Hello. This is Ariana Portolatin with the Becker's
Dental and DSO review podcast. I'm thrilled to
be joined today by John Kaufman, the chief
marketing officer at Smile Doctors. John, thank you
so much for being here today. It's great
to have you. Yeah. Likewise. Fun to be
here. Thanks.
Thanks. To start us off, can you introduce
yourself for our listeners and tell us a
little bit about your background?
Yeah. So my name is John Coffin. I'm
the chief marketing and strategy officer for Smile
Doctors. I have been in the dental DSO
space, with multi specialty practices for about ten
little over ten years now since 2014,
with three different two, multi specialty, and then
this is my first, ortho,
specialty practice.
Was kind of a tech nerd growing up,
grew into some marketing stuff, and the rest
is history.
Just just really enjoy the opportunity that,
that dental gives and,
you know, there's a there's a ton of
opportunity there.
Great. Thank you so much for that intro.
A few more questions that we'll get through
here.
Next question. What are you most excited about
when it comes to dentistry right now? And
is there anything that makes you nervous about
the industry?
It's probably the most often,
reused response that anybody could possibly give right
now, so forgive me in advance, but AI
and automation.
There's just so much there, and there's there's
so so much more to go.
I think that
whether you're looking at the macro environment, right,
things that
you can do as an organization
to,
optimize strategy, drive it forward faster,
whether it's kind of a micro environment. Right?
Like giving tools to individuals,
in your support center, in your practices
to,
to just do things better and more efficiently.
Whether it's in patient experience. Right? Everything from
the videos or the pearls to the world
to,
you know, other types of,
you know, augmentation
specifically
for ortho, like a dental monitoring.
There's there's just
so much there.
There's so much unknown.
I've had the the ability to have some
really interesting calls with,
you know, legal counsel and others. And I
really do kind of go away from those
calls thinking, wow. We really just don't know
what is good, what is bad, what's gonna
be used, what is not gonna be used,
what's gonna be get us in trouble, what's
not gonna get us in trouble. And so
it's a little scary out there right case
law isn't developed yet you wanna be real
sensitive obviously in health care to privacy
and hip related matters.
But you also wanna create the best patient
experience
And,
that comes with now utilizing,
you know, AI and automation in a lot
of different ways. So it both makes me
very, very excited
and also slightly terrified.
Yeah. That's something that I hear a lot
from DSO leaders and other dental practice owners,
just the excitement, but also the kind of
wariness about AI. So I definitely feel you
there.
Just a quick follow-up question to one of
the things you mentioned about everything that AI
is capable of. Is there anything that AI
currently cannot do that you would like to
see happen in the dental field?
Yeah. I mean, not just the dental field.
I'd like to wake up in the morning
and tell it what I want, you know,
it to do and and replicate me and
sit on all my calls for me so
that I can hang on the
You know, I mean, in in all seriousness,
I think what it can't do is it
can't devise strategy.
Right? It can't devise
the optimum way to to treat a patient.
Right? It can be,
supportive in that mechanism,
but it just it it can't be that
mechanism.
It can't physically touch, talk,
walk
into to our practices.
It can't touch, talk to our patients
in a way that,
really gives you the insight and the knowledge
you need to better serve them or better
treat them.
It certainly can't do,
the clinical
work, that our providers,
engage in every day. And so I think
there's
far more that it cannot do than what
it can do, and I think the things
that it can do
are pretty limited at the moment. I think
there's a lot of talk about it. There's
a lot of talk of of
what people think it can do. There's a
lot of advice out there.
But if you you know, I probably have
45 different tools that I use on any
given day just testing and trying. And the
reality is that if you're really trying to
get to an outcome and have it do
it soup to nuts, it's just not there
yet.
Okay.
And are there any other trends or issues
that you're following in the dental industry this
year?
I think issue is probably one of them.
I I have been paying attention to some
of the negativity around,
you know, the private equity,
involvement
in DSO or in health care.
And, I mean, sure, I've been in, you
know, all my entire dental career has been
backed by,
private equity. But, you know, before that, when
I wasn't in dental, you know, I was
I was a small business leader or, you
know, part of another company.
I I just think that that negativity
around,
private equity is is largely unfounded.
I I can tell you that,
some of the tools,
some of the support, some of the flexibility
that and and some of the compliance, some
of the oversight.
A lot of the things that you really
don't have oversight to or checks and balances
for when you're independent or you're an individual,
You have in the private equity universe.
And
I don't think there's anything different between a
private equity group who's looking to, you know,
profit or make money
than, you know, the individual running their own
their own practice. I think they're there to
make money as well.
And so I I'm I'm not loving the
negative trends on that. I have had nothing
but kind of incredible relationships with our sponsorship
teams,
in the private equity world. I think they
bring incredible insights,
allow us to partner with sister,
you know, sister organizations that kind of teach
us things that we didn't necessarily know or
or are in a vertical that we could
apply something that they're using to ours. So
I don't love that trend.
I think it's, I think it's being misused.
And,
that that is, that's something I'm I'm keeping
my,
my ear on.
Okay. Yeah. What do you think started that?
Is it just the few bad apples in
the industry, or is it just a lot
of misinformation?
Yeah. I I think it's just like anything.
Right? There are bad apples everywhere.
Right? In every industry, in every organization,
both operators,
actors, and, you know, sponsors that, you know,
don't do the right things for the right
reasons.
And,
yeah, I I think that, you know, like
many things, a few bad actors can color,
color the whole paper,
red. And I think we have to be
really, really careful about that because I think
the heading in the opposite direction
not only provides less opportunities for patient care
simply just due to the fact that whether
it's dental school or,
or residency
or opening your own practice has just become
so financially expensive,
and prohibited for many people,
that I think it it it can be
a negative towards,
patients, providers, and all around care. So, yeah,
few bad apples, you know,
not good.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, nice to hear, your thoughts
on private equity. They're super interesting.
Last question here. What will the most effective
health care leaders need to be successful in
the next two to three years?
So hopefully my father-in-law isn't listening to this.
He was,
a a pretty senior executive in in a
large corporation,
in marketing, actually, similar to me.
And we've had conversations around, you know, what
it was ten years ago even and and
what these roles are today are just completely
different.
You need, in my opinion, a just a
different level of talent in certain key areas
and a certain level of experience.
I don't think that's age
defining. I think it's kind of age agnostic,
but I do think it's it's
making sure that
whatever the
the talent or the specialty of the individual
that they're, you know, top in their field.
And
I think that's hard in dental. Right? When
you look
at technologists that are being hired for 50,
a $100,000,000
to go to these organizations,
how do you keep up with that,
you know, in the, frankly, not the sexiest
industry in the world. Right? Dental is not
what you, you know, you grow up as
an eight year old.
You know, you don't say equally I wanna
be an astronaut and a and a dental,
you know, marketer. I'm sure there are some
that say I wanna be a dentist and
that's great.
But, you know, a lot of us do
fall into this,
this field and and love it. But I
think
we've gotta
gotta pay attention to,
getting the top talent we possibly can.
I think that is going to drive the
industry forward
more than almost,
almost anything.
Great.
Well, that is all I have for you
today, John. Thank you so much for joining
us on our podcast. It's been a great
pleasure speaking with you and looking forward to
connecting with you again.
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks.
Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye bye.
Thank you. Bye.