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- This is the Becker's
Healthcare Podcast, created

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who power us healthcare.

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Four new 15 minute episodes
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From powerful healthcare
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Thanks for listening.
Now here's the episode.

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- This is Grace Link paler

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with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast,

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and we are live at the business

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and operations of ASCs in the
Future of Dentistry table.

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I'm joined right now by Bradley
Dykstra, who is a dentist

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and an MBA, um,

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and he is the CEO of
my Smiles Dental group.

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So Bradley, thanks so much for joining me

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and I'd love to have you
start off by taking a moment

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to introduce yourself and telling us a

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little bit more about your background.

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- Alright, so yeah, my name is Brad Destra

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and I grew up on a farm
in western Michigan.

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So I come from very humble beginnings.

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I graduated from dental school, university

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of Michigan in 1978,

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and so I've been in
dentistry for 45 years.

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When I got out of dental school,

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I started my own practice from scratch

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and we stayed a solo practice until

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2012 when we added a second practice.

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And then in about 2016 we
added our third practice.

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Then we officially formed A DSO

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and since then we've acquired
several more practices.

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So now we're at seven locations

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and we did three records
integrations into that.

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And I have not worked
chairside for a couple years,

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but I'm still leader
of the management team

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and kind of the, the
visionary of the company.

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- Wonderful. Well, thank you

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for sharing a little bit
more about what you do.

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Um, and I'd love to start
our discussion today with

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what are the biggest
issues you're currently

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following in the dental space?

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- The things I'm following
are the things I actually,

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one I'm really interested
in and one I don't like.

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So the one I don't care for

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but have to follow is
the dental workforce.

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I think in the whole country it's bad,

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not just in dental, but everywhere.

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But no, we have to pay a lot
of attention to that, a lot

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of attention to maintaining
our current employees,

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trying to elevate them, bring them along.

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But the part that's really
excited that I follow

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that we're big into is
the newer technologies

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that we have, especially
AI for radiographs, um,

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chat bots for responding to questions.

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There's a lot of technology that we love,

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but we only use it if it
improves the patient experience

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or improves the experience
for our great team members.

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So anything that technology can do

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that's mundane on the
human part, if we can get

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that done automated, that gives
our great people more time

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to spend with our great patients.

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- 100%. Um, and my next question
for you is kind of twofold.

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So first, what are you most excited about

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in dentistry right now?

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And then second, what
makes you the most nervous?

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- Mm-Hmm, <laugh>. I'm
gonna go back to sort

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of the same two things
that we talked about,

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but no, um, what I'm most
excited about is the way

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technology continues to advance,

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not only in the real world,
but in the dental world too.

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I've always been a very early adopter

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of new technologies once
I saw what it could do.

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And so I cannot hardly wait
to see what else comes out,

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but I don't think we'll
quite have a IB dentists yet.

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Um, so no, that, that's,
that's what I'm excited about.

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Um, I still really, we're
focused on serving our patients

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and what we really try

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and do is sort of our mission statement is

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to help people get overall
better overall health

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by improving their oral health.

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So that's our great mission.

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What I am concerned about is,
again, the continued workforce

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shortage and also insurance
reimbursements tend to be more

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and more of a problem and I think

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that's becoming more widespread

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and I see the dental team member

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maybe stabilizing, maybe
starting to improve,

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but that's still a concern.

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Reimbursements are probably
the biggest concern.

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- 100%. And my final
question for you today is

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what will the most effective
healthcare leaders need

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to be successful in the
next two to three years?

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- Oh, number one, a very,
very positive attitude.

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They have to have a good, strong vision

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that they're enabled,
that they have to be able

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to let their team members know

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and understand so they
know where they're going.

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Um, so they have to stay
positive, be a visionary,

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try and keep people on board and,

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and just really pay attention to culture

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and improve culture as much as we can.

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- Well, thank you so much

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for joining me today on the
Becker's Healthcare Podcast.

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Again, we are live at the business

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and operations of ASCs in the Future

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of Dentistry Roundtable. Thanks so much.

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- Thank you, grace.
- It's so important

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for leaders at the top of
organizations to keep learning,

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stay sharp, grow their networks,

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help our audience better do
this in a more simplified,

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personalized, and meaningful way.

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