Most of the dental industry tends to view DSOs and private practice like oil and vinegar — they simply don't, or shouldn't, mix. However, not everyone is on board with viewing the two as opposing forces.
Scott Asnis, DDS, founder, CEO, and director of dentistry at Dental365, has lived both sides of the DSO versus private practice conversation.
Dental365 is a DSO that consists of private practices. "I see value in both models, so I just combined the two," Dr. Asnis said. In addition to founding and leading his DSO, Dr. Asnis had two private practices for 35 years.
Dr. Asnis spoke with Becker's to discuss how DSOs and private dental practices can coexist.
Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: How would you describe the current relationship between DSOs and private practices?
Dr. Scott Asnis: Getting better all the time. I can really speak for myself when I first started this company in 2014. I knew very little about DSOs, the same way a lot of dentists didn't know then and still don't know. And of course, I had a negative impression of DSOs. I thought they were clinics. After opening a few and meeting some of the leaders of the successful DSOs, I kind of changed my mind. They, like me, care deeply about great clinical outcomes in patients. So there are a lot of really dynamite CEOs that are disruptors in dentistry. I feel that things have changed drastically and for the better. In 2014 when I started, [DSOs] had a very bad connotation, and I think things are getting better.
Q: How do you anticipate the relationship between DSOs and private practices changing over the next 10 years?
SA: I think that with technology changing so quickly and younger dentists really wanting and demanding all these new technologies, that all these private practices are gonna be consolidated into DSOs that know how to support private practices. There's a great paradigm shift in dentistry — molecular dentistry is here to stay. It's very hard as private practitioners to be able to keep up with all the new technology, and to be able to implement it is very expensive.
Q: Can you dive a bit deeper into what a future where DSOs and private practices are coexisting looks like?
SA: I think that dentists want to have clinical autonomy. DSOs are now understanding how important that is and [they're] allowing doctors to be aligned with the DSO, make clinical decisions and make decisions about the formulary. It's just not about profitability, it's about doing the right thing for patients. I'm very proud to be part of the new thoughts of DSOs [that are] caring deeply about great clinical outcomes and caring about what's best for the patient.
Q: What is missing from this conversation?
SA: I believe that some DSOs do not care enough about doing dentistry right. Dentistry is extremely difficult, to do it well is even harder. So it's [the DSOs'] job to support dentists, to help them and give them everything they need to make dentistry easier. That's really the whole thing. That's what a DSO should be doing.