Hey there, dental professionals and industry enthusiasts.
Picture this. It's October, and you're in the
middle of one of the most transformative
experiences of your career. You're at the Becker's
Fall Future of Dentistry Roundtable in the vibrant
city of Chicago, fresh off an incredible 3
days at the Hyatt Regency. Imagine yourself inspired
and invigorated
after attending captivating keynote sessions by none other
than the legendary boxing world champion and CEO,
Lila Elite, and the extraordinary
professional basketball player, Caitlin Clark. See yourself engaged
in lively discussions,
exchanging ideas, and collecting a stack of business
cards from fellow dental experts and potential partners.
You've networked with over 350
attendees and learned from more than 80 speakers
who are at the forefront of dental innovation.
You sat in on educational sessions exploring topics
that elevate dental care as 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. Get ready to transform your career
and don't miss out on this incredible
opportunity. The Becker's fall future of dentistry roundtable
is from October 30th to November 1, 2024.
Get registered by going to beckersdental.com
and clicking on the events page.
Hello. This is Arianna Portallatin with the Beckers
Dental and DSO Review podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Ben
Hernandez, the CEO and managing director at Sky
Tail Group. Ben, thank you so much for
being here today.
Thank you so much for having me. Looking
forward to today.
Yeah. Definitely.
To start us off with, can you introduce
yourself and tell us a little bit about
your background?
Of course. Yes. As you mentioned, I'm the
CEO, managing director,
of our company.
A little bit about my background, it's basically
all been in finance. Out of school, did
investment banking for a couple of years, post
MBA, worked at a hedge fund for still
most of my career. And it was in
2015
that I got into this space. I moved
over to a company that had a tax
accounting and consulting divisions.
And I love the consulting group and just
fell in love with, multisite health care, especially,
everything from founder owned businesses that were wanting
to grow and scale,
to, you know, just the dynamic consolidation
2018 then that we founded,
Skytail, and we're still, you know, a company
that focuses on health care. And we do
2 things, essentially. We do management consulting
where we
our job there is to grow and scale
businesses
or solve for, you know, case
test cases
for financial sponsors and the like. And we
also have an investment banking firm where our
responsibility
there is to sell businesses typically to financial
sponsors or platforms and strategics.
Awesome. Thank you for that. And first question
here, what are some of the biggest issues
that you're following in the dental industry this
year?
Yeah. This year, I think the biggest issues,
and it it goes back a couple of
years, is
solving the question of how do you scale
in the face of increased labor costs.
And fortunately, there are some ideas and solutions
to that, but that's certainly one. In addition
to continuing down the labor path,
we're seeing a little bit more turnover.
People are staying
less time at organizations
than they used to. So not only are
you solving for increased labor costs, you're also
solving for bringing in folks
you know, on on a faster timeline than
before. And it leads into maybe the other
issue and opportunity
is, you know, how do you build repeatable
documented systems
while still keeping the team engaged?
So, you know, people who solve for this
engagement issue, especially,
it it helps you with that turnover.
It helps
you with, you know, better customer care and
the like. And it helps people know, and
I think people do like to know when
they work for you, is what exactly am
I here for? I spend most of my
day day here. How do you deem me
to be successful or not?
So those are some things that we're seeing
as as issues in dental,
but also opportunities.
Great. And I'm also curious. What are you
most excited about when it comes to the
dental field right now? And is there anything
that makes you nervous?
Yeah. I'll start with the nervous, and maybe
we'll end it on a positive note.
I think on the nervous side, what we're
looking at and really, you know, kinda seeing
where this goes is there's a continued testing
of the
dental platforms that tried trading that did not.
Now in 2024, we're actually a little bit
more bullish here. So
this past spring and summer, what we were
seeing is maybe that bid ask spread, if
I can say it that way, between dental
platforms and upper middle market private equity funds,
it was still a bit too wide,
meaning private equity was willing to pay X
and some of these platforms wanted Y and
there was still too much spread there. What
we're seeing now is and we're excited for
this, is we're seeing some platforms that are
about to test the market again. They think
that maybe we're a little bit closer right
now. And we've even heard one recently,
actually this week, that's expected to trade soon.
So what does that do?
If and when you start trading, it resets
the larger platforms
with more capital infusion and increased resources
to continue down the M and A path,
which if you think about it, it filters
all the way down to the lower market.
So continued consolidation
is what we would expect once these start
trading. And it also allows them to achieve
that growth
that they initially underwrote to when they built
the platform. Right? And then if you're a
lower market platform, what this does is it
gives you a barometer. Right? It kinda gives
you that upper bound where these things trading.
So we're able to actually trade some of
these middle and larger platforms.
It really filters all the way down to
the lower market, and that's really where we
play as well. So that now you know
as a platform, if I do x, y,
z, this is where I expect to trade.
So it really just affects the entire,
you know, kind of dental industry,
for these to start trading. So that's something
that we're, you know, nervous or watching for,
however you wanna phrase that. Now
on the most excited,
I would say that technology is where we're
extremely excited, especially the ones that use you
know, recently, we've seen some really good ones
that use voice AI to help reduce the
reliance for those tasks on, you know, some
of the personal team members and you move
it over to tech. Now, you know, what
we're we're we're we're then able to do
is not really let go of people.
So just wanna put that out there. It
actually allows,
you know, the folks that we work with
to have their people, their team member focus
on problem solving, more complex problems, and use
tech for
time consuming and maybe if I can say
it's simplistic items
such as, you know, think things like insurance
verification,
incoming and outgoing calls for confirmations
or rescheduling even. These are things that voice
AI is really able to do very, very
well while still keeping that, you know, patient
care,
and service alive.
And if you think about that, what we're
most excited about, you tie it back to
that challenge
of how do I scale with increased labor
cost, and it really solves for one of
these big challenges that that right now we're
seeing. So that, we're very excited about. We've
seen some really good technology come out recently.
Great. And just a quick follow-up question there.
In your opinion, are a lot of dentists
open to adding AI at their practices?
They are. I think, you know, if you'd
asked me a year ago, I would say
no.
I think people have started using,
you know, on a personal level, what we've
seen, and and we've actually asked some of
our clients this. On a personal level, they're
using things like chat GPT and the like
themselves,
to where they're getting more comfortable with it.
And not only are they getting more comfortable
with it, they're actually seeing that they they
interact a little bit closer to the way
that a human would would interact and less
so, like, the press 1 to talk to
Susie, press 2 to talk to whomever.
So so as that happens, what we've seen
is really the openness for at least the
demo to some of these. And for the
most part, they've been, you know, blown away
in a good way,
seeing kind of the solutions that they're able
to provide
and also the solutions that they're able to
solve for. So, yes, I think
over the last year, we've seen a lot
of number 1 acceptance, but then also number
2 implementation
of some of these. And the feedback we've
gotten has been extremely positive for the ones
that have gone to that implementation
phase.
Great. Super interesting.
Last question here. What will the most effective
health care leaders need to be successful in
the next 2 to 3 years?
Yeah. Good question. So I think the most
effective leaders I think number 1, most of
them are going to be
proficient
or learn how to be proficient in how
people in tech are going to work together,
to build systems
that still keep that customer experience
to, you know, above average to excellence.
And I say this because it also is
going to keep costs lower.
And I think this is something that leaders
are going to have to solve for on
the cost thing to be able to continue
to compete in the market. So I would
say that that's 1.
And I'd say number 2, it's a bit
tangential to this, but the leaders that are
able to adapt to change, I think is
a critical skill set right now, especially over
the next 2 to 3 years.
I know I keep harping on it, but
technology and business models just they continue to
evolve, and they're going to serve providers and
patients.
And the leaders that are going to be
comfortable with that and effective with implementing this
change,
we think are going to thrive. And and
we're already seeing it. I mean, there's a
big differentiation
in the ones that are able to to
adapt to change, to get comfortable with change,
and accept that this change is here, and
it's coming, and it's going to continue to
be here. And the ones that solve for
that are just going to have more, ultimately,
more margin
to be able to continue to succeed, continue
to grow.
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Well,
thank you so much for joining us today,
Ben. It's been a pleasure speaking with you,
and I look forward to connecting with you
again in the future.
Thank you so much for having me and,
looking forward to connecting as well. I really
appreciate the time.