This month, dental leaders spoke with Becker’s about a multitude of topics ranging from insurance, acquisition strategies, technology and more.
Here is what 10 dental executives told us in April:
PDS Health moves medical-dental integration forward with new venture: Q&A
Preston Raulerson. President of PDS Health Technology: The aspiration is medical-dental integration. The research shows mouth-body connection is important, but it stays an aspiration, and you have this tool limitation that you impose on yourself if you don’t solve for that. So, [what we’re focused on] with this new business helping others is being able to say, Okay, if you have this medical-grade EHR and if you have it appropriately configured to the care you’re giving within the oral health arena, you can now use this and educate yourself on a patient’s medical history without putting the full burden on the patient to show up with all of their information … That’s too much of a burden to put on a patient, and especially with technology, with interoperability, the design needs to be that we’re collaborating with the rest of the patient’s care team, the rest of their larger healthcare universe. By having Epic and having the access to medical records for patients, it now puts us in a position of not asking the patient to carry every ounce of that. We can talk about the mouth-body connection, not in theoreticals, but we can say, “Hey, it looks like you might have this medical condition and you’re seeing this healthcare partner that we know in the community to help solve it. Did you know that if we align the treatments you’re doing there with the treatments we’re going to do for oral health, there’s a synergy. You’ll get better quicker across your whole body.” At the crux of it, that’s the conversation that we want to enable our dentists and our clinicians to have.
What’s holding dentistry back: 6 dentists weigh in
Stacey Verkler, DDS. Knellinger Dental Excellence (Palm Harbor, Fla.): One of the biggest factors holding dentistry back from further growth and innovation is the excessive amount of time wasted dealing with insurance companies. These companies often operate without accountability, engaging in anti-competitive practices that harm both providers and patients. They delay reimbursements, deny necessary treatments and impose arbitrary rules that interfere with clinical decisions. This puts a significant strain on small dental businesses, making it harder for them to compete, thrive or invest in innovative technologies and patient care improvements.
The contradictory trend emerging in oral surgery
Richard Hall. President and CEO of U.S. Oral Surgery Management: What we’re seeing so far this year is a continuation of the market being a little softer. Coming out of last year, we saw the market being soft, and I think that’s continuing in 2025. Last year, it was pretty well known that general dentistry was only slightly up and orthodontia was flat or down. We’re a 90% referral-based specialty, so we rely on patients going to general dentists and other specialists and ultimately being referred to us for the oral surgery care they need. So, we’re continuing to see some softness in the market in that regard. Implants are actually up a little bit from the prior year. So, that’s kind of a contradictory trend when you think about the overall macro market conditions in the economy in general. You would think that implants, which tend to be a little bit more discretionary by nature, would be the first affected, but that doesn’t appear to be the case thus far this year.
How the interstate compact will aid dentists, DSOs
Andrew Smith, CEO of the Association of Dental Support Organizations: We believe that this compact, once it’s actually working and moving, will be getting the clinicians to where the patients are. Our point of view, ADA’s point of view and the ADHA’s point of view is that it’s really going to deliver more patient care. More importantly, it is really supporting the modern practice of dentistry. Thirty years ago, you came out of dental school, you go work for a solo practitioner and you’re going to be in those four walls. That’s not how it happens today. The cost of dental school is highly expensive, so more and more dentists are not staying in just one place. The compact not only develops that access to care, but it really is supporting the profession of dentistry to make sure that the dentists are able to go where they have more freedom and more flexibility.
How 1 payer is advancing medical-dental integration
Daniel Croley, DMD. Chief Dental Officer of Delta Dental of California and Affiliates: Our identity is built on our understanding of us as a health plan. We are very connected with providers. It is through that partnership that healthcare is actually delivered. We sit in the center of an ecosystem of care delivery, so we help providers see the things they may not actually see within their own scope of practice because they’re focused on that delivery of care. As the entire ecosystem around healthcare has recognized, this is a very complicated multi-factorial equation of getting people to health. It involves education. It involves funding. It involves care delivery. It involves referrals to different types of care deliverers. So, our collaboration with other stakeholders helps us bring providers into that understanding of how they appropriately contribute to the overall health of the patients who are sitting in their chair.
Payer negotiations, acquisitions, and more: Inside Mortenson Dental Partners’ growth strategy
Bill Becknell. CEO of Mortenson Dental Partners: Since the pandemic, we’ve been growing in a three-tiered approach. Initially, we started with organic [growth.] We’re trying to expand in the practices that had existing capacity along with an adjacent revenue cycle management strategy to grow our reimbursements. We’re pretty effective with both of those. We were running about 10% growth for the years after the pandemic. We’ve also moved more recently into a practice expansion mode. So we’re looking at practices in which the team and the patient base are ready to expand, and then moving into adjacent real estate to the left or the right of our current facility, expanding into that and adding more operatories and more team members to care for patients. Also, we recently did an acquisition of the West 10th Dental Group to add to our business, and we’re looking to do more of those in the future.
What DSOs should consider when making acquisitions
J. Hedrick. CEO of Smile Doctors: Anytime you do something this big, there are unexpected challenges, or maybe there are expected challenges that you just don’t know what they’ll be. You know you’re going to have some hurdles, you just maybe don’t know exactly where you’re going to hit them. I really compliment the myOrthos legacy leadership and doctors. We worked together in a really transparent and open way. There were things where we had thought that this might not work for us, or this might be an issue that we need to address beforehand. We all wanted this to work, which is great. If you have the same objective in mind, it makes it a lot easier.
There’s always financial hurdles and different challenges and things that come up at all minutes, not just the last minute, but certainly sometimes in the last minute. The team just worked together with the problem solving mentality. I’m really pleased with the effort from both sides and getting to a deal that I think is mutually advantageous for everybody.
The keys to fostering strong dental cultures
Akeyla Brown, DDS. Clinical Director for DEI and Community Engagement at Max Surgical Specialty Management: If everyone aligns on a vision and that vision is altruistic in nature, doing the right thing for everyone on board being the patients, staff and colleagues, I think that that fosters a really good culture because you’re doing the right thing. It’s easy to develop a really great culture because it’s considerate of everyone. I think also developing a good culture is to expect and desire diversity in whatever form that comes, and then to just really be cognizant of respecting one another and our experiences and how different we all are. Creating a safe environment where people can discuss their needs and also present their differences and be accepted and celebrated in order to present the best product possible. Those are elements that are important to developing a great culture, and I think that we definitely do that at MAX.
The unexpected headwinds facing dentistry
Richard Huot, DDS. CEO of Beachside Dental Consultants (Vero Beach, Fla.): Because of anticipated cuts in the federal budget, this will have a ripple effect in individual state budgets, and may cause healthcare expenditures or related programs to be cut in turn. If you are one of the 41 states that expanded Medicaid, there is a risk that the feds will lower the 90% level they now fund for the expansion portion of Medicaid reimbursement initiated during COVID-19. If states decide to continue the Medicaid expansion level that the feds lower by funding it themselves, this leaves less money for other types of programs. Some states have already cut or curtailed workforce programs meant to increase the size of dental hygiene or dental assistant classes, or workforce programs in general. One of the most likely “victims” of this would be potential funds to promote an increase in Medicaid fee reimbursement, to attract more dentists to take the state program.
ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers targets 1 million smiles by 2030
Theresa Wang, DDS. Chief Clinical and Development Officer at ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers: There’s going to be tremendous enhancement through [artificial intelligence] in diagnostics and treatment planning. I love the fact that this facilitates better communication with patients, meaning likely translating to better treatment acceptance and understanding between provider and patient. The second thing is, materials and manufacturing have evolved at such a rapid pace over just the last three to five years, and it’s only going to continue. I think that is going to enhance access to various treatment options for our patients as well as providers, and will also help optimize efficiencies for our practices. Finally, I do think we see some trends in the commercial side of dentistry promoting speed to finishing treatment, and this may benefit the providers more than patients, so we want to combat that with our treatment delivery approach, and we want to ensure patients are fully informed to make the best decisions for the long term, so being there years to come after their treatment has been delivered will be really important to the dental implant Industry.
