aligning on patient care as the North Star
Every strategic decision at SGA is filtered through a single lens: Does this improve patient care? Dr. Hollis emphasized that alignment on this guiding principle allows the organization to grow without losing its clinical identity.
“There can’t be trade-offs between growth and excellence,” Dr. Hollis said.
SGA maintained high standards across facilities by setting a clear bar for clinical excellence and allowing each practice to meet it in its own way. This shift moved the focus away from rigid standardization and toward shared values.
2. Provider buy-in through co-creation, not compliance
Rather than mandating change from the top down, SGA brings providers into key decisions — from lab selection to compliance standards. According to Dr. Hollis, this model turns change into a collaborative process.
“It’s not just about communication, it’s about co-creation,” he said.
This approach has driven high adoption of new initiatives and contributed to what Dr. Hollis called “best-in-class” physician retention across the network.
3. Data is a navigation tool, not just a report card
SGA treats data as a means to steer the organization, not simply track it. Dr. Hollis noted that clinicians can be subjective in decision-making, and data helps ground conversations in reality.
“We think about data as a navigating tool rather than a reporting tool,” he said. “It helps us coach providers individually and come up with solutions for them.”
The organization often builds custom tools to track metrics that matter, particularly around clinical quality and practice growth potential.
4. Slowing down to speed up
While SGA has grown rapidly, Dr. Hollis credited its success to deliberate pauses that ensure sustainable integration. “We constantly feel the pressure to go fast,” he said. “But when we slowed down that was often the smarter decision because we saw better long-term results.”
This included taking time to pilot new initiatives, gather provider feedback and ensure the infrastructure could support growth.
5. Values as the ultimate flywheel
The session concluded with reflections on how the shared principles discussed have shaped both Dandy and SGA into the organizations they are today.. For SGA, patient-centered care leads to clinician alignment, which enables smart use of data and thoughtful growth. This flywheel effect is what keeps SGA’s culture intact even as it scales.
SGA’s experience offers a roadmap for DSOs looking to expand without eroding trust or quality. It also underscores a broader insight: growth and excellence aren’t mutually exclusive — if guided by the right principles.
Dandy echoed this perspective, sharing how similar principles informed its own consolidation journey. By moving from managing a network of third-party labs to building two state-of-the-art facilities and bringing lab work fully in-house, Dandy improved quality, consistency, and control—further aligning its operations with the needs of growing DSOs.
