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This is Riz Hatton with the Becker's Dental Baso podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Peter Emus,
chief Development Officer of Family Dental Care. Peter,
thank you so much for being here today.
Hey, Riz, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
To kick us off,
could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?
Yeah, I'll give you a brief overview. So I grew up in,
uh, a dental family. My father, um,
he immigrated from Greece about 40 years ago, uh, became a dentist,
and, uh, along with his brother, he's also a dentist,
and they both started a group called Family Dental Care in
Chicago. I,
and fast forward to me coming on board,
I never wanted to be a dentist. You know, I, I appreciated it, but I just never,
it just wasn't for me in terms of actually going to dental school.
So I started my career as an investment banker in New York,
um, and some time there,
and coincidentally ended up working on a lot of dental deals
while I was there. So sort of went full circle. And, um,
about seven years ago I came back to Chicago to help
work in the business and scale the business and been with the company for the
last seven years. We're now the largest privately owned dental group in Chicago.
And as the Chief development officer,
I sort of am overseeing multiple hats when it comes to, uh,
doctor recruiting as well as office acquisition,
and as well as de novo build outs and anything else you can think of.
So that's a brief overview of my background and my role. And then,
um, I guess one thing I'll add,
I'm also doing my MBA at the University of Chicago, so, uh,
staying extra busy these days.
Wow, that's amazing. Congratulations on, uh, your studies as well.
Thank you.
So my first question for you is,
what are the biggest issues you're following in dental today?
You know, one thing that seems to be a hot topic
these days is staff loyalty as well as staff retention.
I know a lot of groups are struggling with labor shortages and,
and as well as staff retention.
We're not really struggling with the shortage side,
but it's something that we're monitoring in terms of,
it's definitely a changing workforce, uh, post pandemic,
I think things really changed a lot. Um,
so that's something that we're really just trying to monitor because, um,
I think people are becoming more fickle than they were maybe 10 years ago,
uh, especially since I joined. It just,
it's a def definitely a different landscape,
so it's something we have to be mindful of.
I think people forget that dentistry is a people business and it's,
you have to really focus on your people and making sure you have a great culture
and a great team. And I think, um,
I guess the second thing I'll add is the technology of dentistry is changing
rapidly.
I think that's something that we're looking at heavily in terms of
implementing different, uh, technologies, whether it come,
whether it be with AI or enhanced marketing tools. Uh, that's another, uh,
thing that we are monitoring as well.
Interesting. So at Family Dental Care, how are you working to,
to retain staff?
I know you said you're not having as many issues on the shortage side of things,
so what has worked for you in terms of retention?
Yeah, I think, you know, I'll give a sort of a personal answer, uh,
that obviously might not apply to everybody, but because we're a,
a privately held, uh, family owned business,
we, um, have never had, we have,
we've had the luxury of not having to report to some sort of outside investor or
sell to private equity.
And I think a main reason for our retention is the fact that
we've had, you know, the same management and same owners for, you know,
35, 40 years. And, uh, because of that,
we've had staff that have, you know, been on board for the last 30 years.
We have staff who have their kids work for us. And I think, you know,
it all comes down to the fact that, you know,
we've really taken care of our staff and, you know,
we've always tried to grow our staff and really give them a runway
for, hey, this is your goalpost, you know,
for the next years and we want to help you get there. And you're not just,
you know, a random person that's just gonna come here and leave in two years.
So we really take like a long-term career approach. And I think anyone,
no matter what industry you're in, if you want to keep people and wanna,
you know, have a long-term company,
you really need to have that long-term approach and not, you know,
make it where you're just building a business so you can sell it within two
years.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I know you also brought up, uh,
the technology piece. Is there a specific, uh,
dental technology that you're keeping your eye on?
You know, nothing specific, but there are a lot of different, um,
I was just on a vendor call the other week,
but there's so many vendors that are coming
out with all sorts of different need technology these days. Um,
like I said earlier, like I alluded to earlier,
whether it be AI for treatment planning, um, or, you know,
marketing or, um,
we even we're looking at different technology when it comes to real estate and
office acquisition. There's just so much more, uh, capabilities,
um, when it comes to this stuff. And I think in the next five years,
AI will really enhance dentistry a lot and
I think will give us all sorts of different tools that we wish we had earlier.
So I'm really excited about what's gonna come and, uh,
we obviously are, you know,
monitoring all of those companies closely, but I think,
uh, for any business or any, you know,
any business in America, at least, you know,
the development of technology when it comes to AI I think is
very, um, very promising. Some we're really excited for that.
Fantastic. That leads me into my next question.
So aside from technology,
what are you most excited about and what makes you nervous?
Oh, geez, that's a, a good one. Um, so I think,
so when you think of,
one thing that gets me excited is when you think of the US economy,
uh, healthcare spend per year,
about $4 trillion, which is, which is massive.
And then when you kind of go a little more granular and you look at what is the
average dental spend per year, it's about 170 billion.
So just doing quick back envelope math,
that's like 5% of that healthcare spend is
dentistry.
And I think that's quite interesting because people are starting to realize
how much dental health affects your overall health.
And because of that,
I think there's so much more runway for dentistry to grow, uh,
especially if it's gonna get to the level that hospitals and general healthcare
is. Um, so that's something that really excites me. Um,
I think that we're gonna go through many evolutions to get there,
but it's something that's very exciting because I think for the first time,
at least in my career,
I've seen people starting to recognize that healthcare and dental care
are not different. They're,
they're very much aligned and they should be treated
as, you know, similar if not the same sort of bucket.
So that's something I'm very excited about is I think the growth of dentistry is
coming rapidly and there's a lot of tailwinds to, you know,
help us get there.
And then to your second point of what I'm nervous about,
I think as the industry's growing,
we're starting to see a lot of outside money, private equity,
investment funds and family offices come in and try to get in the industry.
And I think, you know, there has, there have been some,
you know, bad actors where they have come in and, you know,
maybe grown too fast and, you know, which has led to several bankruptcies.
And I think that's one thing I'm nervous about is the,
the industry has a lot of potential to grow, but if we have, like,
you know, many, you know, we have,
we have private equity backed DSOs that aren't really integrating and growing
too fast, that's sort of gonna have a trickle down effect in the industry.
So that's one thing that I think we should be mindful of as we keep growing in
the space.
Interesting. Thank you. My next question is,
what will the most effective healthcare leaders need to be successful in the
next two to three years?
That's a good one.
I think if you wanna lead a group in healthcare,
you really need to take one. You need to take a long-term approach,
and you have to realize that it all comes down to your patients.
Those are the people you're serving as well as your staff.
And I think if you just focus on how do you make the customer
slash patient experience better, and how do I make the staff experience better,
it'll just lend it lend itself to more growth and you'll recruit more
people and attract more talent and bigger and build a bigger brand.
I think that's where the main focus has to be.
Because if you just focus on profit margin and you know,
how do we maybe squeeze in a few more fillings here that maybe might have some
short term benefits, but in the long term,
it really is not gonna take you anywhere. So I think, you know,
any future healthcare leader really needs to focus on their staff and their
staff culture as well as, you know,
making their patient experience incrementally better, you know, year after year,
quarter after quarter.
Fantastic. Well, Peter, thank you so much for your fascinating insights.
I look forward to connecting with you again in the future.
Looking forward to it. Riz, thank you so much for having me on.
Of course.
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