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This is Fri Hatton with the Becker's
Dental Castilla Cell podcast.

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I'm thrilled to be joined
today by Ray Caruso,

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c e o of Lone Peak Dental Group. Ray,
thank you so much for being here today.

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Thanks, Ruth. I'm happy to be on.

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Great. Well,

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could you just start off by introducing
yourself and telling us a bit about your

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background?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So I've spent most of my
adult life in dentistry.

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I started out as a dental
assistant when I was 19,

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joined the Army and over
a couple of years they saw

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something in me and, and
sent me to hygiene school.

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So I did hygiene for a little bit,
and when I got out of the army,

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I went back to school, got my degree,

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and started working for
Hartland Dental Care at their,

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at one of their offices at the front
desk. I was with them for 11 years.

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I left as a regional director
and moved up to Chicago area

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where you are and, um,
started working as a, uh,

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VP of ops for a small startup
DSO called Decision One Dental.

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Um, they had, uh, just a handful
of practices at the time,

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and by the time I left I was working
with them as their coo and we had grown

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it up to 20 practices.

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And then I came over to Lone
Peak Dental Group in 2017.

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I've been here, um, almost six years,
been enjoying every minute of it.

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We've built this to be one of the
largest pediatric dental groups in the

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country. We have 70 practices
in 14 states, and, um,

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we continue to provide access to
care for pediatric patients, um,

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in the markets that we serve.

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Fantastic. Thank you for
that introduction. My
first question for you is,

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what are the biggest issues
you're following in dental today?

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The biggest issues that I'm
following is access to care.

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There are millions of kids out there
and adults that aren't able to get

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quality dental care in the
communities in which they're in.

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And there's a lot of dentists that will
not accept certain types of insurance

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and certain types of
payers, mainly Medicaid.

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And so we do our best to combat
that by providing services

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for these kids in the
areas that we are in.

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There are so many needs out there,

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and really if you look at the payers
and the providers, it's no wonder why,

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um, why doctors,

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dentists won't accept some of these
payers because of the low reimbursement

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rates and where the insurance companies
and even the states have the ability

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to change that, which will increase
more access to care. Um, I,

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I think that's one of the biggest issues
that I'm, I'm following personally.

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Interesting. And do you see anything,
um, any big movement in the,

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in the reimbursement space that'll, um,

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kind of help dentist be more inclined to,

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to accept these different insurance
types? Do you see any movement, uh,

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when it comes to policies?

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I have, I have and, and
really excited about, uh,

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what some of the states are doing and
what some of the politicians are doing in,

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in this, uh, in,

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in some different regions that are
providing higher reimbursement rates

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for the dentists and, um,

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allowing more dentists to see a reason
why they should be able to provide

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treatment. 40% of kids are on Medicaid,

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and when,

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when you have that large
of a number of population

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and so many doctors and
dentists not accepting that,

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the reason is usually reimbursements.
And so the politicians, the states, uh,

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governments are seeing this as
one of the needs that they have

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to make a change for. And
I've seen in several states,

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not just small increases
of two or three or 5%,

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but larger increases,
uh, 10%, 20%, 30% even.

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So as those states continue
to make these changes,

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other states are jumping on.

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Very interesting. Thank you.
My next question for you is,

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what are you most excited about and what
makes you nervous when you look towards

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the future of dentistry?

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Yeah, so I'm most excited
about technology, um,

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e especially retain, um,
pertaining to administratives, um,

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services that can, that really can
bring us into this decade. You know,

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we're, everyone is short staffed there,

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lots of people are talking
about being short staffed.

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So why are we relying on old technology
like calling insurance companies

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and waiting for insurance companies
to get back to us, to, to get, uh, um,

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to get confirmation that our patients
are <laugh> are on there? Um,

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why are we, why can't we
do more scheduling online?

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Why isn't 90% of all of our
scheduling done online? Um,

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and, you know, we could have
technologies that, that increase or,

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or improve the, um, uh,

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credentialing and, and just
getting us all into this,

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into this decade that we're in. Um,

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I even see technologies
that we can be using that,

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that can have notifications for patients
and waiting rooms as to when their

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patient, when their, when, when
their kids are gonna be done. I mean,

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I order a pizza and it lets me
know when it goes in the oven,

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when it comes out of the oven,
when it's in the driver's hands.

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Why can't we have that same
kind of technology to keep
our patients or impaired

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informed? Um, so those
kind of things that can,

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that can help us leverage the,

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the team that we do have and give
them different responsibilities

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instead of, uh,

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consistent administrative tasks like
scheduling appointments and get them

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into more, uh,

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patient focused technologies or
patient focused administrative duties

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that are, uh, you know, working
directly with the patients,

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keeping patients and parents informed.
So, um, that's what excites me.

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Um, what makes me nervous,
you know, I still,

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I have to go back to the
access of care. You know, DSOs,

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they really understand their market
and their market is the doctor that's,

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that's who they're really
serving as the doctor.

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And they know that doctors want
to be in attractive cities.

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So what happens to that
rural practice? Um,

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there are few providers that
wanna live in small towns,

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but there's plenty and plenty
of patients. So w what are,

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what are people doing about
that problem? And we personally,

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we combat that by providing an
ownership component for, uh,

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for our doctors. So they own, uh, a, uh,

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a significant stake in the
practice in which they work.

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So that keeps 'em tied to the
practice. Uh, it keeps them focused on,

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on ensuring the success of the practice.

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And we have greater retention
with our doctors because of it.

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And we can go ahead and put
practices in some of these

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secondary and tertiary
markets and treat these,

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these patients that really need access
to care so they're not driving an hour

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and a half, two hours to see a dentist
because we do have that ownership model.

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So that's how we're combating it. Um,
I know some other, some other, uh,

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DSOs are doing, uh, making other
changes, but this is what we do.

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Interesting. And that, that's a
really cool, um, unique solution to,

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to the issue of getting access to
care in those maybe rural or or less

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populated areas. Thank you for sharing.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So what will be the most
effective healthcare leaders?

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What will the most effective healthcare
leaders need to be successful in the

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next two to three years?

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You know, I don't think it's gonna be any
different two to three years from now,

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e except it might be even more
challenging, but attracting
and retaining talent,

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that is the number one thing right
now. Uh, it will be the, i i,

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I believe it'll be the number,
uh, the number one thing in,

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in the future because
everybody is seeking the same

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talent. They're out there
looking for the same people. And,

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and as people get more and more, um,

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a as dentistry gets more
and more consolidated,

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you will find that it won't
be about who the company is

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or how much I'm getting paid.

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It will be about what are you providing
me as what kind of culture am I

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getting and what, um,
what you currently ha.

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So I, this is why I like to know that
this is gonna get edited, uh, <laugh>.

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Cause I I got off track there
a little bit, sorry. Um,

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it will be more about what kind of culture
and what kind of company am I going

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to than the commodity of
how much am I getting paid.

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So attracting the talent around culture

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and what you stand for as a company
is going to be more important than

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how much are you paying, because that's,
that's gonna be about the same around,

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uh, throughout the whole country.

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Fascinating. Thank you.
And that's definitely a,

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a theme I've heard from lots of other
dental leaders as well. Well, Ray,

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thank you so much for joining
us on the podcast today,

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and thank you for all
of your great insights.

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I look forward to connecting
with you again in the future.

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It was totally my pleasure.
Thanks for asking me.