Hello. This is Arianna Portellatin with the Becker's
Dental and DSO review podcast. I'm thrilled to
be joined today by doctor Marise Tanias, the
chief dental officer at Affinity Dental Management. Doctor
Tanias, thank you so much for being here
today. Thank you for having me.
Yes. Definitely. To start us off, can you
introduce yourself and tell us a little bit
about your background?
Well, as you already mentioned, my name is,
doctor Maurice Tanios. I am the chief dental
officer of Affinity Dental Management.
Basically,
my history in dentistry is that I am
a general dentist.
I went to NYU for dental school.
I then did a GPR in, New York
City.
I practiced there for a few years, moved
back to California,
and, that's when I was introduced to
quality management at Western Dental Services.
I was there for about 6 years
and then, moved on to West Coast Dental
to be their dental director.
I was there for about a year and
a half before COVID hit, and,
that's kind of where I was introduced to
Affinity Dental Management, which is on the East
Coast.
And Affinity,
they brought me on as a dental consultant.
And then from there, my career just, grew.
So I've been with the company now for
about 4 years plus.
That's great. Thank you so much for that.
First question here. What are some of the
biggest issues that you're following in the dental
industry right now?
Well,
I think, you know, what comes to mind
is really
3 issues, and,
one of them is being financial issues. You
know, the rising cost of supplies and labor,
also insurance
reimbursement
issues,
are definitely no match for our economic state
of inflation.
Another,
important issue that I follow is the techno
technological
integration,
within the dental world. So, you know, keeping
up with the rapid advancements
is extremely costly.
It's definitely necessary, though,
and
implementation of the technology
can be challenging if expectations
are not set properly.
The last issue,
that I've really been
following, and and I think it definitely
affects not just the dental,
field, but all fields is staffing and training.
You know, shortages of skilled employees
and recruitment and retention challenges,
are definitely,
you know, always there for us.
Okay. Great. And I know you mentioned,
technology earlier. Are there any particular pieces of
technology that you're following right now?
Yes. Oh my gosh. There are so many.
Currently,
Affinity
is you know, we've been using
AI Overjet AI
for the last 3 years, and it's really
been a game changer for us.
One of the other technologies that we're we're
bringing up or starting to implement is actually
a platform called 32 Health. It's a credentialing
platform. They definitely offer more than just credentialing,
but it will help with some of the
automations that we need to be more efficient
and, you know, get our doctors onboarded,
not just in our company, but with insurance
companies as well.
Okay. Great. And as far as staffing shortages,
how have you seen, these workforce challenges affect
Affinity Dental Management specifically?
Well, you know, it takes a longer time
to hire skilled
employees. You know, once we we do get
them on board, we definitely
try to keep them,
which is another challenge in itself. But I
think, you know, working for Affinity
has its you know, we definitely care for
all of our employees when we do bring
them on. But, shortages, you know, unfortunately,
in the hygiene side,
we have been leveraging other
employees within the company to kind of move
around
to help with some of the shortages. But,
you know, using some of the temporary employees
might be helpful as well. They are more
costly, but
if that's what we have to do to
keep, you know,
business running smooth, then that's what we have
to do.
Okay. Yeah.
And I know
staffing shortages got a lot worse during the
COVID 19 pandemic. Have you seen any of
those issues
improve even slightly,
over the last couple of years, or is
it has it kind of been the same
as started?
Yeah. No. I I definitely believe they've they've
improved.
I think it's the you know,
I would say it's it's improved, but there's
still lots of work to be done in
that section.
You know, shortages of skilled employees is where
I would say is is the most challenging
because, you know, we'll get an influx of
of people applying,
but are they skilled or have the necessary
experience
to
provide the, you know, the either the dental
treatment that we need
or, you know, be,
well versed in the dental world. So so
that's something that
we have to take on. And when we
do hire, you know, if we do hire
someone that doesn't have the skills, we definitely,
spend time in training
and and wanting to retain them as well.
You know, there's always the challenge of if
you train them and then they move on
somewhere else and you lose that,
that asset. But in in my opinion, you
know, anyone who comes over to us, we
do our best to train them up and
get them,
you know, skilled and and well versed in
the dental field so that they can be
successful.
Okay. Thank you. Next question here. What are
you most excited about when it comes to
dentistry right now, and what makes you nervous?
We definitely touched upon
the technology aspect.
That's really huge for me.
That's something I'm very, very interested in.
I'm extremely excited about,
you know, 3 d printing. We haven't really
implemented that yet in our in our practices,
but it's coming soon. You know, digital workflow,
being able to provide our,
our doctors with, you know, technology that helps
them become more efficient is extremely important.
And, also, you know, AI such as Overjet,
to me, that is the number 1,
number 1 technology that we use every day
in our practice from all aspects, you know,
from our office managers to the doctors to
the assistants
to the corporate team who can, really look
at the data that we get from this,
platform. It's it's very powerful and transforming for
our company.
Other things, you know, that I also touched
upon a little bit earlier was automation.
So, like, phone systems, having, the ability to
for patients to call in and getting their
their phone call picked up and being able
to set the schedule without having,
you know, another person on the other line.
It you know, again, it's it's something that
I'm excited about. I think it solves a
lot of issues that, I think, across the
board,
dental companies have. But, you know, automating our
phone systems is important. Credentialing,
you know, 32 Health,
huge
part of our transformation for our company.
And then, obviously,
from all of those platforms, we have all
the data that we collect, and that's just
really valuable to us in order for us
to improve as a company.
Was there anything that makes you nervous about
the industry apart from maybe the staffing challenges
you mentioned earlier?
To be honest,
you know, for me, in the way I
look at life, which I look at my
life and my career and and the dental
world, and I look at it all the
same. Okay? So I I don't have too
many concerns.
Really, you know, dentistry is a field that's
always going to be in demand.
It's ever changing and advancing, which is truly
exciting.
And so my philosophy
about at least the dental world right now
is, you know, do what's right for the
patient, and everything will just fall into place.
And that's honestly how I how I live
my dental life, how I live my personal
life. You know, do what's right, and everything
just falls into place.
Great.
Last question here. What will the most effective
health care leaders need to be successful in
the next 2 to 3 years?
I think this question is really important
because,
you know, for me
as a as a leader, I have to
do what's right, not just for the company,
but mainly for our patients.
So how can I get to high quality
care?
Well, first, it's about setting expectations within our
organization
and, communicating effectively to our team. Okay? The
next thing I would say is adaptability and
resilience
in the face of rapid change. So,
you know,
like I mentioned,
some of the challenges that we might be
having, well, we need to be able to,
figure out,
ways to overcome those challenges
and and definitely be adaptable,
to our, you know, environment
as it changes.
You know, data analytics and and AI proficiency
is extremely important for health care leaders to
incorporate into their day to day
workflows.
And I have 2 more here.
Ability to foster
the,
collaboration and and and build strong teams within
your organization.
So leveraging your team members,
creating committees,
you know, creating
a really
strong culture
so that everyone is working together
and becoming successful
as one
team,
you know, one team moving forward in your
organization.
And the last but certainly not least is,
ethical decision making and transparency.
And and like I mentioned earlier, always do
the right thing.
So, you know, in the coming years,
health care leaders will need to be highly
adaptable,
and embrace the technologies and focus on both
clinical and business aspects to thrive.
Because, you know, if we don't, it'll be
very difficult to be successful.
And I would just really say, you know,
if we could just blend our traditional leadership
skills with the new competencies and data analytics
and AI and everything that that I had
mentioned earlier,
we can really help the team to
build successful
implementations of of everything that we're trying to
do here. So, really, ultimately,
to be able to to be an effective
health care leader,
you have to focus on the patient care
and patient centered,
treatment.
Those were all really great responses. So thank
you so much. Those were all the questions
I had. Thank you once again for joining
us, doctor Tanis. It's been a pleasure speaking
with you, and I look forward to connecting
with you again in the future.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much for
having me.