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DSO Declassified 2026 Midyear DSO Event Discussion. What’s New & What’s Worth Attending
We are about halfway through 2026 already. In this DSO Declassified, Bill Neumann runs through what to expect at the upcoming ADSO Summit where GDN will host the Emerging Dental Groups to Watch awards. Bill also looks back at the events that have already happened this year and what the rest of year has instore for the DSO and dental group industry. Takeaways include:
- The GDN ‘Emerging Dental Groups to Watch in 2026’ awards on June 16, 12:15-1:15 at the ADSO Summit in the Thought Leader Theater
- The rise of the intimate, invite-only DSO events
- What to expect for the rest of the year
- Visit our comprehensive DSO event calander and subscribe to the calendar (at the bottom) so you never miss an event announcement
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DSO Podcast Transcript – DSO Declassified 2026 Midyear DSO Event Discussion. What’s New & What’s Worth Attending
Bill Neumann (00:03):
Hey everyone. Welcome to Group Dentistry Now’s DSO Declassified. We’re starting with a cold open here, so a little bit different. We try and do these every once in a while, probably definitely not as often as we’d like, but this is going to be a recap of the events of 2026 in the DSO space. Maybe I’ll try and hit on a couple of bigger stories that have occurred in the space if we have time. I’m not sure I really wanted to get into the events because this is one of the top questions that we get. Which event should we go to? What’s this new event like? Is this one as good as it used to be? All those kinds of questions. A lot of vendors and also DSOs are trying to make the best use of their time and their money. And it’s definitely been a challenging couple of years and I think it’ll continue to be a challenging year.
(00:56):
I don’t think anybody thinks that things are going to be incredible and all of a sudden we’re going to have this breakout year. I think it’s going to be much of the same. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to think smarter and differently. And that includes which meetings you go to and attend. So we got more meetings than ever. I want to start things off and I will do a screen share. So we’re the beginning of June here. So we’re not quite halfway through the year, but I still thought it was a good inflection point. We have the ADSO Summit coming up. It’s their 15th annual. It’s coming up next week in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency, right in downtown Chicago right on the water. Perfect location. That’s June 15th through the 18th. And I wanted to talk about our role, group dentistry now’s role there and having our awards there.
(01:46):
So I will pop up our website here. So if you’re just listening to the podcast, I would jump on over to YouTube or our website and you can watch the embedded video because what I’m sharing with you is our website that shows the different events. It’s our events calendar, groupdentistrynow.com/events, and you can find all the events. So we are going to be at the ADSO summit and for the first time we’re going to be actually hosting at the summit our emerging dental groups to watch award. This is our 10th year hosting these awards. We started to actually, I should say, have these awards. It’s our 10th year. We’ve hosted them for the past four years. This will be our fifth year. This is the first year, if we’re keeping track, of holding the awards at the ADSO Summit. We really appreciate the partnership with them.
(02:44):
Talked to Andrew Smith about this, Kim and I did. We thought it was just a natural fit for ADSO and their goal of reaching more emerging groups and giving them access to some of their larger DSO members and also the vendors that support the ADSO. So we’re happy to have our emerging dental groups to watch awards and panel discussion at the ADSO on June 16th. That’s next Tuesday or Tuesday. And that is going to be from 12:15 to 1:15 PM. It’s going to be in the Thought Leader Center. So that’s not on the main stage. So things will finish up right around noon on the main stage. There will be lunch from 12:00 to 1:45 and then our awards are going to be at 12:15, the thought leader stage or thought leader theater. We’ll get everybody over there because it is a side area, side stage, but we’ll have room for everybody and get you all over there.
(03:51):
And these are going to be the quick awards because we only have a hour timeframe and then we will hand off the awards and start the panel discussion. So if you want to hear from the emerging dental groups to watch award winners, we have Blueprint Smiles, we have Birch Dental Partners, we have Mosaic, we have Oakwood Dental, we have Lavender Dental as well. We have Bright Direction Dental. So those are the groups that we have that are going to be part of the emerging dental groups to watch awards. These are the winners and we’re going to have the C-suite there. And actually some of them have brought their whole team, so you get a chance to meet everybody, but really excited to have those teams there and hear from them as well. So again, that’s the ADSO Summit next week in Chicago on June 16th.
(05:03):
Sorry, I had a little cough there. I’d hit the cough button. June 16th from 12:15 to 1:15. And for any DSOs that haven’t registered, the discount code we have, say 20% is it is discount or DISC20GDNMEM. If you’re looking at our video, you’ll see it. It’s a long one, but you’ll save 20%. DISC disc, right? DISC 20, GDN, like group dentistry now, and MEM like member. So Discount 20, GDN and Group Dentistry Now member. And you can just grab that code, copy it, plug it in, save 20%. Hope to see you there. And we’re really excited to celebrate the emerging dental groups to watch. Okay. So that was some logistics, a little bit about the ADS. So our presence there. And again, most people come in on the pre-conference day, June 15th and then things kick off early in the morning with breakfast and then they’ll go all pretty much all through the night with an opening night reception.
(06:16):
And then there is a strengthening team’s day, which is the next day on the 17th and things will close out with a closing reception that night. So there is two full days of content and then there’s actually a pre-conference day as well on that Monday the 15th or on the 15th. Okay. All right, let’s jump back now. Like I said, this is a recap and I wanted to talk through, since we’re about halfway through the year, what I really wanted to do is kind of talk through the meetings that have occurred and I’ll start here. So here we are. Okay. Again, if everybody’s following me and if not, you can just listen and that’s kind of why I’m stumbling. I’m trying to figure out where we are on the webpage. So Yankee started things off in late January. We have the multi-site summit and Yankee’s been doing multi-site now for four years, four or five years.
(07:21):
I can’t recall exactly, but quite a bit. They’ve had different iterations of it and I think they’re finally kind of honing in on what works really well. I will say we were there, we had a couple of sessions that we hosted or I moderated anyway and have been a big supporter of Shannon McCarthy and what she’s done with Yankee and I think what they’re doing for multi-site and really helping out a lot of the local dentists in the area, educating them a little bit about on the opportunities, highlighting the emerging groups in the Boston, Massachusetts area, actually New England in general and then having this multi-site for people that are just kind of just interested to see what’s going on. So this year what they decided to do was have individuals register for the individual courses instead of registering. It used to be for an entire, for both days of the multi-site or for one day or the other.
(08:19):
And what they decided to do is say, “Hey, if you like a topic, you can come on in and then you can go get CE somewhere else if it’s more clinical.” And that drove a lot of people that were really, it was more intentional, right? You go see what you want and what you don’t want to see. We’ll be involved in 2027 again, but I was really happy with Yankee and what they did. So I think it’s something that you should keep on your radar, especially if you’ve never been before. I think it’s a great event and they do a lot locally. Yeah, it’s Boston in January, so it’s a litle cold, but it’s a great town. So after that, AADGP had their event and that was in Texas at the Hyatt in San Antonio actually, or in Austin, sorry, in Austin. It’s a little outside of Austin actually.
(09:13):
That’s why I said it was San Antonio. Feels like San Antonio. It’s way outside of Austin, but a beautiful resort. The Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and that was early February. And what I would say is, I know AADGP, the meeting has become a lot more intimate and I think in a good way, it’s a great event. I mean, I felt like there weren’t as many people there as I had hoped and it’s kind of a shame because the content’s really, really good. And I mean, I got to meet everybody I wanted to meet there. That’s what I really like about these smaller events. And you’re going to see a theme with a lot of the events that have happened. They’re becoming smaller. We’ve got some of the bigger events, which we can talk about like ADSO and Daikema, but there’s also a lot of these smaller, more intimate events.
(09:56):
I would say if you haven’t done AADGP in a while, give it a try next year. I’ve always supported what they do. It’s a lot of doctor-owned, doctor-led groups. I think there’s just a lot of sharing, a lot of things that you don’t see at some of the other events. So that was the AADGP event. Then there was the Dental VIP Summit, which was more of an investor summit that happened at the front end of the Chicago mid-winter. So if you’re interested in technology meetings like that, that’s definitely an event to check out for sure. I really enjoyed it. You learn so much from the different startups that are there. So that’s one if you’re going to be in Chicago, it may be worthwhile coming in a day early and checking that one on Dental VIP Summit. Women in DSO, I believe this was their fifth year.
(10:48):
Yeah, five years. Yep. Again, held in Las Vegas. We always support their show. Aman, Dr. Core and her team have done some podcasts with us to help promote it. I know they’re doing international meetings as well. So the Empower and Grow tour. The Empower and Grow Women in DSO meeting was at Caesars and was a great event. We didn’t unfortunately have the opportunity to go to it because our daughter was actually coming back from college, but I heard good things about the event. Another one that we weren’t able to attend, but we actually had on our website was the Enterprise Dental Connect event, which was new. And so this was a C-suite think tank. I believe there were a couple hundred attendees at the event. Ryan Torson, who was on our editorial board and is actually one of the emerging groups to watch. He’s part of Mosaic.
(11:53):
He’s their COO and CMO. He actually spoke there. I believe he was a moderator in one of the sessions and he said that it was a well-attended event. It was a lot of larger groups as well as smaller groups, but I think what was nice again was a more intimate meeting, a lot smaller. And that was in April and Fort Lauderdale.
(12:18):
At the same time, I don’t have them listed here because they’re invite only, and you’ll see a couple that are listed here and a couple that weren’t, is Daikema started to do these more intimate regional meetings. And so you’ll see Daikamas had events in Florida and I think they had one in Las Vegas and that kind of scattered around the country. So there’s these more intimate events where there are fewer vendors and fewer DSOs as well and everybody kind of gets a chance to network with each other. Some of the more intimate events, so that’s Daikema. They’re doing that. They’re still doing their major one, which we’ll get to, which is in July, July 15th through the 17th, I believe, in Denver at the Gaylord Rockies. So kind of sticking to that theme of smaller intimate events, I had the opportunity to moderate some sessions at this, the Intelligent DSO series.
(13:22):
This is put on by CCA Financial and to a commercial and also there were a couple other organizations, a couple other vendors that were involved in this, but this event was actually held in Kiawah Island. It’s a great opportunity to play some of the most incredible golf you’ll ever get a chance to play. The golf courses and Kiawah are, I mean, just very exclusive area You basically need a pass to get on the island. This is not like just getting on the resort. The entire island is heavily gated. And so fortunately they had my name so I was able to get in, but just a really cool place to go. And we had, I believe it was about 12 to 15 DSOs there, couple representatives from each group and we got to have conversations around a round table, big round table with five other vendors.
(14:24):
And then we got to play golf and have some great dinners and just enjoy really that beautiful South Carolina beach was right on the ocean. So they’re going to be doing this in this CCA and to a financial or sorry to a commercial we’re doing this event really to kind of talk a little bit about how to finance, whether it’s practice expansion, whether it’s technology, things like that. So there was a financing element to this, also patient financing, as well as some other things as well that were discussed. There were a couple of other sponsors as well.
(15:11):
Gosh, sorry, all this travel, I’ve been picked up a little cough. So hopefully the cough button worked there. I was Kiwa in South Carolina, May 18th through the 20th. So that just happened. They are going to be doing this intelligent DSO this twice a year. So the plan is to do a fall event, don’t have the dates yet in Malibu at Pepperdine University. So if you like, if you’re on the West Coast or you always wanted to go to Malibu, this is invite only so you’d have to request an invitation. You can always ping me and I can put you in touch with the right people. So again, theme is kind of smaller events here, kind of sticking to that theme. It’s not here. I just talked about the ADSO, but I just got back and I’ve got Destination DSO. So another smaller themed event, but highly impactful I think is this destination DSO and that is put on by Black Talent Security and Support DDS, Gary Selman and JW Oliver there and their teams.
(16:24):
And they’ve been doing this for a litle while, so you may have heard about it. Again, it’s invite only. I believe they had, I’m not going to get the number exactly right, but I’d say somewhere between 15 and 18 DSOs. I might have had one or two people represented from each group. I think it was more like one it seemed like was from each group and it moves around. So they do it somewhere different all the time. Sometimes they’ll repeat. So this one they actually did up in New Hampshire at Sig Sauer. Actually, we stayed on the coast right on the ocean and then we went out little drive, about a half hour drive out to Sig Sauer and learned how to shoot firearms. And so it was sophisticated firearm training. I mean, this is where they train a lot of the military, a lot of different police forces are trained there.
(17:25):
Gary Salmon, who’s the CEO and co-founder of Black Talent who does the training for the cadets at West Point, takes the West Point grads there, the cadets and trains them and then they have a lot of different contests there. So it was a real deal. Quite frankly, I realized I wasn’t such a great shot, but I still had a good time anyway. And then we did some, you could either do a military style obstacle course or opt for the jujitsu, which I opted for jiu-jitsu. So I definitely did better at the jujitsu than I did at the marksmanship, but I had a great time doing either. So I got the opportunity to do that and had some … So that it was more of an experiential opportunity. So we did that, the shooting, but we also spent time. We had a cocktail event at the beginning, got to know everybody.
(18:17):
I got to know everybody. Everybody there, every attendee I got to know, we got to spend time with. And then we had the speaker, Andy Farina, who was ex- military and he talked about how his military training and how he’s able to teach leadership skills and how the military teaches leadership skills. He also had his PhD in leadership. So he was brilliant. So we got to learn from him and then there was some sharing afterwards. So it was quick. It was like a couple day event, but again, great. And again, see the theme is smaller. So we’ve got some smaller events and some larger events. Okay. So that was that event as well. Kind of moving on, we’ve got, what do we have to look forward to? I think it’s Apropo or the timing’s right, not really apropos. Timing is right. ADSOs next week, Daikema is in a month and of course we’ve got our discount code here, save 250, best discount out there, GDN26.
(19:23):
You better have registered at this point for this and also ADSO. And you should have already registered for these because a lot of these, the hotels do get booked. So I would say just you better get with it and get your hotel, get your register and get your flight too before it gets more expensive than it already is. 15th through the 17th in July in Denver, the timing of this is great. They just dropped their agenda. So I’ve got it here. Of course, you can go to their website, but literally I saw this over the weekend. So we’ve got all the breakouts and we’ve got everything listed here. So you can start to plan things out. I always say come into the Daikema meeting early and get some of that networking in before things get really kicked off. So we will be there as well.
(20:13):
I don’t remember if I mentioned kind of back to ADSO. Kim will actually be attending ADSO. So Kim Larson, who a lot of people want to see and meet, she does a couple meetings a year. She will be attending the ADSO meeting and she’s looking forward to talking to everybody. So Kim will be there helping out of course with the awards as well. And so make sure you give her a shout out and say hi to her. She’s the one that does all the work behind the scenes here. So again, Dykema is coming up right after that and that will be something that I say definitely get registered for. And they’ve got a lot of good things going on. You’ve also got Glidewell’s fourth annual DSO Summit. I did go to their first one. I’ve missed a couple of years. It’s a great event, first or second one.
(20:59):
I can’t remember which one, but I went to one of them and this will be out in Newport Beach and it’s invite only. So again, small and you get a chance to go to their clinical education center and then you’ll get to go to Mr. Glidewell’s house and get a chance to see what that’s all about. And it’s certainly an experience. I know they’ve done some work to it since I’ve been out there and it’s pretty amazing. So this is an event where you’re going to meet with other DSO executives and it’s just a great opportunity. The cool thing about this is Glidewell is literally across the street from the John Wayne Airport. So you get off the plane and you’re there. And then of course they’ll shuttle everybody over to Mr. Glidewell’s house in the evening for the big bash that they do there.
(21:55):
But a lot of great content. Reach out to Bruce Tuck at Glidewell if you’re interested. I didn’t mention the date. That’s July 31st. So it’s coming up right after Dykema, a couple weeks after. Okay. You see a lot of events here and we don’t have them all listed either, but we got most. DSO Tech Summit. This is one that I’ve been going to for quite a while. This is put on by Sunset Technology. It’s in Nashville every year, September 23rd and 24th and they’ll talk about things like cybersecurity. They’ll talk about things like they spent a lot of time on AI last year. So this is a great event. We’ve got 30% off GDN26. They do it at Margaritaville, which I’ve never stayed at Margaritaville until last year. It’s actually a super nice hotel and really close to downtown. So if you like country music, definitely one to check out.
(22:51):
I don’t have the agenda yet, but hopefully we’ll have it soon. GDN26 and you save 30% and that is September 23rd and 24th. Pretty soon after that in Vegas, we have SMILE together. So this one I went to last year and I get a lot of questions about this event. I thought they did a great job their first year out. They’ve been doing vet together now for, this will be their third year. This will be their second year with Smile Together. And so this is that one-to-one meeting where you’ve got 13 minutes to meet with, if you’re a DSO, to meet with vendor, if you’re a vendor to meet with a DSO or a small group practice and then you’ve got two minutes to rotate and then move on to the next one and you’ll do between 30 and 50 meetings in a given couple of days that they have.
(23:46):
And if you’re a group DSO or even a large solo practice, they will cover you. So if you use code GDN26, you actually get a $500 bonus. So what they’ll do is you do have to register, you have to pay a $250 fee, but it’s reimbursable. So when you use that code GDN26, not only are you reimbursed for that 250, but you get another 250 back, but you have to use code GDN26. They will also reimburse you up to $600 for your flight, the free hotel stay, so they pay for the whole hotel. And then there’s another additional $500 that you can get or an extra hotel night, or if you want to bring an extra guest, you can do that. So there’s a lot that they give you if you’re a group practice, a large solo practice or a DSO in order to attend.
(24:40):
Now the caveat is you’ve got to be there for all the meetings. If they’re going to give you all this, you better meet with your vendor partners, but it’s pretty sweet what they do. So that is Las Vegas Convention Center, October 1st through the 3rd and three days of quality networking and all the details are here. So feel free to reach out to me if you’ve got any questions, but there we go. That is what I say. October 1st through the 3rd in Las Vegas. GDN26 for the extra perks.
(25:16):
Got two more and again, I don’t know if I’ve got them all here or not, but we’ve got October 7th through the 9th. We have Orthodentist Growth Summit and this is the second year they’re doing this. We’ve got a couple Ohio ones coming up here. This is second annual, like I mentioned, 7th through the 9th. This is in Cleveland at the Hilton. And so if you’re looking to bring, and this is put on by OrthoBrain, if you’re looking to bring in orthodontics into your practices, you want to actually get your GPs doing more ortho or helping them do Ortho. OrthoBrain is now actually providing the education live here so you can really get a taste of it. They’re going to have a bunch of different content. I believe there’s an opportunity to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I don’t have that listed here, do I?
(26:11):
Yes, I do. Rock and roll Hall of Fame Bash. So if you’re a rocker like I know I am and a lot of people are and you love rock and roll, it’s a great opportunity. But the team really at OrthoBrain is doing some great things when it comes to helping DSOs provide more ortho in their practices and helping really educate and support those clinicians that maybe need a little bit of help with ortho or just want to be more efficient at it. So that is the 7th through the 9th in Cleveland.
(26:49):
Okay. Lastly, we have the Multi-Site Mastery Summit. I just put this one up today and this we’ve got a code here, save $200 with code GDN200. This is the same timeframe. So you’re going to have to decide if you go to ortho or you go to Multi-Site Mastery. They’re both in Ohio. This one’s in Versailles, Ohio, which is outside of Dayton. It’s actually a beautiful area. I mean, it’s picture-esque Norman Rockwell. This is put on by Midmark and Polaris Healthcare Partners. And like I said, it’s the seventh through the 9th, just like the Orthodentist one is. And this is things kick off on the 7th with welcome reception. Then you’ve got pretty much all day Thursday and a good chunk of Friday as well. You get a chance to leave after lunch, of course, and head home for the weekend. But you’ve got the team at Dwalker Sina, who is part of or one of the founders of Polaris and he’s there.
(27:58):
He’s going to kind of have a day of growth and strategy and there will be some folks from Midmark as well that’ll talk through technology and smart equipment. Mark Flock from Polaris will be there as well. And then they’ll talk a litle bit about Lean Six Sigma. So there’s just a lot of really cool things. Get a tour of the Midmark factory, which I’ve done before. It’s fabulous. And we’ve got that $200 off and what’s actually pretty cool here is they include the hotel, two nights hotel accommodations in that 795 fee. That’s if you use our discount code. So check that out as well. So you’ve got a lot of different options. And again, this will be most likely a smaller event, some more intimate. You get a chance to meet people as well. So I think that’s all I wanted to do with the events and I think this went pretty long.
(28:54):
So what I’ll do is maybe I’ll save the recap of the top stories for another podcast that’s coming up. Again, we call this DSO declassified something that we just want to get out there and we hope you like these and we hope they’re helpful. We get a lot of questions about events and you can of course reach out to us if you have any questions, but it’s easy. Just go to groupdentistrynow.com/events. We’ve got all the events listed and certainly get a chance to do that and look for us at the ADSO coming up next week that we’ll be in Chicago again. Kim will be there and we’ll be doing the emerging dental groups to watch awards. It’s our first year doing these with ADSO and we appreciate their support and we would appreciate anyone in the audience just coming and kind of cheering, coming over 12:15 to that thought leader center and cheering on these emerging groups to watch winners and hearing their story story, I mean, it’s really kind of fascinating and you get a chance to network with them too.
(30:04):
So until next time, this is DSO Declassified and I am Bill Neumann. Hey, thanks for listening. We really appreciate it. Thanks for supporting us.
