Hello. This is Ariana Porto Latin with the
Becker's Dental and DSU Review podcast. I'm thrilled
to be joined today by doctor Julian Osorio,
the owner of South Boston Dental Group. Doctor
Osorio, thank you so much for being here
today. Start us off, can you introduce yourself
and tell our listeners a little bit about
your background?
Yes. I'm a prosthodontist.
Originally
went to dental school in Columbus, South America.
Came to The US in 1981
to go to graduate school at Boston University
where I got my master's in prosthodontics,
in 1984.
I immediately
after that, I went
and I taught full time at university,
undergrad and postgraduate departments
until '92
where I went into private practice. I started
in private practice kind of part time ish
in '88,
but I went full time into private practice
in '2 '20 in 1992.
But I did a state teaching part time,
and I did that for the next thirty
years.
Several dental practices
for a while.
Did some,
DSO
or, like,
startup in nineteen ninety six, ninety seven.
Unfortunately,
the
group that I was working with,
their
structure wasn't suitable
for a successful company, which went on there
after a while.
But then I practice clinical dentistry. I
love doing what I do, but I also
understand I like the business of dentistry.
Thank you so much for for sharing that
background for us.
My first question here for you, what are
some of the biggest issues that you're following
in the dental industry right now?
Well, this is quite a a changing environment
from what I started
and, basically, from my training.
Basically, I trained way before
a lot of the new technologies how to
make dentistry better and simpler.
So the the the the
the the professionals evolve
drastically.
But
it's a changing world, and,
I would say that COVID really changed everything.
Like most small businesses in urban metropolitan areas,
The structure of the workplace changed, so they
they changed the way that we practice too.
There are there are definitely
many challenges,
hiring,
retaining,
raising
cost on all that space,
decreased reimbursement by insurance,
payers
is definitely a challenge. I think it's still
exciting to be doing the industry. Technology has
made it much easier
to do a lot of procedures, especially for
people who are more highly skilled. The technology
allows them
to,
like,
go over so much just shortcomings.
So,
yeah, that's more or less where where we
are.
That's more or less where we are.
Great. Thank you so much. That kinda goes
into, my next question for you here. What
are you most excited about when it comes
to dentistry right now, and is there anything
about the industry right now that
makes you nervous?
Excited.
I definitely would love all we and and
we embrace all the technologies. We are totally
digitally
on board with every all the technologies from
scanning to
diagnosing
to ITI, AI
diagnosing.
All that stuff just makes it actually very
nice. I'm very good. I'm very easy
to do a lot of the procedures.
I would say the biggest challenge is,
and I as I see owning a large
dental practice with, multiple
providers and employees
is the human resource part of the profession.
It's definitely getting harder than harder every day.
We, We however, we have noticed in the
last few months that it's starting to get
easier and better.
During the pandemic, if we put an ad
to recruit an assistant or a hygienist or
a dentist,
We get no responses. Or the people who
respond will make an appointment to come for
an for
a interview and never showed up.
We are lately having a lot of more
people coming in
and looking for jobs.
So that is seems to be easing a
little bit,
but it's still a challenge. And especially the
cost of the human resources
is really
increasing
drastically. I would say that,
in my hygiene division, I have
around 12 hygienists that work in different shifts.
I overall, it's like an eight a full
time equivalency.
And the
increase
in salaries has really affected the bottom line,
but we don't have any choice,
especially when
we are also confronted with the temporary
staffing services
who
recruit a lot of people
and work for them, and they charge
excessive fees to us. But it makes it
attractive for the people who are out there
to work with them because they make eventually
more money. We have
tried to over the last two years to
stay away from that in as much as
possible.
And we are overhiring
just to make sure that we are overstocked,
not understaffed.
From the provider point of view, the dentist
is actually easy.
I definitely find a deficit on the quality
or the education and the training that the
dentists are getting.
I guess, has a lot of to do
with economics where
by when I was in dental school and
when I was teaching in the early years
in the eighties and nineties,
we had an abundant
resource and amount of patients coming into the
into the clinic so our students
have the opportunity to get a good training,
a good experience.
This day is these days is very, very
limited.
And I find myself
even though, unfortunately, I've been an educator, so
I know how to do it, but I
find myself retraining
the trained dentist, which is wasn't the the
case
in the earlier days. Pretty much anybody I
hired back then will
hit the ground running. Now
it's it's it's a little bit more complicated
because of the lack of clinical experience there,
the the the clinical providers.
Oh, I don't know. Maybe that answered your
question.
Yeah. Definitely. Definitely some interesting points that you
mentioned there.
So thank you so much for for sharing
those.
And next question here, what will the most
effective health care leaders need to be successful
in the next two to three years?
Well, I think that
I know that a lot of people put
emphasis on the quality of dentistry.
I think that's a given. If I go
and to buy an iPhone, I expect the
phone to receive phone calls, to my phone
calls, to get email, to send email.
So the quality of the procedures shouldn't be
couldn't be it's it's it's a given.
The
but
the
ability to understand the business
to
even though
I'm not
I would love to see different
reimbursement systems,
but it's not gonna happen. It happened already
in medicine
where most of the medical providers became employees
of the large hospital corporations.
We have to learn how to
work
within the pay ins in within the payer
system of the industry and
drive that payer system to
that benefits everybody. Benefits the patient, benefits benefits
the payers, and benefits benefits the providers.
That is a challenge. It's, I'm trying to
get them to understand.
Unfortunately,
I've been in a metropolitan area with a
large
dent dental. I have, I consolidated my two
big practices in Boston into one big one
in,
at the Seaport 4 Point Channel, which is
a big metropolitan area,
where I have 18 operating rooms with,
another seven dentists, and as I said before,
with the a good number of hygienists.
And I understand that
we have
it's it's the challenge is to manage. We
we become businesses. We become business more than
just a a a practice
that you came to work and
and, collected whatever you did, and you did
did well. You got a paycheck, and you
went home. Now we have to understand
every single minutia of the business going on.
We have to understand
what are we paying for supplies, what are
we paying for
staffing, what are we paying for dental laboratory
fees, what are we paying for,
all the other ex all the other
payables, you know, from legal to
real estate to
all all that? You have to become
it's more it's more a business than anything
else. We have to understand that. If the
people don't understand that, they are not going
to succeed.
Great. Thank you so much for for sharing
that insight there. Well, that is all I
have for you today. Those are all my
questions, doctor Zuriya. So thank you so much
for joining us today on our podcast.
It's been a pleasure speaking with you, and
I look forward to connecting with you again
in the future. Sure.