The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice Of The DSO Industry

Dr. Maryam Beyramian, CEO and Co-Founder of Westwind Integrated Health, and Andrew Smith, Executive Director of the Association of Dental Support Organizations, discuss the 2023 ADSO Uniting Dentistry Summit and new ADSO initiatives, including:

The keynote speakers and tracks at the ADSO Summit
2023 ADSO priorities and value-driven initiatives
Collaboration between the ADSO & the ADA
Much more

To Register for the 2023 ADSO Summit visit – http://bit.ly/3KqSHz4
Discover ADSO membership benefits here – http://bit.ly/3lF8rEl

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Our podcast series brings you dental support organization and emerging dental group practice analysis, conversation, trends, news and events. Listen to leaders in the DSO and emerging dental group space talk about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry. The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry has listeners across North & South America, Australia, Europe, and Asia. If you like our show, tell a friend or a colleague.

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Full Transcript:

Bill Neumann:

Hey, I’d like to welcome everybody to the Group Dentistry Now Show. I’m Bill Neumann. Happy New Year. Thanks for being here. We appreciate it, whether you’re listening in on Apple, Spotify, Google, or watching us on YouTube or find us on the groupdentistrynow.com website, we appreciate you being part of our audience. Always have great guests, always learn a lot, and we are going to talk about all things ADSO, the Association of Dental Support Organizations on this podcast.

We have Andrew Smith, who is the Executive Director at the ADSO. You’ve seen Andrew before he was on last year to talk about the summit in 2022. He’s going to talk about the summit in 2023. And we have Dr. Maryam Beyramian. If you’ve been to any DSO events, you have probably seen Dr. Beyramian. She is at most of the events. She has an excellent organization called Westwind Integrated Health based in Arizona. She is the Co-Founder and CEO. So thanks for your time today both of you, appreciate it.

Andrew Smith:

Great to be here.

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

Thanks Bill. Excited.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, this is great. Let’s start with you Dr. Beyramian. Since we have not had you on a podcast before, can you give the audience a little bit of your background and then tell us about your organization, your DSO, and then maybe you can talk about what you’re doing for the ADSO right now?

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

Yeah, thanks for having me on Bill, I’m super excited to be on a podcast with you. We are a medically integrated Dental practice here in Phoenix, Arizona. We have 14 locations currently. We don’t have any partners, so we get to have a lot of control over our organization and the way we deliver healthcare to the community. So that’s really exciting.

I am a graduate of the University of Michigan. I went there for undergrad and for dental school. Graduated in 2001, and then graduated with my MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management in 2016. So it’s been a great journey, it’s been exciting to build this group. Every year I think, “Maybe this is big enough,” and then every year we add even more locations and I get even more excited about it. So it’s been fun so far.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. Maybe we’ll have to do a separate podcast to talk about your integrated model because it’s fascinating and there’s a lot of conversation about that model with larger organizations, yourself, and it seems to me to be the model of the future, so we’ll make sure we get you back on. Tell us a little bit about your role at ADSO, if you don’t mind.

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

I’ve been having a really great time at the ADSO. We recently joined maybe a little bit over a year ago, and we would’ve joined much sooner if I would’ve known what the ADSO has really done for the dental community and for the DSOs. They work so hard in the background that nobody really hears about. They lobby for us. They are our voices, and they’re a collaborative group that helps the growth of the dental industry across all platforms.

So my current role at the ADSO is the Chair of the Curriculum Committee. I help organize and run the March event. So this year our event is going to be at the end of March and it’s going to be in Orlando, Florida. I’m also part of the Executive Committee, and we have separate meetings for that a couple times a year.

Bill Neumann:

Thanks, Dr. Beyramian. Andrew Smith, again, been on the podcast before, great to have you back. Give the folks that may have not seen that podcast before a little bit about your background, and then talk about your role at the ADSO if you don’t mind.

Andrew Smith:

Yeah, sure. No, great to be back and great to be with you and Dr. Beyramian, and she’s a wonderful advocate for ADSO, so I’m really excited to have her take on more leadership roles within the organization. Quick background, I spent 15 plus years in and out of government and campaigns really at the nexus of where public policy and business meet. Wound up working in Washington as a multi-client lobbyist for numerous years, representing companies that are highly regulated at the state and federal level. I wound up working for a cannabis company for several years. They were a longtime client of mine, and I helped build out their government relations, regulatory, strategic communications, and corporate development arm. And a lot of our job was to go from state to state, obtaining licenses to operate, protecting the model, figuring out how to grow, helping set that up.

I can’t believe it’s almost been three years, but I was recruited three years ago to join ADSO as its Executive Director. And really over those last three years, it’s been amazingly remarkable at the strategic focuses of where the organization and the DSO industry are moving. And so my primary job as the Executive Director is really to help drive our strategic plan, strategic narrative, working with the executive committee and their CEOs like Dr. Beyramian to really think about how can we move not just oral healthcare forward, but obviously the DSO model and kind of showcase all the benefits of ADSO model and what we are doing to help become that leading advocate in oral healthcare. And happy to dive into particular focuses we have this year and beyond.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, thank you, Andrew. Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about that. I mean I think a couple things I would love for the audience to maybe understand a little bit more deeply about ADSO is what it is ADSO is doing for dentistry. You’ve got this theme, so maybe I’ll hold off on the theme for the summit, but I’ll mention it. It’s called Uniting Dentistry, so it seems to be in the past couple of years there’s been this movement for ADSO and organized dentistry to work a little bit more closely in unison. So I think we’re going to see more of that at the summit perhaps. Again, I don’t want to tip … Maryam’s going to handle what’s happen at the summit, so I don’t want to say too much about that. But is it fair to say that ADSO is working closer with organizations like the ADA and ASDA?

Andrew Smith:

Yeah Bill, great point. And I think our theme of this year, as you said, is uniting dentistry. And for such a long time, the profession and the industry were fragmented, and I think COVID really shed a light on the need for all various groups to work together to advance their collective goals. Because I think at the end of the day, working together and collaborating will help benefit the industry. So as you mentioned, some of the core issues that we are focused on dovetail and work very well with collaborating with other partners like the ADA or ASDA and a whole host of other stakeholders.

So for example, when it relates to public policy issues, ADA and ADSO are aligned virtually on every step. So I think one of the things that ADSO is committed to doing this year and beyond is how do we drive more revenue to our members’ businesses through government relations reform and regulatory reform? And what I mean by that is there are a whole host of issues around rates and reimbursements where ADA and ADSO will be working in the states to figure out how can we make smart, strategic, sensible reforms as it relates to payer issues and things like that. I think we saw in Massachusetts there was a ballot measure called Medical Loss Ratio, which means that the payers need to put a certain number of their premiums toward care, and that was passed in the ballot by the voting public. I think you’re going to see ADA and ADSO working together with our friends, the payers, in various states to figure out how do we continue to make that moving forward because again, that allows for more patient care as well as the providers to being compensated appropriately and being able to provide that care.

Same thing goes to assignment of benefits. We are really focused on driving that opportunity with ADA and other stakeholders so the providers are being able to provide greater care and be compensated accordingly. And that’s again, a major focus for us.

And another focus is, I think we’ve heard from every industry in the United States are workforce related issues. And so dentistry patient demand has never been higher, but we’ve seen there aren’t enough jobs from the dentist side to the hygiene side to the dental assistant side to meet that demand. And in fact, I just saw an article last week that said 55% of active dentists today are planning to retire in the next 10 years. So I think it’s incumbent upon ADA/ADSO to continue to work together with how do we make sure that dentists are finding the right practice home, whether it be a DSO, whether be a solo practice, whether it be in academia, whether it be in military. And Dr. [inaudible 00:10:06] and I at ADA are working together really to think through all of that.

I can tell you ADSO, I’m actually meeting with a group of students at UCLA in the next couple days to really talk about the future of the industry. What are the issues the students are thinking about and how the industry is helping support that next generation of the workforce? As it relates to hygiene and dental assistants, I think we’re really looking at how do we elevate that profession as a whole. I mean these are essential healthcare workers. We saw that with nurses during COVID really stepping into the void and providing great, tremendous care. Hygienists and dental assistants are doing that. So a primary focus of ours is to make sure that we elevate the profession of hygiene and dental assistants as well as ensuring that more and more individuals see entering into those professions as critical and a great business opportunity and profession to be in. And really working with various policymakers across the country to ensure that programs have enough funding to allow for that next generation of workforce. And then obviously on the dental assistants side, each state is very, very different on the type of licensing requirements, and we really want to work with those stakeholders to make sure that there’s more consistency.

So at the end of the day, all of our government relations opportunities are in concert with groups like ADA and other stakeholders to really help their members be successful in their businesses. And that’s what we’re really looking forward to in those kind of coordination efforts.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great information. I want to go back to Dr. Beyramian for a second because Andrew’s talking about it’s really important for the overall industry, not just for DSOs, you mentioned something earlier Dr. Beyramian though, you were like, “If I had known earlier about what the ADSO offered, I would’ve joined sooner.” A lot of our audience tends to be emerging dental groups, so maybe three locations to about 40, right? We’ll just say that’s what emerging dental group is. Who knows? But that’s all we’ll say. So I think a lot of the perception in the past for ADSO has been, “I have to be a giant DSO to be part of the ADSO.” So Dr. Beyramian, what made you decide, “Hey, this makes sense, let’s join.”?

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

That was my perception also. I felt like we were too small and we wouldn’t have a voice or we wouldn’t matter to the ADSO’s mission. But what Andrew was just saying a couple minutes ago about uniting dentistry and the collaboration, the mission of dentistry now is not siloed between the private practitioners, the small groups, and the larger groups. We have a very unified mission and vision of where we want to take the profession. And this is what I was referring to when I was saying, “If I knew what the ADSO was about, what their mission and vision was, I would’ve joined sooner,” because they’re lobbying, they’re working hard to make payers pay us, do payer reform, help us with our staffing crisis. They’re helping the profession in all fronts in a way that no individual dentist or no individual group can do within their community.

They’re collaborating within each community, each dental group, each center, on a state level to help drive these efficiencies and drive these advancements for payer reform, for HR problems, for just every front. So I guess that’s what I meant when I said if I really knew what the ADSO was doing, I would’ve joined the organization sooner. And they’re there to listen to us. I mean I’m a very small group compared to many of the groups on the ADSO level, but they listen because smaller groups are very agile, so they’re a little bit ahead of where the curve is looking. So they listen to our needs and they listen to our successes and they kind of bring that home and try to implement it within their organization.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great information. And you’re at 14 locations and you’re on the Executive Committee and you’re the Chair of the Curriculum Committee as well, so you do have a voice, several voices it seems like, so that’s great. Let’s talk a little bit about the event that’s coming up at the end of March. It’s March 28th through the 31st in Orlando. Uniting Dentistry, I love it. I mean it’s a great theme to have. So Andrew, Dr. Beyramian, who wants to start with paint the picture for what this event’s going to look like?

Andrew Smith:

Sure. I’ll kick things off. And then again, I think dovetailing with what Dr. Beyramian was saying, is we’ve been very, very focused as well on providing content to members across the full spectrum. We’ve got about 100 members now, and I think what’s really exciting is that with Dr. Beyramian heading up the Curriculum Committee for this event and she’ll be able to speak more to this, is that we’re going to have really strong, not just big picture looking at the future of the profession and the industry and how can we work together, but really what are some other best practices for all different size and scopes of DSOs? And I think that’s a really huge value add that we continue to provide to our members and really want to make sure that these emerging to mid-market DSOs join in with us.

From a very top level point of view, I am really excited to relay what I’ve just been talking about from a strategic vision. We really want to showcase that dentistry is an essential healthcare, that the profession as a whole is elevated, that it’s being collaborative. We’re promoting core issues like oral systemic health that we continue to see. We’re going to actually have a pretty exciting panel discussion about that, some details to follow, but really kind of looking at where the puck is going in the industry and how ADSO and the DSOs are helping to find and lead that.

One thing working collaboratively with ADA, Dr. [inaudible 00:16:27] and I are going to have a little bit of a fireside chat talking about these issues and how the two leading professional organizations are working together to advance all of these concepts is really, really exciting. But I want to let Maryam talk about all her hard work and what the committee’s working on specifically so people know what to expect.

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

Yeah. We’ve worked pretty hard on the Curriculum Committee to bring an event that’s relevant to everyone within the DSO level. So it’s relevant to your marketing department as well as to your operation department as well as to your finance department. So that’s been the core goal of this event is to make sure that we bring content that’s in-depth and relevant.

So within our event this year, we’re going to have very specific tracks on HR, on finance, on marketing, on operations, on IT, and these tracks are going to be continuous tracks that are going to go for two full days. And the vision for these was for the people that attend the tracks, our team members that are part of our groups, to get to know each other, to bounce ideas off of each other, and have an intimate setting where they can be free to speak about their challenges and about their successes.

And then for them to take this relationship away from the summit into their private study groups because this will continue into an ADSO study session and study group and the people will be able to develop these ideas and develop these questions throughout the year. So that was a big goal of our summit is to make sure that we have these amazing groups, we have all these really smart individuals, how do we get them together and how do we allow them to have honest conversations and really deep relationships? So that’s why this year our tracks are going to be structured very differently than before.

And then what’s exciting is that we were talking about futurists in the future, and we’re actually bringing on a futurist. He’s going to be one of our keynote speakers, and his name is Brian David Johnson, and he is actually local to me. He’s from ASU and he worked with Intel for 10 years and he’s a futurist. So he’s going to work on our vision and he’s going to talk about how we can avoid some of the pitfalls and how we can develop our path and kind of pave the new roads into what we want our profession to look like. So that’s an exciting factor of this year’s keynote.

And then I think everybody knows our main keynote is going to be Cynt Marshall. She likes to go by Scent, and she’s just a mover and shaker in the industry. She’s the first black woman to be part of the cheerleading squad. She’s done so many firsts in her life and now she’s the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks. She joined the organization to help change their culture. I think it was amazing that the leader of the organization would just hand her this blank slate and said, “Do what you need to do.” And she’s been there since 2018 working under Mark Cuban and helping shape the new version of the Dallas Mavericks. So we’re really excited to bring a lot of different facets to our meeting, a culture, personal development, emotional [inaudible 00:20:01] through Cynt Marshall, the futuristic visual-oriented lecture series through Brian, and then our track sessions that are going to dig deep into each individual group’s needs. So we’re excited about it, plus a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah. And the networking that always takes place at these events is second to none, so I mean I think we all kind of take that for granted, but a lot of people are there to connect or reconnect. Yeah, it seems like an incredible lineup. The venue is the Omni Champions Gate, which is in Orlando, which is actually a great hotel. ADSO probably four or five years ago had a Partnering for Growth event there, so a lot of people may have already been to that venue. Great place for a meeting. Andrew, any ideas on numbers of people that you expect at the event, attendees?

Andrew Smith:

Well, I don’t want to spoil things, but last year was our strongest event yet in terms of I think we had north of 1,200 people. We’re expecting that if not more. When I joined ADSO, there was a real focus of the Executive Committee to make the ADSO event in many respects the Super Bowl event of dentistry, and we really want to continue to build on that. I will say we’ve got quite a bit of also fun activities planned for each night and really allowing for those networking opportunities. We see this as the go-to event for oral healthcare and want to continue to do that.

So again, I think it’s going to be our strongest event yet. We’ve got a great team in place working on it. So it’ll be a very fun event. And I know we have our registration live online. If you go to our website, be able to see that. And I think Bill, you’re kind enough to put that into the podcast as well so people can see that. But definitely we’ve got great registration already and we’re going to have a tremendous amount of opportunities for our industry partners I’d like to say too, those that are servicing the providers. We’ve got a great exhibit hall, we’re going to have the most ever in that respect. So it’s going to be fun and be there or you’re going to miss out on phenomenal things.

Bill Neumann:

You mentioned [inaudible 00:22:27]. What was that, Dr. Beyramian?

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

Yeah, I just want to add on to the exhibit hall. We’re excited because this year we’re going to have a lot of events in the exhibit hall to make it more of an interactive experience between the attendees and exhibitors. There’s going to be lectures, there’s going to be food, there’s going to be events. So it’s going to be very dynamic.

Bill Neumann:

I’m just looking at the summit itinerary right now. So the Solution Center, is that where the exhibitors ares? I see the Solution Center on here. I see Solution Center Happy Hour, and then Andrew talked about one of the parties, which I guess I can since it’s on the website, there’s going to be a block party at Universal City Walk, so that sounds pretty cool.

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

Yeah, transportation, everybody’s going to get bused over there and they’re going to have a big party. Parties are always fun. Everybody likes a block party.

Bill Neumann:

Everybody does. Yeah, a day of education and then you need a block party after that for sure.

Andrew Smith:

Absolutely.

Bill Neumann:

Talk a little bit about the timing of everything. I guess I can go over that. I mentioned it, but it looks like there’s a pre-conference day, which is Tuesday, March 28th, which I guess for a lot of people is the arrival day. But it looks like you’ve got some things going on, like government affairs meeting, board of directors, executive committees, so a lot of ADSO meetings, and then some new member orientation meetings. So that’s something maybe we should talk a little bit about. So whether you’re 14 locations or you’re smaller or you’re a little bit bigger and you’re not an ADSO member, you could be part of this new member meeting if you sign up. So Andrew, how would somebody that is interested that’s ADSO become a member or find out more about what that all entails?

Andrew Smith:

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think it would be great for anybody who’d like to join, learn more, please email me. Asmith@theADSO.org is my email. I’ll definitely make sure to get you in touch with the membership team, we’ve got a great team that can really walk through all the membership benefits and kind of the offerings that we have. I’m always happy to talk to anybody and get their feedback and thoughts. But this would be a great opportunity to join at the event because you can see what we are about, meet tons of other members from all shapes and sizes and different scope of practices, and it really kind of helps set the tone for the year and where things are moving. So again, it’s Asmith@theADSO.org, and I would love to connect with you on it further.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. We can drop that email address in the show notes so everybody has access to it. What about industry partners because if you are a vendor, you have to be an industry partner to attend? So same thing, they can reach out to you I’m sure. We’ll link on your website too to the links there that they can go directly and fill out applications. So I think you-

Andrew Smith:

Same process.

Bill Neumann:

-Make it pretty easy, right?

Andrew Smith:

Yep, absolutely.

Bill Neumann:

Okay, that sounds good. This is going to be great. I think it’s a great venue. Orlando at the end of March, can’t beat it, so I think we’re going to have great weather. I know there’s a couple golf courses right around there, like right out the window. So after you’re done learning all about DSOs in the industry, you can go play golf or sit by the pool. I think they have a pretty nice pool if I remember correctly.

Andrew Smith:

Lots of activities to do besides the tracks and the speeches and the other organized events like you said. So bring the family down, it’s spring break time, get a little industry perspective and have some fun.

Bill Neumann:

That’s great. Well good. I mean did we miss anything? Any final thoughts before we sign off here? But this is great. All the contact information, the ways to sign up will be in the show notes, so don’t worry about that. So Dr. Beyramian?

Dr. Maryam Beyramian:

I think for the new members Bill, the new member orientation is very, very helpful because it kind of lays out the map of what the ADSO is all about. I went to it last year and I really learned a lot. So I think it’s really important if you’re a new member or you want to be a new member to arrive a little bit early and go to the orientation, it really lays down the law of the land. So it’s really important to be there.

Bill Neumann:

That’s a great point. Just so everybody’s aware, if you’re a new member, that is Tuesday, March 28th from 5:30 to 6:30 Eastern, so you could still get in there Tuesday and have plenty of time to get to that event.

Andrew Smith:

Yep.

Bill Neumann:

Andrew, final thoughts?

Andrew Smith:

Well, final thoughts. Bill, thanks for having us on. It’s always great to be with you and to your audience. I’m really bullish about where oral healthcare is going and what ADSO and our executive team and all our members are doing to really enhance the profession and the industry. So we would love to have you be part of our event, be part of the ADSO, and just looking forward to seeing everybody in March.

Bill Neumann:

Yeah, it’s going to be a great event. This is probably my sixth or seventh, I kind of lost track. But I’m excited about it and I’d love to see everybody there. Again, all the information, you can go to our events tab on GroupDentistryNow.com. You can sign up for the ADSO Summit again March 28 through 31st, Uniting Dentistry in Orlando.

Dr. Beyramian, Andrew Smith, thank you both for being on the Group Dentistry Now Show. And until next time, I’m Bill Neumann.