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Picture this. It's October, and you're in the
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a critical element of whole person health. You've
witnessed firsthand how digital technology is revolutionizing
patient outcomes
and how both large DSOs and independent practices
are flourishing.
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Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
I'm Mariah Muhammad, writer and moderator with Becker's
Healthcare, and I'm thrilled to have with me
today doctor Bradley Dykstra, founder, CEO, and clinical
director at My Smiles Dental Group. Doctor, welcome
to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. We're very excited
to have you join us today. To get
us started, would you mind please introducing yourself
and telling us a bit about your background?
I'm doctor Bradley Dykstra,
a dentist in Western Michigan, Greater Grand Rapids
area.
And way back when I graduated in 78,
I started a from scratch in a little
town called Hudsonville at the time, which has
actually grown a lot the last
number of years.
And
from that first practice in 1978,
I worked clinically
for 42 years as a general practitioner,
and I have not worked at the care
for the last 4 years.
And over the last 12 years, I had
a different vision of
the rest of my career. So
we've added
we've got grown practices
into 7 locations in the last 12 years,
so that's what's taking my time now, which
I love.
And our organization,
My Smiles Dental Group, again, is all in
the Greater Grand Rapids area within 30 to
40 miles of Central Grand Rapids.
And many of our
services
are centralized,
and we are definitely
funded and dentist owned. No
outside money other than from my bank.
Wonderful. Wonderful.
Thank you so much for sharing that background,
doctor. So the first question I really wanted
to ask you is, what are the biggest
issues you're following in dental right now?
Alright. Well, I I looked at your questions.
The biggest issue is what I'm most
excited and concerned about, and they kind of,
to me, flow together.
So I'll start
with
the biggest issues that I am watching, but
I consider these
the exciting issues.
And that's the way
AI is continually
making inroads
into dentistry.
Only in the clinical area
where
we can have better diagnostics, better treatment acceptance
because of how great the better treatment acceptance
because of how great the
AI is for radiography.
But, also,
when we get to the whole CRM process
or insurance verification,
patient communication,
What AI is able to do in those
areas, we're just, I feel,
just beginning
at the surface level and I think it
will
continue to grow to help
to help us, I think, do a better
job with our patients
and communication,
to remove a lot of mundane tasks for
all of our team members so they can
spend more quality time with the patients, and
I'm just really, really, really excited to see
where that's all going.
So that's what I'm actually most excited about.
And for decades, I've been sort of on
the leading edge of technology.
So I love technology,
but not for technology's
sake, but how it really
helps the patients and
how it helps the team members
removing stuff that really isn't all that important
that something else can do.
And then when we get
to, again, the other things that
I am
following,
which I am not which I guess I
would really say I'm more concerned about,
And one of them happens to be just
the continual
low insurance reimbursement rates. They don't seem to
be going up nearly as fast as
our costs are going up. So that's something
I'm very closely monitoring, but I'm concerned about.
Another one along the same vein is not
only are the insurance companies I don't wanna
bash them. They're doing their job, but
they don't pay all that well, and
it seems it takes longer and longer and
longer to get new doctors credentialed.
That's just something that I've observed, and
it is
concerning to me.
And, of course, we all know
wage inflation
has
been very prevalent in the last few years,
and that along with the shortage of clinical
providers,
in my case, from dentist to hygienist to
assistants.
And I think right now, dentists actually are
toughest
thing to be concerned with because
the apparent trend looks like the next few
years will have more dentists retiring than joining
the workforce. So, again, I'm observing that, watching
that. It's something that
I'm concerned about.
And
also
and this is a more general trend, but
I think
every year or certainly every decade,
dentistry is viewed
more and more as a commodity,
which
I don't really believe it is, but especially
for our younger generations they are really I
think viewing it
that way.
And then another trend again that I really
like and excited about though
is
the integration of healthcare
and dental care
is actually coming together
more quickly.
I think as dentists revised known that now
the whole medical world is
starting to understand that and I think patients
are starting to understand how their oral health
actually affects
their overall health.
So that's kind of what I'm excited about
and what makes me nervous.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much for
sharing all of that great, great detail.
It definitely makes a lot of sense. There
are so many different issues and solutions going
on right now, especially with AI. I feel
like every person I talk to in the
health care space is always talking about AI,
which is you know, it can be really
exciting.
Before I let you go, the last thing
I really wanted to ask you is, what
will the most effective health care leaders need
in order to be in the next 2
to 3 years, do you think?
Oh, I've got
I've got a nice little list,
but number 1
is
stay calm.
Don't get overly excited. Don't make any rash
decisions.
Just stay calm
and stay in your bubble. And by that,
I mean,
stay focused on the things that you have
some influence
or control over or on.
And what's ever out of your control, like
the elections or tax rates, whatever,
that's all out of your control.
Just
just deal with whatever is. Stay calm. Don't
don't spend all your time worrying about that.
And, also, I think it's very, very important
every year
in light of everything that I've mentioned before.
We need to be really, really financially
astute
and understand
our numbers, our financial numbers, our KPIs,
and especially understand cash flow.
Because if you run out of cash, you're
kind of in big trouble. So, you know,
really understanding your numbers, what
what are the drivers that help profitability,
what are the
profitability
drainers,
so really focus on that.
And, also, it's really, really important, I think,
more so now than ever
to really invest in onboarding and training team
members. And,
like, we have at least a 2 week
onboarding process before we let them go into
their position at all.
And then continual training
and investing in your team members is really
important.
Be willing to invest in technology. Look at
it carefully, but
if we don't invest in technology, pretty soon
we'll find ourselves
just out of the loop and not able
to be
to keep up or
compete, I guess. I don't like the word
competition, but
if we totally ignore technology and don't use
it, we will be left in the dust.
And finally and probably most important
is make culture
a priority.
And culture is hard to define. It's
hard
to make it really great,
but I think we need to focus on
culture
with our team members because our culture with
our team members determines how we
work with our patients,
and it makes a huge difference. So just
always make
have in the back of our mind with
everything we do, where does culture fit in.
And I'm also a very strong believer that
we need strong core values,
a very clear mission and vision statement,
and we need to visit those things often
and make all of our decisions really based
on our core values and be true to
who we are. That was kind of my
my list. I'm sorry if that was a
little long. But No. No. Not at all.
Thank you so much for giving us all
those great points and for those final thoughts,
doctor. This has definitely been very informative discussion.
So, again, I wanna thank you so much
for coming on Becker's HealthCare, and I look
forward to connecting with you again soon.
Okay. Well, it's my pleasure as always, and
you also have a great day. You too.
Thank you.