← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:01]
A
Hello, this is Ariana Portolatten with the Beckers Dental and DSO Review podcast. I'm thrilled to be joined today by John Kaufman, the Chief Marketing Officer at Smile Doctors. John, thank you so much for being here today. It's great to have you.
- [00:12]
B
Yeah, likewise, fun to be here. Thanks.
- [00:15]
A
Thanks. To start us off, can you introduce yourself for our listeners and tell us a little bit about your background?
- [00:20]
B
Yeah. So my name is John Kaufman. I'm the chief marketing and strategy officer for Smile Doctors. I have been in the dental DSO space with multi specialty practices for about 10 little over 10 years now, since 2014 with three different, two multi specialty and then this is my first ortho specialty practice. Was kind of a tech nerd growing up. Grew into some marketing stuff and the rest is history. Just really enjoy the opportunity that dental gives and there's a ton of opportunity there.
- [00:57]
A
Great, thank you so much for that intro. A few more questions that we'll get through here. Next question, what are you most excited about when it comes to dentist and is there anything that makes you nervous about the industry?
- [01:08]
B
It's probably the most often reused response that anybody could possibly give right now. So forgive me in advance, but AI and automation, there's just so much there and there's so much more to go. I think that whether you're looking at the macro environment, right? Things that you can do as an organization to optimize strategy, drive it forward faster, whether it's kind of a micro environment, right? Like giving tools to individuals in your support center, in your practices to, to just do things better and more efficiently, whether it's in patient experience, right? Everything from the videos or the pearls to the world to you know, other types of, you know, augmentation specifically for ortho, like a dental monitoring, there's, there's just so much there, there's so much unknown. I've had the, the ability to have some really interesting calls with, you know, legal counsel and others and I really do kind of go away from those calls thinking wow, we really just don't know what is good, what is bad, what's going to be used, what is not going to be used, what's going to be get us in trouble, what's not going to get us in trouble. And so it's a little scary out there, right? Case law isn't developed yet. You want to be real sensitive obviously in healthcare to privacy and HIPAA related matters, but you also want to create the best patient experience and that comes with now utilizing AI and automation in a lot of different ways. So it both me very, very excited and also slightly terrified.
- [03:07]
A
Yeah, that's something that I hear a lot from DSO leaders and other dental practice owners. Just the excitement but also the kind of wariness about AI. So definitely feel you there. Just a quick follow up question to one of the things you mentioned about everything that AI is capable of. Is there anything that AI currently cannot do that you would like to see happen in the dental field?
- [03:28]
B
Yeah, I mean, not just the dental field. I'd like to wake up in the morning and tell it what I want it to do and replicate me and sit on all my calls for me so that I can hang on the beach. I mean, in all seriousness, I think what it can't do is it can't devise strategy, it can't devise the optimum way to treat a patient. It can be supportive in that mechanism, but it just, it can't be that mechanism. It can't physically touch, talk, walk in to our practices. It can't touch talk to our patients in a way that really gives you the insight and the knowledge you need to better serve them or better treat them. It certainly can't do the clinical work that our providers engage in every day. And so I think there's far more that it cannot do than what it can do. And I think the things that it can do are pretty limited at the moment. I think there's a lot of talk about it, there's a lot of talk of, of what people think it can do. There's a lot of advice out there. But if you, you know, I probably have 45 different tools that I use on any given day, just testing and trying. And the reality is that if you're really trying to get to an outcome and have it do it soup to nuts, it's just not there yet.
- [04:54]
A
Okay, and are there any other trends or issues that you're following in the dental industry this year?
- [05:02]
B
I think issue is probably one of them. I, I have been paying attention to some of the negativity around, you know, the private equity involvement in DSO or in healthcare. And I mean, sure, I've been in, you know, all my entire dental career has been backed private equity. But you know, before that when I wasn't in dental, you know, I was, I was a small business leader or you know, part of another company. I just think that that negativity around private equity is, is largely unfounded. I, I can tell you that some of the tools, some of the support, some of the flexibility that, and some of the compliance, some of the oversight and a lot of the things that you really don't have oversight to or checks and balances for when you're independent or you're an individual, you have in the private equity universe. And I don't think there's anything different between a private equity group who's looking to profit or make money than the individual running their own practice. I think they're there to make money as well. And so I'm not loving the negative trends on that. I have had nothing but kind of incredible relationships with our sponsorship teams in the private equity world. I think they bring incredible insights, allow us to partner with sister organizations that kind of teach us things that we didn't necessarily know or are in a vertical that we could apply something that they're using to ours. So I don't love that trend. I think it's being misused and that's something I'm keeping my ear on.
- [06:55]
A
Okay. Yeah. What do you think started that? Is it just the few bad apples in the industry or is it just a lot of misinformation?
- [07:01]
B
Yeah, I think it's just like anything, right? There are bad apples everywhere, right? In every industry, in every organization. There certainly are both operators, actors and, you know, sponsors that, you know, don't do the right things for the right reasons. And yeah, I think that, you know, like many things, a few bad actors can color, color the whole paper red. And I think we have to be really, really careful about that because I think the heading in the opposite direction not only provides less opportunities for patient care simply just due to the fact that whether it's dental school or, or residency or opening your own practice has just become so financially expensive and prohibitive for many people that I think it can be a negative towards patients, providers and all around care. So yeah, few bad apples, you know, not good.
- [08:03]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Well, nice to hear your thoughts on private equity. They're super interesting. Last question here. What will the most effective health care leaders need to be successful in the next two to three years?
- [08:15]
B
So hopefully my father in law isn't listening to this. He was a pretty senior executive in a large corporation in marketing actually, similar to me. And we've had conversations around, you know, what it was 10 years ago even and what these roles are today are just completely different. You need, in my opinion, a just a different level of talent in certain key areas and a certain level of experience. I don't think that's age defining. I think it's kind of age agnostic. But I do think it's, it's making sure that whatever the, the talent or the specialty of the individual, that they're, you know, top in their field. And I think that's hard in dental. Right. When you look at technologists that are being hired for 50, $100 million to go to these organizations, how do you keep up with that in the, frankly, not the sexiest industry in the world. Right. Dental is not what you grow up as an 8 year old. You don't say equally. I want to be an astronaut and a dental, you know, marketer. I'm sure there are some that say I want to be a dentist. And that's great. But you know, a lot of us do fall into this, this field and, and love it, but I think we've got to, got to pay attention to getting the top talent we possibly can. I think that is going to drive the industry forward more than almost, almost anything.
- [10:01]
A
Great. Well, that is all I have for you today. John, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast. Been a great pleasure speaking with you and looking forward to connecting with you again.
- [10:10]
B
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.
- [10:12]
A
Thanks. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye. Bye.
- [10:14]
B
Thank you. Bye.