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.
This is Laura Dierda with the Beckers Dental
and DSO podcast. Today, I'm thrilled to have
on the line with me doctor Larry Morey,
founder and president of Key Dental Management Solutions,
a DSO, and then his practice, My Orthodontist
NC. Doctor Morey, it's a pleasure to have
you on the podcast today.
It's great to be here, Laura. Thanks for
having me.
Now I'm looking forward to our discussion and
just really, learning more about,
your dental practice and DSO and how you're
thinking about growth and development in the couple
of years. But before we dive in, I
was wondering, could you tell us a little
bit more about yourself and your background?
Sure.
It took me a while to find dentistry
even though dentistry,
is a family profession. My dad,
stepdad, and uncle were all dentists,
and,
my grandfather
ran his own dental lab.
But I had to kinda do it my
way, so I was
in a PhD program in neurobiology
before dental school.
And after dental school, I did a hospital
dental residency, a GPR,
at a VA hospital in Hampton, Virginia, and
then ran
the hospital dental clinic at what was then,
Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, now VCU,
hospitals in Richmond, Virginia.
And then came back to,
Chapel Hill
for my orthodontic training, finished in
97,
opened my first office just a little bit
after that. And
I guess my personality
is one where I never say no to
an opportunity,
and
I feel that
the worst case scenario is you try something,
it doesn't work, you pivot, and you try
something else.
So over the past
25 years or so,
we've just
grown by opening offices with a mission to
serve people who wouldn't otherwise have access to
care. So back in the
late 19 nineties, early 2000,
we had five
general dental practices that were all bilingual serving
the growing Spanish speaking population
in North Carolina.
And then we shifted
to purely orthodontic,
offices. So we have 14 right now spread
across North Carolina,
serving a varying percentage
of Medicaid recipients
across the state. And our mission,
more than anything, is to do our best
to lower the barriers,
to entry of care. So we have very
creative financing,
options, which we do in house.
And, you know, we've been
loving life and doing great
and looking looking forward to the future growth.
That's awesome. Yeah. That that sounds amazing. And,
certainly, you know, what a a unique pathway
you had, like you said, to the dentistry
field, and I love your
philosophy when you're talking about, you know, trying
new things and really focus on growth and
making sure that, you know, you've got the
a strategy in place and just really being
open
to trying a good number of things. So
that's great to hear. Now, you know, when
you're looking at dentistry today and and where
the field's at, what are some of the
biggest issues that you're following right now? What's
top of mind for you?
Top of mind for me,
there are really 2 issues, and one is,
automation as much as we possibly can.
We're in a service based industry, which I
think a lot of people,
forget
or don't realize.
I've talked to a lot of dental students
who have dollar signs in their eyes,
and that's just not that's not me and
not my perspective.
So, you know, being able to,
see the future,
automate
as much as we possibly can allows us
to,
offer great service.
There's we'll never get rid of our assistants
and our dentists and our front desk people,
you know, the people who are touching our
patients directly.
But there's a lot we can do behind
the scenes to to automate, and technology is
moving rapidly in that in that,
realm.
So the more automation that we can get
in place, the less the cost of doing
business,
and the more we can focus on service.
The other side of it is that I
always worry about people who can't afford care,
and I feel
that that percentage of our population is growing.
So I think it behooves us as dentists
to come up with novel ways
to access
those people.
And
it's gonna require
a a huge
shift,
in so many areas, but as I mentioned
earlier, for us,
just making it easier
for people to get started with treatment and
giving them payment options that are are easier
to
navigate,
you know, opens up orthodontics to a lot
more people.
In general dentistry, you know, people might think
about,
well, you know, you need a crown. It's
$1,000
or whatever. Let's let's do,
repay 3 monthly payments of $250,
and then we'll get started or something like
that. You know? I mean, I think we
just gotta get more creative,
because I think the people who can't afford
dentistry, that percentage of the population is is
gonna continue to increase.
So that's that's what I'm looking for in
in the future is
just access to care issues.
That's fascinating to hear. And, certainly, you know,
having that ability, like you said, to to,
afford care and access care is so, so
important.
You know, in in being creative too and
how you find those solutions, I can imagine,
you know, it's not always easy, but like
you said,
just trying to fulfill that goal of making
sure that dentistry is accessible,
for folks is is really critical.
You know, I I feel that we, as
human beings, have a moral and ethical responsibility
to take care of each other, and dentistry
happens to be my
my profession. So any way that I can
use,
my profession to help help folks out, you
know, is is what what I
try and do.
I taught for a while, and when I
was teaching,
I would have dental students who would say,
well, I'm just gonna see 5 patients a
day, and they're all gonna be full mouth
reconstructions at $50,000
a pop,
and that's all I'm gonna do. That's my
practice.
Well, the problem with that perspective is that
you're trying to compete for,
I don't know what is that, the top
0.5%
of wage earners in your area.
And if everyone's trying to do
that, you're just beating each other over the
head. Meanwhile,
there's
75%
of the population who probably could afford some
dental care,
and if you were creative, could afford a
lot of dental care,
who are going,
you know, on untreated.
So, you know, I think we all need
to
make a decision and a shift
towards
addressing
access
and doing what we can do to make
it more affordable for people.
That's a really excellent point. And certainly, you
know, when you look at, obviously, dentistry, you
know, is a really crucial industry to be
in. Are there any, you know, similar industries
that you've seen that have tried to tackle
this similar problem in access and and figuring
out how to, you know, make a very
expensive services a little bit more manageable?
I think there's,
lots of of examples,
on
you know, one of the ones that just
popped to mind,
were places like Great Clips or Fantastic Sam's,
you know, where you can go and get
a $25
haircut,
as opposed to going to a nice salon
and spending a couple $100.
Yeah. That's that's an example. The the,
the one
example that all the business consultants always use
as something that rose
to the occasion and then died was Blockbuster.
But now we have things like Netflix and
streaming services,
that really are designed to appeal to as
many people as they possibly can.
And and so, you know, the cost of
access to streaming services is not that great.
You you look at, places like,
Costco
or Sam's,
BJ's, you know, the big box stores.
You know, it's always kinda humorous when you
go to a
CE course and some practice management person is
telling you to run your run your practice
like Neiman Marcus
and not Walmart. But then you go to
Walmart and you see all your fellow dentists
shopping there. So
it's always it's always been humorous to me.
But, you know, there's a there's a lot
of you know, discount's a bad word, I
think. It's the wrong word,
but there are a lot of discount services
that everybody takes advantage of that that make
things
maybe more affordable.
I know
a couple years ago when the economy was
you know, people were really stressed about
stretching a dollar,
Walmart
made that their advertising focus. You know, they
reached out and said,
in terms of their advertising, hey. We we
feel your pain. Our we're lowering our prices
to make,
make your dollar stretch further. IKEA did the
same thing about a year ago, I think.
So there's lots of instances
where
businesses can be empathetic to the consumer
and attract more business, and I think dentistry
has the ability to do that
if if they want. You know? In orthodontics,
there's been a
decrease in the birth rate, which is,
you know, that's probably 15, 20 years ago,
but it's it's
gone on and it's it's impacting orthodontic practices.
And so
the practice management people say, hey. There's fewer
patients out there, so you have to raise
your fees.
And, you know, to me, that's the wrong
answer. The right answer is keep your fees
where they are or even lower them a
little bit, get more efficient
so that you're still making the same income,
and attract more patients with more creative financing.
So
my 2¢.
That's fascinating. I, you know, I love that,
those analogies and really thinking through how,
dentistry and orthodontics
can, you know, fit into the mold of
what patients want, what they're responding to,
at any given point. And and really, like
you said, without obviously,
compromising any kind of quality of care or
value of services, but, you know, knowing how
to get creative and expand that access to
care, I appreciate that. And, you know, I
I
love that you brought up fantastic Sam's too.
That's where I used to get my haircut,
years ago, and I just haven't thought about
it in a long time. So as a
kid, I loved getting a little the little
toy at the end of my haircut from
Fantastic Sams. So
excellent. Well, you know, when you look into
the future, what are you most excited about,
or what makes you nervous?
I'm most excited about
the
leaps in technology
that haven't yet occurred.
One of the the brought byproducts of the
pandemic, I think,
has been that a lot of technologies came
to market maybe sooner than they had
anticipated they would, and technology always leads.
So I I am excited about
technological advances, automation,
softwares
on the horizon that that haven't yet made
themselves
obvious to us.
I'm excited about
attempting to
expand
our reach and access to care, at least
on on on our end for our company.
What makes me nervous is that
I think
people are going to have a harder and
harder time
justifying
dental,
care if dentists can't
make it affordable.
If what we used to refer to as,
the working poor now referred to as ALICE,
asset limited
income constrained
employed.
And these are folks who basically are living
paycheck to paycheck,
can't save,
can't afford to take vacations,
there's a major
emergency,
they're basically up a creek without a paddle.
And if you add the percentage of the
population
that fall into that bucket
to the percentage of the population
living below the federal poverty line,
it accounts for 42%
of Americans.
So in in
supposedly the greatest country in the world, for
42%
of people not to be able to make
ends meet really scares me.
And I think we, again, have a moral
and ethical responsibility
to try to help those folks.
I can't fix that problem.
But if everybody does a little tiny bit,
you know, maybe we can we can,
fill that bucket to overflowing.
So that's that's my biggest concern. You know,
I I always worry about competition. I always
am a little bit hesitant to share,
my model,
or our model,
for fear that people will copy it and
do it better, but that's what keeps us
sharp and keeps us moving forward.
And, so, you know, for me, the the
biggest issue out there is just affordability of
care.
That makes a lot of sense. And, certainly,
you know, being able to see those trends
and understand,
how, as you said, how many people fall
into that category,
and will really need continued care,
any kind of emergencies that come up. Especially,
I know, you know, with any kind of
oral and dental care, those emergencies need to
be solved quickly.
It's just fascinating to kind of, like, think
about that and, you know, understand the gravity
of what that means for communities across the
country.
Yep. You know, you bring up emergencies and
and that's another one on my soap boxes.
And I don't know,
what it's like in all areas of of
the country, but I know what it's like
in North Carolina. And in North Carolina,
the majority of dentists
work 3 and a half or 4 days
a week. So it's, you know, Monday through
Thursday,
8 ish to
4 thirty ish.
And if you have an emergency
after hours
on
a Thursday,
you have very little
option but to go to the hospital.
And even when you go to the hospital,
the odds of having a dentist on staff
or on call
who can help you are slim to none.
So I've gotten calls from friends in other
towns in North Carolina who said this tooth
is killing me.
I had a big swelling done on it.
I I'm worried I need a root canal.
My face is starting to swell up. I'm
in a ton of pain.
What what can I do? And they were
not able to find anybody. This is not
a Thursday night after hours. They weren't able
to find anybody to help them until Monday.
So,
you know, this I don't know what it's
like in other areas of the country, but
I think
dentists need to realize that that we are
a service industry,
and service industry means we're available to our
patients
when they need us.
I don't expect anybody to work 247,
but, heck, if you got a patient who's
in pain, they shouldn't have to wait 3
days
to to get out of pain.
And that's such a great point. And, you
know, it definitely seems like,
that can be true for many communities across
the country in terms of limited access. And,
you know, even here in Chicago, I I
know there's not many who,
are available,
you know, in some,
some of the weekend hours and those kinds
of things. So,
certainly,
it is a huge challenge.
Before we wrap up here oh, yes. Go
ahead. Sorry. No. I was gonna I was
gonna say that, you know, in terms of
the future,
just kinda
brainstorming, you know, maybe we'll see some, mobile
emergency
clinics,
manned by a group of dentists who, all
take turns.
You know? I I mean, I don't know,
but I I I think that there's a
untapped market if we go look at it
from a business
angle. There's an untapped market in terms of
emergency dental care.
So, you know, maybe that's a future
trend that we'll see. We'll see.
Certainly. That you know, it seems like one
possible solution that could make a lot of
sense. And, you know, given,
that trend as well as, you know, some
of the other things we've talked about today,
what do you see as being important for
the next generation of health care leaders to
be successful over the next 2 to 3
years?
What do you need to do in order
to make sure you're ready, to lead successful
practices in DSO organizations?
I I, you know, I feel that there
needs to be a shift in terms of
new graduates and where they're
willing to work.
There needs to be a shift
in the cost of of education
because I think kids are coming out of
school with so much debt that they just
don't have a lot of options or choice
available
to them.
I'd I'd like to see the DSOs,
continue to lower the cost of doing business,
but do you use
the profit
in in that those cost reduction measures
to lower the cost of care
to appeal to more people,
from a broader
socioeconomic
spectrum.
And I think that if if we could
all do that,
and I think it's doable.
If we could all do that,
you know, we can give back to our
communities. Maybe
some of the DSOs could could help,
these young dentists with some of their debt.
You know, I think there's there's a lot
of things,
that that could be done.
And I just I think that what we're
gonna see is a continued
roll up of,
dental practices,
but I don't wanna see that happen
to the exclusion
of,
care in underserved areas.
A lot
of guys who are trying to retire now
may have set up a small office in
a small community,
you know, and thought, gee. I'm gonna be
the the town dentist, and I'm gonna take
care of everybody.
And that was great for them, but now
trying to find
a new graduate
to take over,
Most of the new graduates have a lot
of debt, and they wanna live in major,
quote, urban areas.
For North Carolina,
you know, it's the Raleigh Durham area, it's
Charlotte,
maybe it's Wilmington.
And there's a lot of practices that are
going to be coming on the market
in more rural areas, and they're not gonna
be able to find buyers. So, you know,
I think
people need to have a little shift in
how they see things.
Maybe we'll go backwards in the sense that,
gee, I'd love to be the town dentist.
And I like to see the DSOs invest
in those in those communities as well.
Absolutely. And, you know, I I think the
theme of this podcast seems to be, you
know, those little shifts, those things that,
shift in mindset and shift in what you're
thinking about things in order to meet the
very real challenges and,
you know, gaps that there are in care
today in the dental industry.
Doctor Morey, thank you so much for joining
us on the podcast today. This has been
such a fascinating conversation, and I look forward
to connecting with you again soon.
Oh, pleasure, Laura. Thanks very much for having
me, and I look forward to meeting face
to face sometime soon. Absolutely.