Executives from eight dental companies recently connected with Becker's to illustrate how they plan to expand their presence and networks in 2024:
Dentistry could become a leader in AI use: VideaHealth CEO
Florian Hillen. Founder and CEO of VideaHealth (Boston): We want to continue bringing better health to millions of patients through AI. We are massively expanding our customer user base. The second thing is that we want to build on our excellence. We are now getting to a scale where we are all about delivering excellent experiences to our customers across the board and that continues to be our focus, as well as continuously innovating on our product to make it easier to use as well as expanding the insights: more detections of potential diseases.
Why Benevis will prioritize dental care accessibility and workforce training in 2024
Bryan Carey. CEO of Benevis (Atlanta): We are adding what we call expanded services [by adding] endodontists, oral surgeons and orthodontic suites. Most of our expansion is taking the existing footprint and providing more of the necessary care for our existing patient base. Probably later in 2024, [we'll] look at some places where we have truly expanded footprint, but for now, it's really trying to take [care of the] total care needs of our existing population.
The trend that could accelerate DSO consolidation
Kristen Cusack. CEO of Phase 1 Equity (Southlake, Texas): Our key strategy is to find visionary, entrepreneurial and passionate doctors and build an infrastructure that enables them to thrive and grow. It begins and ends with great partners who want to live the "best of private practice with the best of private equity" vision with us.
MB2 Dental hopes to build on momentum in 2024: Q&A with Dr. Chris Villanueva
Chris Villanueva, DMD. Founder and CEO of MB2 Dental (Dallas): To expand and grow our footprint, MB2 Dental is focused on building market density in key geographies where we can leverage the referral synergies between our general and specialty practices. We also are continuing to grow through the opportunistic opening of de novo locations and facility expansions and helping transition associate doctors into ownership opportunities.
Why 1 DSO leader is following the housing market
Mike Friguletto. CEO of Beacon Oral Specialists (Dallas): We are a surgeon-led and surgeon-empowered organization, and our number one growth strategy is to tell more surgeon-led, independent practices throughout the U.S. about Beacon. To expand our footprint means that we need to get our message out to more surgeons about what Beacon is all about.
Heartland Dental plans to add 130+ offices in 2024: Q&A
Mark Greenstein. Chief Growth Officer of Heartland Dental (Effingham, Ill.): We plan to affiliate with the nation's leading practices and doctors in the best markets by expanding our development team capabilities and forming strategic partnerships with the nation's highest quality brokers and intermediaries. We also plan to partner to build and relocate 95 to 100 new, ground-up practices, each with 10-12 chairs, in the nation's fastest-growing markets and prime-anchored real estate. Additionally, we aim to affiliate with small groups with demonstrated clinical and operational excellence, multiyear growth potential and robust infrastructure.
Why service is just as important as growth for DSOs
Greg White, DMD. President and CEO of PepperPointe Partnerships (Lexington, Ky.): I look at that in two different ways. One is expanding the external footprint beyond where we currently are, and then secondly, how do we fill in the footprint of where we currently are? Our model is a little different in that we're aggregating individual solo practices into group practices and uniting them and then secondarily help guiding them through once they're united. Our primary focus is to seek out like-minded individuals that place high value on the things that we value such as legacy, doctor ownership and control and coming up with a plan for them to achieve their very best outcome.
Smile Doctors' CEO plans for smart growth in 2024
J. Hedrick. CEO of Smile Doctors (Dallas): We like to move into new states where we know we have enough scale to be able to support those practices at a high level. We don't often go into a new state with just one practice, and if we do that practice tends to be a large practice and we have a belief we can put other practices around it. When we look at new state entry, we're very open to it, but we want to make sure we are delivering on the promises we are making. We're also less worried about going into new states because the market is still significantly fragmented. We don't grow by geography, we grow within concentric circles around our doctors.