Speaker 0: 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.

Speaker 1: Thank thank thanks for having me, Arianna. It's good to be back.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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.

Speaker 1: Sounds good, Arianna. Thanks so much for having me, and, looking forward to seeing you in Chicago next month.