Hi, everyone. This is Brian Zimmerman with Becker's
Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning into
the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
Today, we're going to talk about what growth
minded DSOs are getting right in 2025.
Joining me for this discussion is Theresa Williams,
chief operations officer at Dental Express, and Alan
Rencher, chief technology officer at Henry Schein one.
Alan and Theresa, thank you both so much
for being here today.
Thanks for having us, Brian.
Alright. Let let's get into it. Let's let's
meet you both. To kick us off, I'm
gonna tap on each of you to share
a few details about you about yourselves, your
your your work,
whatever you think is pertinent for the conversation
today. Theresa, why don't you begin?
Great. So I'm Theresa Williams, and I'm chief
operations officer for a DSO in Southern California
called Dental Express.
I have, been working in the multisite
and DSO space for, almost thirty years and
have gone through several,
technology transitions as the industry has moved each
decade. And so I'm excited to be here
with my good friend, Alan, to, you know,
talk about what's what's new, with
Henry Schein One and what how we can
best meet the changing,
changing climate this next decade.
Excellent. Great to have you here, Theresa. Alan,
go ahead. Yeah. Great to be with you
here today, Brian. Alan Rencher, chief technology officer
from Henry Schein ONE.
Been in the tech industry for almost thirty
years.
I've been working specifically in health care and
dental for a little over five,
have a lot of experience building software at
scale. I've worked for some very large companies
that that have done that, and it's it's
really exciting
to be making a difference in dental. The
the work we do directly impacts the wellness
and the well-being of millions of people, and
it's it's really exciting and fun to add
value and and help accelerate
tech and well-being in that area. Wonderful.
Excited to hear more about that work, Alan.
And let let's dive in. But the question
I'll ask here, we'll begin with a big
one, is, you know, this year, 2025, has
really brought about several shifts in the industry
in terms of how patients approach dental care.
There's been shifts in labor dynamics and and
certainly as, Alan, as you alluded to there
in terms of your focus on tech, the
pace of tech adoption has has accelerated as
well. From where you sit, I'll tap on
both of you. But, Alan, we could begin
with you. What operational challenges are most disruptive
to sustainable growth right now, and how are
DSOs
really working to overcome them considering all the
the changes in in in the market right
now? Alan, go ahead. Yeah. That is a
fantastic question, Brian. I'll say that, you know,
I speak to the
executives at several very large DSOs, usually several
times a week. And so my perspective comes
from primarily the DSO perspective. While we do
have lots of private practice customers,
today we're talking DSOs. And, you know, it
could be anything from staffing shortages to the
inflation
to kind of the shift in in what
patients expect.
The largest,
force multiplier that we're seeing for DSOs to
help with operations is access to data.
Data is, in fact, the new oil.
And the more data practices have and the
more data
that the operations teams from DSOs have, the
better.
And that data is so important,
not just in terms of,
you know, simple things you would think about.
What's how's our our our treatment acceptance rate?
What are we doing,
to make our RCM operations more efficient? And
what are we doing to improve our our
claims acceptance? What are what what treatments are
are are really making moving the needle from
an AR perspective? I mean, there's many, many,
many aspects of that, but let's just stick
to the fundamentals, getting access to that data.
And it's something that we're deeply passionate about
and something that we've spent a lot of
time here at Henry Schein one thinking about.
Our products, I'm really excited to say,
really provide access to that data in an
unfettered way, in a in a way that
really augments the ability of of DSOs to
make decisions for their practices. The first
kind of way we do that, specifically with
our Ascend web PMS,
is we allow practices
to get a copy of their entire dataset
every night.
We also,
have over 700 API endpoints, 700
endpoints.
So
a DSO can, in real time, get over
700 different data elements out of their platform
in real time. Our next closest competitor has
24,
and we really feel like that investment in
data accessibility is super important to the marketplace.
Kind of the second area where we really
have focused from data access is one of
our analytics tools, Jarvis. It's
obviously practice management,
agnostic. So it works with our products, obviously,
and several other competing products, and it shows
a single pane of glass for
that data across multiple PMSs. And it's, we
believe, a a really strong competitive differentiator.
Now as an operator, if you're the operator
of a DSO, that that can take on
many forms and fashions. But having that single
point pane of glass view is super important.
And this is something that I get asked
about almost every day by somebody at a
DSO. It could be the CIO. It could
be
the head of marketing. It could be,
the chief executive who's interested in something they're
trying to do with data. And we're really
excited about what we bring to the table
there. And I would say, in 2025,
access to that data is super important
with the innovation we're seeing with artificial intelligence
and data science and
predicting events before they happen. I mean, you
can go down the list of things to
talk about in that area. So to respond
to your question, Brian, I think it's access
to data. That's how what I think. And
there's that takes on many forms, but
that's what I believe,
the most important and most relevant
answer would be to those listening.
A lot on data there.
But, you know, data is the new oil,
as you pointed out. And those those API
components also sound incredibly important. And so,
Alan, you gave us a lot of sort
of foundation there and shared a lot about
the work Henry Schein One is doing. Theresa,
turning to you now. How would you approach
this question?
So, obviously, from an operator's perspective,
you know, you have your operation of your
DSO, and then you you look at the
the micro operation of the operation of what
the dental practice is that the DSO services.
And, you know, not a lot has changed
about how we care for patients. We're providing
a lot of you know, we've we've got
some new technologies and imaging, but a lot
of the same procedures are still your bread
and butter dentistry. We're doing a lot of
root canals, taking a lot of teeth out.
The human body is still working the same
way as it works thirty years ago. What
I'm finding to be different and more challenging
is the patient behavior or the employee behavior.
And then as as we have the shifting
behavior of the consumer
and your customer and we have the shifting
behavior of your of your employer,
it's how are we meeting those. And I
I you kinda set me up in a
really great way, Alan. It's you know, is
is the data
driving your decisions?
You know, if my patient scheduling behavior is
different, if they are not booking out as
far as they as they once did and
or keeping their appointments even,
is the data helping me be able to
bridge those gaps? So where, you know, where
we don't have a no show epidemic or
a cancellation
issue in a practice, are we able to
stay out and ahead of it?
Are Saturdays really a great time to be
open, or is the data telling us something
different? You know, when are our most productive
times with our providers? And we, you know,
we we talk about the the Jarvis tool.
We've used that a lot in our practices.
You know, we we dive into what are
our most productive hours of the day. Should
our lunch period be at noon, or should
it be a one in a practice? And
having access to that data is crucial to
driving those decisions
because it doesn't become qualitative anymore. It's not
fear based that a patient was upset one
time about this one thing. The data is
telling us ninety five percent of our patients
want something different.
And so I would say the operational challenges
for me are just the behavior of patients
and the behavior of our team members, and
is our technology supporting us to go along
with them on the journey as the paradigm
shift happens,
with those people.
Yeah. And and to your point, anecdotal sort
of evidence or experiential stuff can be,
useful as sort sort of color commentary, so
to speak, but it can also be a
very big distraction.
Mhmm.
If you so you have that data, you
actually know we are headed in the right
direction in a meaningful way. I I I
wanna dig a little bit deeper here, Theresa,
and and talk about this conversation in terms
of the phrase we hear often, which is
simplifying operations.
I I think a part of that is
sort of illustrated
in your response thinking about how to you
know, what hours of the day are most
productive. That's one way to to simplify it.
But can you give us some more, I
guess, parameters,
precise,
sort of definitions around what simplifying operations actually
looks like in practice?
Can you can you share that?
So I think I think if you simplify
even you know, I'll pick on the schedule.
Like, is your template overly complicated for someone
to understand?
When you create things, they're overly complicated.
Not only does your front office team unable
to understand it, you're cutting yourself off from
effective online booking. You know? And so when
when we simplify, you know, what we allow
to be possible
in the practice on the schedule, we're opening
up opportunities for, for these tech for this
technology to work for us. That was a
big thing we did, when we went,
over five years ago and we joined the
Dentrix system platform is we we took a
hard look at our template and and what
could we, what could we live with at
the end of the day? Did it have
to be a perfect day schedule, or did
we wanna be responsive to the patients so
that they were able to place themselves right
onto the schedule?
And, and sometimes it's just changing what what
you thought was right and abandoning your your
own, like, strongly held beliefs there.
Excellent.
Alan, follow-up for you. I I guess, how
how how do you think about simplifying operations
in terms of delivering partners, the tech,
they need to do that? So you've talked
about Jarvis. You've talked about sort of your
API endpoints.
What else would you expand upon in order
to to help support,
organizations like Teresa's do that work?
I think there's lots of directions we could
go. One that that comes to mind, Brian,
is
thinking about,
some of our DSO customers and what they
go through from a tech perspective.
You know, whether it's the server in the
closet that may or may not have,
you know, good antivirus
and EDR software running on it to to
protect it or making sure that there's a
backup of it. I would say this might
be not the most exciting answer, but moving
to the cloud kinda matters. If you're a
dentist, you don't wanna think about that. You
shouldn't
be wondering if your,
client server application is gonna run or not.
While we we still sell those products and
we have great confidence in them,
it it it's it's putting an onus on
the dentist
to focus on something that he or she
isn't, you know, their primary job responsibility. And
it it also creates a risk. And it's
also much cheaper to have somebody hosted in
a super secure SOC two, type two environment
in the cloud.
And so I would say
I talk to DSOs
all the time who aren't just centered on
one practice management software. They use a whole
bunch.
And
one of the things I hear over and
over and over is how do we get
out of the data center business?
How do we not have to think about
data running in people's closets in some office
that may or may not have a good
Internet connection? And that's something that that that
we we hear. It's pretty consistent.
It's, also something that's a pretty significant
operational improvement,
where you just don't have to think about
you don't have to worry about the data
backups, the,
patching the software, patching the operating system, making
sure that,
any backup appliance in the closet with the
server is running correctly, and you have
a whole another
work stream with an IT service provider somewhere
that you have to pay, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
So that's another thing I I hear a
lot about. I hear about it pretty frequently.
In fact, just this morning, I heard about
it.
Yeah. Yeah. It and it's easy to imagine
how frustrating that work can be,
especially if you're a dentist. It takes your
your mind away from the patients. Right, Alan?
That's it gotta be a point of frustration.
Correct?
Yeah. In fact, the comment this morning was,
I've gotta have my hands in my patient's
mouth. I can't have my hands on a
server in the closet. That's a that's a
drag quote from this morning. Well, that pretty
well sums it up. So, thank you for
sharing that, Alan. Let's I I wanna ask,
each of you another question here, which is
about scale and size.
So as DSOs continue to grow,
growth sometimes
getting larger,
it gets, I I I guess, more difficult
to be nimble. And being agile, being nimble
in such a dynamic,
fast moving, changing landscape, I mean, the future
is coming fast.
How do you do that? How do you
scale and stay nimble? Alan, let's hear from
you on this one first, and then, Teresa,
we'll hear from you.
Oh, fantastic question.
One of the things that we believe here
at Henry Schein one that provides the ability
for an organization to have that agility and
flexibility
is the ability to adapt your workflow within
your practice management software.
Some different regions have may have different workflows
because they have different regulatory rules,
Different,
focuses and specialties within a DSO
may want to approach and and handle customers
slightly differently for a variety of different reasons.
So I would say the ability to configure
the workflow depending on
what that practice is focused on and many
other factors is is really, really important. A
a one size fits all cookie cutter, you
will do it this way, in some cases,
is appropriated
at a DSO if if that's their model
and what works for them. But having the
ability in the the software to have that
flexibility to configure the workflow based on the
needs
in that office for their patients is is
also extremely important, and that provides scale. That
allows the flexibility that DSOs need and and
must have. And I that's how I would
answer that.
Thank you, Alan. Teresa, what do you have?
Well and and, Alan, I I think that's
awesome that you're thinking about, like, the practices
that have a lot of differences within their
DSO. And then if you look at those
branded DSOs that are doing things consistently in
the same way,
the the cloud based software that you work
with allows rapid deployment when you wanna be
nimble. You You know, if you wanna change
a fee schedule in a server based environment,
that that's a lot of work.
That's a lot of work. Everything's gotta be
shut down. There's it's a big issue. If
I wanna change a whole fee schedule within
this environment, our RCM department's getting deployed very
quickly
across hundreds of practices. They're able to get,
they're able to get at that data. If
we wanna change a template, if you wanna
there the change is so rapid in how
we can deploy it across many, many practices.
And so no longer are these rollouts of,
operational initiatives
taking weeks and months, we're able to to
do it minutes.
And,
that opens up so much more time in
our day and so much more time for
us to be creative with things. You know?
We're not avoiding it because of how long
it's gonna take to roll things out.
That's it's fantastic to to to hear, and
I appreciate you both coming on the podcast
and sharing your perspective and and and the
word about the work you're doing today. We'll
close with this. Any any final thoughts? Anything
we didn't get to cover you wanted to
mention or anything you wanna reemphasize?
I'll leave it to you how to sort
of,
take this question in terms of closing thoughts
to leave our listeners with. Theresa, go ahead.
So there's been some real lessons that we've
learned through software transitions, like technologies to transitions.
And I would just encourage you, as you're
going through this, involve involve all affected stakeholders
in the transition. They're all gonna have a
different why. And make sure that the why
resonates with them. For example, your patients are
a stakeholder. They could care less about the
dashboards and the data, but they may love
online booking.
Your doctors, you know, for example, that don't
wanna turn the server on and off, they're
excited they can access their schedule from the
golf course if need be.
So looking at the why with the different
stakeholders as you're moving through a transition, it's
gonna give you a lot more success through
a project like this.
Excellent. Teresa, thanks again for coming on the
podcast. Alan, go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks for having us. In
closing, I would say it's it's really important
that your practice management software works for you
and has the flexibility
that you need and that your patients need.
When you think about that, don't just think
about, you know, the what the things we've
talked about. I think, you know, we've covered
the workflow. We we've covered the flexibility. We've
covered the data.
As you work with third party partners, make
sure that the practice management software you're using
has approved partners. I know Henry Schein One
and I know some of our competitors do
this too. We have a robust API program.
We have over 140
partners. If somebody shows up to sell you
something, some new dental tech widget, some new
dental tech tool, some new AI tool, make
sure they're an approved partner. Make sure they're
a vetted approved partner,
and everyone's data is secure. Everyone's data is
safe.
And those HIPAA and PII,
concerns just go right away. That's what I
would close with, Brian. Thank you for having
us. Yeah. Thank you thank you, Alan. And
I imagine that, what you just said there
that the HIPAA, the the those those requirements
going right away, not becoming, taking up any
headspace was music to to some of our
listeners' ears. So, I appreciate you coming on,
Alan and Theresa. It was a pleasure having
this conversation with you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Theresa. Thank you, Brian.
I also wanna thank our podcast sponsor, Henry
Schein one. You can tune to more podcasts
from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page
at beckerspodcasts.com.