The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry – Episode 207

Ranked the #1 DSO Podcast!

Welcome to The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry!

Ashish Bagai, Co-CEO & Co-Founder and Dr. Monica Srivastava, Chief Clinical Officer & Co-CEO of Vitana Pediatric & Orthodontic Partners, join the GDN Show with Dr. Heather Thornton, Owner, Dentists 4 Children & Dr. George Lynch, Owner of Cobblestone Kids Pediatric Dentistry. The panel discusses:

• Vitana’s story
• Partnership opportunities with a specialty group
• Culture and autonomy
• Technology and changes in the dental industry

To learn more about Vitana Pediatric & Orthodontic Partners visit https://vitanapdp.com/

Thank you to Large Practice Sales for sponsoring this podcast. To learn more about Large Practice Sales visit – https://dso.pub/41NnEpD

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DSO podcast transcript:

Welcome to the Group Dentistry Now Show, the voice of the DSO industry. Join us as we talk with industry leaders about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry. With over 200 episodes and listeners in over 100 countries, we’re proud to be ranked the number one DSO podcast. For the latest DSO news, analysis and events, and to subscribe to our DSO Weekly e-newsletter, visit GroupDentistryNow.com. We hope you enjoyed today’s show. Over the last 35 years, over 10,000 dentists have quietly partnered with invisible dental support organizations. They become a doctor’s silent partner by buying an interest in a practice for cash now at low tax rates. Doctors continue as owners and benefit from the resources of a larger silent partner. You should understand them as you will either join one or compete with many in the coming years. Learn more at largepracticesales.com.

Bill Neumann: Welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now show. I’m Bill Neumann, and as always, we appreciate you tuning in. We have a couple hundred podcasts under our belt now, so it’s always great to learn so much from the guests that we have on. This is gonna be more of a panel discussion today, so we’ve got a team here really interested to focus on pediatric and orthodontic care in the industry. a DPO that I think most of you have heard of, maybe some haven’t, but we’re going to get to know the players, and we’re going to get to know really how each one of these team members arrived at Vitana Pediatric and Orthodontic Partners. So we’ll do some introductions here. We have Ashish Bhagai, co-CEO and co-founder of Vitana Pediatric Orthodontic Partners. Ashish, good to see you.

Ashish Bagai: Nice to be here, Bill. Thanks for having us.

Bill Neumann: Yep, and you were the first person I met from Vitana years ago, so it’s great. I appreciate you kind of bringing everybody in today to have this conversation. Next up, we have Dr. Monica Srivastava, pediatric dentist, chief clinical officer, and co-founder of Vitana Pediatric and Orthodontic Partners. Dr. Monica, great to have you here.

Dr. Monica Srivastava: Thanks for having me, I’m excited.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, this is gonna be great. Dr. Heather Thornton, she is the owner of Dentist for Children and also a partner at Vitana, and she comes from Alabama. So she’s in Montgomery, Alabama right now. So good to have you here, Dr. Thornton.

Dr. Heather Thornton: Thank you. It’s nice to be here. Excellent.

Bill Neumann: And then actually I found this out just before we went to record. We have Dr. George Lynch. He is in Philadelphia. So he’s just down the road from our studio here. He’s the owner of Cobblestone Kids Pediatric Dentistry and a Vitana partner as well. So Dr. Lynch, great to have you here.

Dr. George Lynch: Hey, thanks, Bill. And we can talk about the Eagles later.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, we tend to talk a lot of sports in the town, and if you oppose us, then watch out. Definitely don’t come to an Eagles game with an opposing jersey, because it’s a recipe for disaster. Absolutely. Why don’t we go through some introductions here? Ashish, do you wanna start things off a little bit about your background?

Ashish Bagai: Absolutely. So I started my career off as an investment banker. I worked for a firm called UBS and I was based out of LA and then eventually UK and London as well. From there, I played a bit of professional cricket. It’s a bit of a side path, but a very interesting part of my journey. I represented Canada in about three World Cups. but also played in leagues in South Africa, Australia, and Asia. So that was a great time in my life. Unfortunately got injured in 2011 and went back to business school, which happened to be in Philly. So go Eagles. Did my MBA at the Wharton School of Business at Pennsylvania. And from there, spent some time at a firm called McKinsey & Company. It’s a management consulting firm out of their New York office. where I really focused on growth strategy, operations, and digital marketing in the healthcare space, pharma, and financial institutions. And then right before Vitana, I was also in an operational role where I was head of marketing and operations at a global fintech. So that’s my background prior to Vitana.

Bill Neumann: That’s great. And we’ll talk about Vitana and kind of the genesis of, you know, forming the DPO in a second. Dr. Monica, a little bit about your, you’re also a co-founder there at Vitana, a little bit about your background.

Dr. Monica Srivastava: Sure. I started my dental career at Boston University, so that was a great time in my life, those four years of dental school in a very academic city. Once I graduated, I did go to New York and worked at Columbia for an AEGD. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do beyond general dentistry at that point, and I really wanted to get my feet wet into the world of dentistry, so I went to Columbia. And then afterwards, worked as a general dentist for a few years, ended up as a actual general dentist in a pediatric office. And that really piqued my interest in the pediatrics. And I realized it was a now or never moment for me, and I decided to apply and was accepted to the St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. So again, I guess go Eagles again. I was there for a long time. Really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed the pediatric dentistry experience. Once I graduated, I had a chance to work in various different models of care. One, you know, being a very boutique-y type feel of office. One being a very heavy, high volume, more of a Medicaid population office, and everything in between. So, you know, really an opportunity to try different types of dentistry in terms of pediatrics. And I’m practicing now and still enjoy practicing alongside or working at Vitana.

Bill Neumann: Thank you. Dr. Thornton, a little bit about yourself.

Dr. Heather Thornton: I went to dental school at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, often known as UAB. And I went there four years and then I did a general practice residency for one year. And then I applied to pediatrics and was actually accepted also at UAB. And I finished up there in 2000 and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, back where my family was. and joined into the practice at Dentist for Children, have been there ever since.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. And Dr. Lynch.

Dr. George Lynch: Yeah, so I started my dental career at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. And then I went directly into a pediatric residency not too far away. Coincidentally, the same residency that Dr. Monica went to a little bit before her at St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital. And after residency, I worked a bunch of jobs. I worked in a different office probably every day and I was bouncing around the Philadelphia, South Jersey area. I really wanted to learn different models of care for pediatric dentistry. So like Dr. Monica, I’ve kind of worked in all different different types of offices just so that I could kind of hone in on what I wanted to do. And so I created Cobblestone Kids Pediatric Dentistry about 16 years ago, right in the heart of Center City, Philadelphia, where there wasn’t really smaller pediatric dental offices. They were these much larger practices, almost like factory practices, which honestly serve a great deal of care. But I wanted to really hone in on more personalized care. And so we created Cobblestone Kids and we’ve been in that location for about 15, 16 years. And we are now creating a second office over the bridge in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, kind of the same model. And we’ll certainly talk more about that in the upcoming podcast.

Bill Neumann: Great, thank you, Dr. Lynch. So, Ashish, let’s start to get into the Q&A portion here. Tell us a little bit about Vitana and maybe how things got started. And I know you’re a co-founder, so is Dr. Monica.

Ashish Bagai: Yeah, so, Bill, Vitana, we’re a dental partnership organization focused entirely on pediatric dentistry and orthodontics. Even within pediatrics and orthodontics, we’re focused on a subset of dentists that are growth-oriented. And by that, I mean focus either on personal growth, professional growth, financial growth, and any of those combinations. And so people who are not necessarily looking to retire just yet, sure, there’s an eventual transition plan, and everyone should have that. really looking to put fuel to that fire and achieve the ambitions they always had. So that’s a subset of Peter Ortho. We’re focused on two sort of regions, in the south from Texas to Florida, and in the north, anywhere from Virginia to New York. is our two, for various reasons that I can get into, and happy to, but those are the two areas we’re focused on. And so far, you know, the genesis of this, and Guata Monica and I are married, for the viewers that didn’t know, and for you, Bill, if you didn’t know. which is what brought me into the wonderful world of dentistry and maybe just awarded to our third co-founder, which is an important part of the equation. Samir and I went to undergrad together over 25 years ago, and the three of us have known each other for that time. He also has a background in investment banking, but he spent some time at a firm called Ares Management. They’re a private equity company that in the early 2000s, when he was there, owned Aspen Dental, and he was with the healthcare team. So that was his connection to group dentistry. And our model is very different from Aspen, and we’ll get into that, but at least we wanted to show the connection of the three of us and how we got into pediatrics and orthodontics. So that’s the group highlights, and that’s the three founders for it.

Bill Neumann: Excellent, yeah. And Ashish, before we get any further in the podcast, it’s funny, you have been on other podcasts before, this might be the first dental podcast, but I know there were a couple cricket podcasts as I was doing a little research that I happened to find you on. So is that right? Is this the first dental or was it?

Ashish Bagai: This is the first dental. I’ve done some work on broadcasting as well in my earlier younger days in cricket. So yes, but I’m excited to be here and get in this phase of my journey.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Well, now that I know you’ve been in broadcasting, you’ll probably grade this, but just grade it after we’re done recording in case we don’t do a good job. I don’t do a good job here. Dr. Monica, obviously co-founder, talk about the inspiration behind forming the DPO.

Dr. Monica Srivastava: Yeah, so, you know, I’ve always had an interest in the quality of care and the access of care for children, oral health care in general. I mean, working in different models, you start to see some demographics have more of an access to care, you know, and being able to see a dentist, pediatric dentist or orthodontist regularly. And in some demographics, you don’t. So with that in mind, you know, we started doing some research and realized that nationally, you know, pediatricians in medicine see over 70% of kids And that’s a pretty large amount, not 100, but a vast majority. But in comparison, pediatric dentists and orthodontists really only see anywhere from 25% to 30% today. And knowing that that will grow over time, knowing that in the next 5 to 10 years, that will be anywhere from to 40 to 45%. I mean, we may not ever get to 70% or even 100 because really medicine and dentistry are really fundamentally different. But having that goal, understanding that there’s a market opportunity for children was really the genesis of Vitana. The other piece really was that we realized over time that not all dentists want to do everything that is involved in running a dental practice. And that means that more of the business side of things outside the four walls. And so with all those sort of pieces together, it felt like it was the right time to create something that pediatric dentists and orthodontists could come together and have support through a company like Vitana. And that’s sort of where the dentists came in.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. So the market, I don’t know if it’s getting crowded, but there are a lot of options and opportunities for clinicians, whether they’re looking to partner, to sell some type of transition or support or just looking for career opportunities. It used to not be this way, but there are a lot of options out there. So maybe talk a little bit and she should be going to kind of kick things off about how you differentiate Vitana from some of the other DSOs or DPOs in the market.

Ashish Bagai: Yeah, it’s a great question, Bill. So I think I’ll start with the fundamentals of how we’re different and then get into how we approach partnership with certain people. I think first and foremost, the reason why we got into this was we just thought most groups that were there, and this was about three years ago when we started, We’re trying to be everything to everybody. So, you know, if you’re retiring, if you’re older or younger, if you’re in this geography, if you’re in this specialty, And what that ends up doing is creates a DNA of the company that really doesn’t offer a personalized custom approach to that particular population of dentists. So first thing is we’re focused on pedo-orpho, but within that, we’re focused on a subset of that, which is growth-oriented, the overall younger dentists who still want to continue to grow. So that’s a very different cohort that you want to be a part of. We’re also a DPO in the sense of a JD model. I think for specialties, it’s extremely important because there’s not that many specials out there and to have it, you know, continuity of care and a healthy, sustainable organization, a JD model for specialty is incredibly important. That’s two. I think The other reason why really we came to be and how we’re structured is most groups in the past have been financially structured towards the group benefiting more so than the dentists. And we wanted to create a group where yes, the group benefits financially, but also the dentists were at the heart of part of the group and I’ve come from a non-dental background originally and understand that dentists are the product and the heartbeat of the organization. So without them, nothing exists. And so I wanted to make sure the financial equality across the ecosystem was set up in a way where it’s sustainable. So that’s the approach. I think how we’re different, our criteria, again, is a subset of dentists who are very good at what they do. For example, Dr. Mark Lemchan, who’s an orthodontist in New York, one of the pioneers in the industry who joined us. He’s the founder of Dolphin PMS, which is, again, tells you about the quality of people we’re getting as part of this group. He was on the older side, however, still has aspirations of growth. He just started a robotics company for dental practices. So that doesn’t have to just do with age, it’s the mindset that we’re talking about. I think the second is the partnership approach. And we’re really proud of the fact that the dentists are still the CEOs of their practice. And we have two here, we’ll get into that a bit as well. And we’re really able to create a custom approach. It doesn’t have to be, this is our model and hopefully it works for you. Every dentist is different and what their needs are, are different. So that’s another, And the third is really in this day and age, as you mentioned, Bill, there’s a lot of groups coming out there. If you’re just a group that’s just trying to accumulate practices and hopefully sell them one day as a group, I don’t think that math works anymore. So you have to have a really, really good plan for organic growth. I’m happy to elaborate on that a little bit too. organic growth to be able to make this work and be beneficial for everybody. So we look to partner with groups that are looking to 50% to 100% growth over the first five years versus just, hey, we’re gonna get together, hopefully put these practices together and sell them off one day. That’s not us, that’s not our DA.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Yeah, and I definitely want to talk about organic growth because that is something I think that we realize as an industry is it’s key to success and where three or four years ago when money was cheap and people were duct taping practices together and selling off, in some cases, their problems to somebody else to deal with them. Can’t do that anymore. And probably didn’t make sense at the beginning to do that either, but it’s neither here nor there. But there are a lot of groups that had that plan. Great at biz development, but not necessarily great at growing the individual practices in the group as a whole. Dr. Lynch and Thornton, maybe some feedback from you, from your perspective, how you saw Vitana as unique and different and how you ultimately became partners. Dr. Thornton, if you want to start things off.

Dr. Heather Thornton: I’ve thought about this, and one of the things that I love about Vatana is the fact that they have such strong leadership, and they’re very genuine individuals. And the fact that all three of them, Ashish, Monica, and Amir, are still very involved with each practice that they acquired along the way is very important to me. And I love the fact that Dr. Monica is still in the trenches with us and she’s practicing pediatric dentistry every day. And that also lets me know that they understand the values and the ethics of pediatric dentistry, which is extremely, extremely important. The other thing I love is they’re not cookie cutter. They didn’t come into my practice and say, we’re going to change all this software and and we’re gonna do the billing just like this, and we’re gonna have to let go some of your staff. That was never even an issue at all. They knew from the beginning that my staff was very important to me and that I did not wanna lose any of my staff. And of course, their comment to me was, Heather, why are we gonna fix something that’s not broken? We want you to have your staff and we want you to be comfortable. And I just appreciate things like that. And they are just truly genuine, good people and anyone should be blessed to be able to work with them.

Bill Neumann: Certainly is important. Dr. Lynch.

Dr. George Lynch: Yeah. I mean, Dr. Heather, I couldn’t agree any more with you. You know, Vitana is absolutely not your cookie cutter, DPO or for including the broad group, you know, DSO. When you meet them from the get go, you know, you’re dealing with quality people. You know, having Dr. Monica as being a clinician for, you know, having her expertise, you know, coming into this also just makes it more accepting to us as clinicians. You know, we’re not just talking to people in suits that want to take over and just change everything that we’ve, you know, taken so long and put so many blood, sweat, and tears into to grow. I think the big thing here is that Vitana’s MO is this is a collaboration, right? This isn’t a takeover. This is a collaboration. And I think that’s for everybody who’s listening to our podcast that, you know, they’re not coming in to strip your autonomy. You know, we are part of an industry that we have based so much of our lives on being autonomous and building these practices and being our own CEOs. And really, Vitana comes in and only wants to amplify what we’ve worked so hard to build. And they make that known. And I’ll tell you what, they’ve been great on their word. I’ve been with Vitana for almost, let’s say, two and a half years. And nothing has changed on our ends in terms of how we treat our patients, how we work with our teams. So yeah, I agree with Dr. Heather wholeheartedly with that.

Bill Neumann: Let’s, let’s talk a little bit about the support side of things. Yep. And Dr. Lynch kind of put it really well. It’s like you’ve got the DPO, but really, you know, overarching, you’ve got DSOs and, you know, We’re an acronym heavy industry, but the idea is the P, the partnership, has a lot to do with the, I think, the equity that you retain at the practice level. And also, maybe in your case, the autonomy that you have. But that S, that support or service with the DSO, can you talk a little bit about what that means to Vitana and what type of services and support you’re providing your partner, Dennis? Ashish, if you want to start. Yeah, I can start on that.

Ashish Bagai: I think it stems with a with the philosophy that they’re still the CEOs. But CEOs don’t have to do everything. CEOs have to be engaged. CEOs have to be involved. The CEOs have to be caring about their business, their teams, their people, their patients. And so with that, the services that we focused on, there’s two of them that are sort of centralized that we think there’s a lot of sense to put together. And they’re outside those four walls, which is accounting, bookkeeping, and overall vendor management, vendor payments. And the second that we centralize is the administrative side of HR. So anything to do with payroll, recruiting, onboarding, HR compliance, employee management. There’s a lot of good reasons. One is Dennis do not like doing any of those two things. And second, I think there’s a lot of benefits in centralizing or consolidating those two. But outside of that, really, it’s almost like a buffet if you think about it. Before we partner, we think about and talk about what are the areas that you really either are not good at, hate doing, or you think somebody else might be doing a better job at. And so, you know, that’s different for every practice. Areas like marketing or insurance, or in some cases, construction or expansion of capacity, you know, analytics, things like that. That’s really a custom approach and a buffet of services that we discuss that with the partners. And everybody has, hey, I’ve tried these things before. They don’t work. Well, let’s not go reinvent the wheel. But there are generally about five to six things that they really want to help in, and those are different for everybody. And that’s the approach. Two things that are centralized that we all do for everybody, and the rest are sort of custom, as you can think about it.

Bill Neumann: From your perspective, Dr. Thornton and Lynch, what does the partnership look like from your side of things?

Ashish Bagai: Dr. Thornton, it’s your turn now.

Dr. Heather Thornton: You make FACO. For Dentist for Children, I know one of the big things that I was interested in is having a new website and having more online presence and more social media presence. And they have been wonderful to come in and help us create a new website. And HR has come in and helped us with being able to help with our hiring of our staff and that type of thing. I’m still completely in charge of hiring who I want, but if I can’t find someone, they are more than helpful to put out fillers and help us find people. They go on Indeed and places like that. They were able to institute a bonus system for my staff, which I had not been able to do in the past, didn’t know really how to do it. And they came in and created that for us. And it has created such huge motivation for my staff. And they’ve also, like Ashish said, been able to streamline a lot of clerical areas that I just did not enjoy because I did not enjoy payroll. I did not enjoy 401k contributions. I spent a lot of extra time at the office before we started and after we started doing all of those things. And so it has been wonderful to actually be able to go home at the end of the day and spend time with my family. And I also want to say, I love the yearly leadership conference that they’ve done the last two years. It’s wonderful. They bring in great speakers that teach us how to be better leaders. They bring some of our key staff with us that also get to be involved often. It’s just been a very eye-opening, wonderful experience.

Bill Neumann: Great. And maybe I can ask Dr. Lynch this question then. How about results? Because it sounds great. Partnership sounds great. And I will say, and you do hear, I’m sure you’ve all heard this before, some dentists partner with DSOs and it’s not necessarily what they thought it would be. So let’s talk a little bit about results. Dr. Lentjky, you said two and about two and a half years. So what’s your feedback on the results and the support that you’ve had? How has that translated into, you know, whether it’s better lifestyle, you know, more production? Just kind of let us know what two and a half years in looks like.

Dr. George Lynch: Yeah, absolutely. Well, first and foremost, I would say that to everyone that Vitana, me partnering with Vitana has created just more space for my life. More things you know I can do outside and I like to say I was already very blessed to have a really good support team. My office manager and all of my team players I mean have been amazing but even with that support, you know. It’s every day you come into the office and it’s like, Dr. George, can I talk to you after work today? It’s every day. And so the TANA has relieved that question because nobody wants to get that question in the morning. Now you’re thinking, what do they want to talk about? And at 4.59 every day, we’re all looking just to get out of the office. And now we’ve got to deal with something. else. So that certainly has taken that away and it’s created way more space just for, you know, my my personal and emotional growth. But the metrics don’t lie. You know, we in the two years have actually been able to double our EBITDA. I mean, that’s huge, you know, and the numbers don’t lie. And so we’ve been able to do that and to be able to see that on paper. It’s just it’s just amazing. So really, we’ve been able to double that EBITDA, grow. We were amidst the start of a practice, like I mentioned before, in Cherry Hill, which, you know, though it’s only six miles away, it’s in a different state. It has different tax implications. It has different structures, different licensing. it was a little bit of a nightmare to get that up and running, but it was one of these things after COVID, we had so many of our families moving out of the center city area and moving to the South Jersey suburban area. And so our patients were moving and we were trying to grow, but it was tough. And so that in two years, we’ve gotten that practice up and running, and I feel that it’s thriving. And again, the numbers don’t lie that, you know, every month, that’s another thing that BATANA provides. are the numbers. And that’s something we’ve always wanted to do, stay on top of it. But at the end of the day, it’s just you start over the next day, it’s that wash, rinse and repeat kind of mode that you’re in. And now we actually have a partner that backs us up, gives us numbers, shows us the growth. And so, like I said, the numbers don’t lie. And we’ve really seen an uptick in our business in both practices.

Bill Neumann: Thanks, Dr. Lynch. Maybe move on to a little bit more general questions about the industry as a whole. Dr. Monica, in the past decade or so, what’s your perspective on the changes that have occurred in the DSLO space?

Dr. Monica Srivastava: You know, overall, I think in the past decade, a lot has changed. I mean, they started off, as you said, duct taping practices together, which is no longer acceptable, nor should it have been in the past. You know, for the newer dentists, overall, the desire and the appetite for ownership has changed. So I think that although much more taboo before, now there’s a growing acceptance of the DSO or DPO model. There’s a desire, though, for those same younger dentists to still be part of the process, not necessarily just be an associate forever, but to have some sort of ownership, but not necessarily to do everything. And I think overall in the industry, that’s being recognized, that dentists still want a piece of it, but they don’t want to do everything anymore. So that’s been a change, I think, before it was all about just coming in and taking over the office. And nobody really is looking for that. They’re looking to retain their identity, retain their staff, retain their overall goodwill in the community. The other thing is, I guess, like introduction of technology over time, as you know, with AI and all has become more and more prevalent. And I think with access to more capital and a few more minds in the team behind, you know, AI and technology, it’s easier to adopt those into DSOs and DPOs now. I think there’s a mindset also among dentists that it is part of practicing dentistry, not the way it was before. And so it’s important to sort of make sure that we stay on top of both retaining new dentists, bring them into the fold and making sure they’re happy and enjoy the process of being in a DPO or DSO. And then also making sure that they all have a handle on the technology because there’s new changes every day and not that you want to adopt every single change, but you want to make sure that the ones that will benefit your patients, the overall practice are part of your day to day. And that takes sometimes, you know, a little bit of an adoption curve to get there.

Bill Neumann: That’s really good points. And Ashish, maybe you can kind of build on what Dr. Monaco was saying a little bit. But as far as trends go, we do see this acceleration with technology everywhere, but in dental we’ll talk about, and AI. And I almost feel like there’s so many solutions out there. It has to be overwhelming for dentists. So, I’m assuming Vitana is there to kind of help maybe sort through some of these options, whether they’re clinical technology solutions or where they’re front or back office solutions as well. So many opportunities, whether it’s going to help you reduce costs, organic growth we talked a little bit about, but I just can’t imagine. I just look at all the solutions that seem to be coming out almost daily. It’s inundating and they’re probably not all great solutions or they’re not all equal. So talk a little bit about that and some of the trends that you see shaping the industry.

Ashish Bagai: Yes. First of all, I think Dr. Monica pointed out that it is expensive sometimes to adopt some technology. And so having a group to be able to experiment, I use that word very, very carefully, is important. That’s the only way you sort of stay ahead of the curve. But technology is going to drive us into the next decade of dentistry. I mean, dentistry as a whole has been, I would say, behind the overall retail experience. but we’re catching up. So things like, you know, AI-powered diagnostics, digital workflows, you have pilot industry. And as I mentioned, Dr. Mark Lemchan, our group, he’s just founded a robotics company to be able to have in-office robotics. So all of those four areas within technology are gonna gain traction. It’s important to not get overwhelmed and simplify and almost say no to certain things versus yes to everything. And our approach is, hey, let’s try this in one or two offices first. We’re looking to try AI agents on the call side. in the next month or so with a startup out of California. But we’re going to do that in one or two offices, see how it goes. If it works well, we’ll adopt it more broadly. But I think the approach is we’re certainly open. We’re very encouraging of experimentation. But we also know that it puts a lot of stress into the system with employees and team members that are Quite frankly, sometimes fighting fires. And so you have to balance that innovation approach from a doctor or a support team standpoint with the realities of the offices. And be smart about making sure you bring them on board, you make them understand how it’s gonna make their life easier, but then with small steps, experiment, and then once you show proof points across the board, adopt that more broadly.

Bill Neumann: Dr. Monica, let’s talk a little bit about culture. And I’d love to get feedback from everyone on this, because it’s one of the, again, it’s one of these words that you hear a lot in the industry. And we hear a lot about organic growth. We hear a lot about culture. And sometimes the people that scream the loudest about culture have, you know, not the best culture. We sometimes find out. But let’s talk about the importance of that and really how you can drive a culture when you have Dr. Thornton’s in Alabama and you have Dr. Lynch in Philadelphia. There’s an importance to that. So what are you doing to really kind of make it a cohesive, friendly organization when you do have different cultures? Dr. Lynch’s culture was probably different than Dr. Thornton’s culture to a degree at the practice level. So talk a little bit about that, Dr. Monica, if you can.

Dr. Monica Srivastava: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess I start off with, you know, when we meet dentists, you know, I think that’s an important part where we start the process of understanding the culture within the office and whether or not there’s really going to be a bridge to the Vitana culture. When I talk about the Vitana culture, I really mean, you know, really centered around our values, our mission, and decision making. The mission really is to, as I mentioned before, to increase the access and quality of care for healthcare for children, oral healthcare specifically. But our values are really based upon leadership, that’s leadership within the office, leadership outside the office, the presence of who that person is in the community. It’s centered around growth. Are they growth-minded? Do they feel like they want to grow both personally and professionally? And then also the impact. Are they interested in making an impact beyond just the four walls of their office, outside the community, but also across the nation by forming connections from potentially Philadelphia or Pennsylvania to Alabama? And so, that’s really important to us. You know, the guiding principle that we really go by with, you know, decision-making is understanding if this dentist would, you know, when we bring them into the fold of a tonic, if they’re the type of person who would think about how it would affect their own children, would I bring my children to this practice? And the other one is, would my mother be proud of what I’m doing today? And so when you bring people together like that, who understand that you’re here to create a community, to create an impact on the people around you, that is one way where you automatically are sort of centered your values and your views together from day one. Now to impart culture from afar, I think Dr. Heather really alluded to this, but we do hold our, you know, Vatana leadership retreat yearly. And that is one way we can bring everyone together to center everyone around what we feel is important. And it’s not just what we feel as Vatana is important, but how to sort of incorporate all the best practices that we have around the country and bring them together. and really align our practitioners to understand that the children that we serve, the parents that we help, the families that are part of our practices are really the core of everything we do. And that’s really how we try to impart who we are to the practices around us.

Ashish Bagai: Bill, just to quickly, sorry, I’m going to just add something in there. I think the word culture is a very broad one. People interpret that very differently and think what Dr. Monaco was talking about were the core values, which I think we want everyone to have, and they certainly do, which is the three you mentioned. The way they express that in the offices and the way they interact with their teams is an expression of those values, and those are certainly sometimes different, and that’s okay. But at the core, what we’re looking for is good human beings with good, strong values that are aligned. The way they express themselves is actually a fun and good diverse way to see that, but the core of the human and the essence of the practice is very similar across.

Bill Neumann: Thanks, Ashish. Yeah, that’s, that’s important, for sure. You know, there’s, so as we talk about, you know, building this culture, there’s also the value, and Dr. Thornton talked a little bit about this, autonomy. You know, there’s some things that you don’t want to change, or maybe, you know, that you want to do that maybe are a little bit different. So let’s talk a little bit about how, you know, and maybe Dr. Lynch and Dr. Thornton, you could talk about this from your perspective, you know, the ability, the importance of maintaining that autonomy while still having access to other clinicians if you need to bounce ideas or cases off of each other and share thoughts on things, because you’ve got autonomy here where you want to do things a certain way, but you also want, to a degree, mentorship, right? To be able to lean on other clinicians, which you don’t always have if you’re on your own. Talk a little bit about the importance of autonomy. I’m just kind of curious about that because a lot of clinicians that maybe aren’t part of a DSO or a DPO, it’s one of their huge concerns that they’re going to have to do things a certain way.

Dr. George Lynch: I can speak to that. Autonomy, I think it’s the day one of dental school. You’re told that you are going to be in this office. You more than likely will be by yourself. You will be surrounded by a team of individuals that are probably younger than you, majority female. And this is dentistry. And you get into private practice. and you notice the day-to-day is something that you know and it’s hard to do new things because it’s like the day-to-day, you’re nine to five and at the end of the day, everybody wants to leave the office. So, the exciting thing with partnering with a DPO like Vitana is that you can now have someone in Alabama, someone in Florida, someone in New York that you can reach out that’s on your side to balance ideas off of. And like you guys were just mentioning earlier, there’s so much exciting stuff that’s happening in dentistry, with AI and technology. But when you’re in the middle of the day-to-day, you’re just doing what you know. And the thought to grow after 5 p.m., the thought to do new things, it’s just kind of just goes by the wayside. But now this gives us the ability to really reach out to people that really have your best interests at hand. to talk and learn how they do things because there’s a million and one ways to do something. And at the end of the day, you can teach an old dog new tricks. And so we’re realizing that. I think that’s what’s so exciting about doing this partnership is that you get to bounce those ideas and learn how other offices and practices do things.

Bill Neumann: Dr. Thornton, I’d like to ask you this question. How about some advice for some clinician that’s looking to partner with a DPO? Just maybe some of the things you went through and the decision-making process and what that experience was like.

Dr. Heather Thornton: Okay, well, I did talk to many, they were more DSOs as opposed to a DPO at the time before I met VITANA. And I’m just gonna say right off the bat, there is not a day that I am sorry that I joined practice with them. I wish I could have done it five years earlier, but it just wasn’t the right timing at the time. So one thing I would say is, hey, if you can join the VITANA, you are one lucky person, one lucky practice. And what I love is it’s a family. It’s not just a bunch of us out there trying to figure things out on our own, just like George talked about. We can reach out to one another. And of course, I can also reach out to Amir and Monica and Ashish anytime I want to. So we are not just one practice. We are many practices working together as a family and to make an impact in the world that we live in now and to help the children that we serve and the families that we serve. And I think it’s just important that people understand that there is a difference in a DPO and a DSO because like George was talking about at the end of the day, you’ve worked at a practice for, for me when I joined with them was 22 years. And it’s like, it’s like my own personal family and you want You want success for that. And I wanted to be able to keep some of my autonomy. I didn’t want to turn over everything, but I was able to turn over the things that I needed to turn over, the things that like Ashisha was saying, that you hate, that you don’t enjoy doing. But I, I’m very, very thankful that I am part of this family.

Bill Neumann: That’s, that is great.

Dr. Heather Thornton: At least. I’ll say that you also make sure that when you pick your, pick your partnership, that you pick someone that embodies the values and the core values that you, that you share in your beliefs, because I think that’s very, very important. And that’s what Monica was talking about. And all of us have the same core values and beliefs.

Dr. George Lynch: It absolutely feels like a family. I can’t agree more with Dr. Heather. It absolutely feels like a family. We talk about culture, but this is more like a family. We refer to everybody by their first name or even our team members talk about Dr. Monica, Amir, and Ashish. I mean, what other organizations where your teams actually know the higher-ups by name? So, we definitely have a family going here.

Dr. Monica Srivastava: Yeah, and Phil, just to add to that, you know, we really do try to make an effort to, you know, be at every partnership closing, to go there and go as a team and actually meet the staff and spend time getting to know them. I think that automatically sort of conveys our culture. It’s important for us to know who they are and they know that I think once we come, we’re not a big scary partnership group that’s coming to take over. We’re there to get to know the practices. We’re there to get to know the people, because these people are important to the crux of what we’re trying to do, which is create access to care, to have a great culture within the office, to grow. And all those things matter when everyone from, you know, from top to bottom, left to right, everyone’s involved. And when they feel that way, it’s empowering. It really is.

Bill Neumann: One thing we touched on earlier, but I’d really like to kind of get your feedback. And Dr. Monica, if you want to kind of start with this, and Ashish talked about organic growth and the importance of that. So really, do you have a given us an idea about the strategy that you’re using for your partner docs and practices to really help them grow organically?

Dr. Monica Srivastava: Yeah. Do you want to start, Ashish? Should I?

Ashish Bagai: I can kick it off. So I think it stems from the structure bill. If you have a structure, we spent a lot of time on refining that structure. If you have alignment financially, if you have shared upside, if you have shared risks, That makes that organic growth that much easier. It’s never easy. I’m not going to sit here and say that’s easy to do. It’s certainly not. But that just makes it lubricant to the entire system. And so organic growth, like I mentioned, there’s two things that we look to centralize. There’s a lot of benefits on that. But the rest of it is really getting to know the practice. But we don’t come in the first three months and say, hey, look, this is what we’re doing. Unless we learn what the practice does, what the DNA is, what the fabric of the institution we’re walking into is, it’s hard to go and say, hey, we’re going to do this. So that’s been my experience in my previous business lives, certainly with Amir as well. You don’t walk into somebody and tell them what to do because you have no idea what’s made them successful, what the environment is all about. So first, learn the environment. That’s going to hold you in good stead. And nothing’s going to be achieved in three months. So let’s not try to go guns firing in the first month. That never or very hardly leads to success. I think second is to be able to build buy-in and build trust within the entire team. Again, you can have the best ideas, they don’t go anywhere unless the team, not just the dockers you partner with, yes, they have a financial incentive to be aligned, but the team not necessarily does. So unless you win the respect and the trust of that team, that’s so important, it’s very hard to drive organic growth. Now, when you’ve done that, and there’s a lot of hard work in the first few months, we identify generally about seven to 10 things that the practice can achieve or look to as opportunities with the first two years. And they’re sometimes the same, sometimes different. you know, whether it’s operations, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s collections, whether it’s increasing capacity, adding specialties, adding doctors, hiring, whatever those areas are, really nail them down and then prioritize them with the doctors and their key staff and say, this is what we’re going to do in this particular order. And that’s how we go about systematically attacking those things in the first, I would say, two to three years. And so a little bit different for each practice, but I think that works well versus just day one, hey, we’re doing this because we do this at every office.

Dr. Monica Srivastava: Yeah, I just wanted to add to that. I think it’s important to understand that when we meet dentists, when we are in partnership with them, we really spend time asking them what they see their vision of the practice. You know, they’ve been busy building an amazing, amazing practice, and yet they’ve had to spend time doing the things that they prioritize. But there’s always a wish list of things that they wish they could have done, they wish they had time for. or things they’ve tried that didn’t work or worked well. And we really make sure that we take time to understand that because as Ashish said, you can’t go in and apply one formula across the board. It doesn’t work that way. But I think it’s important to respect what the dentist has done in the past and what they see their practice to be in five years, in 10 years, whatever it is that they are envisioning. And sort of take that and sort of break it down for them and with them to then figure out what the next building blocks are. And then also how to prioritize that. What makes sense? Because although it’s great for us to say what we think makes sense, they’re there, boots on the ground. What do they think makes sense to implement first? And how do they foresee that playing out? And that we really take into account because it’s important. I mean, they are the CEOs of their practice. So their word really goes a long way in deciding how we carry out organic growth or at least the strategies behind organic growth.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. That’s a great segue into last couple of wrap-up questions, Dr. Monica. So where do you see Vitana in the next, let’s say, three to five years? What’s the strategy? Ashish, I don’t want you to kick things off.

Ashish Bagai: I think, first and foremost, we don’t look at locations. We don’t generally look at you know, financials, where we look at our vision. Our vision is based around, and this really stems from Dr. Monica’s vision, is putting together the best community of 100 to 200 pediatric dentists and orthodontists in the country together, and really having them unleash what they think their potential is. And that’s really the vision. With that size of doctors, we think there’s enough of a community that has an impact on the country. or starting to have an impact on the country. Obviously we have bigger aspirations than that, but I think when you say three to five years, we’re looking at a community of 100, 200 dentists in these two specialties that really want to move the needle and have an impact.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. So just to kind of wrap things up here, I’ll give everybody a final word here. And I think maybe I should ask this question. If there’s anybody in our audience that wants to find out more about Vitana, what’s the best way to do that? Can you shout out your website URL for the people just listening to this? They’ll get that.

Ashish Bagai: Absolutely. So you can go to the website. It has got a lot of good information there about who we are. That’s vitanapdp.com. You can certainly reach out to me. I lead the business developmental partnership effort. It’s ashish at vitanapdp.com as well. And there’s plenty of ways through the website with regards to either emailing or there’s a contact form there. So there’s a lot of ways to get there. Just reach out and we’ll be happy to have a conversation.

Bill Neumann: Excellent, we’ll drop that website URL in the show notes and your email address and LinkedIn contact info, that kind of stuff, so you can make sure that you can get in touch with everybody that you need to. Maybe we’ll start with Dr. Thornton, just any final words before we say goodbye and then Dr. Lynch.

Dr. Heather Thornton: Well, I would say that If you are looking for a partnership that will grow your company, just like mine’s grown about 60 to 70% in the last couple of years. and you are looking for genuine individuals that will truly pour into your practice and want to make it better and will allow you to still have your autonomy and be the clinical decision maker of your practice, then you need to seriously look at Matana as a partnership.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Thank you. Dr. Lynch.

Dr. George Lynch: Yeah, I think those out there that are still just kind of teetering on what I should do or what I need to do. I have so many colleagues that are like, I can’t believe you did this already at your age. And I said, you know what? I think we need to look at this, that the DSOs and the DPOs, they’re not villains. They’re not looking for the most part to strip away our autonomy. There may be ones out there that are, but that’s where you really need to kind of do your due diligence, look out there and see what’s available. You know, know that not all of these corporate style companies, they come in all flavors. And you have to really try to figure out why you want to do this. And I think that’s the one thing is kind of look deep down and consider why you want to do this and then really do your homework and look out there and see which one’s best for you. You know, Vitana was exactly what I was looking for. You know, I wanted someone and a group to amplify what I’ve already spent so much of my life doing. And so I have no regrets.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Dr. Monica.

Dr. Monica Srivastava: I just wanted to say that we are looking for the best pediatric dentists and orthodontists out there. And we are looking for people who have the core values that we do, that enjoy treating patients, that enjoy what they do, but want to start to scale back a little bit as far as doing all the aspects of running a business. And Vitana is here for you to do that. We are proud of what we built. We are proud of our partners. We’re proud of the group that we’re putting together. And we hope to find more partnerships along the way. that will add more flavors, as Dr. George said, to our Katana team.

Ashish Bagai: I would like to say that everybody should at least be educated about the industry and where it’s headed, and do your research. We might be the right partner, we might not be, and it’s for you to know, and I think that’s part of the exercise. Do your research, really get to know the founders, really get to know the people, get to know the partners, but more importantly also, get to know the investors. I think they’re a big part of the culture, and we’re super, super proud of them. the investor group that we put together, they do impact culture and there’s no more important thing than culture when it comes to a partnership. And the second thing is I think there’s more more than two choices in your mind. You don’t have to sell or not sell. I think there’s, if you look at the world and where this can be a wealth planning tool, along with a good group of people that you’re working with, that’s the mindset that works well with us and other DPOs that are doing it right.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, that’s a great point for sure. And the other thing that I’ll say I really got out of this conversation today was from both Dr. Lynch and Dr. Thornton, the growth that they’ve had partnering with you over the past two and a half, three years, those numbers are pretty impressive. So not only are you growing, but you’re finding more time to do the things you like, whether it’s dentistry or whether it’s family time. I think those are things that you need to make sure that you’re cognizant of because you can partner and continue to grow and have free time. It doesn’t mean that it’s additional work. It can sometimes mean less work or the kind of work you like to do. So I think that’s super important, but great conversation. I really appreciate everybody joining today and thanks everybody for watching us. Make sure we drop that URL for Vitana in the show notes. Until next time, this is the Group Dentistry Now Show and I’m Bill Neumann. Thanks for watching.

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