🎥Watch Group Dentistry Now's "Emerging Dental Groups to Watch in 2024" Award Ceremony and Q&A Panel

The Group Dentistry Now “Emerging Dental Groups to Watch in 2024” awards, hosted at HR for Health’s DSO Leadership Summit, highlighted the achievements of innovative dental groups making a significant impact on the industry. For those who couldn’t join us in person, we’ve got you covered! We recorded the excitement, inspiration, and wisdom, so you won’t miss a thing. Below are two videos: one features the full awards presentation, and the other showcases the Q&A panel.

Group Dentistry Now‘s annual Emerging Groups to Watch (EGTW) award is dedicated to recognizing smaller, emerging dental groups/DSOs that, while often operating outside the spotlight, play a vital role in transforming dental care. If your dental group is interested in applying for the 2025 Emerging Groups to Watch list, please reach out to info@GroupDentistryNow.com.

2024’s award winners, the most diverse group we’ve ever recognized, showcased a wide array of innovative approaches, strategic business models, and commitment to proactive care:

AWARD PRESENTATION:

Q&A PANEL:

If your dental group is interested in applying for the 2025 Emerging Groups to Watch list, please reach out to info@GroupDentistryNow.com.

Click HERE to read the winning submissions from our EGTW 2024 award winners.

Watch our RECORDED WEBINAR with the 2024 EGTW winners HERE.

Full Transcripts

The 2024 Emerging Dental Groups to Watch Winners’ acceptance speeches:

Gary Takis:
Alright guys, one of the really cool things about the DSO Leadership Summit is the variety of the panels. And I happen to think that this is one of the coolest panels. So I’m going to test you really quick. Remember way back in the morning Like earlier today, does anyone remember that? And I shared with you that your team members want something more than anything else. Remember that, Jimmy? What did I say? The team members, you can call a friend if you want, Jimmy, I can be your friend. What do team members want more than anything else? You’re right, recognition. And so we are going to do that now by recognizing some DSOs, emerging groups, to watch. And I’m going to ask Kim Larson to come on up. And Kim, you’re going to talk a little bit about the awards and what this is all about. And this is kind of cool, because this is you guys. These are your colleagues. And we’ve got some celebrating to do on some emerging practices to watch.

Kim Larson: Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Group Dentistry Now Emerging Groups to Watch Awards. It’s a true honor to have you all here with us today to celebrate what has become a landmark event in the industry. This year marks Group Dentistry Now’s eighth year of celebrating Emerging Groups to Watch, and it’s our fourth consecutive year of hosting the awards at the DSO Leadership Summit. A special thank you goes out to all of our incredible partners at HR4Health. Ali, Ralph, Jill, Sarah, and the rest of the team, with your unwavering support and dedication to the DSO industry, it has helped make this event possible. Looking back, the industry has come such a long way since we first launched Group Dentistry Now over a decade ago. While the spotlight often shines on a few large groups, there are thousands of smaller, yet equally impactful emerging groups, and they are quietly but powerfully transforming the dental landscape. As the shift toward the group dentistry model accelerates, we at Group Dentistry Now are proud to champion this movement and give voice to the innovation happening in the field. This year’s winners represent the most diverse group we have ever had the pleasure of recognizing. Among them, we have two husband and wife teams, a mobile care DSO dedicated to serving underserved youth, a consulting firm that evolved into a dental group, a group led mostly by women, and our very first international winner, hailing all the way from Australia. And that’s just a glimpse of the variety. Without further ado, I am thrilled to announce this year’s winners in alphabetical order. and invite them to the stage to accept their awards. The first award goes to Aereo Dental Group, founded and led by a talented husband and wife team who are also dentists. Their success rate is undeniable, with a three-year growth rate of 86%, landing them on the Inc. 5000 2023 and 2024 lists of America’s fastest-growing privately held companies. They have also had zero doctor turnover in the past two years. Accepting the award on behalf of Aereo are co-founders and co-CEOs, Dr. Anushka Gaglani and Dr. Abhishek Nagaraj.

Dr. Nagaraj, Areo Dental Group: Thank you so very much. We truly appreciate having us in this room today. Three things that I want to say while we’re on this stage. Growing is hard. Not growing is hard. Deciding who gets promoted in your business is hard. Strategy is hard. Having no strategy is hard. Pursuit of excellence is hard. Showing up every day to do the work is hard. Being a dentist is hard. Being CEOs is hard. Running a multi-site practice operations is hard. It’s all hard. You have to pick your hard. At Aereo Dental, we try to do the hard things and we lean into them every single day. We hire, fire, and reward people based on who can do the hard things every single day. This award serves as a great reminder of all the hard things that resilient team members do every day. This is something we’re extremely proud of. Secondly, dentistry has been following the heels of medicine, where we’re sometimes stuck doing things that are more reactive than proactive. I truly believe Aerodental is playing its part in paving the way for Dentistry 3.0, and here’s what Dentistry 3.0 looks like in our lens. More prospective instead of retrospective in our policies and approach. Proactive instead of reactive in our treatment planning and case acceptance. Personalized instead of generic with our team members and patients. Lastly and most importantly, we’re so grateful to our parents who made many sacrifices without whom Anushka and I would have no right to be standing here today. We also want to take this opportunity to thank Bill Neumann and Kim Larson, who’ve been so encouraging and supporting of us all along the way, along with so many others who have helped us. We want to thank our operations team, led by Kaitlin. We want to thank our finance team, led by Austin. We want to thank our marketing team, led by Kevin, all of whom have helped shape Aerial Dental into what it is today. Thank you so very much. We’re extremely grateful.

Kim Larson: Congratulations, guys. Our next award goes to Blue Sage Dental Group, a thriving organization that specializes in children’s dentistry across two brands and six locations. What sets Blue Sage apart is their commitment to creating pathways for upward mobility within their team. They actively cultivate leadership, fostering an environment where team members can grow and thrive. With a 20% annual revenue increase, Blue Sage expands by adding one or two new offices each year. Looking ahead, their goal is to maintain this 20% growth rate annually for the next five years. Accepting the award on behalf of Blue Sage is managing partner Dr. Corey Hastings. Congratulations.

Dr. Cory Hastings, Blue Tree Dental Group: Thank you. So very impressed. I don’t know if any of you were there last year. This was done in a bar. And so I appreciate the upgrade and being done in a hurricane this year. So thank you. Thank you in all seriousness. Thank you Bill and Kim for allowing us the opportunity to showcase what we do every day. Our team it just confirms the mission that they’re doing their leadership And so just appreciate the opportunity for this award I want to give a few shoutouts to our five favorite team members that could make it now We’re an emerging group. So we have an emerging group budget. So You guys keep doing what you’re doing, thank you for believing in the vision keep leading it’s because of you guys that we have this award if I could break it into five pieces I would Thank you to my beautiful wife who’s here, Kelly. She’s recording somewhere to prove to the team that we are not out golfing and that we’re actually getting an award. And then I’d like to thank some people that aren’t here. Michelle Brumfield, who couldn’t make it. We have what’s called a flat Stanley. I don’t know what that is, but that’s what that is. Our director of operations, without her, the catalyst for growth wouldn’t have occurred. I’d like to thank our business partners, Dr. Jeff, Dr. Becky, Our coach, Steve DeLong from Blue Tree Dental, get them confused. And then I would like to send a personal thank you to my children, Graham and Grace. They provide me the motivation every day to wake up and inspire these people to help other people. So thank you guys.

Kim Larson: Congratulations, everybody. Our next award goes to Commonwealth Mobile Oral Health Services, a pioneering organization with a rich history of service. It was founded in 1979 by the late Dr. Mark J. Doherty to provide comprehensive dental care to underserved youth in the Boston area where access to dental providers was scarce. Today, Commonwealth has expanded its reach tremendously, with dental teams traveling to over 300 locations across Massachusetts. On any given day, between three to six mobile dental teams are providing essential services to underinsured and uninsured populations who face significant barriers to accessing dental care. Accepting the award on behalf of Commonwealth, is executive director and partner, Dr. Mark E. Doherty.

Dr. Mark E. Doherty, Commonwealth Mobile Oral Health Services: So certainly an amazing moment right now, and I’m going to share with you why. Several years ago, when I started to get into the DSO space to research the space, I had a lot of go-to resources. And funny enough, Group Dentistry Now was one of those major resources. And what really drew me to them was the messaging that they had, the articles that they put out, And they really seemed to be on the pulse of what was happening in the DSO space. And, you know, for me, that meant a lot. It was a good resource. And then I started getting on LinkedIn, and I see this Bill Neumann guy showing up everywhere. Like every other week, he’s at a different DSO location, giving them props. And I’m like, geez, you know, this guy’s really in the mix here. Earlier this year, you know, we got word that we were a recipient of this award. And with that, I got to know Kim and Bill better. And with that, I got a glimpse at who they are, how dedicated they are, how passionate they are about what they do, and all the time they put in what they do. So, you know, I already looked at Group Dentistry Now as an icon in this space. And to be up here, to be receiving this award, you know, is a pinch me moment, is a moment where it’s very humbling for me. So, so grateful and thankful to Group Dentistry Now, thankful to HR for Health for hosting this event, and certainly congratulations to the other awardees tonight. You know, I was actually taught at a young age that if you surround yourself with great people, great things will happen. And I implemented that into my life with sports, with programs, with my dental career. But I also learned that, yeah, if you surround yourself with great people, great things will happen. But if you surround yourself with passionate people, people have a similar likeness of what that vision of success looks like. People who do the extra, the extra little to get the job done, you can have even a greater practice or greater business or greater opportunities. And I can stand up here today as the face of Camos and receive this award, but we all know that I’m actually a small part or piece of our success. And what it really goes to is to these people behind me here. So my amazing program manager, Tammy Cataldo, our exceptional billing specialist, Shelly Young, some of our others who couldn’t make it, Andrea Dickout, who’s our senior consultant. And Jen Redding, who is our HR person and outreach coordinator, and of course our dentists, our assistants, our hygienists. The work that they do and the commitment that they make in putting this above all else in their lives is what makes us different. And I would also say, yes, we provide services to patient populations, but we’re providing services to patients who otherwise would not get the care. So this is to you guys. Love you guys. You’re the best. And thank you all.

Kim Larson: Our next award goes to Freedom Dental Health Systems, the largest privately held DSO in Delaware. Operating in Delaware presents unique challenges not found in other states. The state maintains its own board exam for dental licensure and requires either residency or three years of practice reciprocity, making recruiting more difficult. Despite these obstacles, Freedom has grown from $13.5 million in revenue in 2015 to an impressive $26 million in 2023. Accepting the award on behalf of Freedom is CEO John Moore and Chief Business Officer Kelly Chernobyl.

John T. Moore, Freedom: Well, thank you very much. There’s an awful lot to say, and I understand I have a very short time to say it. And I have a lot of gratitude that I want to express on behalf of myself and this group of wonderful people who have absolutely earned every bit of this. Much of the blame for our success falls to Kim Larson and Bill Neumann, who Ten years ago we sort of began on this journey and sort of last like the last recipient. We started crossing paths all the time and Bill eventually guided us to group dentistry now and to this summit and other meetings like it. And we set out on this journey to stop being too small practices and to become an emerging group and eventually a DSL. All of you who came here. for this, you’re like-minded entrepreneurial people and you’re in the right place. Along the way on this journey, Brian Kaleo and the team from Dykema helped us paper everything up and get compliant. HR for Health gave us accountability across all of our different operations. Dental Intel taught us what KPIs look like and why we should be measuring them. John McClure and the people at Align Dental Partners eventually taught us how to scale and we stopped being sort of a Pinocchio DSO and became a real live DSO. And to kind of update what Kim had just said, at the time that we entered this thing, we were very proud to have gone from 13 to 26 million. We did successfully go through a merger in June. which puts us at 17 practices and we’re on target to now be doing about 40 million with an EBIT of 11 and a half. So, thank you. Two very special people I have to mention are my wife and my daughter who have put up with me for the last 25 years on this dental journey and the passion that I have been able to live while probably being a pain in the ass. But the people who really earned this award are sharing the stage with me here today. Thank you. Combined, I think we have about 85 years of leadership and friendship. And these are some of my favorite humans in the whole world. We would not have been here without them. Please, everybody, give these guys a hand. Anyway, John Schwind, Marisol Vega, Lauren Boddy, Dawn O’Connell, and Kelly Cernobyl. Anyway, thank you very much.

Kim Larson: Congratulations, guys. Sure. OK. Our next award goes to Impression Dental Group, our first ever international winner, hailing all the way from Australia. Since its launch in late 2021, Impression has truly transformed the dental landscape in Australia. Impression operates by the philosophy of your network, your way. preserving the distinctiveness of each clinic while driving success across the network. This approach has led to impressive revenue and EBITDA growth, even as the broader Australian dental market has faced declines. They are also committed to ethical and sustainable business practices, addressing healthcare gaps for indigenous peoples, and bringing essential dental services to children across Australia with their mobile dentistry unit. Accepting the award on behalf of Impression is CEO and Director Mark O’Brien.

Mark O’Brian, Impression Dental Group: Congratulations. Well, thank you. To borrow from the other, Mark, this really is a truly a pinch me moment. I’m just hoping that everybody in the room remembers Hendrik this morning, who was saying process. I’m channeling a little bit of Hendrik now, because I think there’s some Aussie in him as well. Anyway, it’s an absolute thrill to be here. It’s an absolute honour to be the first international recipient of this award. It’s only possible through the team that I’ve been able to create. From our humble beginnings only a couple of years ago, We had a mandate to come in and disrupt the way that group dentistry was done in Australia, to really be focused on our practitioners, to focus on learning and development, but importantly, to do things right with integrity. If my team was here, and for obvious reasons they’re not, I would be thanking them, Cindy, my CFO, Katie, our Head of Operations, Edward, our Chief Marketing Officer, and Lillian, who drives our M&A and growth strategy. Without those people in my team, I wouldn’t be able to do half as much as what I can. It’s an exciting time for us. We are growing rapidly. We intend to be the market leader in Australia, which is maturing, and it’s an absolute thrill to be here. A big thank you to Bill and Kim in the early days when I was looking for resources and looking for the best in the world. Again, I’m going to pinch this phrase, but Bill just kept coming up in my LinkedIn feed. So, I naturally reached out. And over the years, we’ve established a great relationship. And I thank you for being here and have a great conference. Thanks.

Kim Larson: Congratulations, Mark. Our next award goes to Southern Family Dental Partners, where women comprise 80% of their leadership team. Their strategic emphasis on enhancing efficiencies and attracting top talent has driven their success, particularly in underserved, rural, and mid-sized communities. One of Southern Family’s key strengths is its collaborative approach to problem solving. They foster an environment where ideas, systems, and processes are continually refined and optimized based on input from dentists, teams, and their patients. They have had an aggressive growth strategy and over the next five years they plan to grow up to 50 locations to up to 50 locations and triple their revenue. Accepting the award on behalf of Southern Family is CEO Juloy Raymer.

Juloy Raymer, SFDP: Thank you Group Dentistry Now for this amazing award. I am so honored to be leading Southern Family Dental as we are extending the legacy of our founding dentist in serving mid-range and rural and small communities within the Southeast. It is such a privilege to be able to bring excellent health care to that community. I have an amazing team that do so much work, countless hours. We are definitely a startup in many ways. And that means that we work many, many hours. So I’m so thankful for my VPs of operation, Brandy and Heather, my wonderful marketing leader in Veronica, who is here with me today, my controller, Robert, my business development lead in Kevin, as well as my recruiter, who is amazing, Montana, as well as my HR lead, Brandy. These people work countless hours and are really the heart and soul of Southern Family Dental. I also have a great VP of integration in Maddie Hostin who does so much to make sure that as we bring on new practices that they are integrated so well within the culture of Southern Family Dental. So I’m so very thankful to not only those people but also their families who give up so much of the time with their dads or spouses or their kids so that they can work so hard before our mission. Additionally, we would not be the company that we are without our amazing dentists who give countless hours pro bono to victims of domestic abuse and serving our veterans in addition to providing the care in the communities that we serve. I’m so very grateful for the dentists that we have within our platform. Additionally, we have an amazing group of hygienists, dental assistants, practice managers, and patient coordinators. Those are the people who really are in front of our patients day in and day out and providing the amazing care that we’re able to give. Thank you so much for this award.

Kim Larson: Congratulations. Our final award goes to Strain Dental Management. Founded in 2022 with 33 locations, the emerging dental group is the result of the shared vision of husband-wife duo, Olivia and Carrie Strain. Strain Dental Management is the first DSO to emerge from a 30-year consulting organization specializing in strategic planning, conflict and performance management, data analysis, and engagement protocols. With an impressive three year growth rate of 185%, they earned a spot on the Inc 5000 list as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in America. Their goal is to reach an estimated total revenue of 200 plus million by the end of 2024. Accepting the award on behalf of Strain are co-founders and co-CEOs, Olivia and Kerry Strain.

Olivia Straine: There’s a Chinese proverb that says, to know the road ahead, talk to those coming back. It’s been a surprise, a surprising 32 year journey to get to this point. And I’m very proud of the innovations that Carrie in particular has created. And I’m honored to be your partner, love being your wife.

Kerry Straine: I love you being my wife, too. And it’s fun helping other people.

Olivia Straine: We love helping people reach their potential. And even though we’re subject matter experts in many areas, every day I wake up with a beginner’s mind. How about you?

Kerry Straine: I follow her lead. Anyway, Kim and Bill, thank you so much. Ollie and Jill, what an amazing event. I’m honored to be here. Thank all of you. And I just want to add, I mean, truly, it’s a combined effort. She has been a tremendous partner professionally, but more importantly, personally, believed in me so many years ago and tolerated, like many of you, the work schedules that I heard about from all of you. and being on the road 45 weeks a year, three to four days a week, like my friend Gary over there. And then laying out this foundation and committing to extending our careers beyond what most people think is reasonable. And then a special thanks back to our management team in Sacramento. We’ve got an amazing 29 people that support all our practices. So thank you very much.

Kim Larson: Congratulations. Congratulations once again to all of our award winners today. By the way, there was just not much time to talk about each of the groups, so if you’re interested in learning more about them, of course, you know where to go, groupdentistrynow.com, type in Emerging Groups to Watch, in 2024 and you’ll get to learn a little bit more about them, as well as in a few minutes there’s going to be a Q&A panel discussion and Bill’s going to lead that. So here’s to the continued success of all of these outstanding organizations as they continue to shape the future of the group dental industry. If your group is interested in submitting for the 2025 award, we are now accepting applications. You can talk to us about it or just email Info at groupdentistrynow.com. So again, we invite you to stay for the emerging groups to watch Q&A panel, which will happen in this room in three minutes. So thank you everybody again. Thanks. And congratulations to all our award winners.

Insights and Lessons from the Emerging Groups to Watch 2024 Award Winners

Bill Neumann:
All right, everybody get settled, get your drinks. Awesome. Did you, did, oh my gosh, the panelists have drinks too. I don’t think that was supposed to happen. I’m just kidding. It’s all right, it’s okay. Nobody got me one though. I’m kind of disappointed. All right, well, thanks for staying for this breakout session. Great, great job, Kim. I mean, really well done and great acceptance speeches. That was a lot of fun. So just a little bit of background on the awards. Kim touched on it a little bit, but we’ve been doing the awards since 2017. And we had the ability to partner up with HR for Health about four years ago, starting in 2021, to actually give out these awards and celebrate the winners. And I think this has really been the best way to do that. We did do that. Did Corey mention this? We did it at a bar, and it was a little noisy. Unfortunately, it was just hard to hear the acceptance speeches. So this has worked out really well. But what we wanted to do is also really take more time with the winners to learn a little bit more about how they’ve scaled up, some of the challenges and successes, get to know them a little bit more. So that’s what we’re going to do here for the next 45 minutes. And then we’ve got a 90s party. that we’re going to have right after this, which should be fun. Trying to figure out what, you know, the attire was for a 90s party. I’m a little, you know, old to kind of figure that out. So I think it’s flannel. I think grunge is probably, would be the look, but does anybody have any other, does anybody have any outfits? A surprise. OK. All right. It’s a surprise. So we’re just going to jump on here. So everybody was here, right, for the awards. You probably know all the award winners. We’re not going to go through all the names again, because they came up to get the awards. But what I will do is I’m going to click to this final slide here. We did a webinar, was it about a month ago? And what we did was we, people registered for the webinar, like people normally do, and every registrant asked a question. And so we had, I think it was about 150 registrants that we had. Not quite 150 questions, but close to that. And so the questions that I have here are from the webinar discussion that we had. If you scan that QR code, if you missed the webinar, we have a recording online. It was a great, great discussion. But what we wanted to do is answer some questions that we weren’t able to answer on the webinar, or maybe dive a little bit deeper into the ones that we weren’t able to touch on. So we’ve got a giant panel here. I think this is like the biggest panel ever. I don’t think we’ve ever had like seven people on a panel. So this is going to be challenging to get through all these questions that we have. But we’re going to try and do our best. And then at the 90s party, you can ask them any questions that you want. So I’m going to start off with Kelly. So unfortunately, Kelly wasn’t able to make the webinar. I think she came down with something. She was sick. And she was really disappointed. And she had one. question that she really wanted to answer, or really a topic. And we were talking about it this morning, and she called it embracing the suck. So the whole concept behind this, and then I’ll let you start things off, is that it’s really, really, really challenging scaling up a group practice. And I think She wanted to share some of the challenges, how she and the group have dealt with them. And I think just to let everybody know that this is pretty typical, that this is not easy. It’s not an easy business. It’s not an easy thing to do. So Kelly, why don’t you start off with, what do you mean by embracing the suck?

You stole my line. So when you first asked me to come up and do the panel for accepting the award, I was at a very interesting spot in my career and just in the trajectory of growth that we’ve been in. in the process of three acquisitions and a merge, and I think I was managing two VDRs at the time. I’m like, sure, let’s go on stage and talk about how much this sucks. Because it does, and if you don’t have a large team, which most emerging groups don’t, there’s several of you key individuals who are responsible for handling all these requests, and as you get larger and you’re trying to figure out how to scale, you’re like the teenager of DSOs. You’re making mistakes, you’re figuring it out, you’re awkward at times, and you don’t have the answers. So I just told Bill, I’m like, let’s just, while we’re celebrating the success of a lot of our groups, and this whole panel is amazing, and I’m honored to be up here, and thank you for the opportunity, but it’s hard, it’s very hard, and it’s gonna test your grit, and it’s gonna test your why, and you have to start every day with remembering why you got into this, what your goals are, and make sure you’re in alignment with your leadership team so you can move it forward the way you want to.

Thanks, Kelly. Does anybody else want to share some of the challenges and maybe how you’ve dealt with those? Because I’m sure you’re all at different points of scale, right? Some are smaller than others. Some are a little bit further along in their growth strategy. But just let me start with you, Kerry.

We made a decision to build a DSO back around 2016. So we did a roll up, and we introduced the concept to our advisors in 16, principally our attorney and somebody who’d been a CFO for the world’s largest DSO that was a client of ours at Heartland Dental. And he’d already been retired. So we started by getting their advice on the hypothesis of our business plan. Then we introduced it to a focus group. In April of 17, invited 25 practices to come into Sacramento. And then what we said is we wanted them to demonstrate a commitment to the management platform before we did any funding. So we signed them all up to a management services agreement with the management platform that was really the basics of the backbone of what we have today. And not only was it consulting, but it was accounting, it was HR and benefit program, it was legal, it was procurement, all of those things to see how they would respond to moving into alignment. COVID got in the way and then working with our investment bankers and the LOIs we’d signed with this group, we moved towards funding after an initial round with many different suitors that wanted to make an investment in us. We didn’t want equity, and we don’t have equity today except with the doctors who started out owning 80% of the equity in our holding company. Today it’s larger because we have more doctors that we’ve acquired since that date. So when we get to a recap in 2026, it will be a situation where probably 85 to 88 percent of the equity will be owned by the doctors that have already been in and will be getting in and moving forward. And their commitment is long. So we had to define exactly as we saw the rollout of the of the future capital events. What we knew that the equity firms would want to see in our commitment, having worked with large private equity firms that are in the space over the last 20 years, as well as large DSOs. Once we had that agreement and we were ready to close, we were ready, I’d say, for probably half of the challenges that ended up coming up. And there’s not a month that goes by that something new doesn’t come up. And then you just respond to it and build out the organization. I’m very grateful that, as you met my wife, Olivia, and our team in Sacramento, really do manage the entire group of practices employees and our management team. Well, our CFO, Jeff Stasier, and I focus on the M&A activity. But being dedicated to it, trying to stay ahead of it, making sure you have staff, it takes quite a large amount of capital. And as the banker said, you want to be incredibly liquid so you’ve got cushion.

Thanks, Kerry. Corey.

Yeah so I mean we have a lot of challenges but the question is what’s our biggest challenge. And since we’re a specialty group or pediatrics only recruiting providers has been our biggest challenge. There’s not a lot of pediatric dentists that want to move to St. Louis Missouri. If you’re out there please contact me. But if we had more providers we’d put our foot on the gas a little bit more. But we’re being really intentional with the private providers we do have. But we are recruiting has been our biggest challenge.

Anushka, what about you at Aereo?

Yeah, so just like everyone else, we also have a few challenges. I think our biggest one, though, is our practice leaders. I think other groups may call them practice managers. For us, we’re looking for leaders. You know, what we find is when you’re a leader, everything may not be your fault, but everything’s sure as hell is your responsibility. And we find that there are a lot of people out there who can’t communicate, they think everything’s an argument, or they can’t be held accountable, and they think everything’s an attack. And trying to find the right fit of person who will take ownership of the practice and not point fingers when things go sideways, I think has been our biggest challenge. Great.

Juloy?

I would say maintaining culture during high growth period is hard. I think that goes with recruiting with dentists, recruiting practice leaders, because you need to be able to maintain your culture, I think, to attract the same kind of talent that you’ve had. And the more that you integrate and the more that you add, I think that’s harder to do.

I’m going to we’ve got two marks, so I’m going to go mark for Massachusetts.

Thanks, Bill. So, you know, in looking at it from, you know, we’re a portable dental practice. So we go to a majority of the schools in Massachusetts. But the biggest issue for us over the years has been connectivity. So a lot of the schools that we go to are brick and mortar. And our dental providers, they set up their portable equipment in a nurse’s office, in a classroom, and treat these patients. In these brick and mortar locations, you really don’t have connectivity. You know, Wi-Fi is an issue because you have HIPAA compliance issues there. So, you know, typically our providers, they are storing that information, writing that information down, and usually entering it at the end of the day into our practice management software. So, huge issue with connectivity. So, if anyone has any resolutions for me, please reach out to me after.

Ozzy, Mark?

Thanks. We probably should have designed this setup a little bit better, but anyway. I think for us, Around seven to ten practices was the most challenging period, not to say that there’s no challenges today and we’re almost, we’ll be 30 by the end of the year. But really building out a small but nimble support office was priority number one. So that was getting a great CFO, getting a great marketer and then building someone in for recruitment because we all know that the drivers of dentistry can be often seen as fairly simple. you’re driving demand and supply. So we were a small team and I was very intentional about the types of people that I wanted to bring into the business. So that would be my recommendation is bring, and I think somebody said it early, bring someone in with the capability but also the passion to want to build a really great business. In terms of challenges now, you know, we’re kind of in that hockey stick of M&A. So for me, it’ll be keeping the culture that we’ve developed from zero to 25, to 25 to 200. And, you know, I know I’m the ambassador of that as CEO, but also personally, I think at the moment, you know, we’re at a size where I still know every practitioner, I still know each one of our partners, and I know, going forward, that will be a challenge. So it’s been great to be here today to hear some of the ideas about staying connected and staying personal with the business as it grows.

So Mark O’Brien, you touched on something that is actually going to lead into this next question here. I’m going to jump ahead, because this is one that came in through the webinar that we didn’t get a chance to answer. As a group is scaling up, you mentioned hiring the right people. From a C-suite perspective, what’s the first role you would recommend filling as somebody? I’m going to ask everybody this question. Maybe you can tell us what you did, right? But what’s that first role or the most critical you think when you’re scaling up?

Well, the first role that I filled was a CFO. And we are a PE-backed group. And so it was important that we had really robust visibility around numbers, good data insights, so it made sense for me to go out and find a great CFO. So I did that. I was lucky enough to find somebody. who’d come out of aggregations in the medical space and had scaled a business from zero to 40 in a few years. So I was used to working hard but also understood the relationship between support office and doctors. And I think that’s really important in a healthcare environment is bringing people in that understand the uniqueness of healthcare. And then quickly after that I got a head of operations. So again, It was me wearing lots of hats in the early days and bringing someone in that could drive the business forward through operations was probably the most critical next role.

When did you do it? When did you know that you needed to hire?

So the CFO straight away. So as soon as we established the business and we started with a network of 12 as the foundation acquisition. And then I’d say two, three months after that, we brought in operations. And, you know, we’ve got a very lean support office team, and it’ll stay that way. So, again, it’s been important to bring in the right people that, you know, are happy to work hard, be engaged, but understand the journey of a scaling up company.

Juloy, how about you? What would you recommend? What was your first C-suite hire?

So, head of operations. Operations. My VP’s of operations, absolutely. And then I would say as a quick second was my recruiter. because having a great recruiter that really loves recruiting at all levels, I think really allows you to grow very quickly.

Anyone else? Anushka?

Sure. So in our experience, our growth has been very organic. We started off as clinicians. We started one practice, and then we got tired of looking at each other every day. So we added a second practice. And then we realized that the third practice, OK, we need somebody to help us. So we brought a regional manager in. And as we’ve grown, we’re like, okay, we need more sophisticated help. So operations for us, Caitlin’s been instrumental to help with that. But definitely, in our experience, it’s been operations to hold the teams accountable and make sure that the strategy we’re coming up with is being executed. There’s no point in having the ideas if nobody’s executing them.

Kelly, how about at Freedom?

Well, we started off the bat with a CEO, CFO. who was originally a general manager of the original practices that started, but understood the partner’s vision for the organization, the growth trajectory that we were trying to achieve, and saw all of the talent in the different managers we had in place. So we were able to grow together as a team by recognizing, okay, this one’s specialty lies here, and then after CEO, CFO, we had ops in there, and I think he hired me as a secretary, and then we just became ops. And then after that, we went to RCM. We did that, and then after RCM, we went marketing.

Yeah. Kerry, how about you?

Well, at Strain, it was a little different. Our consulting firm is like a fractional chief operations officer. They’re in charge of everything that goes on in the field with our clients and have been, and most of them have been with us over 10, 15 years, and in some cases, over 20 years. And simultaneous to that, due to the size of the credit or the initial loan, We had to have a CFO that could communicate with the accounting department to deliver on our reporting requirements to our lender. When you’re borrowing over $120 million on day one and your investment banker has arranged all the financing, there’s no backing up. We’ve been preparing financial statements way before we transacted. We had quality of earnings reports done on the group before we transacted that we went out to market. We had to do an updated Q of E just to do the timing, and it’s expensive. and it takes time and it takes a lot of money. North of our legal accounting and planning and banking and investment banking fees far exceeded $10 million to get it launched. So it’s not for the faint at heart and you better have a plan and you can’t afford to make a mistake unless you want to write that check.

Dr. Mark Doherty: Sure, so I would say yes, COO, practice manager. Someone who can really look at your business from 10,000 feet up and have good recommendations on how to streamline processes, maximize flows. And it’s funny because within our business, our Tammy Cataldo, our practice manager, we started her from the very bottom. She started in our business as scanning in medical histories, patient histories, and we worked her right up through the pipeline, and that took her many years, but she had every position possible within our business, so she knows every position. So, you know, for me, it’s like, it’s training those people, getting those people to where they need to be. And then, you know, obviously the skills that they have, maximizing them and, you know, learning from them as well, because they probably know the business better than some of us owners.

The other Corey.

Dr. Cory Hastings: Yeah, I’m going to echo the rest of the team here. I mean, as a full time clinician, we made a move to hire a director of operations that somebody that could be the voice of continuity for the front office team in particular. If we were to add another right now, it’d be a finance. Somebody who can manage the processes of the RCM, the accounts payable, things like that.

That sounds like operations and finance. That seems to be the general theme that we have here. Thank you. That’s great. I’m glad we were able to answer that question.

Just one other thing for their benefit. Everybody’s at a different size. We outsourced the finance department underneath our CFO. So the CFO was an employee, and then we contracted with a top 10 CPA firm for the biz ops, because that couldn’t wait to stand up. It’s very expensive. So don’t live there for longer than a couple of years, because ultimately, the size we got to, it’s a seven-figure savings in your management platform at some point in time annually after you use a third-party contractor. So it’s something you can’t make a mistake on. Otherwise, the audited financial statements aren’t going to come out on time. and then the lenders get nervous.

Thanks. So we’ve heard this. This has been a general theme for the past couple of years now at DSO conferences is same store sales growth. So maybe we can kind of run down the line your strategy when it comes to the same store sales growth. What are you doing? You know, is it Treatment acceptance, is that your success path? Is it RCM? What is that one thing that you’d recommend somebody to focus on really to kind of increase that growth? Why don’t we, Juloy, why don’t we start with you?

I’m trying to think of the most important. We’re growing our cosmetic. quite a bit in same store sales because in the markets that we have, it’s not something that’s easily accessible. And so that has been really helpful for us and it’s all cash pay. So that’s really nice.

And how do you do that?

Well, you’d be surprised how many people want Botox in rural Arkansas. So we have found that has been a nice addition for us and it gives our dentists something intellectually different to do. and they’re actually really liking that. So that’s like one thing that we have done that has been quite interesting and has really expanded in a way that we weren’t really expecting to go as well as it has. So that’s an example.

That’s great. Anushka.

So treatment acceptance, two small words for something that’s a multi-layered beast. I think it starts from the beginning, right? It’s the front desk. How do we get that patient to come in? We’re focusing very heavily on that. We’ve actually implemented patient prison to help with that. From there, it’s our doctors. We work very heavily with our doctors on diagnosis, implementing AI to help them diagnose and get that, educate the patient. And then, I think the hardest part has been having the handoffs between the doctor and the teams, and specifically the treatment coordinator in order to sell that treatment. How do we offer the financing? But I think that’s kind of our biggest focus right now is the verbiage to get that case acceptance between the doctor and the treatment coordinator.

How about you, Corey?

Yeah. I mean, we’re a younger company. We have a lot of capacity to fill. So we’re working on patient acquisition. And we’re doing that by investing in our team. And if the team is happy and they’re well-educated, then the patient’s going to have a good experience. So once we get those patients, then we’re retaining them. So that’s where our biggest focus is.

Mark O’Brien?

It’s hard to say just one thing but and and it’s I think it’s important to say that we’re not just chasing same store revenue growth but same store EBITDA growth as well because I think it was said this morning that you can have phenomenal top-line growth but your costs blow out and all of a sudden you’ve got a declining business. But we often talk internally about being operational ninjas and that means that we focus really heavily on the recurring revenues, so the recalls, the rebookings and making sure that treatment plans are accessible and accepted. And then on the other side is, I think Corey mentioned as well, looking at patient acquisition, so making sure that we’re driving the top of the funnel in terms of bringing people into the business. And then lastly, using… You know, levers like education to upskill our practitioners and change the mix from just general practice to more higher-end, higher-margin procedures. So we’ve got a strategic initiative, like a lot of DSOs globally that I’ve learned, around implantology, surgical, and orthodontics.

Mark Dougherty.

Sure, so you know we’re really more of a concierge service because we’re delivering the services on-site To our patients, so we really don’t worry about no-shows patient failures or For patients not accepting their treatment plans because all treatment is accepted before we see these patients. I would also say for us you know where our focus is more prevention based care and you know with that you know in implementing things like SDF silver diamine fluoride sealants fluorides you know our cost of care is lower. So we’re not looking at big expenses on our end and that’s alluring. to dental providers, that’s especially alluring because we hear so much about burnout these days, and as dental providers, and I’m an ended honest, so I’m seeing the death of the tooth when I treat patients in my practice. But with the burnout and with the workforce shortages, doing simpler procedures is easier, quite frankly.

Thanks. Kelly?

Sure, so with the merge being so recent for us, we doubled in size and we doubled in the size of providers, but the group that we merged with had a lot of specialties, like super specialties, that we hadn’t had access to before. So we spent a lot of time and energy in educating the team on resources that they have available, as well as the providers, doing meet and greets and saying, you know, if you need to refer to this specialty for this type of situation, now you have all of these in-network options where we’re all a big group, so we’ve done a lot you know, let’s say hi to our new family and get everybody cross-referral into the same network.

Great. Kerry?

You know, as Mark said, prevention is key. Our focus is on access to care. You know, with over 140,000, 50,000 patients of record, we need to make sure we have providers to take care of them. And for every 600 patients, you need a full-time hygienist. For every 1,200 to 1,500 patients, you need a full-time doctor. So if you’ve got 3,000 active patients, you’ve got one doctor, one hygienist, you have a problem because you’re not meeting the clinical needs of your patients. That’s the first thing to solve, access to care. So then we look at how do we expand the provider team within the facility. Most people want to work 8 to 5, so that’s where it’s at. It’s not the theory. of going seven to seven anymore, because the cost of daycare is too expensive at five. So what we have to do is look at the available operatories, fill them up four days a week, and then when that practice is ready, we go to a fifth, and in some cases, a sixth day a week. That isn’t to the existing employees, but today there’s a lot of people that want to work part time, odd shifts, and Friday and Saturday opens up the door for people that can’t afford to make their life work to pick up another day or two a week on top of their four-day gig. So that’s step one is increasing patient visits. Step two is increasing the revenue per patient visit. Most of our practices are very, very sizable to begin with, and with the exception of our all-on-X case practices and our pediatric practices, most of them are GP practices. And you’re talking about fluoride. You’re talking about the CDC here in Atlanta saying 74% of Americans my age have periodontal disease. 47% of people age 40. Well, when you start to look at the quantity of 49 tens that you build out in the last six months divided by two, there’s your people count, and compare that to the sum of that number to the 1110s you’ve done in the last six months, and you’re going to see what percentage of your patients are in perio maintenance. That’s more important as a consultant to me than anything else because it’s a wellness path. And when you see practices whose statistic is 5%, 10%, 15%, then you have to look at your clinical standards that you’re managing on behalf of the dentist you have working for you. And it just goes out from there. And that increases the revenue per patient visit. So those are the two ways to increase same-store sales. Patient visits, revenue per patient visit, and then collect it. Make sure you don’t finance any copayment. Nobody wants to be owed money, as Bill always says on the golf course. When you lose, fast pay makes fast friends. And when somebody walks out of your practice not scheduling, not paying their copayment, you’re going to waste overhead, which is just going to create a disappointment and conflict between you and your patients. So there’s a lot of opportunities to focus on before you need to get too sophisticated, but in the end, When you look at a patient that’s in hygiene, you should expect, for bread and butter dentistry, and I’ve got clients in all these states that we’ve worked with, not including Australia, but the average revenue per patient in hygiene as an adult is $1,200 to $1,300 a year. You get to 1,500 patients in hygiene, you should be seeing $1.8 to $2 million. Pediatric runs at about $750 to $850, depending on their surgical inclination. But if you don’t understand the business that you’re leading, There’s some opportunities that are really opportunities that will give you hope for the future.

Great. Thank you. All right. Do we have vendors out there? Can I see a show of hands for the vendors in the audience? OK. It’s about half and half. OK. So this one’s for you, too. So let’s kind of run down again, run down the line here. Your strategy to product selection, vendor selection, and what a partnership means to you. I know that’s kind of a lot rolled up into one, but you can kind of, you know, answer that any way you’d like. Start with Aussie Mark.

We don’t have a standardized product range. We very much live by the mandate that clinicians make those decisions, which can be problematic with a background in retail. I’ve always been used to working with core ranges and having a good, better, best kind of product choice. But what we have been able to do is standardise some of the out of mouth products like gloves and cotton wool, those sorts of things, that don’t really have an emotional connection with clinicians. But the vendors that we work with closely are the ones that add value to our organisation. outside of just offering us price, and price is obviously important, but we want our vendors to come to us, provide insights into the industry, insights into what categories are growing, benchmark us against others. And finally, support learning and development, which is one of our key strategic pillars. So that’s what I say to all our vendors, support us, support our growth, and we work together in a partnership. It can’t be a one-way street. And we’ve been lucky to have some great partners on board to support us.

I’ll carry this question. I’ll add something else to it. And do you use a procurement platform?

we do use a procurement platform. It’s a software platform that allows for all of our doctors to take their online accounts, link it. You know, the doctors have a unique perspective of what they want to use to deliver their service. I use another golfing analogy. If you’re a golfer, come see me. We’ll talk about it all night long. But if you want to make it on the PGA Tour and you’re used to hitting a certain ball in a club, the sure way to get off the tour is to change equipment. And doctors become very comfortable Right, Corey? I mean, you do. And so all we do is create a way for them to buy it. And for most of what they want to buy, they can order it through one of the major dental supply companies. And we have formularies with our chosen one that’s tied to the software platform. Although at the same time, and it keeps everybody honest, there’s other sources for the product that we’re linked to. Certainly our orthodontic, our implant, Whatever else I’m thinking about that would be unique. We have specially negotiated prices. And we work with that. And they, too, have ways to buy them. But it’s all managed. And we can typically drive down the overhead. And our doctors have a stake in the game, again. They’re going to own close to 88% of the company. So this is all hitting the bottom line that they’re participating in. And we converted to a DPO model early last year because that was the way the market was going. And in the joint venture sub-DSO partnership, the doctors have a stake in their share of the EBITDA. before they capitalize on that and monetize that at our next capital event. So everybody’s got a chance to win and it makes it real easy too for the dental assistants just to put the product in and then the software program guides them in the direction.

Kerry, do you have a formulary? Yes. Okay, you do. Yes. And talk a little bit about that process of determining, you know, the products. And you have a clinical director board. What does that look like?

So one of the things I realize is that is not my specialty. So I have Dawn, who’s our chief compliance officer back there, and she is the best coupon cutter, bargain hunter, Black Friday shopper. So we sit her on the vendors for procurement platform, and she does amazing cost savings. She dropped our professional supplies over 5% in less than 12 months. just by teaming up with some really awesome vendors. But the one thing I can say is as a, I guess, consumer or business partner, know your customers. Please do some research. Reach out. Talk to us about what we need. Don’t be just the sales pitch. Any of the business partners that we’ve entered into with our vendors, they just, they got to know us as people first. And they got to understand what we were missing in the industry and what we needed for our growth. And they were able to supply solutions to things that weren’t even in their wheelhouse, but just because they knew better because they’d been in the industry for so long. So, gets to know us as people, you know, and then when it’s time, we’ll reach out to you for a good sales solution. And they’re usually the ones we go with because we trust your information and your integrity as just a business colleague and as an authority in the industry. But as soon as you can, grab somebody who’s going to be your procurement manager because they will save you the most amount of money you can find.

Sure, to kind of echo what Kelly has said here, you know, I think for us, it’s all about the relationships. It’s all about the people. It’s about the partnerships. And, you know, when we’re investing with a vendor, it’s more about we’re investing with that person or who they stand for. And certainly we want a product that matches well with our practice. But we want to know, okay, how long have you been with this business for? What does your future look like? How long do you expect to be with this business? Because again, we’re investing in that person. And sometimes it can be the matter of really sink or swim for our practice. So there’s a lot held there. I would also say that in addition to having that relationship, that partnership, You know, what is your support like? What is your response time like? If an issue happens with our practice and we’re down, you know, we can’t afford downtime. We need that uptime. So, you know, if we’re reaching out to you, I’m responding, you know, in a timely manner. You know, the coaching, the training, what does that look like? You know, do you make sure that all our staff members are up to snuff with how your systems work? I think those are the big things on our end, Bill.

Thanks, Mark. July. What’s the best way for a vendor to connect with you or somebody on your team? How do you like to be contacted? And then what’s the process of evaluating product?

So I, on our websites, we have our contact information posted. I’m very comfortable with people contacting me, but I would say if you’re contacting, contact to the right person. So if you’re a recruiting firm, contact my recruiter. Like, don’t come through me because I’m the CEO, because that’s all I’m going to do is I’m going to refer you to the subject matter expert. And it’s going to annoy me that you didn’t even do the research. I mean, it will. I’m just like, well, it’s available on the website. So I would say, you know, respect our time. Respect our time and be responsive. Because if you’ve got a great product and you’ve got a great way to connect, we’re going to go with you. We’re going to work with you. We’re going to be interested in hearing what you have to say. So I would say that would be my thought.

Great. And this one’s for Anushka and Corey. You’re both clinicians. So maybe we talk a little bit about the clinical product selection process since you’re both clinicians. I mean is it. Are you solely making that decision. You’re making that you know with with the team. How does that work. Anushka we can start with you.

Yeah, so from our perspective, because we’re clinicians, we have a little bit of an unfair advantage. We do have a formulary. We select what’s on there. Most of our doctors are younger doctors. And, you know, they’re kind of looking to us for guidance. So the dental school may tell them, ask for X, Y, Z. But really, they don’t know what’s out there. So we kind of make that decision. You know, as an example, we use Zimvee. Dr. Raj is probably the best implant dentist I’ve ever met. He specifically found Zimvee. He works with them. All of our doctors are on Zumbi now. That’s just one of the examples of the things that we’ve decided to do.

Corey?

Yeah, I mean, what Carrie said, clinicians, we try to give the autonomy. We also have a formulary. We try to guide the providers to use those materials, but we also know what’s comfortable in our hands as well. And so the other thing I would say as far as relationships with the vendors is we’re looking for somebody who can provide provide us a solution, not a fad. If you come to us with a solution, we’re more likely to work with you. It’s a partnership, right? So partnerships are about happiness, happiness both ways. And so if you make us happy, we’ll make you happy, and we’ll also provide revenue for your organization.

Awesome. We have about eight minutes left and seven panelists, so this might be the last question. So why don’t we try and make this a wrap up Where do you see yourselves as an organization this time next year? So we’re just going to ask one year in the future, what’s that plan look like? Where do you think you’ll be? And Gary, we’ll start with you.

We’re rapidly entering LOIs, letter of intents, for acquisitions of practices that are interested in not only just getting cash up front, which the amount of cash we pay up front is pretty much what you’d sell to another dentist for, or maybe just a tad less than you’d get from a major DSO, but they’re not gonna give you the role in equity in our whole code like we are. So if you’re looking at a seven, seven and a half X, and we’re gonna give you three and a half in cash, four there, we’re gonna, we have very interested parties, we had a LOI signed today at noon, just got word on a $24 million group that’s coming on board with us today when I talked to the owner, so there’s so much, Interest in a pathway to provide stability to operations and support to improve quality of life But also capitalize on the equity play when we go to future recaps So what I where I see us next year is around 150 to 180 practices revenue should be Approaching 350 to 400 million think that the EBIT has just used a standard 20% and then we’ll be moving On to our pathway of recap, although it’s not intended to be q2 until q2 of 2026 We’ll be at a health care summit in San Francisco in January of 25 with our investment banker starting to introduce who we are to that Opportunity the key between now and then is just really vet out the acquisition targets. I We can’t be speaking a different language. So they already have to be operating in a way that there’s leadership, there’s an org chart, there’s department leaders, there’s accountability, and that’s a natural fit into this migration window strain, and that’s what we’re looking for in addition to our pipeline of clients we work with. So we are very intentional. We don’t intend on selling off our leadership of our platform to anybody. We have tremendous faith in our leaders that Livia and I have put together. and our doctors in the field who have long-term commitments. And for those that know, as you’re building acquisitions, minimum commitment today is five years. And if you really want them to stay longer and their associates, you have to think of the conventions that you can offer for equity participation, whether they’re profits, interest, stock, buy-in, or whatever, meet with great legal counsel like Brian’s firm, and you’ll be on a good path.

Man, I wish I would have gone first. Mine’s not as complicated. So this time next year, I mean, we plan to have nine providers in our six locations, possibly adding another specialty, and just keep building our infrastructure that drives our vision and our passion.

What’s that specialty that you’d add?

Possibly oral surgery.

Oh, OK. All right. Anushka.

So we’re just being very opportunistic over the next year. We’re looking at de novo sites, looking at acquisitions as well, but really focusing heavily on same store growth. I think one of the things we’re spending a lot of time on is, as Dr. Raj coined, creating our 10x dentists, dentists who are super GPs, who can do the procedures we need them to do, and filling our ops. I think we have a revenue per op goal that we haven’t yet met, so we’re just continuing to focus on that.

So, by mid-October, we’ll be at 22 practices. We expect to be at 35 by the end of next year, doing a recap. Additionally, adding in nine providers within our existing locations for same-store growth because our volume is growing to that degree that we were going to need them. And then I would say we will have our associate dental program for buy-in completely launched by the end of this year so they can buy in next year.

Are you staying in the same state you’re in now or looking to move?

Sorry, so and adding moving into three states, three additional states.

Great, okay. Kerry?

Well if we don’t already have it largest market share in Delaware but We have three counties, so that’s kind of a low pull, but I would say we’re gonna be better than we are today. We have MNA stuff on the horizon, we have LOIs on the horizon, we have DeNovo, and everybody’s got sights on how we’re gonna get larger and how we’re gonna get better. I just wanna be better than we are today. We stub our toe on a lot and we learn a lot, and failure teaches us a lot of really good lessons about how to do this better. We’re gonna run a tighter ship, a more efficient ship, a more profitable ship, And I’m excited to see what that comes with. So I just I just want us to be better than we are right now. And I think we can absolutely do that.

And I think you mentioned or John mentioned when he accepted the award that you had that big merger and. June, right, was it June?

It was final 531, so we’re just.

That’s still going on, right? Yeah. That’s not.

It’s super fun. It’s super fun. We can talk about that offline.

Does that tie into the first question that I asked?

Yes. Embracing this stuff, yes.

Thanks, Kerry. Mark Doherty.

Sure, so it’s really meeting, especially in Massachusetts and the populations that we serve, is meeting that demand of care. And it’s so funny because social media is such a great tool for advertising and marketing. But for us, it’s like word of mouth has still been the foundation of our success. And we really deal with a lot of school nursing groups and city councilmen and mayors. And, you know, we work with state programs. And, you know, it’s interesting because what we’re starting to see now is things like Massachusetts colleges reaching out to us for our services is more state programs. So, you know, the future, it looks pretty awesome. And, you know, we’re on that road to see what success looks like for us.

Excellent. Mark O’Brien.

Well excitedly in the next few weeks. We’ll be entering the Western Australia market and That’ll make us truly a national player in Australia It’s also publicly known that our PE sponsors have taken a large stake in a listed dental business in Australia, which could potentially mean that we go from 20 or 25-odd practices to 160 in the next 12 months. So that’s a big elephant to swallow, and there’s no guarantees it will happen. But I think consistent with the rest of the panel as well is just continuously being the best at what you do and keeping the culture that we’ve developed and keeping true to our values and our integrity. It’s really hard to measure that sometimes but that’s critical as any organisation scales is to keep that personal feel and not to become the big fat corporate that doesn’t listen to the people that are actually doing the work.

Excellent. Thanks so much. You actually, we got, we finished up with like 20 seconds to go. Awesome. So congratulations everybody to the teams here and great job panelists. I mean, really, really nice job. Great insights. So we’ve got a QR code up here for the folks that think they could be an emerging group in 2025. You can scan that QR code. We’ll send you an application. You can find Kim or I. at the 90s party tonight and ask us, we can send it out to you. Or you can get more information on the groupdentistrynow.com website. But this is an honor for us to be able to present these awards and really just get to know everybody and just find out more about your journey. I mean, it is not easy, as Kerry alluded to. And you should all be really, really proud of yourselves. I mean, it’s exciting to talk about this. And so I think Gary is going to come up and talk about the 90s party that we have coming up in a couple of minutes, maybe? Because I don’t know anything about it, except it’s a 90s party and I think we’re supposed to wear plano. I will be talking about the 90s party. You will be. I think we are. Thank you. No, he’s got his outfit on too.