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Hello. This is Ariana Portelatin with the Becker's

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Dental and DSO review podcast. I'm thrilled to

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be joined today by Stan Kinder, the president

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and founder at Everything DSO.

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Stan, thank you so much for being here

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today. Sure. Well, thanks for having me. I

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appreciate it. Yeah. Definitely.

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To start us off, can you introduce yourself

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for our listeners and tell us a little

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bit about your background? Yeah. Sure. Absolutely.

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I've been a health care guy my entire

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career.

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I started working

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with the dental profession as far back as

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the early 80s. I actually

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started

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a practice from scratch

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in partnership with the dentist,

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had an indirect ownership interest in the practice

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through a small management company.

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We grew it to three practices

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and I went on from there

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to

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basically

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do

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management consulting,

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traditional brokerage, dentist to dentist transactions.

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And I spent about fifteen years

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working for several different DSOs and senior executive

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roles

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doing

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M and A business development.

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Great. Thank you so much for that. First

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question here. What are some of the biggest

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issues that you're following in the dental industry

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right now?

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Sure. Well, I think,

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one of the big ones in the DSO

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space,

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specifically

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has been,

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initially,

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as the DSO phenomenon began to grow and

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expand

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fairly rapidly,

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the primary driver was the ability for

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the institutional investors to take advantage of the

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arbitrage.

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So essentially,

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by practice is low, aggregate them

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under the umbrella of a DSO

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and then look to

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recapitalize

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either to a larger private equity fund or

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a strategic buyer.

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And that led to

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a tremendous amount of institutional

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investor interest

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and rapid growth of the DSO phenomenon.

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And then over the last couple of years,

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as

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the cost of capital

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increased with the rapid

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escalation in the interest rates,

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the DSO industry kind of began to change

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from

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focusing almost exclusively

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on

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the acquisition

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arbitrage

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inside of the ledger and moved more to

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towards

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operational performance and being able to drive

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same store growth and performance at the individual

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practice level.

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Great. Yeah. Super interesting thoughts that you shared

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there. Thank you so much for those. I'm

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also curious. What are you most excited about

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when it comes to dentistry right now? And

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is there anything that makes you nervous about

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dentistry?

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I I think,

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the the exciting thing is,

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on the technology side,

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the ability

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of artificial intelligence to bring efficiencies,

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both kind of the back office business side

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of the practice

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as well as in terms of

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how practices

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communicate

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and interact with patients

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as well

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as

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even into the clinical area in terms of

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diagnostic capabilities. And I think we're only in

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the very early

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stages of

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that evolution.

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I also think there's it's going to be

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interesting to see how

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the DSO

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market kind of evolves

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over time.

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One is

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everybody I think is anticipating interest rates are

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going to come down

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and to

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see how that

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influences things.

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There have been a couple of failed recapitalization

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efforts

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from some fairly large sized DSOs.

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And it'll be interesting to see how that

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changes going forward.

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Yes. Yes. Super interesting. Do you have any

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insights you could share us to what might

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have led to those field efforts?

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I think,

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a couple of things. I think that

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they weren't

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performing as well

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on the operational side

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and so on delivering the kind of same

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store growth rates that

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they were interested in. Also,

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the recapitalizations

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have slowed

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across private equity,

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independent of industry sector.

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Private equity historically

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deleverages

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their equity investments

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with debt

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and

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obviously that's gotten a lot more expensive

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over the last couple of years. And so

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that's sort of

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changed

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their economic model.

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And I think

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there's also a little bit of anxiety

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around

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where the broader army is going,

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the uncertainty around tariffs,

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whether or not there is a pending recession

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on how that might

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affect the dental consumer.

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So there's a lot of things

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at play. Also,

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as I'm sure you're probably aware and most

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listeners will be, there's been a little bit

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of a labor crisis

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in the profession

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over the last it won't really seem to

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depend on it.

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I saw a statistic recently that said that

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close to 70% of practices

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are actively recruiting for a hygienist.

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And

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there's no doubt that hygiene departments

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are a significant

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driver,

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the ability of

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general practices to be successful.

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Yeah. Yeah. All of those points make a

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lot of sense for for what you were

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talking about. It it'll be interesting to see

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how things continue to play out in the

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DSO field with the economy and the labor

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shortages and such. So, yeah, we'll definitely be

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keeping an eye on that for sure.

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Last question here for you. What will the

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most effective health care leaders need to be

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successful in the next two to three years?

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I think one is how to

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integrate and leverage pathology,

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because I think as I said, I think

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we're in the early stages of that, and

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I think there's

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really almost any lending opportunities

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to create

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improvement.

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The other thing is I think that

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there certainly has been a generalized

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trend in the DSO

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industry to move towards

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a more

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dentist friendly business models.

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And

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I think that that's

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the right way to go because ultimately

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the individual dentists

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at the chair are the engine that drives

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the entire business.

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And

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successful DSOs need to find a way

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to

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support

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and develop

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their provider, Tedra.

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All right. That is all I have for

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you today, Stan. Thank you so much for

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joining us today. Been a pleasure speaking with

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you, and I'm looking forward to connecting with

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you again in the future. Sure. Thank you

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so much. I appreciate you having me. Yeah.

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Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye bye.