Leaders from five of Group Dentistry Now’s 2026 Emerging Dental Groups to Watch (EGTW) discuss the realities of recruiting, centralization, acquisitions, technology, culture and sustainable growth
The dental groups shaping the future of the industry are not waiting for someone else to create the next operating model. They are building it themselves.
They are recruiting in difficult labor markets, integrating acquired practices, developing new leaders, experimenting with artificial intelligence, strengthening revenue cycle management and deciding which responsibilities should move to a centralized support team. At the same time, they are working to preserve the culture, clinical autonomy and patient relationships that made their practices successful in the first place.
To gain a direct view into how that work is unfolding, Group Dentistry Now recently brought together leaders from five organizations recognized as Emerging Dental Groups to Watch in 2026.
The conversation offered something more valuable than a polished presentation about growth. It provided an unusually candid look at the decisions being made by groups on the front lines of the industry.
The participating leaders were:
Dr. Jagdev Heir, President and CEO of Mosaic Dental Collective, LLC, a multispecialty organization with more than 55 locations across Washington and California.
Dr. Jeffrey Burch, CEO of Burch Dental Partners, a doctor-owned and hygiene-focused organization with 16 locations across Illinois, Wisconsin and Florida.
Dr. Dipesh Patel, Founder and CEO of Blueprint Smiles, an eight-location general dentistry group serving the greater Atlanta market.
Dan Redifer, Co-Founder and CEO of Lavender Dental Group, a Michigan-based organization with 11 offices and 21 dentists.
Steve Wright, CEO of Bright Direction Dental, a general dentistry organization with approximately 50 locations across six Midwestern states.
Each organization has developed a different strategy. Mosaic is building a large, multispecialty collective. Burch Dental Partners has created a hygiene-centric clinical and operating model. Blueprint Smiles is scaling a highly standardized, predominantly de novo platform. Lavender Dental Group is using acquisitions and strategic practice combinations to build density in Michigan. Bright Direction Dental is expanding a Midwest-focused network while making education and professional development central to its value proposition.
Their approaches may differ, but their experiences reveal several shared truths about dental group growth in 2026.
Growth depends on people. Execution becomes more difficult as organizations become larger. Culture cannot be separated from operating performance. Technology must produce a measurable result. Centralization should remove work from practices, not remove the relationships that make those practices successful. And the right long-term partners are often more valuable than the most impressive product demonstration.
The Five Groups Represent Five Different Paths to Scale
One of the most important lessons from the discussion was that there is no single blueprint for building a successful dental group.
The participating groups range from eight locations to more than 55. Some are primarily acquisition-driven. Others rely heavily on de novo development. Some are focused entirely on general dentistry, while others have developed extensive specialty capabilities. Certain groups want nearly every nonclinical activity centralized. Others believe that important functions, especially those involving specialty referrals and complex schedules, must remain close to the practices.
GDN’s Emerging Dental Groups to Watch program was created to recognize precisely this kind of diversity. These organizations are not simply smaller versions of the largest DSOs. They are developing distinct models, testing new ideas and demonstrating that scale can be achieved through multiple structures.
The Growing Organization’s Biggest Challenge: Turning Strategy into Execution
Capital remains important, but the winners repeatedly returned to another limiting factor: the ability to execute.
For Mosaic Dental Collective, Dr. Jagdev Heir said the central challenge is not identifying the organization’s most important priorities. It is creating the systems necessary to implement those priorities consistently across doctors, executives, support teams and frontline employees.
Heir compared organizational execution to surgery. In an operating room, a surgeon develops a repeatable system for arranging instruments, completing procedures and anticipating potential complications. The challenge in a dental collective is that every acquired practice may have developed its own successful way of working.
Those methods are not necessarily wrong. The difficulty is determining which processes must become consistent, which should remain flexible and how quickly the organization can bring multiple teams into alignment.
“It’s called the practice of dentistry, not the perfection of dentistry. Our biggest constraint has been how quickly we can execute on initiatives. The quicker we execute, the better the outcome and the better our ability to recognize when something is not the right path and make a shift.” Dr. Jagdev Heir, Mosaic Dental Collective
That distinction is critical. Organizations do not only need the ability to implement a decision. They also need to learn quickly enough to determine whether the decision is producing the intended result.
Burch Dental Partners faces a different version of the growth question. Because the organization remains self-funded, Dr. Jeffrey Burch emphasized the need to select the most profitable and strategically sound route for expansion.
The group can consider acquisitions, de novos, investments in existing locations and strategic combinations. The constraint is choosing the option most likely to produce profitable growth.
Burch described the objective in baseball terms. He wants the organization to consistently hit doubles, triples and home runs rather than committing resources to opportunities that produce only marginal results.
For Blueprint Smiles, the central constraint is human capital, particularly doctors who are prepared to lead at the practice level.
Dr. Dipesh Patel said the difficulty is not simply finding dentists. The organization must find clinicians who want responsibility for building a team, leading an office and helping advance the larger organization.
Leadership may be present at the executive level, but dental groups cannot scale effectively unless leadership also exists inside each practice. A support organization can build systems, dashboards and standardized processes, but those systems still require local leaders who are willing to own the results.
Lavender Dental Group’s challenge has often been helping established teams become comfortable with change.
Redifer entered dentistry after spending much of his career in other industries. From that perspective, he observed that organizational changes that might happen relatively quickly elsewhere can take longer inside a dental practice.
Something as seemingly straightforward as changing practice management software can create significant anxiety among employees who have used the same platform for decades. Lavender has had to communicate the purpose of the change, build trust and demonstrate that the new operating environment will ultimately make the practice stronger.
“A major constraint was getting people to trust that we were taking them to a better place and that everything would be okay, that the sun would come up tomorrow even though they did not have Eaglesoft anymore.” Dan Redifer, Lavender Dental Group
For Bright Direction Dental, Wright also placed people at the center of the growth equation.
When the organization examines its highest-performing practices, the common denominator is not necessarily the newest facility or most advanced software. It is a strong team whose members have worked together, developed trust and established reliable operating rhythms.
The challenge is reproducing that environment across a much larger network.
Bright Direction also has to prioritize carefully. The organization has grown beyond the startup stage, but its support team still has finite capacity. Every new initiative requires people to implement, train, communicate and follow through.
“The practices do not run unless you have great people. When we look at our high-performing practices, they have great people who have been there for a while and have trust in each other. At the same time, we cannot take on too much. We have to pick where we can win.” Steve Wright, Bright Direction Dental
That may be one of the most important disciplines for an emerging group. Growth creates a nearly endless list of potential projects. The best organizations are not necessarily the ones attempting the most initiatives. They are often the ones that identify a limited number of high-impact priorities and execute them well.
Recruitment Is No Longer Just About Filling Open Positions
The dental labor market remains one of the industry’s most persistent challenges, but the EGTW winners made clear that recruiting cannot be separated from compensation, development, culture and operating design.
Blueprint Smiles has responded by rethinking the relationship between staffing levels and compensation.
Patel described the organization’s approach as the “UPS versus FedEx” model. Rather than hiring more people at average market wages, Blueprint attempts to employ fewer, highly capable people and compensate them at a higher level.
In the Atlanta market, Patel believes Blueprint employs some of the highest-paid hygienists. The organization can sustain that compensation because those hygienists also operate at a high level of productivity.
The same principle extends to administrative roles. Instead of automatically adding another employee, Blueprint may offer an existing team member better technology, additional responsibility and increased compensation.
That can create a better outcome for both sides. The employee earns more, the practice avoids unnecessary staffing layers and the organization scales revenue without allowing labor costs to expand at the same pace.
“We have been able to scale revenue without adding as many humans by paying more to the humans we already have. If you can make the human win and make your P&L win at the same time, that has unlocked a lot of success for us.” Dr. Dipesh Patel, Blueprint Smiles
Lavender Dental Group continues to see hygiene as one of its greatest recruiting and compensation challenges.
Redifer noted that hygienists are licensed providers and understandably want to be treated as clinical professionals. At the same time, some may resist compensation structures that connect earnings to production.
Lavender has experimented with hygiene bonuses and other incentive programs, but the organization continues to work through the challenge of creating a structure that recognizes the clinical role of hygienists while aligning compensation with measurable performance.
Bright Direction Dental has made significant progress in recruitment and retention through two primary strategies: professional development and aligned incentives.
Wright said the organization is investing heavily in bringing teams together across its six-state footprint. Those gatherings are not inexpensive or operationally simple, but Bright Direction sees them as investments in trust, community and professional growth.
When providers and practice leaders meet the people supporting them, the support organization becomes more tangible. Team members can understand the organization’s objectives, learn from their peers and see a path for advancing their careers.
Bright Direction has also created different incentive structures for doctors and hygienists and is evaluating broader team-based programs.
Wright’s previous leadership experience with Seattle Study Club helped shape the group’s approach. He saw an opportunity to bring doctors together around education and create an internal clinical community.
The goal is not simply to provide continuing education credits. Bright Direction wants clinicians to learn new skills, improve their production per hour, discuss cases and benefit from the collective knowledge of the organization.
“Education and development may appear as an expense, but it is an investment. We want people to know they can become a better clinician, a better provider or a better office manager with us because we are going to invest in them.” Steve Wright, Bright Direction Dental
Burch Dental Partners offered one of the panel’s most striking counterpoints to the commonly accepted narrative about the hygiene shortage.
The organization has more than 50 hygienists, no current hygiene openings and, according to Burch, a waiting list of hygienists interested in joining.
The group’s hygiene strategy begins with treating hygienists as clinicians and equal members of the organization. Burch, a board-certified periodontist, worked with the group’s clinical and operational hygiene leadership to develop a detailed system for periodontal education and care.
Doctors, hygienists and other practice employees are trained to understand and explain gum disease. That creates consistent clinical expectations and elevates the role of hygiene throughout the practice.
Because the hygiene departments perform at a high level, Burch Dental Partners can offer compensation above industry norms and, in some markets, above what temporary staffing agencies pay.
“There is not necessarily a huge shortage of hygienists. There is a huge shortage of quality practices for hygienists to end up in. We treat them as clinicians, create a standard and educate the entire practice about gum disease. They produce at a level that allows us to pay far outside the industry standard.” Dr. Jeffrey Burch, Burch Dental Partners
Heir agreed that recruiting is often market-specific. Mosaic may have sufficient hygiene coverage in one region while facing shortages in another. At the provider level, oral surgeons and endodontists can be particularly difficult to recruit because of the limited candidate pool and the time required to bring a specialist into the organization.
Mosaic tries to avoid filling a position simply because an opening exists. Every practice has its own internal culture, and adding the wrong provider can disrupt the entire office.
Heir described recruitment as a matchmaking process. When the provider and practice are aligned, the relationship can function naturally. When they are not, the consequences can be significant.
Mosaic also offers associates a pathway to partnership that includes the same type of stock and ownership rights held by existing partners. That opportunity can help the organization attract clinicians who want something beyond employment.
“Instead of filling a position with a body, it is about finding the right person for the practice. Every practice has its own culture. When you have the right person, everything fits and flows. When you have the wrong person, everything can crash and burn.” Dr. Jagdev Heir, Mosaic Dental Collective
The Centralization Question: Remove the Burden Without Removing the Relationships
As dental groups grow, leaders must decide which functions should be moved to a central support team and which should remain inside the practices.
The EGTW winners largely agreed that accounting, accounts payable, financial reporting, insurance support, human resources and portions of revenue cycle management are natural starting points.
Bright Direction Dental initially centralized basic financial functions. The organization needed consistent reporting and a reliable way to pay bills across the platform. It then expanded support into insurance, recruitment and other areas that were creating challenges at individual practices.
Revenue cycle management has become one of Bright Direction’s largest centralized investments. Marketing, which has not yet been fully centralized, represents an important future opportunity.
Lavender Dental Group followed a similar path. Its first support-level hire was a controller, allowing the organization to bring greater consistency to accounts payable and financial oversight.
Lavender developed a hybrid revenue cycle process. Practices continued to handle certain claim activities locally, while follow-up work moved to the support team.
That structure acted as a force multiplier. Practice employees no longer had to spend as much time resolving rejected claims or correcting administrative problems. The support team could also identify recurring issues and provide rapid feedback to the offices.
Over time, the process improved quality control, reduced bottlenecks and accelerated collections. Redifer described the controller who helped establish the system as one of the organization’s back-office “secret sauces.”
Blueprint Smiles has embraced one of the panel’s most aggressive centralization strategies.
Patel said patient care is essentially the only responsibility that cannot be centralized. The organization has moved accounting, human resources, procurement and insurance verification into the support structure. It is continuing to centralize revenue cycle management and develop call center capabilities.
The objective is to remove as much administrative work as possible from the practices so the local teams can concentrate on patients.
That does not mean removing the human interaction from dentistry. Blueprint wants practice teams focused on the conversations and relationships that occur with patients, rather than spending their time on tasks that can be completed more efficiently elsewhere.
Burch Dental Partners has encountered an important exception, particularly within specialty dentistry.
The organization has found it difficult to centralize phone and scheduling functions for periodontal practices. Specialist schedules can vary substantially, and production can be affected when a centralized team attempts to force every provider into the same scheduling template.
The relationships between specialists, referring dentists and local team members also make the process more complex. A call center employee may not understand the history behind a referral or the nuances of a particular doctor’s schedule.
Specialty scheduling requires both technical knowledge and relationship management.
For Heir, the same issue applies across Mosaic’s specialty platform. A specialist may deliver excellent clinical care, but the referral relationship can still be damaged if the patient has a poor administrative experience or communication breaks down between the specialty and restorative offices.
That two-way communication is essential. Even when a specialist works inside a general dentistry practice, the specialist must remain closely aligned with the restorative doctor.
The panel’s collective message was not that everything should or should not be centralized. The better question is whether centralization will improve the experience and performance of the practice.
Practice Management Software Reveals Different Philosophies About Integration
Few operational decisions generate as much internal resistance as changing practice management software.
The five organizations are at different stages of standardization, and their approaches reflect their respective growth models.
Bright Direction Dental currently operates on multiple platforms, although most practices use one of two primary systems.
Wright sees value in developing expertise across a small number of preferred platforms rather than immediately requiring every affiliated practice to convert to a single system. The organization can already extract the analytics it needs to manage the business, even with multiple systems.
That allows Bright Direction to tell prospective partners that their software will not necessarily change on the first day. Over time, the organization may guide practices toward two or three preferred options that the support team can service more effectively.
Lavender Dental Group tells newly acquired practices that nothing will change during the first 90 days.
That commitment creates stability during the initial transition. After that period, Lavender begins moving the practice toward its broader operating model.
The group ultimately chose a cloud-based platform because it did not want the cost and complexity of maintaining local servers across a growing network. A common platform also allows nearby offices to communicate, share information, coordinate referrals and move patients between practices when appropriate.
Blueprint Smiles uses one platform throughout the organization. Because Blueprint is primarily de novo, it can build locations according to a predetermined operating model.
Even when the group acquires a practice, Patel said the organization treats the location as a de novo. Prospective sellers understand in advance that Blueprint intends to rebuild the operation around its systems.
The group has remained on the core version of Dentrix because its team understands the platform deeply. For Blueprint, familiarity and internal expertise currently outweigh the perceived benefits of migrating to a cloud platform.
Burch Dental Partners is also committed to one system.
The organization uses Open Dental and now requires acquisition candidates to convert before a transaction is completed. Standardization allows Burch Dental Partners to connect its data environment to artificial intelligence tools and produce real-time dashboards through a HIPAA-compliant intermediary.
Burch described the organization as an AI-native practice. Its software decisions are therefore not only about scheduling and billing. They are also about creating the data infrastructure required to build more advanced internal systems.
Mosaic Dental Collective illustrates the complexity of consolidating technology after substantial acquisition growth.
The organization once operated on 11 practice management systems and has reduced that number to three. The majority of locations are now on Open Dental, with several offices using other platforms because of legacy or specialty requirements.
Mosaic ultimately intends to move toward one system.
At its scale, Heir said standardization is increasingly about organizational control. A unified platform makes it easier to change codes, lock down processes, develop internal expertise and manage the organization consistently.
However, Mosaic does not intend to rush the transition. Heir expects the conversion to take approximately 18 months to two years because he does not want the organization to absorb the revenue disruption that can accompany a rapid system change.
“We were on 11 systems and are now down to three. We are going to one because, when you start reaching a certain size, centralized control becomes a big deal. There may be some pain, but we are planning an 18-month to two-year rollout because I refuse to have the organization get hit with unnecessary revenue loss.” Dr. Jagdev Heir, Mosaic Dental Collective
The contrast among the five groups demonstrates that software standardization is not a purely technical decision. It is a strategic choice involving integration speed, clinical workflow, data access, organizational capacity and the group’s relationship with incoming doctors.
Acquisition Strategy Is Becoming More Disciplined
The acquisition market has changed, and the leaders agreed that seller expectations have become somewhat more realistic.
Wright said every practice and every broker still enters the process with a different perception of value. Bright Direction attempts to set expectations early, but ultimately the market determines the price.
The organization is focused on family general dentistry practices within its existing six-state Midwest footprint. It does not believe it needs to enter a seventh state simply to add another market.
Density matters more.
When practices are located near one another, Bright Direction can share staffing resources, strengthen referral networks, bring doctors together and provide more responsive operational support.
Geography is only the first consideration. The group also evaluates whether it can work effectively with the selling doctor.
A dentist planning to remain for 15 years represents a very different partnership from one intending to retire in six months. Employment expectations, cultural compatibility and the doctor’s willingness to participate in the transition all influence whether an opportunity makes sense.
Once the transaction closes, the selling dentist is no longer merely a party to a deal. That individual becomes someone the organization and its teams must work with every day.
Lavender Dental Group expresses its cultural standard through a core value that Redifer politely summarized as “no jerks.”
The organization relies heavily on its dentist partners for clinical leadership because Redifer and Co-Founder Cameron Elrod are nonclinicians. Clinical competence is expected, but Lavender spends considerable time evaluating whether a potential partner has the emotional intelligence required to function inside a group.
That includes humility, empathy, openness to new ideas and the ability to understand how words and behavior affect a team.
“We look for somebody who can come in with humility and be open to new ideas. We rely on our dentist partners for their clinical expertise, but we spend a lot of time understanding whether someone has the emotional intelligence to be in a group practice, to read the room, be empathetic and work well with other people.” Dan Redifer, Lavender Dental Group
Lavender often looks for accomplished clinicians who still have substantial careers ahead of them but are becoming exhausted by the administrative demands of ownership.
The ideal partner may be an excellent dentist who no longer wants to manage marketing, operations and other nonclinical responsibilities. Lavender can take on those burdens while allowing the dentist to focus on patient care.
Blueprint Smiles approaches ownership from an entirely different point in the dentist’s career.
Patel said Blueprint’s oldest doctor is approximately 40, with the average doctor in the early 30s. The organization is not being built for a near-term transaction. It is being designed to operate in perpetuity.
Four of the group’s eight locations have owner-doctors, with additional ownership discussions underway at the time of the panel.
By creating ownership opportunities for younger dentists, Blueprint gains a much longer potential runway and reduces the risk of recurring associate turnover.
“We are built to last. We are not trying to transact. We are trying to build this in perpetuity. Getting the right owner-doctor at an earlier age gives us a lot more runway and helps us avoid the constant associate turnover that other groups may experience.” Dr. Dipesh Patel, Blueprint Smiles
Blueprint’s acquisition strategy also differs from many traditional affiliation models.
The group generally purchases the physical footprint and patient base rather than building the transaction around retaining the selling doctor. Acquired practices are rebuilt according to Blueprint’s systems, much like a de novo location.
Its target model includes at least six operatories, two doctors and two hygienists, with the goal of creating a $2 million general dentistry practice at approximately a 20% margin.
Burch Dental Partners begins with the person.
Burch prefers practices with multiple doctors, strong hygiene departments and room for physical or operational expansion. A two-doctor practice provides greater stability because the location is not dependent on one provider.
Increasingly, however, Burch sees strategic growth inside existing markets as more attractive than simply acquiring another standalone practice.
That may involve expanding a facility, adding operatories, improving signage, upgrading the patient environment, recruiting younger doctors or purchasing a nearby tuck-in practice that can be merged into an existing location.
Because Burch has spent years practicing in his markets, he has direct knowledge of local referral relationships, clinical reputations and patient demand. That market intelligence allows the organization to identify opportunities that may not be visible through financial statements alone.
“We pick the person first. I want multiple doctors, room to grow and a strong hygiene base. But strategic growth is looking better right now: investing in current offices, expanding capacity and purchasing tuck-in practices in regions we already know.” Dr. Jeffrey Burch, Burch Dental Partners
Burch defines strategic growth as the ongoing process of improving facilities, provider capacity, visibility and patient retention. If an established practice retains more than 90% of its patients, it should naturally create the demand required to expand substantially over time.
Mosaic Dental Collective uses a clearly defined hierarchy of acquisition criteria: must-haves, desires and wishes.
Heir said the organization has experienced negative consequences whenever it deviated from its nonnegotiable standards. Those standards include facility size, provider capacity, revenue and culture.
Culture may be the most important.
A successful solo dentist may be accustomed to operating as the unquestioned decision-maker. Dentists who have already worked with associates or partners often have a better understanding of the give-and-take required in a larger organization.
The relationship requires mutual trust. The incoming doctor must believe Mosaic will protect the practice and act in the doctor’s best interest. Mosaic must believe the doctor will remain committed after receiving the transaction proceeds.
Mosaic also sees potential in a modified de novo model. Rather than opening an empty facility and waiting several years for it to mature, the organization can acquire several practices in a market and combine them into a new, larger facility.
That approach provides much of the design flexibility of a de novo while creating immediate patient volume and revenue.
The winners may pursue different transaction types, but they shared one conviction: the wrong partner can undermine the value of even the most attractive financial opportunity.
Strong Industry Partners Must Understand the Business, Not Just the Product
The discussion also included a direct message for the companies that sell products and services to dental groups.
The five leaders are not looking for more sales presentations. They are looking for partners who understand their organizations, align with their strategies and help produce measurable results.
Heir said he wants to work with people he genuinely enjoys and trusts. The strongest industry partners are willing to examine the business honestly, identify problems and explain exactly where their organizations can help.
In some cases, the best potential partner may acknowledge that its product is not the right solution for a particular need.
That honesty can create long-term trust.
Heir recalled companies that supported clinicians throughout his surgical training and continued to act as partners during difficult periods. During COVID-19, some companies worked with practices facing severe revenue disruption rather than treating the relationship as a collection exercise.
Those actions create loyalty that cannot be generated through discounts alone.
Patel encouraged industry partners to connect their solutions directly to the dental group’s profit and loss statement.
Blueprint evaluates whether a product can be financially sustainable first. If it creates a healthy result for the organization, it can be maintained long enough for employees and patients to receive the full benefit.
A solution that appears valuable for patients but creates an unsustainable financial burden will eventually disappear. A product that improves the P&L, supports the people using it and then improves the patient experience has a greater chance of becoming a durable part of the organization.
“Instead of selling us a product, sell us a solution for our business and our P&L. The companies that understand the business of dentistry and can show the impact they will have are the ones we gravitate toward. That is how they cut through the fluff.” Dr. Dipesh Patel, Blueprint Smiles
Redifer distinguished between a salesperson and a partner.
A salesperson may be primarily focused on completing a transaction. A partner takes time to understand where the organization is going and recommends solutions that align with that strategy.
The distinction becomes evident over time. The best partners demonstrate a degree of selflessness and consider the dental group’s long-term interests as well as their own.
Bright Direction Dental places particular emphasis on implementation.
Wright may believe in a product and see clear value for the practices, but Bright Direction’s support team does not always have the capacity to handle an extensive rollout alone.
Industry partners distinguish themselves when they are willing to help onboard practices, train teams and stay involved after the contract is signed.
“We are looking for the industry partners who are going to get in the foxhole with us and focus on the business as a true partner. A great idea is not enough. How are we going to get it into the practices? The companies that follow through on onboarding separate themselves.” Steve Wright, Bright Direction Dental
Burch described relationships with companies that have supported his education, referring doctors and practices over many years. Consistency, integrity and the quality of the people representing the organization matter as much as the underlying product.
He also emphasized that partnerships should create mutual value. Dental groups should understand what their industry partners need and look for opportunities to help them achieve those objectives.
“It is a partnership more than anything. I try to understand what my industry partners’ incentives are, and I try to meet those incentives too. That way, we are on the same page and we do it together.” Dr. Jeffrey Burch, Burch Dental Partners
That shared responsibility is increasingly important as dental groups become more sophisticated buyers. The strongest relationships will not be built around a one-time sale. They will be built around implementation, accountability and measurable improvement over time.
Technology Decisions Are Moving Closer to the Provider
Artificial intelligence was an important part of the conversation, but none of the leaders suggested that groups should adopt technology simply because it is new.
The central question is where the technology can produce the greatest impact.
Bright Direction Dental is evaluating a crowded field of AI solutions and determining where to place its bets. Wright said timing matters. A technology may be impressive, but that does not mean the organization is currently prepared to prioritize or implement it.
Bright Direction is also exploring the difference between buying external products and developing proprietary technology. The organization has partnered with developers and is considering which capabilities may be strategically important enough to build internally.
Lavender Dental Group is similarly interested in technology, but Redifer is cautious about subscription overload.
A dental group may begin with a small number of seemingly affordable products and quickly find itself paying for a large, fragmented collection of monthly subscriptions. Each product can also become a separate implementation and management project.
Lavender wants aligned technologies that work well together and improve the patient journey.
One of the organization’s guiding objectives is to help patients complete more of their dentistry in fewer visits. Redifer compared the experience to other consumer interactions. Patients do not want to make repeated trips when care can be delivered efficiently in one visit.
For Blueprint Smiles, the next major technology opportunity is at the provider level.
The organization already uses AI in phone systems and back-office workflows. It is now focused on tools that can improve clinical efficiency, strengthen outcomes and provide doctors with information they can use immediately.
Patel is particularly interested in technologies that reduce the amount of analysis required from the provider. Instead of giving a doctor a large organizational dashboard, the ideal system identifies the opportunities relevant to that doctor’s schedule and presents them directly.
That allows the clinician to act without becoming a data analyst.
The organization also values vendors that establish a baseline, project the expected business impact and return later with a clear analysis of the actual result.
Burch Dental Partners is taking an even more aggressive build-oriented approach.
Burch is looking for software capabilities that the organization may eventually replace with its own systems. The goal is to reduce fragmentation, gain greater control and develop an integrated technology environment aligned with the group’s specific operating model.
Mosaic is evaluating technology through two primary lenses: top-line growth and cost containment.
The organization has implemented video AI and technologies supporting scheduling and patient retention. It is now moving further into revenue cycle automation, including payment posting, verification, line-item verification and billing.
For clinicians, Mosaic wants tools that improve the quality or efficiency of care. For the support team, it wants tools that reduce administrative cost and increase reliability.
The most advanced technology strategy is therefore not necessarily the one with the largest number of products. It is the one that connects technology investments to a clearly defined operational or clinical outcome.
What These Emerging Groups Are Teaching the Industry
The discussion provided a valuable snapshot of group dentistry at an important moment.
These five organizations are large enough to experience the real complexities of scale, but close enough to their practices that leadership can still observe how every major decision affects providers, employees and patients.
They are not discussing growth in the abstract. They are working through the consequences of growth every day.
They are learning that execution becomes more difficult as the number of locations, doctors and systems increases. They are discovering that recruiting requires more than posting an opening and offering a competitive salary. They are deciding how to centralize administrative responsibilities while preserving local relationships. They are creating ownership pathways for clinicians at different stages of their careers. They are becoming more selective about acquisitions and more demanding of technology providers.
Most importantly, they are demonstrating that sustainable scale is built through alignment.
Compensation must align with performance. Technology must align with workflow. Acquisitions must align with culture. Centralization must align with the needs of the practices. Industry partnerships must align with the organization’s strategy. Growth itself must align with the capacity of the people expected to deliver it.
The organizations recognized as Emerging Dental Groups to Watch are important not only because they are growing. They are important because they are showing the industry how the next generation of dental groups is being built.
Mosaic Dental Collective is showing how a large, multispecialty organization can move toward standardization while protecting the individuality of its practices.
Burch Dental Partners is demonstrating the power of building an organization around clinical education, hygiene and long-term ownership.
Blueprint Smiles is proving that a highly standardized, people-focused organization can scale through automation, strong financial discipline and early-career doctor ownership.
Lavender Dental Group is illustrating how thoughtful acquisitions, emotional intelligence and operational support can preserve the spirit of private practice inside a larger organization.
Bright Direction Dental is showing how education, regional density and trust can become core components of a dental group’s growth strategy.
None of the five leaders claimed to have solved every problem. That may have been the most encouraging part of the conversation.
They were willing to discuss what is working, where they are still struggling and which operating assumptions they are prepared to reconsider. That openness provides the rest of the industry with a rare opportunity to learn from groups that are actively testing the next generation of dental group models.
These organizations are not observing the future of group dentistry from the sidelines.
They are building it from the front lines.
See more ‘Emerging Dental Groups to Watch’ winner lists: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017.
If your dental group is interested in applying for the 2027 list,
please email info@GroupDentistryNow.com.
