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This is Riz Hatton with the
Becker's Dental Pasti. So podcast,

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I'm thrilled to be joined
today by John Button,

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executive chairman of
Collective Care Dental. John,

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thank you so much for being here today.

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My pleasure, Riz. Thanks for having me.

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Could you start off by introducing
yourself and telling us a bit,

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a bit about your background? Sure.

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Happy to do that. Uh, I grew up
with, uh, the son of a doctor,

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so healthcare has always been my
passion. That said, I went to college.

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I was married at a young age,

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got out and went into an industry
totally removed from this. Uh, I had,

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uh, a good career. It, it was, uh, uh,

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a very fulfilling in a lot of ways
and I had a lot of responsibility,

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but I never had the passion around that
industry that I had around healthcare.

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So I was running a, a
fairly sizable business,

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but just eight to get into healthcare.

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So I left and brought the experience
that I had to the healthcare environment

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back probably in the early nineties.
I had a consulting business,

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consulting with doctors and dentists
and hospitals and things like that on a

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variety of issues. And, uh, so
that's the background that I had.

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Uh, when we finally decided to get
into this business back in, uh,

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2000, mid, uh, 2014 or so, uh,

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we actually acquired our first
practice in 2015 and Collective Care

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went from there. So
that's my background, Riz.

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Fantastic. Thank you for sharing.
Let's dive into my first question here.

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What are the biggest issues
you're following in dental today?

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That's a great question. I, I'm going
to look at it a couple different ways.

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I think if I were to say, what are we
following in healthcare today, it's,

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it's obviously, or in dentistry today,

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it's obviously the
emerging technology and its

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impact both clinical and nonclinical
and its impact on the industry.

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As I think about that question,

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I also think about it in terms though
of what are we focusing on internally

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in our business,

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and I think that's probably a little bit
relevant to the conversation because as

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with dentists all over the country,

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staffing has been a real issue
that we've had to focus on,

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particularly since the pandemic
and driving patient loyalty is what

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dentistry's all about.

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So we spend an awful lot of time
thinking about how do we continue

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to grow our patient base.

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And I think that stems from patients
receiving excellent dentistry

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in a caring and compassionate manner
from people who they enjoy being around

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and people,

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those people have to enjoy being around
the folks they're working with to have

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that show through to the patients.

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So we spend an awful lot of time focusing
on what I'll call culture within the

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practices. Uh, you know, I think as you,

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uh, as you try to grow your practice,

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losing key people has had a
real impact on this industry.

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And as we all know,

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the hygienist workforce decline
somewhat after the pandemic.

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So how do you attract great people and

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keep them in ways other than
just continually increasing

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compensation because that's unsustainable.

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And one of the things we noticed
during the pandemic was that as the

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workforce became, uh, smaller, uh,

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then people started saying, well, we'll
answer that by paying people more money.

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And that, that is unsustainable,

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particularly if you're running a business
and you have to generate a profit at

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some point, there's gonna be an end to
that. And I think generally, people who,

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who change jobs strictly
for the money are only gonna

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be there until the next
dollar comes along. Uh,

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so we've spent an awful
lot of time focusing on

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education internally, staff
training, staff, education,

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uh, how do we do things
internally that are fun?

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How do we get people to
enjoy being together,

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create an environment where people
wanna be there for reasons other than

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just fair pay? So obviously fair
pay is a very important thing,

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but we strive very hard to
provide an environment that, uh,

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encourages people to
really wanna be there.

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Interesting. Thank you. Sure. So looking
ahead into the future of industry,

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what are you most excited about
and what makes you nervous?

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The emergence of technology is
critically important in this business,

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and I think I'm, I'm
very excited about that.

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I think the quality of dentistry is
gonna improve. I think the, uh, and that,

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you know, with things like 3D printing,

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the cost of providing some of
that service will get better.

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Digital dentistry is critically important.

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It gives patients the opportunity
with Al cameras, et cetera,

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to see things differently than
they were able to in the past.

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So it's good from, uh,

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in terms of educating the patients
on what's really happening, you know,

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in their own situation.
3D technology is great,

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is a great diagnostic
tool for certain things.

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And then if you look beyond
just the clinical technology,

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the practice management,

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web-based systems with analytics
capabilities and things like that

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are,

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are very important to optimizing
the performance of your practice,

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the patient communicator tools, the
on online appointment, appointment,

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scheduling, you know, just all
kinds of things. And then of course,

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artificial intelligence, which is
emerging now as extremely interesting,

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uh, across not only dentistry
and healthcare, but in, you know,

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all kinds of other areas as well.

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So those are some of the things
I think that I'm excited about.

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I think it's gonna really change
the scope of the provision of

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healthcare across all, all aspects of it,

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not just dentistry.

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Interesting.

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So what will the most effective healthcare
leaders need to be successful in the

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next two to three years?

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Uh, great question. A couple
of things. First of all,

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cybersecurity is probably the biggest
threat that we have right now.

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And sometimes I think that goes, uh,

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it gets overlooked to the extent
that the impact could, uh,

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have. So, you know,

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we're HIPAA compliant industry
and payon data is so critically

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important.

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So obviously I think healthcare
leaders always have to be very focused

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on what the success factors
in their industry are.

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And so healthcare leaders are gonna
have to be very attuned to keeping

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their enterprises as secure as possible,

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capturing good data,

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utilizing the analytics are
things that, you know, we,

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we didn't have to do that to the same
extent and didn't have the ability to do

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that to the same extent in the past
as we're gonna be able to do as we can

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today, as we're gonna
be able to do tomorrow.

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So the really good leaders in this
industry are gonna take advantage of that.

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I think they're gonna take, uh, stay
abreast of not only nonclinical,

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but also clinical technology evolution.

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And the, the, Tim, in my
way of thinking, r uh,

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it's not critical to be leading edge
in everything. You know, I think the,

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I always say this
internally in our business,

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w we need to determine what's truly an
investment and provides the right kind of

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return versus what's a cost.

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Some things are nice to have and they're
great and they look good and they're

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pretty,

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but they don't really improve
the performance of the
business to the extent that

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they're worth the investment.
Other things may seem expensive,

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but the return, uh,

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that you get for investing in that
particular technology or whatever it is,

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uh, it makes it something
you, you can't do without.

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So I think good leaders are gonna
have the ability to think that way.

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And I also think the last element,

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I guess would be getting outside the box

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<laugh>. And I'm not suggesting
this that I'm gonna say, but I,

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I think one example of that is you read
a lot today about the four day work

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week.

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I haven't heard anybody
in dentistry talking about
going to a four day work week

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for the, you know, the practice as a
whole. Individual dentists may do that,

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but not the practice as a whole.
And I'm not suggesting it,

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we haven't really looked at it,

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but stepping back from tra the traditional
thing and looking at new ideas that

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come along to see what the
impact might be on the overall

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practice, on the employees, uh, on, on,

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on all aspects of it, I think that
really good leaders are gonna be,

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you know, looking at, at new
ideas on a continual basis and,

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and bringing some of those to bear.

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Absolutely. Well, thank you so
much, John, for joining us today,

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and thank you for all of
your fascinating insights.

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I look forward to connecting
with you again in the future.

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Thank you. R I enjoyed it.
I look forward to that.