This is Riz Hatton with the Becker's Dental Po Soul Podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Dr. Richard Hewitt,
c e o of Beachside Dental Consultants. Dr. Hewitt,
thank you so much for being here today.
It's a pleasure to be with you, Riz. Thank you.
Now,
could you start off by just introducing yourself and telling us a bit about your
background?
Sure. So, uh, after graduating from dental school, uh,
of which my senior year, the, uh,
prime interest rate was 18 and half percent. Uh,
I actually had a direct commission into the Air Force for three years following
graduation. So my first assignment assignments were in, uh,
a one year in Korea, and then two years Arizona.
After I separated from the Air Force, I had a,
started a scratch practice in my hometown in, uh, southern Maine,
and did that for nine years before moving to Florida and, uh,
buying an established practice there.
So I practiced in Florida from 94 to 2008,
and I continued on practicing. However,
I started my consulting company right around that time and started, uh,
doing that as an addition to, uh, part-time,
um, clinical dental work.
And I found that I really enjoyed that advising people, uh,
mainly on the operations of their practice. From then on,
I moved on to doing other, uh,
similar type of work,
and recently I was named Chief Development Officer for Val,
which is an AI assisted software firm, uh,
startup firm that we're working with right now.
Fantastic, thank you. So my first question for you is,
what are the biggest issues you're following in dental today?
Okay, so there are several, uh, and they're all related in a sense.
Um, I mean the, the workforce,
the dental workforce is changing very rapidly as it is for other types of,
of jobs, but mainly in dental field. Uh,
you have a large amount of young dentists that are going, uh,
not traditional.
The traditional track was to go into something like the military or
government work at first or, or private practice.
And what you're seeing now is an increasingly a larger amount graduation up to
about 30% that are trying out the DSO world Dental Service
organizations.
And most of them are starting their career working for one of those firms.
And those can be found around the country. And in some areas of the country,
uh, such as Arizona and Florida and Texas,
there are more DSOs than there are in other states.
So depending on where you graduate and depending on where you set up practice,
a lot of practitioners are doing that. The, uh,
the other item is, you know,
you're seeing a lot more technology and also including, uh,
the type of AI that I'm working on,
but you see a lot of technology in terms of delivering dental care.
Uh, digital scanning, uh,
digital radiographs have been around since the early two thousands,
and that that has progressed to a digital workforce,
a dig digital, uh, work environment. And, uh,
so that has also had an intense pressure on
changing the delivery of care.
Interesting. Thank you.
So what are you most excited about and what makes you nervous when thinking
about dental?
I think I'm excited as far as technology's concerned and how it's gonna change
dentistry,
dentistry changed a lot when I was practicing full-time and
most of the, most of the, uh, improvements made my life easier,
whether it was impressions, materials, et cetera. Uh,
all that stuff really helped in making, you know, the practice of dentistry,
uh, uh, more pleasurable to do and less stressful for the patient.
However, I think, I think, uh, part of it makes me excited.
Another part makes me nervous is the amount of technology and the cost of it is
getting to the point where your average practitioner,
solo practitioner can't keep up with it. Uh,
the cost is the technology costs are too much for one dentist to
bear. So you, you,
you're getting a natural congregation of consolidation of
practices only because one dentist can't afford to purchase all
these, uh, high tech items. So you're seeing that part. Uh,
the part that makes me nervous is the workforce. Uh,
we're living in a post covid world. We have fully, uh,
9% of the dental hygienist workforce that never came back to work
after covid. And a lot of those, uh, mostly women,
a lot of those were in the retirement age bracket anyway, but, uh,
a lot of them were either scared or just said it wasn't worth it anymore,
or thinking about retiring anyway. And with the new,
with the rules and the, and the, uh,
the danger of acquiring the covid virus,
a lot of them just decided to either switch, uh,
careers or retire at that point. So that workforce, uh,
problem has not, um, really solved itself. Uh,
they most states, uh,
in most areas of the country are needing, uh,
uh, you know, dental positions are open, whether it's the dentist,
the dental hygienists, the dental assistants, front office people.
And we're also competing in a world where because of inflation,
a lot of other people have moved on to other careers which offer either higher
pay or more benefits.
Interesting.
So what will the most effective healthcare leaders need to be successful in the
next two to three years?
I think that if you wanna be a healthcare leader, especially, well,
you have healthcare leaders and then you have healthcare managers,
and those necessarily don't, those could be two different types of people.
Healthcare leaders will have to balance the managing of dental practices
and also directing where,
where healthcare needs to be more effective. Uh,
so your healthcare leaders could be anybody from, uh,
people that work in large DSOs,
people that work in organized dentistry like the American Bell Association
Academy, the general dentistry, or also,
you know, anybody that's in, in, in the industry.
So if you have companies, the companies themselves that are,
are traditional healthcare, uh,
dental industry leaders such as the dental supply companies,
equipment manufacturing,
they will also have to look at what's the most
ideal way to deliver their products, uh,
to guide people and to more efficient,
because the cost of healthcare has gone up, it's gone up on the medical side,
and it will definitely go up on the dental side and has gone up
just post covid only because of the amount of, of, uh,
inflation that we see. And also just the cost of business has gone out.
Cost of supplies, all sorts of other cost of benefits,
cost of wages, all those will have to be managed in the next couple of years.
Fascinating. Well, Dr. Hewitt,
thank you so much for your insights today and I look forward to connecting with
you again in the future.
Thank you, Riz. I appreciate our.