Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Guest: Dr. Rick A. Mars, DDS, Dental Care Group President and Align Global Faculty Member
Host: Ariana Portolatten
Date: September 14, 2025
Episode Theme: Navigating Challenges and Innovations in Dentistry

Episode Overview

In this engaging episode of the Becker’s Dental and DSO Review podcast, host Ariana Portolatten interviews Dr. Rick Mars, a seasoned dentist with nearly four decades of experience, president of Florida’s Dental Care Group, and global faculty member for Align Technology. The conversation focuses on current challenges and trends in dentistry, from external pressures on the industry to emerging technologies, patient misconceptions, and principles for effective leadership in a rapidly evolving dental landscape.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Rick Mars’ Background and the Dental Care Group (00:18–01:12)

• Professional Experience: Dr. Mars shares his academic journey (Emory University & Georgetown University School of Dentistry) and his career spanning 37 years.
• Practice Overview: Operates four offices in Florida with a combined staff of 80, including 14 dentists, covering both adult and pediatric care.
• Personal Note: “Been doing it a long time, doing the right thing and happily married for 35 years with three awesome sons and a beautiful wife.” (00:55)

2. Biggest Issues Affecting Dentistry in 2025 (01:22–03:19)

• External Interference & Non-Expert Decision-Makers:

  • Cites the recent fluoride debate in Florida as an example—decisions affecting dental health increasingly made by those “who aren’t the experts, the non-scientific community.” (01:34)
  • Expresses concern about political involvement and policies not grounded in dental science.

• Economic Pressures:

  • Insurance reimbursements lag behind rising costs of equipment, supplies, labs, and especially employee salaries.
  • Notes competition for staff and higher payroll obligations.

• Quality Compromises & Inferior Products:

  • Alarms over trends like outsourcing lab work internationally that led to subpar or dangerous results, e.g., crowns containing lead.
  • Criticizes the use of inferior or cheap products, particularly in clear aligners:

    “If it's clear aligners, they'll go for the cheapest company, not the best company. And these are things that, you know, I'm always trying to preach to younger dentists: do the right thing and give your patients the best.” (02:34)

3. Excitement and Concern for the Dental Industry (03:31–08:50)

• What’s Exciting:

  • Changing Lives: Dentistry’s power to unlock well-being and confidence through oral health.
  • Patient Awareness: Appreciation for patients recognizing the “mouth-body connection”:

    "You're my most important doctor...it all starts in the mouth." (03:56)

  • Advancing Practice: Pride in the results achieved by his team and commitment to staying current with technology and innovation.
  • AI and Innovation: Welcomes technological advancements, especially AI, while still grounding care in quality and principle.
  • Quote:

    “The most important thing that we’re doing right now is just giving our patients the best we can and staying current with everything that we do… It’s a great time to be practicing dentistry at the end of the day.” (04:53)

• What’s Concerning:

  • DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Dentistry: Popularity of at-home solutions, often spurred by influencer marketing or social media, can lead to poor results and even harm.
  • Patient Misconceptions: Warns of dangers when patients substitute online information or social trends for professional guidance:

    “When people make healthcare decisions based on money alone, they're generally making bad decisions.” (05:54) “She got sucked in on social media…people know the influencers are getting paid to do this, and they'll just get sucked in and they'll make bad healthcare decisions…” (06:30)

  • Misinformation Online: Rising tendency for patients to rely on “Dr. Google,” leading to unnecessary health anxieties or misguided self-diagnosis:

    “He went through all these symptoms and told me everything that he had. And WebMD said it could be related to periodontal disease. I agree with you 100%. Only one problem...you don't have periodontal disease, 2 plus 2 does not equal 7.” (07:10–07:30)

  • Fleeting Trends: From charcoal toothpaste to other “virtually every dumb trend,” stresses that dental science often disproves these but not before widespread adoption.

4. Advice for Healthcare Leaders: Keys to Success (09:05–11:13)

• “Doing the right thing” as Core Principle:
  Repeatedly emphasizes integrity as the central tenet of personal and organizational success:

  “It always starts with doing the right thing. And when you do that, if you're not doing the right thing, you won't be successful, period.” (09:10)

  • Warns against sacrificing long-term trust for short-term gain.

• Prudent Adoption of Technology:

  • Encourages leaders to avoid knee-jerk reactions to every new tech development (like AI), suggesting a measured approach: “We generally wait and see when two or three products tend to come out there and we see who's the best one and why is it the best one.” (10:00)

• Navigating Practice Consolidation:

  • Highlights industry trend toward consolidation of dental practices and the critical need to ensure patient care remains central even during business expansion:

    “There’s a lot of good organizations out there…patients come first. And if you do the right thing by the patient, all the rest follows.” (10:30)

  • Urges assessment of business partners and continuity of care values.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Value of Dentistry:

  "We do an amazing thing for patients...We're making them happy, giving them beautiful smiles, taking patients out of pain, keeping their mouths healthy." (03:37)

• On Influencer-driven DIY Trends:

  “She got sucked in on social media...people know the influencers are getting paid…and they'll just get sucked in and...make bad healthcare decisions based on something they pick up online.” (06:26-06:40)

• On Leadership:

  “If you're not making good decisions doing the right thing, you're off to a bad start...do the right thing, stay involved with good technology, solid things…to make good decisions with good organizations that really do care about the patient.” (09:10, 10:52)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:18–01:12 Dr. Mars’ Background
• 01:22–03:19 Major Industry Issues—External Interference, Costs, Product Quality
• 03:31–05:27 What Excites Dr. Mars About Dentistry
• 05:40–08:50 Concerns: DIY Dentistry, Online Misinformation, Trends
• 09:05–11:13 Leadership & Success Factors for the Next 2–3 Years

Conclusion

Dr. Rick Mars delivers a candid, insightful look at the current state and future direction of dentistry. He underscores the necessity of clinical integrity, cautious adoption of innovation, and sound leadership—both for individual practitioners and group practices—while warning of the pitfalls of misinformation and misguided trends. His advice is clear and consistent: Prioritize doing the right thing for patients, adapt thoughtfully to innovation, and keep patient care at the heart of every decision.