Hello. This is Arianna Porto Latin with the
Becker's Dental and DSO review podcast. I'm thrilled
to be joined today by Phil Cassis, the
cofounder and CEO of Providence Dental Partners. Phil,
thank you so much for being here today.
It's great to have you on the podcast
again. Thank thank thanks for having me, Arianna.
It's good to be back. Great. To start
us off for listeners who haven't,
heard from you before, can you introduce yourself
to our listeners and tell us a little
bit about your background?
Hey, Arianna. Thanks again for, for having me.
My name is Phil Kasas. I've got the,
the privilege and the awesome responsibility of being
the CEO at Providence Dental Partners.
We are an emerging group here based out
of Georgia.
For me, I grew up in the dental
industry. My dad's a dentist. He's been practicing
for forty five years now. My brother's an
endodontist. Sister in law's a dentist. I've got
a lot of cousins who are dentists, so
it's the only thing I've ever really known.
I did spend, twelve years at Henry Schein,
prior to, starting Providence Dental Partners. Most of
that time, I, spent consulting with dental practices
all across The US,
mostly focused on the business side of dentistry,
helping them with everything from,
insurance reimbursements,
marketing, HR,
more so helping dentists, run run a profitable
dental practice.
Thank you so much for that introduction. First
question here. What are some of the biggest
issues you're following at the moment in the
dental industry?
Yeah. So so some of the big things
that we deal with day to day, but
we also follow in the the larger industry
right now, obviously, workforce shortages
and wage inflation,
in particular with hygienist,
and assistant shortages. That remains one of the
top constraints to
to our growth and just the stability of
our businesses.
And while it impacts our businesses, more importantly,
it impacts the overall health of the communities
we serve.
We've gotta have the team members in our
practices to be able to serve patients and
make sure,
they've got the overall health and wellness,
you you know, that that they need as
well.
So things are always changing. You got rising
wages.
People are getting creative with, like, sign on
bonuses, more competition,
you know, makes, retention strategies and culture building
even more critical to our organizations.
Some other things that we are following, and
we're starting to see some of the impact,
from the tariffs,
just in rising supply cost. I wouldn't say
that it's
impacted us a lot yet, but certainly, something
that we're keeping a close eye on. The
the tariffs, cuts to
Medicaid, while we particularly don't see Medicaid in
our practices,
we're keeping an eye out to see if
there's a ripple effect in the dental industry,
from all the clinics that do. And so
those are kind of the two big things,
with workforce,
shortages and and then the the the cuts
to Medicaid as well as the tariffs that
we kinda keep an eye on on the
bigger bigger industry.
Yeah. Thank you for sharing those. Couple follow-up
questions for me just on some of the
details you shared.
Is Providence doing anything different this year as
far as,
trying to attract more hygienists, retain them a
little bit? I know you mentioned
wage inflation and sign on bonuses.
How is your company
kinda navigating that this year? Yeah. So we're,
at Safe Throwing the Kitchen Sink headed.
You know, we we love to hear from
our teams and in particular, the hygienist. Right?
We wanna understand,
where we're at and what we could be
doing better, to attract more, top level hygienist
like the ones that I feel like we
have in our organization. So we're very engaged
with the hygiene schools, the hygiene associations.
We do work closely with the teams that
we already have.
You know, we put in place referral programs,
things like that.
You know, it's not just about having someone
who's licensed in that role. It's about having
the right people on board. And so we've
got a great team at Providence,
in particular, our hygienist.
And so we want more like those. Right?
And usually, the ones who are already here
and working with us and know us,
we want them to refer and recommend more
of their friends who bring the same level
and commitment to quality
that they bring to our practices every day.
Okay. Thank you for sharing some more information
about that. Also, to your point about tariffs,
I know you mentioned that, hasn't been too
much of an impact just yet. We are
seeing a lot of back and forth about
the tariffs, a lot of new developments,
that have come into play here. Is your
company you and your colleagues, when you're kinda
discussing tariffs, are you starting to think about
some of where you can adjust, where you
can cut costs just to kind of prepare
yourselves if tariffs were to have a larger
impact?
I would say we're always ready and always
willing to be flexible. You know, while I
don't know that it's impacted us in our
day to day yet, we have gotten notification
from some of our manufacturer partners and distributors
that some of those price increases are coming.
And,
you know, those are where we have to
make hard decisions. And we always make those
hard decisions on what's best and,
you you know, best for our patients.
And so if it means that we have
to end up paying a little bit more,
for for the best products in the industry,
we're more than happy to do that. But
at the same time, there's always alternatives that
that we can look at, and that's where
we really lean on our clinical leaders, to
be able to evaluate different products
and, see if we can get the same
or better results with something that's a little
bit more cost effective. But, I would say
overall, we we typically don't,
run our business with just, you know, some
of the smaller,
cost in mind. We always put patient care
first. And so that's what we'll continue to
do, and we'll just continue to monitor the
the tariffs and the impact of it and,
make decisions accordingly.
Okay.
And next question here.
What are you most excited about when it
comes to dentistry right now? And second part
of that is what makes you nervous?
Oh, okay. Well, Well, I'm gonna start with
the second part first.
And while we try not to get nervous
about too much, there's always things,
going there's always gonna be things in the
day to day that we have to think
through, problem solve, and that's what our leadership
team is, here to do and we're really
good at. There's always new situations, scenarios, challenges
arise
weekly, sometimes daily. And when my team brings
those to me, I always try and take
the edge off. I always tell them, you
know, the first thing we're gonna do is
panic and get that out of the way,
and then we're gonna figure out what the
the logical practical thing to do is. And,
I've been blessed to have such a great
leadership team around me. And when we work
together, I don't feel like there's anything that
we can overcome. And so when these challenges
arise,
we put our heads together and we come
up with the, the logical practical solutions, and
then we implement them.
Now as far as what I'm excited about,
there's a lot to be excited about.
I would say, AI coming into really all
parts of our business, both clinically,
but also in the business operation side, really
making us a lot more streamlined and efficient.
It's exciting to see where these innovators of
AI have come into the industry over the
last five years, where their products and services
started and kinda where they're at now,
but also where they're going. The the more
and more that these,
companies,
can be interoperable,
meaning it gives us the flexibility to choose
different products and they all work together,
just makes us all better. And, ultimately, it
allows us to to serve our patients at
a higher level and provide better better oral
health care to the communities that we serve.
And so continuing to keep an eye on
that and make sure that we're implementing,
these different technologies and AIs in our organization
where it makes sense,
both on the clinical side, but also on
the business operation side.
I would also say that there's always new
products. Right? Every once in a while, there's,
products that come into our industry
that really revolutionize the way that we think
about and practice dentistry.
We've seen that over the years with everything
from intraoral scanners to digital x rays to
CBCT.
One that we're really excited about at Providence
is Curadont,
being able to,
a biomimetic,
product that helps regrow the enamel of tooth
loss. So we don't have to
wait and watch anymore. We can go ahead
and treat these lesions early on
and either arrest the decay or restore the
enamel
of two. So I know that they are,
you know, continuing to evolve these technologies, and
these are things that we're really excited about,
you know, tracking over the next few years
and continuing to to implement in our organization
as it makes sense.
Great. Thank you for sharing those. Last question
here. What will the most effective health care
leaders need to be successful within the next
two to three years?
A lot. So,
first and foremost, I think we have to
keep the focus on our teams.
We can't serve our patients and certainly serve
them at the highest level without our teams.
They are the ones that make this work
day in and day out. And so we
have to continue investing in their training, their
development,
as well as our practice cultures. That's one
of the things I'm most proud of at,
Providence Dental Partners. One of our core values
at PDP is fun.
I had the pleasure actually, yesterday evening at
spending, time at Topgolf with, our North Atlanta
teams, and we had a lot of fun
together. And I I love our teams. I
love that we have fun together, outside of
the office too.
We work hard.
No doubt about it. We we demand it
of our teams.
But this core value is really a reminder
of us not to take ourselves too seriously
and to have fun,
doing doing the things that we do day
in and day out with the people around
us.
We have fun,
at being the best at what we do.
And I think this fun really creates a
friendly work environment where people like to be.
And so when we enjoy our work, patients
love their dental experience.
And so we try and incorporate a little
bit of fun in everything that we do.
And I think that spreads throughout our organization,
and just allows us to be better. It
allows us to recruit top talent, to retain
top talent,
but our patients notice it too.
The other thing I would say that
you know, in our industry or any industry
that we've gotta do to be successful over
the next few years is be willing to
change. Change is hard.
Some leaders and some organizations,
will steer towards the path of least resistance.
And I believe to be successful in the
coming years, you have to be willing to
lean into the change.
That means being transparent and having honest tough
conversations about some of the change and some
of the changes that are coming.
I think as consolidation
continues in dentistry,
it'll be more important to set a culture
of change on the front end with these
teams and practices as they come into our
organization.
Being transparent about what changes are coming and
being willing to do the hard work,
to, you know, change practice management softwares, to
change clinical or operational workflows.
You know, I think it's important. And I
think it's important just to be transparent with
teams upfront.
I think over the years, people have said,
hey. Nothing's gonna change,
when you join our organization and,
and, you know, think that that is kind
of a way of doing things in the
past, I think it's gonna take the tough
work of making the change on the front
end, to be able to survive and thrive
in the future.
I've been a fan and a student of
change management for a long time.
Love studying everything from Charles Darwin's theory of
evolution,
to modern change management experts, like John Kotter.
My favorite though is Edward Deming. And one
of the the quotes that's been most impactful
for me over my career that, that he
said is it is not necessary to change.
Survival was not mandatory.
And so to me, that's a constant reminder
that we as leaders have to always be
willing to change and evolve forward. And, that
means we have to be transparent with our
teams about, you know, that that's kind of
part of our our DNA and our organization
is we're always gonna be changing and evolving
forward. That way we don't get left behind.
Super interesting thoughts from me there, Phil. Thank
you so much for sharing that.
That's all I have for you today. Thank
you so much for joining us again today
on our podcast. Been a pleasure speaking with
you and look forward to connecting with you
again in the future. I know we'll see
you at the event next month, hopefully, another
podcast interview, but we will connect again soon.
Sounds good, Arianna. Thanks so much for having
me, and, looking forward to seeing you in
Chicago next month.