Hello. This is Arianna Portolatin with the Becker's
Dental and DSO review podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Brian
Carey, the CEO of Benevis, and doctor Jane
Wang, the regional director of clinical at Benevis.
Brian and doctor Wang, thank you so much
for being here today. It's great to have
you both.
Thank you for having us.
Excited to be on. Thank you.
Great. To start us off, I'd love to
have you both introduce yourself. Brian, would you
like to go first?
Absolutely. So a pleasure to be with you.
Brian Carey. I am the CEO of Benevis.
I've been in this position two and a
half years, although I was a director of
Benevis prior to that.
My career has always been in, multisite health
care and really,
pleased to now be in a health care
entity that is focused on serving underserved communities.
And doctor Wang, how about you? Hi, everyone.
My name is doctor Jane Wang. I've been
at Benavist for fifteen years. I actually just
had my fifteen year anniversary yesterday.
I joined as an associate dentist in the
organization and have held different positions.
But now I am the regional dental director
of the East Region of the organization.
And, thank you for having us on. Yeah.
Definitely. Congratulations on your work anniversary.
And thank you both for those introductions. It's
great to hear about your past experiences as
well and your time at Benevis.
My first question for you both here, what
are some of the biggest issues that you're
following in the dental industry this year? Brian,
why don't you start us off again?
Sure. So I would say two things. One
is
the adoption of new technologies,
and
the other is the continued challenge in terms
of shortage of qualified health care workers.
In terms of new technologies,
particularly because
we hire a lot of grads of dental
schools.
And so scanners, imaging, use of AI
are all really important in terms of improving
the quality of care and the delivery of
care.
And so it's just big focus of ours
in terms of, you know, how to include
that,
in our kind of care delivery
models and excited about doing that. But the
second is the challenge, which is, you know,
there just is a shortage of qualified workers
for health care entities.
So particularly, you know, our really valuable hygienists
and dental assistants.
And so we are working closely with schools
in terms of,
making sure they're aware of the opportunities
at an organization like Benavist,
and even,
starting our recruiting earlier so that
candidates
become aware,
and we could continue to sort of cultivate
them. So
those, on one hand, you know, great opportunity
in terms of the technology.
On the other hand,
really having to work hard to make sure
that we have a full care delivery staff.
Great. Doctor Wang, how about you?
I would say that specific to our organization,
one of the biggest issues that we're following
and we are challenged with is that,
our business our organization
is our mission is to provide access to
care for the underserved community. And it appears
that, a lot of our dentists
are not accepting
Medicaid coverage, are not accepting that insurance. So
as a result,
only a few percentage
of dentists are available to care for
a lot of our patients who have that
insurance.
And as a result, a lot of our
patients,
especially children, thirty percent of U. S. Children
ages zero to 18 had dental benefits through
Medicaid or CHIP.
But only seventy percent of those children,
saw a dentist in the last twelve months.
And that is the challenge that we're facing
as we,
desire to treat all our
patients with that insurance.
Alright. Thank you both for sharing your your
insight there and those issues that you're following.
It's definitely interesting to hear some of those
statistics as well from you, doctor Wang. And
I'm sure we'll dive a little bit deeper
into those issues with this next question here.
I I was curious. What are you both
excited about when it comes to dentistry right
now, and what makes you nervous?
Brian, let's start with you again.
Sure. So,
certainly excited about
the use of technology,
and
what new grads bring. And so we have
at Benevis really a model where we recruit
and mentor new grads.
And while they're getting a lot from Benevis
in terms of our more
senior,
associate dentists,
working with them, training, mentoring,
as well as, you know, the ability to,
of course, make a great living, but they're
bringing something to Benevis in terms of their
exposure and use of new technologies
and new practices.
And all that is exciting because
our focus is on
two things. One, a true dental home
where,
patients, you know, kind of continue to come
to Benavist for their care and our practices,
but two, a real sort of emphasis on
preventative care. And there are even new sort
of types of sealants and others that,
really work well for our, population in terms
of really great oral health care. You know,
on the other hand, we are working hard
to help people maintain their benefits.
Last year, in the last eighteen months, there
was a significant amount of redetermination
of whether individuals were,
still eligible for Medicaid and CHIP.
Many were disenrolled
due to administrative
issues. And so we are working very closely
for those who
are effectively
eligible,
but for them to be able to reenroll.
And that continues to be a challenge, but
something that we are working through with our
patients and communities.
Great. Thank you so much for for sharing
those. I'm curious, just a follow-up question for
you, Brian. Is there anything
different that you're working on
this year under this new administration? What changes
happening under the health and human services department
and Medicaid?
So we're obviously, you know, staying,
sort of closely informed,
and,
we do have, you know, some of our
colleagues spending time,
in DC making sure that
as they are evaluating,
you know, every aspect of our US government,
that people understand the very, very important role
of Medicaid and particularly Medicaid dentistry.
And so,
we are obviously,
you know, staying,
closely involved
like everyone. You know, we're very, very interested
in, you know, anything that could be done
to reduce any waste, freight, or fraud, or
abuse.
But we also know that, you know, over
forty percent of the children in The US,
rely on Medicaid or CHIP for their benefits.
And so we wanna make sure, of course,
that
the changes don't impact those who are truly
eligible.
And we feel very good about the long
history that organizations like ourselves have with over
twenty years and having treated 4,000,000
plus children
that there's a real record of, you know,
that this is, of course,
an important and effective benefit for, those who
are in need.
Thank you so much for adding some additional
thoughts there. Doctor Wang, what about you? What
is making you excited and both nervous again,
with dentistry right now?
Sure.
One of the things that I find exciting
is that a lot of our new graduates
are excited to and interested in joining DSOs
like Benevis, which is great because,
we need a lot of providers who are
interested in,
just partaking in the mission that we have
to care for our patients.
So I think that's exciting, and I think
part of it is that now,
the dental community has understood
the importance of how DSOs can play a
great part in
increasing the access to care,
for our patients. But also a lot of
new grads are interested in the mentorship that
a lot of DSOs such as ourselves can
provide,
which is really a lot of our new
grads, when I interview them, I found that
they are interested in that. And that's one
of their priorities when searching for,
a job after dental school.
So and we have a focus on that,
but we have,
area dental directors and state dental directors and
district dental directors and regional dental directors like
myself who are interested in helping new graduates
get the experience and the growth and the
support they can be. They need to be
effective and just successful dentists. So that's exciting.
What makes it me a bit nervous is
that we have all of these dentists joining.
But as, Brian alluded to before, just in
terms of the support staff, the auxiliary staff
members that need to support the doctors, like
hygienists and dental assistants,
where we continue to face challenges in certain
offices and certain regions of the organization.
Thank you so much for sharing those thoughts.
I wanted to touch back on something that
you mentioned earlier about working with new graduates
and
advancing the mission of benefits to
improve care in underserved areas and expand access
to care. I know in previous conversations that
I've had with other DSO executives and other
dental providers,
A big issue with the staffing shortages
is a lot of new graduates want to
they tend to sort of flock to larger
cities for more career opportunities, maybe,
higher pay as well. Are you seeing a
difference there with, recruitment and dental graduates? Do
you see more wanting to serve in underserved
areas?
It's definitely
a challenge depending on where our office is
located.
But I think because of that, we do
a good job of making it equitable. So
if it's a lucrative
or popular area like, DC
or,
other bigger cities,
then the incentives may not be as great,
but we balance it by offering greater incentives
in rural and areas that may not be
as popular.
But the great thing is,
an incentive the doctors do also have is
that maybe after a year or two of
getting the exposure at an urban or areas
where we don't, have enough dentists,
they can then transfer to an area that
they are more interested in. I think a
lot of our newer dentists, I found, are
excited about that and open to that if
they know that they have that as a
growth pattern.
Great. Well, thank you so much for sharing
some more insight there. My last question here
for you both,
what will the most effective health care leaders
need to be successful in the next two
to three years? Brian, why don't you start?
Yes. I would say that it's really,
patient engagement.
And so couple of examples,
we created just this last year the ability
to self schedule online,
and already more than 10% of our appointments
are self scheduled.
We also create the ability by
text to be able to reschedule or cancel
your appointment.
While many people thought, you don't wanna make
it easy to be able to cancel, the
reality is that life gets in the way.
Things do come up, and we wanna be
able to engage our patients, including if they
need to, you know, reschedule their appointment or
cancel their appointment.
And I think in, you know, the demands
of daily life, in particular, your underserved communities,
you have to find a way to really
work with your patients,
so that, while you have access and avail
availability,
you also have flexibility, and I think that's
gonna be critical for the coming years.
Doctor Wayne, what about you?
I think one is staff retention,
where we want to make sure that once
we have, staff join our organization,
just to provide the training that they need,
so that they can be successful in their
position, but to also have a great, growth
opportunity for them. We have I think we,
as an organization, are great about that, where
we recognize those who,
stand out and are excel in their position,
but we are able to expand their skill
set so that they can grow within the
company.
And, we have had a lot of focus
on training, which I think a lot
of employees ask for. And,
we have a whole team that is focused
on that, and I think that is really
helpful.
And another is just to make sure that
we engage our team members through just diversity.
I think our organization,
we treat,
we have offices located in areas where they
don't have that access to care. But when
the patients come to our office, they want
to feel like they are still part of
that community
and that the community is reflected in our,
within our team members. And I think,
we
do a good job of having a great
mix and diverse group of dentists and support
staff. And I think that's what will allow
us to be successful.
Great. Thank you so much for sharing those.
Definitely some important points that you mentioned there.
Brian and doctor Wang, thank you so much
for joining us today. That's all I have
for you here. It's been a pleasure speaking
with you both, and I look forward to
connecting with you again in the future.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you so much. So much. Enjoy the
rest of your day. Bye bye.