The dental workforce is in short supply, reimbursements are flat and AI is accelerating. Ask dental executives where they’d deploy fresh capital today, and each lands in the same place: building the kind of workforce that technology can amplify, not replace.
The consensus cuts across different practice models, including a value-based care operator, a tech-first DSO and a specialty dental group — but the investment logic is the same: the workforce problem and the technology opportunity are now the same problem.
These three dentists and DSO executives shared how and where they would use an infusion of new capital at Becker’s 5th Annual Future of Dentistry Roundtable in Chicago.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: If you had fresh capital to deploy today, where would you invest first?
Manu Chaudhry, DDS. President of Capitol Dental Care (Salem, Ore.): For me, it would be in workforce development. We are currently doing a pilot in Southern Oregon with dental assistants who are capable of performing anesthetics, and so I would like to roll that out across multiple different sites. The second thing would be technology. We are rolling out an oral health score with Overjet. If I had a little bit more capital, I would try to roll that out faster. We live in a world of value-based care. All of our contracts have been dependent on it since 2012, and so the earlier I can get out and help prevent the healthcare costs associated with emergency department visits for non-traumatic dental conditions, that is alleviating cost burdens for Capitol Dental Care.
Ellen Polsky, DDS. CEO of DashCare Group (Seattle): We’re actually aggressively investing in technology. For example, we entirely eliminated the front desk by replacing it with kiosks. That kiosk now is getting more AI agents in there and we have AI employees running alongside our humans. Many times, people who were working at our front desks were amazing treatment coordinators, and they were doing these mundane tasks of checking in the patients. So we decided to do a reshuffle. That doesn’t mean that our current employees lost their jobs. For example, we train employees in our billing department for two years. I’m not going to lose these people, but I’m certainly going to deploy AI employees alongside, so they can actually get more valuable work done.
Sami Webb, DDS. CEO of Epic4 Specialty Partners (Scottsbluff, Neb.): I would agree, with investment priorities being people and then in infrastructure and technology. Of course, if there were a great partner that came along who had a great practice that was interested in growth that fit our model, obviously we would use the capital for acquisition purposes. We want to be hiring associates, really developing them and creating leadership opportunities, not just the doctors but also the teams. As labor expenses rise, I’ve heard people talk about how there are not enough team members. They’re leaving. They can’t retain them. I think we have to be able to take away some of those repetitive administrative burdens that our teams face every day, so that they could really focus on the things that only humans can do, and I think that’s where technology comes in.
At the Becker's 5th Annual Future of Dentistry Roundtable, taking place September 14-15 in Chicago, dental leaders and executives will gain insights into emerging technologies, practice growth strategies and the evolving landscape of dental care delivery, with a focus on innovation, patient experience and operational excellence. Apply for complimentary registration now.
