- This is Riz Hatton with the Becker Dental Podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Amanda Lester,
vice President of Operations at North American Dental Group.
Amanda, thank you so much for being here today.
- Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
- Great. Well, just to start us off,
could you introduce yourself
and tell us a bit about your background?
- Of course. My name is Armanda Lester.
I am the Vice President
of Operations at North American Dental Group.
Um, I've been in dental for a little over 10 years now.
I started briefly as, um, growing a business
as a small group pri of private practices,
and then we grew into an affiliated DSO practice.
Prior to that, I did some financial planning
and wealth management with PNC Bank
and I went to the Ohio State University.
- Great. Thanks so much for that introduction.
My first question for you today is
what are the biggest issues you're
following in dental today?
- Um, I'm sure that this is not going to be new
to your ears, but truthfully, we're following a lot
of the staffing complexities in dental right now.
Um, it is something that is brand new
where we have seen a flop in the ratio
where doctor two support staff, now the doctor
roles have increased
and it seems like the support staff is not following the
increase of the new doctors that we are, um,
graduating out of dental school.
So what we're finding a lot is, you know,
we've all seen the wage inflation over the last year
and a half or really since Covid,
and then also trying to find like team members
that are committed to, you know,
one practice staying in an organization,
growing and learning in their role.
And a lot of like the dental support team members have
either taken opportunities with different practices
or they are not in dental at all any longer.
The other thing I've seen too,
just in a specific geographical footprint
that I support is the, the schools that used to
to do the programs have all shut down, which is really sad.
- That's really interesting.
And I'm curious, how is North American Dental Group
tackling, uh, those issues with that lack
of, um, support staff?
Are there any initiatives that, uh, they're doing?
- Uh, yeah, actually we have been researching heavily
of building our own dental, um,
school dental support staff schools in specific areas of,
um, our organization.
We're really committed to growing our team members
and, you know, if there is somebody
that would wanna transition from an admin role into a dental
assistant, for example, we are supportive in building their
education and funding their education in order
to make them achieve that.
Furthermore, we're also, you know,
we're really heavily focused on
what our team members are saying about how we support them
as an organization.
So we do pulse surveys every quarter where we try
to figure out how we can improve as an organization
to support our team members
because at the end of the day, you know,
they're the ones that are patient facing.
They're the ones that are caring for our communities
and we wanna ensure that one, we retain them,
and two, they feel valued while they work with us.
- Fascinating. Thank you. What are you most excited about
and what makes you nervous when it comes to dentistry?
- Dentistry? Oh my goodness.
I am so excited about our industry right now.
Um, just seeing the evolution
of dental over the last 10 years has been incredible.
So, you know, once upon a time I know
that like intraoral cameras was, that was the rage.
Now we're dealing with artificial intelligence platforms,
digital impressions through scanning, um, techniques,
laser dentistry, 3D printing.
It is just all evolved so wildly and rapidly
and it's so exciting because it's really enhancing the
patient experience from every level.
It's also, you know, I think efficiency is probably one
of the biggest, um, benefits
of people's lives right now is
what's convenient and efficient.
And so being able to do like same day crowns in a practice
or print night guards
or even, you know, for our more, um, advanced procedures,
implant guides and for the 3D printing.
And then furthermore with the artificial intelligence
platforms, I think it's just one
of the most unique experiences
because as you follow dentistry over the last, you know,
I'm sure many of people that are listening to this decades
and decades, for me decades, I follow podcasts, I follow,
um, groups on social media.
And the largest, um, complaint is
that people aren't speaking the same
language when we talk about dental.
So, for example, a doctor diagnoses a patient,
they do the treatment, they submit
the claim to the insurance company.
The insurance company might disagree with it
and reject the claim,
or, you know, having a patient that has been loyal to you
and all of a sudden you tell 'em that they need something
that is a little outside of their routine care.
And you know, they scratch their heads
and they may go down the street for a second opinion
because they don't believe like
what we're recommending may be necessary.
Now with this artificial intelligence, it is an ecosystem
that where everybody is agreeing
essentially on the communication.
So a lot of the payers, um,
the insurance payers are using AI as a form of, you know,
claims approvals.
Um, I know that a lot
of revenue cycle teams are using it to submit claims.
Also, now we're able to teach
and educate the patients from a different perspective of
where they're almost able to like look at their x-rays
and understand what we're looking at
as we're educating them towards their oral healthcare.
So I think it's just one of the most exciting times.
There's something in it for everyone.
You know, when it comes to identifying opportunities
for mixed missed x-rays from the front desk team to be able
to communicate with the hygienist
or even like bone levels out of like the normal probing,
um, you know, with their soft tissue probing, now we're able
to see like the bone levels at a different, um, perspective
with the artificial intelligence.
I just think it's like one of the most advanced things
that's happened in dentistry.
- Yeah, that's, that's super interesting.
I've heard so much about, you know,
AI being used in in dental right now.
I'm curious, um,
what specific AI technologies are being utilized at
North American Dental Group?
- So we're using a platform called overjet.
And so what it does is when it integrates
with our current software into our X-ray system,
our x-ray platform, and so it's able to take all
of the images and quickly scan and read them
and give its recommendations based on the
algorithms that it has.
And so it's been, it's been a really cool rollout
for our entire organization.
We are fully integrated now with all
of our general practices
and we're piloting some
of the techniques within our specialty practices.
More importantly, I think it's just been the biggest piece
of it is the educational component that it provides.
- That's fantastic. Thank you.
What will the most effective healthcare leaders need
to be successful in the next two to three years?
- , I definitely think being
committed to transformation.
One of the things I, you know, I'm always teaching and
and coaching on our teams is that the only thing in life
that you know is consistent is change.
So we all have to be ready and adaptable to it.
So as we were just talking about like with the 3D printing
and, you know, digital impressions and scanning
and artificial intelligence, we have to be committed to
being open to transform our organization
over and over again.
Um, we also have to be very committed to
the patient's experience.
So patients now want the ability to easily
and independently access their own medical records
or schedule an appointment
or, um, you know, have like appointment times
that are easier on their schedule.
So what we've done in our organization really is like we're
doing online scheduling, we're opening up the ability
to have some teledentistry, we are ensuring
that we can communicate via text
and, you know, making sure
that people can pay their bills easier
and correspond with their providers.
So just being adaptable is the one thing that's gonna be
the most important to successful healthcare leaders.
Furthermore, making sure that we have, you know, the ability
to communicate with our teams at the same level.
- Well, thank you so much Amanda
for your fascinating insights
and this awesome discussion today.
I look forward to connecting with you again in the future.
- Thanks for your time. Re it's fun as always.