The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry

Dr. Scott Asnis, Founder & CEO of Dental365, Dr. Joseph Carpentieri, Director of Clinical Education of Dental365, and Dr. Joshua Gish, President of Leading Edge Specialized Dentistry, join the show. Key discussion points include:

Dental365’s 10-year anniversary
Supporting academic advancements of their doctors
What is Dental365’s Dental Health Ecosystem?
How they successfully integrated specialty dentistry
Much more

To learn more about Dental365 and Leading Edge Specialized Dentistry visit https://www.godental365.com/

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Full DSO Podcast Transcript:

Dr. Scott Asnis, Founder & CEO of Dental365, Dr. Joseph Carpentieri, Director of Clinical Education of Dental365 and Dr. Joshua Gish, President of Leading Edge Specialized Dentistry celebrate their 10-year anniversary.

Bill Neumann: Welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now Show. I’m Bill Neumann. And as always, we appreciate you listening in. Without a great audience like you, we wouldn’t have great guests like the next three guests we have on the show. We have one returning guest, Dr. Scott Asness. He is the founder and CEO of Dental 365. Scott, first off, thanks for coming back on the show. It’s great to have you back.

Dr. Scott Asnis: Nice to talk to you, Bill. I really appreciate it. I love group dentistry now. And yes, I am the founder and CEO of Dental365. But more importantly is I am a practicing dentist.

Bill Neumann: And we’re going to focus a lot on the clinical side of the business, the most important side, right? But certainly, there’s a lot that’s been going on in the past 10 years at Dental 365. We have also with us Dr. Joseph Carpentieri. He is the director of clinical education of Dental 365. Dr. Carpentieri, thank you for being here. My pleasure to be here. Thank you. And finally, we have Dr. Joshua Gish. He is the president of Leading Edge Specialized Dentistry, which is part of Dental 365. Dr. Gish, thanks for being here.

Dr. Joshua Gish: Bill, I’m honored to be on this podcast with you. I’m very excited to talk about what we’ve been doing at Dental 365, so thank you for having us.

Bill Neumann: So back to Scott’s first point, we have not just Dr. Asness as a practicing dentist, but actually we have three practicing dentists on the show. So I think before we kind of get into the Q&A side of things, maybe go through a little bit about each one of your backgrounds and your roles at the organization, if you wouldn’t mind, Scott, do you want to start off? Thanks.

Dr. Scott Asnis: Let me start. So I started at Dental 365 10 years ago. and we’ll talk about what has happened over the last 10 years. I still practice dentistry, and I care deeply about giving great clinical outcomes to our patients and I have now for 40 years I’ve been practicing, and I am still the CEO of Dental 365. Dr. Carpentieri,

Dr. Joseph Carpentieri: Director of Clinical Education. I am also a practicing dentistry. I received a certificate in prosthodontics a few years ago, several years ago, and went on to complete a four-year surgical implant fellowship at NYU. And I teach one day a week at Columbia, so I’m an assistant professor there. So basically, my job is to make our dentists better and share a lot of knowledge with them in a very concise way, in a way that I didn’t do after many years of training. So I’m really passionate about providing incredibly great care to a large group of patients.

Bill Neumann: And Dr. Gish, you’re the president of Leading Edge Specialized Dentistry. So let’s talk a little bit about your background and then Leading Edge Specialized Dentistry.

Dr. Joshua Gish: Sure. So I’m a board certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon. I’ve been in private practice for a number of years before joining in with Scott at Dental 365. It’s been a little over five years now that I’ve been an integral part of this company. And what we’re going to talk about today is what we’ve grown in the specialty division that’s allowed us to form a real dental ecosystem. where we’ve brought in oral surgeons, periodontists, endodontists, pediatric dentists, orthodontists, and TMJ and facial pain specialists to create an environment where our patients can be treated throughout their entirety of their dental health span. That’s something we’re very excited about and how we figured out how to incorporate leading-edge specialized dentistry into Dental 365.

Bill Neumann: And Dr. Gish, I think a lot of our audience is going to be very interested to find out how you all did that because there’s been a lot of conversation around Doing that, bringing in specialty into different groups that maybe are more focused on general dentistry sounds relatively easy. My suspicion is it’s not, so we’d be really curious to find out how you did that. I’m going to hold off on that question until a little later on in the podcast, because Yeah, I just want to go back to something Dr. Scott Asness mentioned early on in the podcast. You have been a huge supporter of our website, our organization, Group Dentistry Now, from the early days. In fact, we are also celebrating our 10-year anniversary, just like Dental 365 is. But as I was doing a little research for this podcast, I went back to our website and realized that Dental 365 was on our Emerging Dental Groups to Watch list and won the award in 2017, the first year we actually started to do the Emerging Groups to Watch list. And I just wanted to mention a couple of things from the list. So going back to 2017, And I will link to this article because it’s just kind of great to go back and see where Dental 365 was then and where you are now. But you had, at the beginning of 2017, you had 10 locations. Back then it was in Long Island and New York City. and you were predicting by the end of the year to have between 15 and 17 offices. So, I won’t spoil any of the answers to the questions, but we know you have quite a few more practices and you’re in many more locations and states than you were in 2017. So, congratulations on that. You’re celebrating your 10-year anniversary. Let’s talk a little bit about this decade of dentistry done right, Dr. Asness. What does that mean?

Dr. Scott Asnis: First congratulations on your 10 year anniversary. That’s pretty cool. So it was just 10 years ago this month that I opened our first standalone practice in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I was in 2014 and my vision was to build the DSO with a scalable platform that would actually elevate the practice of dentistry. And yes, it was a very lofty call. Bill, last time I was on your show, I talked about consumerism, and my concept of Dell consumerism came from my private practices, and that is to provide patients evidence-based dentistry using the highest clinical protocols, but also providing an exceptional patient experience, frictionless, from the minute they walked in my office And it’s very similar to how high-end hotels think, even down to the way our offices smell. It was the tenant of my private practice. I treated every patient special. And from day one, it became the tenant of Dental 365. In other words, Bill, dentistry done right. Bill, I say this all the time, Josh and Joe hears me and all my dentists do, dentistry is hard and doing good dentistry is even harder. We as dentists understand the day-to-day stresses that come from being a dentist. So at Dental 365, we truly, truly, we don’t just say it, we care about achieving great clinical outcomes. So in order for us to consistently do this with Dr. Gish, Dr. Carpenteri and myself, we found in the Dental 365 University, Bill, most DSOs that I’ve heard on your show, they say their core values are doctor first. We say that patients are first and foremost concern.

Bill Neumann: You’re right. We do hear that it’s doctor first. I was thinking back to some of the podcasts, and you’re absolutely right. So being that you’re doctors, you’re focused on the patient, and I’m sure you’re also focused on your teams as well. So let’s talk about milestones. So, we’re 10 years in. I’m sure there are a lot of milestones, probably a lot of challenges through those 10 years. Can you kind of run us through some things that stand out in your mind as really important, maybe even pivotal points in coming to where you are now at Dental 365? And by the way, I didn’t even ask this, where are you now with number of locations and where are those locations in what states?

Dr. Scott Asnis: approaching 140 locations in a few weeks. And we are in seven states. And as Dr. Gish said, we have eight divisions and we’ll talk about that with our leading edge specialized dentistry led by Dr. Gish. But firstly, it was an unbelievable revelation after the first few years of opening Denovo’s why I was still a six day a week practicing dentist. Now I was able to take successful and scale beautiful state-of-the-art offices, DeNovo’s, without compromising my founding principles. In turn, this attracted the preeminent clinicians, Bill, clinicians who would never, ever consider joining a DSO. They called me and they wanted to know about our unique model and they were asking about joining and then they started to join us. So we went from a de novo model to a acquisition model. And another unbelievably very noteworthy milestone, the local specialists like Dr. Gish contacted us and expressed their interest in joining this unique, definitely exciting dentist run platform. Oral surgeons, pediatrists, orthodontists, endodontists, periodontists, and even TMJ doctors inquired and joined us. As Dr. Gish is going to talk about, it’s led to a separate company, Leading Edge Specialized Dentistry. And we have actually had eight different divisions of our company. And now, Bill, as we’re celebrating our 10-year anniversary, it’s really cool that in seven states, we could still maintain our founding principles of caring deeply, deeply about giving our patients great clinical outcomes and performing the standard of care.

Bill Neumann: It really is amazing your growth. And I know we’re going to hold off on that a little bit. I’ve got that question coming up in the podcast, but I do want to discuss that because it’s been a challenging couple of years for a lot of different DSOs and group practices trying to grow. And I think maybe we could talk a little bit about maybe what you’ve done differently. I remember, Scott, you mentioned that to me on the podcast about three years ago now that you had a pipeline full of quality practices that wanted to join Dental 365, where maybe some others were really, they had business development people out there hunting for them. You actually had people hunting for you, waiting in line really to join. So, it’s a testament to what you’ve built there. Dr. Carpentari, as far as innovation goes, I know we’ve talked a little bit about this on the podcast prior, but you’ve always been an early adopter of innovation. Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the technologies and things that you’ve adopted there that have really helped Dental 365?

Dr. Joseph Carpentieri: I can, but I first must say, wow, it has been an incredible 10 years as I’ve been with Scott for almost since our inception, but so much has changed. But let me just say that, first of all, as clinicians, we believe that it’s really our passionate responsibility to carefully review all the available science, new research, and technologies, and then implement strategies which can improve the health, quality of life, and well-being for our patients. Now, that’s a lofty goal because it means someone needs to be in the trenches doing research and making sure we’re not wrong, and that’s generally myself. But as a result of these efforts, Among the things we’ve learned is that human saliva offers a wealth of really health-related information, and I’m proud to say that we are among the first groups in the nation to truly enter the era of molecular dentistry. I’ll try to define that. Now, although this is only the beginning, our clinical focus at this time is really twofold, and it includes the following. A, the identification of something called AMNP8 or active matrix metalloproteinase 8, which is the most prevalent biomarker associated with real-time periodontal tissue breakdown. That’s amazing in of itself. And B, a second revolutionary saliva test using different biomarkers, which are focused on early detection of oral squamous and oral pharyngeal rote cancers, which are rising dramatically due to HPV and vaping in young people. So, it’s very important for early detection. So, our research, and I mean really research, suggests that without question, the key to the future of dentistry, this is our belief, will be cellular disease-related biomarkers, which will lead to a considerable paradigm shift in dentistry called personalized oral medicine or precision medicine. Now what this means is rather than waiting for a disease to occur, which is our traditional model, and provide an intervention, we can utilize oral cellular biomarkers for customized or targeted plans to predict the likelihood of disease, disease prevention strategies, and suggest earlier, more cost-effective, simple treatment options. And this is absolutely amazing as compared to where we were not such a long time ago We also understand and embrace the link between chronic oral infections and inflammation and systemic diseases. The literature is overwhelming at this time, as we really are starting to train our dentists to become oral physicians of the future. So basically, we do the research. And we really try to figure out how we can make game-changing moves to separate fact versus fiction and really improve the quality of our care. We came up with a goal that we wanted to try to be thought leaders in our field. And to do that, it just takes a tremendous amount of work and desire to be unique, to be different, and to offer better care that, frankly, patients can’t receive anywhere else.

Bill Neumann: I love what you said there, and you said oral physicians, and I think that’s really important to understand. There’s a lot of talk around preventative care, mostly hygiene focused. It seems like you’re taking it three steps beyond that. This is really, this is great. Doctor, before we move on, Dr. Carpenteri, are there any specific, you mentioned a couple of solutions out there, products that you’re working with, and anything on the market that maybe some other DSOs could take a look at and maybe incorporate into their groups? In other words, what are we using specifically?

Dr. Joseph Carpentieri: Yeah, exactly right. The AMPA test is founded and determined by a company called Dento in Germany, and we call it saliva score for our particular group. The second testing for biomarkers is something called Cancer Detect Biome, which has also received FDA designation breakthrough approval. So, Bill, essentially, with these concepts, and when we’re trying to be innovators, frankly, we can’t be wrong. And so, when I present some of the stuff to Dr. Asness, he says, as a very smart guy as he is, show me the science. So it’s all about the science. It’s all about vetting the science and understanding what’s real. These are not gimmicks. This is evidence-based studies that really can help our patients moving forward.

Bill Neumann: Thank you. Let’s move on to Dr. Gish. I really wanted to talk about specialty. I think it’s become a much larger part of what Dental 365 is. So maybe you call it the dental health ecosystem. So let’s talk about that synergy between leading edge specialized dentistry and Dental 365 and really how you were able as an organization, as Dental360, I was able to bring in specialty into the fold. Again, I’m going to go back to what I mentioned earlier, a lot of talk about doing that. I’ve seen various levels of success when specialty is brought into an existing group.

Dr. Joshua Gish: Yeah, thanks. I’m absolutely thrilled to be talking about this. And I actually think that if you just look at who we have on this podcast, with Dr. Asness, with Dr. Carpentari, and even with you, Bill, people that are just real giants in the industry, it makes sense that you should build an ecosystem where you can bring a lot of like-minded people together who are all heading towards the same goal of the patient care and the patient experience. For me personally, I love dentistry. Even though I’m a specialist, I still love general dentistry. I love taking care of the patient. I love comprehensive treatment planning. And as a referral-based specialist, what I really value is working with competent, caring dentists who love to communicate, who are looking to get the best possible outcome for our patients and to help create value for them. So that’s really what initially drew me to Scott and what he was doing at Dental 365. coming in as a referral based specialist, obviously there’s a lot of nervousness surrounding what this is going to look like when we join a dental company to fill with general dentists and general dentistry offices. How are we going to protect our referral base and make sure that the understanding is there that we’re still here to help everybody. And that’s what we’ve been able to accomplish. And once I found out what Scott was doing and he had joined with some of my best referrers, it was a natural progression to say, wow, I got to be a part of this also. And as we grew, the great thing is that, you know, We’re really a tight-knit community, and so the word spread very quickly where people turned to us and said, hey, what are they doing over there? And we grew, and we grew very rapidly with other oral surgeons wanting to join us, with some of our colleagues in different specialties. perionics and pediatric orthodontics, you know, everyone that’s a referral-based specialist and even the TMJ and facial pain doctors that we work very closely with wanted to be a part of what we were doing because these are like-minded people that just are really caring about the patient experience and what we can do for the community. From a definition standpoint, I think I would call it dental health ecosystem is really what we call what we formed between leading edge specialized dentistry and Dental 365. We consider it to be a network of dental professionals who are uniquely positioned to protect the integrity of dental care. So we’re looking at all the dental care that a patient receives throughout their entire dental health span. We’re providing access to high quality dental care by both general dentists and specialists alike. The ecosystem that we nurtured with the two companies here coming together really improves access to care, which is a really phenomenal thing, especially as we moved into different geographies. We’re elevating clinical outcomes. We’re creating a seamless patient experience regardless of the treatment complexity, the need to either ask your general dentist to practice outside of their comfort level or expand to the outer regions of their approved licensure. Uh, you know, we’re really now bringing in specialists instead that are able to help, uh, treat together with the general dentist, uh, these type of complex procedures. We’re bringing this ecosystem to each of our geographic locations because it really supports our doctor’s ability to provide that high quality patient care without having to do everything themselves. We work on a hub and spoke model. So instead of just bringing that specialist into the GP practice, which in some locations we do, we really like to have a central hub where our specialists have their referral based specialty practice. And then we can bring that care into our GP practices as needed, as opposed to try to put everything under one roof. We allow our doctors now, instead of being an isolated practitioner, they have this whole network that’s surrounding them to be able to take care of our patients. Sometimes people think, oh, when you put all these specialties together under one rule, you’re building a one-stop shop. That’s not what we’re looking to do. We’re really actually building a sophisticated network of some of the most talented dentists in the region that we’re in. And personally, as a patient, this is the type of care that I would expect. I would expect my dentist, who’s my quarterback, to have the person that they want me to see to perform a procedure that they’re not going to be able to perform at the same level, and then stay within that network. to be able to get the care that I received.

Bill Neumann: Dr. Keshe, a little bit about, so when you move into a new market or maybe there’s an acquisition, do you typically start with a GP and then look for the specialist afterward? Or how does that process work as you go forward?

Dr. Joshua Gish: I wish I could tell you that it’s a very defined process in that nature or that there’s a formula that actually works. There’s other practices that are looking to do something like this. The truth of the matter is, is that we’re very fortunate. Word spreads pretty quickly when you’re doing things right. And we have the vast majority of our business development inbound. So we’re not doing a ton of searching for practices and cold calling. So a little bit is just by happenstance. If we get a call from a oral surgery group in a particular location that’s looking to join us, then we’ll start there. If we have a couple of GP practices, we’ll start with them and then find out who their trusted specialists are and actually have our doctors network. And not only are they inbound because people hear about us, but also because we have a lot of referrals from our existing doctors. So yeah, it’s a little bit random and we have proven that we can do it either way. Start with a specialty and then grow a GP or vice versa.

Bill Neumann: That’s great. I would say that’s probably very uncommon, and that ties into the next question that I have for Dr. Asness. That’s probably one of the reasons for your amazing growth, that you are not necessarily out seeking practices to join Dental 365, but they’re seeking to become part of the organization. So let’s talk about the growth. And I mentioned it earlier, but it’s been a challenging couple of years for a lot of group practices out there. Some have pretty much stopped acquiring completely and have kind of hunkered down on same-store sales. We hear that quite a bit. But let’s talk a little bit about how you continue to grow.

Dr. Scott Asnis: Absolutely. I’m not going to sugarcoat the journey. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s certainly a labor of love. So, we’re different. We’re a platform. We’re not just adding offices and revenue. Actually, we’ve said no to over 300 offices just this year. Bill, it’s got to be the right fit. The right fit, not only for us, but for the dentists who want to join us. And what Dr. Gish was saying, it’s so true, is by having such a network of amazing specialists, we just care about doing the standard of care for our patients. Because we are a unified platform. We’re not an aggregator of revenue. Prior to joining us, the doctors are clearly told our what our core principles are. And so they have a full understanding or informed consent of the nature of what our platform is. And I’ll quickly just say it’s a commitment to high quality dentistry, which you’ve heard me say, Bill, a lot. Exceptional concierge service to our patients. And the next one is really important, Bill. I think it’s overlooked. Transparency of pricing and clear communication to patients. This builds trust and loyalty and embracing innovations. Dr. Carpenter Terry was just talking about has allowed us to stay in the forefront of dentistry, cutting, offering cutting edge solutions to our patients. It’s been the principle of our success and continue to guide us. So there are so many offices and dentists that want to join us. and we’re very careful on how we grow and not putting them in a position to fail. We’re very fortunate.

Bill Neumann: Dr. Carpentari, regarding education, let’s talk about your focus on academic advancements of your doctors. Can you share the importance of that and how do you support them? Again, I hear varying stories from different groups out there. It’s an expectation for young clinicians, established clinicians that when they partner with an organization like yours, that they’re going to have that educational support. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like?

Dr. Joseph Carpentieri: I would say that this is my baby. This is my heart and soul because as a clinician, I understand how important this is, but I wanted to share five quick points if I could, Bill. Number one, it is our understanding that, without question, the best trained clinicians will produce the most consistent high-level quality of care. So with that said, we devote a tremendous amount of time and energy towards education in what we call Dental 365 University. And by the way, kudos to Dr. Asness, because we have stuck to our core values. We haven’t changed. sometimes that can happen over time, but we stuck to our core values, and that is a patient-centric concept first. Number two, we’re dentists. We don’t have MBAs, and we know how dentists think, and we know how dentists learn, and we know that nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than making our dentists better. Number three, we understand the current trends in dental education and student loan indebtedness. I’ve been a teacher for over 25 years and I’m a teacher at Columbia, so I know really what’s going on at the undergraduate level. But the fact is that many recent graduates today generally have less clinical experience due to diminished patient pools, economic competition, and really a high cost of dental care. In addition, new graduates often can’t afford to take advanced continuing education courses. So we offer a premier care dental management fellowship program for all new graduates and all the necessary continuing education costs without a credit. So we take full responsibility for training all of our dentists at all ages. So we don’t just say it, we do it. Now the basis of our training is really quite unique and it’s called something called an experiential learning platform. So just bear with me a moment. Traditional learning is characterized by repetition and memorization from lectures or books. That’s how we’re trained. But this is a unidirectional, non-individualized static process. Experiential learning focuses on the process of learning through experience. That’s what we do. We train people with their own experience, and it is more narrowly defined as learning through the reflection of doing, which is distinct from rote or didactic learning. So experiential learning is bi-directional, it’s interactive, it’s individual and dynamic, merging theoretical concepts with real life experience. So it’s more practical, it’s more effective, and it’s got to be time efficient. To train dentists today, time efficiency and effectiveness is very important. So, we use strategies such as something we call clinical pearls, which are small chunks of very valuable information. We have a full range of clinical protocols and treatment planning seminars. We really have a robust portfolio of educational materials, by the way, that is all internally created. We do this ourselves. Lastly, we offer a continuum, and that word is very important. of knowledge and a culture of support and mentorship for continued professional growth and development. As Dr. Rastus said, we know dentistry is hard, and we are there to support and help them. And to do all this, we really work very hard to make this happen. And I would say this is a very important part of our secret sauce is the education of our clinicians.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, and it’s so important. I mean, with the younger clinicians out there too, especially during COVID and having less opportunity actually to work with patients and do hands-on, it seems like there’s a real lack of education for some of the younger clinicians coming out of dental school. And I know you have seasoned clinicians there, but still super important. Dr. Gish, back to what Dr. Asness mentioned about focusing on the patients first. Let’s talk a little bit about the impact that you think Dental 365 has had on the dental community and how you’re celebrating those achievements with your patients.

Dr. Joshua Gish: Thanks. I’m honored to be able to answer this and thanks for bringing it to us. As you can hear from Scott and Joe, we are extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished at Dental 365 and what we consider to be the impact that we’ve had on the dental community. But at the same rate, we’re truly humble. And we’re very grateful for the opportunity that we have. A lot of times we do things and people turn to us and say, hey, you should tell somebody that you’re doing that. And that’s just a reflection of our humility. We’re sticking to our core principles. We’ve got our head down, just kind of grinding and doing what we think is right. And that’s how we make all of our decisions. I’m happy to talk a little bit about how we look at this and say, gee, looking back on the past 10 years, we’re doing something right. We’re really making a tremendous impact on the dental community and we look forward to continuing with that. So I think the truth is that we’re elevating patient care. I think we’re bringing back value to dentistry. We are really giving patients what they deserve, which is to be treated in a comfortable state-of-the-art office by a team of dental professionals who are really focused on outstanding clinical outcomes. We’re giving the standard of care and more to our patients. We’re using all the newest technology that you just heard of from Dr. Carpentieri. We’re using AI, we’re using saliva testing, and we’re really involving patients in their own care. This type of dedication creates value for the dental care that we’re providing, so patients can come in and understand what the impacts of things like preventative maintenance and comprehensive treatment when needed is. They see what we’re trying to do. and we involve them so they understand that there’s value in what we do. They’re willing to pay for it and invest their time, money, and effort into their dental health because we’re showing them and proving to them that we’re going to do the right thing and that these are necessary issues. So one of the things that we’re getting the chance to do at this 10-year anniversary to help celebrate is that we’re really honored to be able to be doing a free full mouth reconstruction for one of our beloved patients. This is a life-changing procedure. We’ve been doing this for years now. We’ve implemented full protocols. The technique that we’re doing is called True Teeth, and it is a full arch, full mouth restoration, rehabilitation, Um, we are going to take somebody who, um, is really what we call dentally exhausted. They’ve been in and out of the dental chair. They’ve been attempting to maintain their dental health, um, but unfortunately aren’t successfully. And this is going to give them a way to, to really enjoy eating, speaking, and of course, smiling. So we figure what better way to celebrate, you know, looking back on our 10 years of success by being able to give back to the community, something that’s, that’s as life-changing and be able to share it with everybody.

Bill Neumann: That’s great. I mean, so you’re going to offer that up. Will that be this year that you’ll actually do that?

Dr. Joshua Gish: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we’ve already got it slated to be done this fall and we’re looking forward to sharing that with everybody and seeing what we’re able to do.

Bill Neumann: We want to make sure we share that accomplishment after it’s complete on our website for sure. So as we kind of reflect on this 10-year milestone, and it is coincidental that we’re both sharing that same 10-year milestone, group dentistry now and Dental 365, I think that’s awesome. Can you each tell us, tell the audience what you’re most proud of? Why don’t we start with you, Dr. Gish?

Dr. Joshua Gish: Sure, so I hate to be predictable, but for me, I think that the greatest milestone that we have is that it’s been creating leading edge specialized dentistry. It’s something that I’m extremely proud of. I love the impact that it’s had on Dental 365 and on our dental communities as a whole. It really preserves the specialist general dentist relationship. You know, that’s very important to me as a specialist, and I know that for Dr. Carpentaria, Dr. Asens, and a lot of our really phenomenal dentists and specialists that work for us, it’s important to keep that philosophy of dentistry going. We’ve created a group practice, you know, that specialists want to be a part of. They can help control the dentist-specialist relationship, and they can still practice in true specialty offices within an ecosystem of like-minded professionals. Just like me personally, and again, a lot of the decisions that I make and I know we make based upon what our personal feelings and personal experiences are being dentists in the community, this is what we want. We want to work with like-minded professionals, with other dentists that are aimed at providing the highest level of care to our patients. So that’s me, that’s what I’m proud of is the specialized dentistry, these ecosystems that we’re fostering and I can’t be more proud of what we’ve done over the past 10 years and I definitely can’t be more excited for what the future holds.

Bill Neumann: Dr. Carpentari, how about you? What are you most proud of?

Dr. Joseph Carpentieri: Boy, I’m proud of a lot of things, but I’m probably most proud of really the sense of urgency we have each and every day and what an incredible team both Scott and Josh have been. I’m humbled really to be with them. But we are very focused and we are super passionate about what we’re trying to do. I’m also really proud about how our intense focus on education of our doctors has correlated into keeping our patients safe, we don’t want anyone to be harmed, and really providing honest and ethical, high-quality dental care one patient at a time. I’m really humbled by having the opportunity to provide so many patients such great treatment. I don’t know what else to say, but it is a humbling kind of feeling to have that kind of influence on so many people, but that’s what we try to do, and that’s one of the things that I try to do.

Bill Neumann: And Scott, how about you? I mean, you’ve built something pretty special and you’ve got a great team behind you here. So, tell the audience what you’re most proud of.

Dr. Scott Asnis: So, I’m proud of so many things. Your audience doesn’t want to hear a few hours of me talking about it. But just in 10 years, we’ve grown just from one location a few weeks We’ll be supporting 140 locations, but never, ever sacrificing, as you heard from Dr. Gish and Dr. Carpenteri, our clinical quality or the patient experience we truly care about. We’re not soundbites. No one in my company is a soundbite. I’m also proud that our dentists are being trained to be oral physicians. Pretty cool. It’s really my belief that there’s going to be a seismic change in the future of oral health care. I think in a few short years, we are not going to recognize the dental landscape. Really, in my opinion, saliva testing is here to stay, and it’s going to be part of the standard of care for all our dentists. But Bill, I’m most proud of that this company is still run by unbelievable dentists and dental professionals like Dr. Gish and Dr. Carpentari. We understand how difficult it is to run a successful dental We are all proud that we had the sensitivity and the knowledge to do it.

Bill Neumann: Well, huge success in these 10 years. So the next question is, what do the next 10 years look like? Dr. Gish, anybody would love to get feedback from everybody on that. But 10 years in, you’re multi-specialty. You’ve incorporated specialty. I think a lot of groups would be jealous of that. You’re patient first. You’re growing well. You’ve got a lineup of quality practices that are looking to join. So what’s in store for the next 10 years?

Dr. Joshua Gish: Sure. Thanks, Bill. And thanks for a great summary of our feelings because you really hit all very, very important points for us and things that we’re very proud of. I think I just want to say, starting off when we’ve had a lot of discussions, you’ve heard us talk today about technology and what we’re implementing. I think that the truth is, is that no matter what the technological advancements are, healthcare is always going to be about the patients and that’s never going to change. At Dental365, we’re truly in the people business. The people are our patients and that’s what we care deeply about first and foremost. Dental 365 is not only navigating our way through patient-focused dental care, but I really think we’re guiding the future. We consider ourselves to be stewards of our profession. We’re committed to the excellent patient experience, outstanding clinical outcomes, and to implementing paradigm-changing technology. I think we’re really pushing the field of dentistry. As Dr. Assis mentioned, dentistry is going to be unrecognizable in the next couple of years, and I’m hoping that we’re a good part of that, helping to push it in the right direction. We’ve created this company of like-minded dental professionals, and we’ve given them a pathway to professional success. There’s still young dentists that are coming out into the workforce looking for a place to land where they can provide great patient care, and we like to think that we’re their home. Our practice model and our clinical philosophy is what’s going to propel Dental 365 to shine through what’s probably going to be a great consolidation of dental providers over the next couple of years. The landscape is definitely changing. We’ve proven that we can rehabilitate some ailing dental platforms, people that have tried and just missed the mark. And we’ve created value by implementing our core values and sticking to them to our patients and to our doctors. And I can truly say the best is yet to come.

Bill Neumann: That’s a great way to sum up the next 10 years. Final thoughts before we wrap this up. I just want to make sure we don’t leave anything on the table. I think we really covered quite a bit. I’m super excited that we were able to do this podcast. I think Dr. Gish, you might’ve mentioned this. But you definitely are a quiet organization, just out there growing. We really appreciate you sharing what you’ve done in these past 10 years. I know Dr. Asness, when we had him on four years ago, He said, I have a lot of people asking me to be on their podcasts, but I’ll be on yours. And I always remember that. So I appreciate you coming back on and really getting everybody up to speed on what you’ve been up to. A lot of people out there that are great at marketing and maybe the businesses aren’t quite as solid as what you’ve put together. I really do appreciate you sharing it. So final thoughts, start with you, Dr. Karp and Terry, anything you’d like to say before we end things.

Dr. Joseph Carpentieri: Yeah. Interestingly enough, one of the things that you didn’t hear from us today was production, production goals, metrics. We don’t think that way. As my partners have just stated, we just try to do the right thing and take care of our patients and the economics simply follows. As dentists, we know that and we know how to build a successful practice. But I also think the educational component for the future of dentistry will continue to rise. just based on changing demands and complexities with undergraduate education. So, these younger dentists are going to need mentors, and they’re going to need someone to show them what they really need to do and how to properly take care of patients as we move forward.

Bill Neumann: Dr. Gish, I know you just gave us a rundown of the next 10 years, but anything you’d like to say?

Dr. Joshua Gish: Thanks for the opportunity to do this. What you’ve done for dentistry and for us is immeasurable. Thank you for being a partner. Scott has only ever spoken highly about his experience with you and always reverts back to that original podcast. anytime we’ve brought into you at any of our dental meetings, it’s always been a welcome reuniting. So, thank you. Thank you and congratulations on your 10 years. And yeah, you’re definitely a part of our future and we appreciate everything.

Dr. Joseph Carpentieri: Thank you, Bill. Congratulations.

Bill Neumann: Yeah. Thank you. And Scott, we’ll let you finish things up.

Dr. Scott Asnis: Well, I was going to say exactly what Josh said. We’re so lucky to be part and have you part of our company. I think the future of dentistry is really exciting, especially with molecular dentistry. I think that other DSOs, and by the way, years ago, I was even afraid to say that I was a part of a DSO, not only part of it, but founding it. Now I’m very proud. I think that it’s so exciting, the future, and I think the DSOs are going to lead with our education and with our technology and I am very bullish on the future of dentistry in the DSO world. Thank you for having us and happy anniversary.

Bill Neumann: Yes, thanks so much. I think we’ll wrap it up on that, but I do want to mention if anybody that’s listening to this is interested in finding out more about Dental 365, you can go to their website, which is go, G-O, godental365.com, and then you’ll click on for professionals at the top, and you can find out about the saliva score. It’s on the website, but all their information’s here. It’s actually a great website. So again, it’s go, dental365.com, and then just click on For Professionals, which is right on the top left-hand side, and you can find out more. So thank you, Dr. Carpenteri, Dr. Asness, and Dr. Gish for being on the Group Dentistry Now show. I really appreciated the deep dive. Let’s make sure that we don’t have a four-year period between this podcast and the next one. So again, thank you all for being here, and Thank you, everybody, for listening in. We appreciate Dental 365 and what they’ve done over the past 10 years and are excited to see what they’re going to do in the next 10. And again, until next time, I’m Bill Neumann.