Hello, everyone. This is Ariana Portolatin with the
Becker's Dental and DSR Review podcast. I'm thrilled
to be joined today by doctor Bayless Sastry,
the CEO of teledentistry.com.
Doctor Sastry, thank you so much for being
here today. It's great to speak with you
again. Oh my gosh. Ariana, thank you so
much for inviting me, and, it's always a
pleasure to to, you know, have these meetings
with you and to be a returning guest,
I might add. So thank you so much.
Yes. Yes. We're always happy to have you.
To start us off, can you introduce yourself
to our listeners and tell us a little
bit about your background?
For sure.
So for the folks who are listening, I
am a dentist. I graduated from Boston University
back in 02/2005.
Shortly thereafter, I set up my own DSO
in Las Vegas.
Also set up an insurance brokerage firm, which
was not looked upon very kindly by some
folks in the area, but they soon enough
understood that what I was doing was trying
to send more patients to dental offices and
improve access to care.
I sold that insurance brokerage firm and simultaneously
then started up teledentistry.com
with the same mission, which was to, you
know, help improve access to care, albeit through
a virtual platform.
This was in 02/2017,
and,
it's been,
nothing short of a roll roller coaster since
then. And,
now fast forward to 2025,
we are now currently serving 90 insurance carriers
plus
and,
providing services to approximately 150,000,000
lives across The United States, insured lives. Thank
you so much, Arianna.
Great. Thank you so much for that intro.
First question here. What are some of the
biggest issues that you are following in the
dental industry this year?
I'm following
several issues.
Number one actually is the,
removal
of fluoride from public water,
sources.
That's a big one on my,
radar.
Next, we have,
the changes to,
Medicare Advantage and Medicaid
through the one big beautiful bill act.
Simultaneously,
we have, the technology sector. We have
players like Epic, which
are getting
very large
and are seeming to, you know, take advantage
of their ecosystem wherein they vet out who
are the
successful
additions to their platform and then replicate and
then leverage their distribution to create their own
solution.
And last but not least, provide licensing,
with,
the,
compacts
gaining steam, something very nice.
That's what I'm look that that's that's, that's
something very near and dear to me. And
so I'm looking forward to seeing a lot
of progress on that on that side of
things as well. So
Yeah. It seems like, you're paying attention to
many things that other dental leaders are following
right now at the same time.
I know Medicaid and the the one big
beautiful bill is a big issue. Definitely, the
removal of fluoride in in
various states.
Are you paying attention and kind of thinking
about how those things will affect
people's ability to access teledentistry?
Yes.
It with teledentistry,
specifically as it relates to our business,
you know, we got our big boost during
the pandemic, obviously, with the dental office closures
and,
needing and and literally the nation
needing a solution
to help people who are having a dental
emergency avoid the emergency room at that time.
And, it was during that time that we
got our big boost.
Several insurance companies joined up on our platform.
And now, obviously, thanks to that, that's where
we are right now.
Looking to the future,
you know, not everybody has a dental emergency
all the time. You know?
We look at
our business as an evolving
model
wherein
it is a platform designed to help deliver
care to patients wherever they are. You know?
And that includes,
preventative care and, other types of solutions that
are allowed under the dental practice acts across
the country.
And so we very strictly adhere to those.
And what we're finding is,
that
we are able to, in fact,
provide preventative services to these members of of
insurance companies and patients in turn
and,
effect on a lot of those types of
things that are, you know, the hour of
the need when you have such a strong
voice,
you know, removing fluoride from the public water
and acknowledging, in fact, that there will be,
accelerated dental disease because of this. It's a
bit baffling,
and it's all based on science that's not
necessarily true or not necessarily proven 100%.
But, nonetheless, a knee jerk reaction is being
taken in this regard.
So, we feel it's our responsibility as health
care providers,
and oral health care providers to step up
and provide solutions that,
will meet this need. So that's how we're
pivoting our business. Not pivoting. We're adding,
you know, service lines to our business that
will help,
in the preventative space as well.
Great. Great to hear your thoughts there.
Next question here. What are you most excited
about when it comes to dentistry right now,
and what makes you nervous?
Well, you know,
dentistry as a profession
is reliant on the
practitioner to be of sound mind and body.
You know? And I can tell you as
I'm aging,
you know, your body does give out. You
know? And,
at some point,
you know,
you're not able to practice at that level
of efficiency that you knew you could a
few years prior. You know?
I'm excited to see some of the advancements
in AI and,
augmented reality
and,
those sorts of techno the amalgamation of those
technologies really
to
create new ways
for
practitioners
who want to practice
at the top of their game
and can now leverage these tools to be
able to do so
without additional stress on the body and mind.
Would that make sense? You know? And I've
seen some cool technologies coming out, like, where
you can literally visualize
the root canal anatomy,
of a patient
while they're in their chair
using augmented reality.
That's
incredible to me. And, just a few years
prior, this would not have been even possible
to you couldn't even imagine this was possible,
you know, let alone actually using it in
the operatory. You know? And so these are
the kinds of things that I find are
extremely,
exciting.
Nervous. You know, there's always,
concerns
around,
the practice of dentistry, the practice of health
care as in as a whole.
And, it again relates to the same thing,
which is, you know, being being able to
practice
with sound mind and body and how you're
able to deliver care in a meaningful way
to patients
as,
their expectations evolve,
which are continuously evolving,
and,
meeting the demand
of those expectations in a cost effective manner.
You know? That's the challenge. You know? Because
this everything sounds great. You know? AI augmented
reality and so on and so forth. Well,
those companies are all valued at billions of
dollars for a reason.
It's gonna cost a lot of money to
deploy them. You know? And,
ultimately,
sometimes patients, they just don't wanna pay for
that kind of, you know, advancement. So that's
where I think the rubber hits the road.
And how does that all kind of combine
in a way to make it so that
there's effective
health care being delivered in a cost effective
manner
that, helps the practitioner during during the different
life stages that they go through as well.
Interesting points that you make there. Thank you
so much for sharing those. Our last question
here, what will the most effective healthcare leaders
need to be successful in the next two
to three years?
Yeah. I think this this one is, rather
obvious to those who are following the space.
You know, it's it's all about leveraging
the newer technologies,
which has been, you know,
the same thing we've been saying for the
last ten, fifteen years. You know, there's always
a new technology coming out. Now it's AI.
You know?
And, you know, if you I'm old enough
to know that, you know, the the new
technology way back when was email.
And so,
as as we age and as we kinda
go through, these different, you know,
eras of technological,
evolution,
it's important to note that
health care leaders
are dealing with
doctors
who right now are using a pen and
paper to make scheduling decisions,
all the way to somebody who's using AI
and everything in between. You know? So how
do you accommodate,
you know, that range
of
health care provider along the way, you know,
and provide them a safe
mental space to work in. It's hard to
do. You know? And and, you know, we're
as as providers, as doctors, we're constantly being
told
to level up our skill set,
level up, you know, our abilities,
in order to meet the demands of, you
know, the market, so to speak.
It's hard to do.
You know? And as health care leaders, how
do we make that easier? How do we
make it so that the doctors who we
are in charge of, the
the the dental assistants that we're in charge
of, the hygienist,
everybody is
on
the same page as you and
can actually work with you and the systems
you're providing
to make sure that the care that's being
delivered is, again, effective and, you know,
meets the patient's demands.
Alright. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing
that. Well, that is all I have for
you today, doctor Sastry. Thank you so much
for joining us today. Great to speak with
you again. It's been a pleasure speaking with
you today, and I look forward to connecting
with you again in the future. Thank you
so much, Ariana. Real pleasure as always.