Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. My name
is Chanel Banger. And right now I'm recording
live at the Becker's Healthcare 2024
future of dentistry roundtable. And I'm sitting with
doctor Efren Coronado,
the dental director of Sage Dental.
Doctor Coronado, thank you so much for joining
me today. Oh, thank you for having me
here. It's a pleasure to be here and
excited to see everybody working so hard and
dedicated to the profession.
Love to hear it. Well, to get us
started, could you please introduce yourself and tell
us a bit about your background?
Yes. My name is Efrain Cornetto. I'm a
general practitioner, general dentist.
I also have the role of clinical director
for Sage Dental.
I've been in practice doing dentistry for about
26 years.
I graduated from the University of Maryland in
Baltimore,
and, I I've been also involved as a
dental examiner for the state of Florida. I
did that call for, like, 4, 5 years,
and then I've been doing some missionary work.
And I've also worked in private practice, but,
majority of my time, I worked, in a,
primarily in a DSO for the last
20 years.
Thank you so much for that introduction.
Now moving forward,
what key experiences
have shaped your leadership journey
in the dental and DSO industry?
Like I said, majority of my lifetime as
a dentist has been working for a DSO.
So I pretty much I I like to
say I grew up within that family of,
of DSO. The, I started with, Sage when
it was 12 offices.
So my primary experience was has been living
out the growth and the development of a
DSO,
going from a few offices to now more
than 120 offices.
So it hasn't been really a specific
experience, but a multiple of small experiences throughout
the years of dealing with corporate,
also interacting with, individual practitioners and the staff
and just throughout the growth.
I like to say I I have one
story that, my wife and I had. We
met,
family few years ago.
They had 10 kids.
Yes. That's 10. 10 kids. And they were
the most loving,
cheerful couple.
And we approached them and said, how do
you do it?
And they said, well, it's a lot of
I'm sorrys.
And and that stayed with my with me
for so many years that I still remember
up to today is that's what a relationship
is. The same thing within a a DSO.
You have to strive and and work through
the challenges that you have
and just say I'm sorry and and see
what the fault is, what it is, and
and and work through it. So that has
been my experience of,
working in a DSO for so many years.
It's it's really takes a a a big
effort and willing to face the challenges that
you have with other people.
I can imagine having 10 children. You have
to have a lot of strategy involved. And
speaking of strategy,
what strategic
initiatives are you, prioritizing
for growth and patient care, say, currently?
We're we're working now in DSO. We're very
big on, education
of the connections between teams
and communication
in general and also creating some of that
workflow and technology.
I must say I must give credit to
the leadership and and the DSO that I
work at Sage
under the leadership of, doctor O'Rourke and, Missy
Madeline. They're doing tremendous work.
So it's not me. It's, it's a whole
team effort, and I'm following them.
Where I'm big at is, as far as
initiative, I think is very important, especially for
young doctors, would be, mentorship
and presence,
just being there. Sometimes I visit offices and
and have to do a lot of work
with them.
Sometimes they just say hi and be there,
but I I can feel they get comfort
of having that support. And I think that's
that's one of the strengths
that we have to capitalize on our DSO,
of having different talents available, especially when you
need it. We'll have our different strengths and
and skills.
But I think the the major one is
is being there, having that presence. And the
other one, like I just said, mentorship,
showing how to work through the issues, how
to the technical or the clinical or just
how to human behavior, how to handle,
different situations.
Yeah. I feel like it all comes back
down to communication.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And moving forward, what significant challenges
are dental and DSO leaders facing currently? And
how are you addressing them at your organization?
We must realize that there as a DSO,
there's many, many different type of challenges.
I like to focus on 2 primarily, which
is,
retention of the staff and personnel.
And the other one that I like to
call is identity, is a DSO identity.
Sometimes
with the growth of the DSO,
especially now and, I've been listening to the
different conferences
this morning that I've I've been to. And
I think in all of the panels I
assisted,
the recurring word was growth. The DSOs, they're
not gonna go anywhere. They're just gonna keep
growing.
So it's like the elephant in the room.
We have to tackle that and see it
as a positive thing. It's, I'm very excited
that that DSOs are growing. And like I
said, there's a lot of opportunity and potential
for that. But something that DSOs wants to
develop and not lose is is that identity.
I remember when I was a kid, I
used to go to play with my friends
in their houses and when and I don't
know why. Even as a adult, you go
and it happens as an adult when you
go to somebody else's house.
But I don't know why I remember when
I was a kid, 10, 11 years old,
and somebody visited to their house, you go
in and the first thing you notice is
the house has a specific smell.
And you don't notice that in your house,
but when they come into your house, they
say something. Hey. Your house smells good. It
smells this. And you know you don't notice
because you live in it. So my question
to DSOs is,
what does your DSO smell like?
And if you don't,
then let's try to find out. But I
think definitely the strength of a DSO has
to be its unity,
its identity,
and, it's easy it's easier said than done.
But I think that's one of the challenges,
especially with the growth of DSOs.
Even now we're going into multistate,
DSOs,
even breaking 1,000,
practices number.
I think
the leadership,
which obviously we cannot lose sight that that
the ultimate focus obviously is patient experience and
health care. But in doing so, we must
develop an identity,
something that shows who you are as a
DSO. And I think you work that on
on on a different different levels on 1
to 1 with the practitioners.
But also, I wrote a a an article
a while ago in group dentistry now, which
I discussed that it is very important for
DSOs to establish a medium
where you can hear the voice of the
practitioners at the different offices, especially the more
you grow, you need to hear their voice.
And sometimes just being listened to out of
that, the fruit out of that, it becomes
a culture that you create.
And it it and an identity that you
develop even with multiple offices, even with a
thousand of different personalities that everybody has.
That's one strength that we have to capitalize
on, which at the same time, it is
a challenge for DSOs.
For sure. And I feel like you've already
shared so much advice, but with all of
your missionary
work and your experience and your mentorships,
what essential qualities or skills would you
suggest to emerging leaders in this industry?
I know there's
I mean, there must be thousands of books,
related to leadership
in healthcare and outside of healthcare.
There's 2 persons I like to point out.
1, actually for I don't know if it's
coincidence. They're both at a Harvard, Business School,
actually. 1 is Moss Kanter, and the other
one is John Kotter.
Moss Kanter,
what she describes is the the the four
c's that a leader should have, which is
congruency must be competent, consistent,
and caring.
And, obviously, we'd find those same factors in
in us clinicians.
But I I like to focus on on
on having the competency, the ability to to
treat somebody else. I think as a leader,
you need to under that title.
I think you need to be able to
adapt and to be a learner leader. In
other words, when
when as a leader, somebody
says, I have it under control. I know
everything.
I think that's when we have a a
problem. We have a big issue.
So it's not to live in constant
anxiety on the other extreme and questioning every
move or decision you make. But I think
as a leader, it's very important to always
have that
space of learning more and learning more, and
you learn that from the outside. But a
lot of times you, like, learn a lot
from within your own DSO
just by talking to the especially the young
doctors,
talking to the to the staff, to that
many different teams, you have to learn. And
the other big thing, which is very important
in this as a leader, is you must
learn how to recognize talent.
Problems are
better dealt when they're prevented.
So being able to
attract the correct people they have back to
your identity, the same philosophy, same similar culture.
But when they don't or when it's different,
we have to learn from different people
and recognize
within your DSO
where somebody can be at a different role
within your DSO. Why? Because their scale,
their scale or their capabilities are better suited
for a different role where they're at. So
it's good. And and people change. People grow.
So it this is something as a learning
from your staff, from your doctors. It must
be, a constant thing. And the last thing
I'd like to say is
from, John Carter. He explains, it's like it's
like a boat, like a ship. You have
a little boat. You have you have a
a motor. You have the captain and you
have the steering wheel.
So the motor is the energy.
The steering wheel is the competency to be
competent. And then you have the captain, which
is honesty. So you need those 3 ingredients.
You have energy.
You have to know the know how, which
that's why we take see courses, business courses,
technology that makes us competent in what we
do. But at the end of the road,
we have to be honest.
Because if you have let's say, you have
a boat
and no motor, well, you have all the
knowledge,
all the honesty, but that boat's not go
anywhere.
Now if you have no steering wheel, you
can have energy. The motor, you can you
can have the honesty,
but that boat, that ship is gonna go
anywhere.
The worst case scenario is when you have
a motor,
you have all the energy, you have all
the knowledge and capability,
but you don't have the honesty. You better
brace yourself where that boat's gonna take you.
So those three things are very, very important
today's,
leader in the dental field as well. I
love it. I think the overarching themes are
communication,
identity,
mentorship through mentorship, kind of. And
yeah. Thank you so much, doctor Coronado, for
joining me today on the Becker's healthcare podcast.
Yeah. I appreciate it. And like I said,
again, it was a pleasure to be here,
and I'm still learning a lot. There's more
to learn. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you.