Hello. This is Arianna Portallatin with the Becker's
Dental and DS Overview podcast. I'm thrilled to
be joined today by Brian Carey, the CEO
at Benevis. Brian, thank you so much for
being here today. It's great to speak with
you again.
Thanks, Arianna. Really good to be with you
and, really enjoy these,
Becker's podcast. So pleased to be with you.
Thank you so much. To start us off,
can you introduce yourself for our listeners and
tell us a little bit about your background
as well?
Certainly.
So,
as you've indicated, I am the CEO of
BeneViz.
I have been CEO of Benevis for a
little over three years. I was on the
board for a year before that, and my
career has essentially been, in multi site health
care services.
So experience in multi site health care and,
recently now with
oral health care.
And just a little bit about,
Benabus. We operate
primarily pediatric Medicaid practices in a 15
communities
across 14 states.
Great. Thank you so much for sharing that
background with us. To kick us off, I
know that benefits just celebrated its tenth annual
Sharing Smiles Day. Can you tell us a
little bit a little bit about that, what
was accomplished during that event?
Certainly. Thrilled to. And, I often say it's
my favorite day of the year. So, Sharing
Smiles Day, and it was just our tenth
annual,
this past May 18,
is a day where we all come together
and provide
free care to
uninsured and under insured members of our community.
And so on this,
year, we had 22 of our practices
and,
over 330
of our associates. So, dentists, hygienists,
dental assistants, and some of the support staff,
all volunteered.
And we provide the care to over 400
individuals, again, who are either underinsured or uninsured.
And it's really for three reasons. One is,
because it's core to our mission to provide
oral health care to uninsured and underinsured.
It's a way of our really kind of
improving that access and making it totally free
and available.
The second is,
it kind of is a way of us
really kinda sharing with the community,
what our mission is,
really all about.
But finally, it's actually a really important day
for all of us, because it's a way
for us to come together, for us to
provide service,
and really to kinda remind ourselves of kinda
what's core to the Benevis mission.
So we were thrilled,
to have another successful one and are looking
forward
to doing it again next year.
Great.
Amazing to hear about everything that you've accomplished
that day and all the patients that you
were able to help. And tenth annual, that's
a that's a big milestone, so congratulations on
reaching that. Definitely a big one there.
I'm also curious.
Yeah. Definitely. I'm also curious to know what
are you most excited about when it comes
to dentistry right now, and is there anything
that makes you nervous about the industry also?
Yep. So I would say,
just excited about the continued,
application of technology.
So,
like, really every, you know, entity across the
globe,
artificial intelligence is, you know,
something that's really enabling,
improvements in care,
whether it be in sort of, diagnostic aids
or in terms of just,
we're actually using it in some of our
contact center for helping to schedule,
as well as in, navigating,
sort of insurance claims and billing.
So just excited that the use of artificial
intelligence is
essentially
resulting in better care and more accessible care,
and we're looking forward to we think we're
obviously in just in the early innings of
that.
You know, on the other hand, I'd say,
you know,
a significant part of our population
receives their,
insurance, both medical and dental care
coverage,
through Medicaid and Medicaid related programs.
And,
you know, certainly concerned about some of the,
efforts to reform Medicaid,
potentially to reduce costs.
And while,
of course, like everyone, you know, we're,
supportive of there being any,
ways to reduce, waste, fraud, and abuse,
We are just concerned that,
those who are truly eligible
may end up becoming disenrolled.
And that can happen just because of the
administrative burden.
And so,
we're we're concerned, and we're prepared to support
our communities
to make sure that those who are truly
eligible can maintain their eligibility
and, more importantly,
maintain their dental home and oral health care.
Alright. Thank you for for sharing your thoughts
on Medicaid. They're definitely, an important issue in
the industry right now.
My next question here, what will the most
effective health care leaders need to be successful
in the next two to three years?
So,
to be successful, you know, in that time
frame, the next two or three years,
it's really gonna be most critical to,
retain,
talented individuals.
And the my own opinion, the only way
to do that is to continue to invest
in them. We are in a position in
health care where there just continues to be
more jobs than people are able to perform
those jobs.
And that's, certainly the case with dentists,
case with hygienists, and with dental assistants.
And so, in order to be successful, we
just, have to find a way to retain,
and
motivate those individuals. And as I said, in
our case,
we do it primarily through investing in training
and development so that people feel supported.
Great. Could you,
go in a little bit deeper about some
of the trainings that you provide the dental
professionals in your network just to learn more
about, what exactly you offer and how you're
supporting, the workplace there?
Yeah. So,
I'd say two things. One is,
because of things like artificial intelligence and new
scanning technologies,
so supporting them in the use of those,
in our offices.
And then the second thing is just,
the
sort of growth in their skill set.
So for example,
with dental assistants,
in many of our states,
dental assistants can actually be trained and certified
to be,
coronal polishers, which essentially are performing some hygiene,
tasks. And so,
by investing and supporting their growth and development,
it's a way of, really their sort of,
you know, jobs and careers being more fulfilling.
And so that's one of the, probably most
important ways that we, look to really support,
the growth of the individuals in our dental
assistant function.
Great. Well, thank you so much for for
sharing some more of that info there. Those
are all the questions I have for you,
Brian. Thank you again, so much for joining
us today. It's always a pleasure to speak
with you and learn more about what you're
doing at BeneViz. So I hope you'll you'll
stay in touch with us. It's been a
pleasure speaking with you again today, and I
look forward to connecting with you again in
the future. Great. Thank you so much for
the time and the opportunity.