100: Developing and Scaling Your DSO's Clinical Leaders with Host Emmet Scott

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott. And before I get started, I just want to take a minute to shout out to one of our new DSO secret sponsors, the Dentist Entrepreneur Organization, or deo. I know we talk a lot on this show about things that will help you grow your dental group, your dso. And in the end, we all know what it is. It's about getting the proper training and resource. It's really about mindset and tools that you need to scale, which starts with connecting with the right colleagues and mentors. The folks over at do have a passion, a mission really, to helping dentist entrepreneurs grow their dental groups and fulfill their vision. If you're someone who has a vision bigger than your current resources and team, then you should reach out. They've already helped thousands of dentist entrepreneurs, so these guys know what they're doing. I hang out with them a lot. I think they're pretty amazing. Whatever your biggest challenge is, whether it's recruiting, retaining compensating associates, building systems, hiring too much chair time, developing leaders in your organization, or any of these other challenges that come with business. If you're trying to grow to 5 million, 10 million, or 50 million and beyond, these guys have dialed it in. They have the tools and resources to help you overcome these issues. So highly recommend it. Reach out to them, become part of this successful dentist entrepreneur group. It's@deodentalgroup.com that's deodental group.com now, this topic that I'm taking on today, I'll be honest, I've been waiting for this topic for years. And when I say waiting for this topic, you know how there's just things as an entrepreneur you know need to happen, but it's just not time for right. It's just like you're waiting on an industry or sometimes you're waiting on your team to get to a certain place so that you can have the really exciting conversation you want to have. That's how I feel about this topic. Like, in the beginning, any entrepreneur could see that this was the topic that really needed to be taken on, but it was like too sensitive and no one knew how to really take it on. Well, guess what? Now the conversation's happening. I see it happening in lots of different circles. I'm seeing it happen at the DEO summits coming up. So I'm really excited to start the conversation here on DSO Secrets. And what is this? What is it that Emmett, you've been waiting for? It really comes down to clinical scaling leadership. Clinical scaling leadership. Now, when I put those words together, it sounds like putting a bunch of clinicians together and scaling more leaders. That doesn't sound so bad. The problem with leadership is that it requires that you're clear about your vision and where you want to go. Well, that doesn't sound so bad except when you start getting into things like, well, where does clarity of leadership begin and end? And where does autonomy and clinical begin and end? And I think this has been the part that's been kind of the untouchable. And it's really held groups back, I think, from bringing their full potential because you've had and from dentists to be able to get the real support that they want from joining a group, from having DSO support. And I think one of the things that makes it really difficult is you've got this term of scaling and vision and leadership that oftentimes go with business. But when you combine it over on this clinical side, there can be a concern of is it going to impact and create some level of control. So let me open up the conversation here and I want to get your all's feedback. So come join us over on DSO Secrets Facebook page. I'd love to hear from you on like, how are you solving for this? Because clearly the associates, all dentists, are looking for mentorship. But if I let someone just do whatever they want, how do you mentor them? Right now let's kind of bring this down into maybe some analogies of other industries. And listen, my analogies are going to break down because clinical does have some specialty components to it. But this reminds me a lot when software started to come out on Microsoft and Microsoft said, listen, use whatever hardware you want, right? Within means, but use whatever hardware you want will provide the OS system. Now, for those of us who are old, we remember Windows 95 and we remember this thing called the dreaded blue screen. It was when, like, what the OS was trying to do didn't really match up with the hardware and the drivers that were necessary. And so you've got this blue screen, called it the blue screen of death. What I see happening and has happened for a long time is you've had clinicians who've wanted to support other associates, but they kind of ended up in this blue screen of death because they

couldn't mentor them if they couldn't be specific.

They ended up in this blue screen of death because they couldn't bring to the patient care a specific vision, because they were using terms like, well, let's just do bread and butter dentistry, which I've absolutely hated, because if I'm going to bring something special to the marketplace, if I'm going to really support a patient, then I got to know what I'm working with here and what I'm focused on.

Listen, if I take dental, which I've

had my team do, and I said, I don't want to talk about it

as dental, I want to know what

are the different patient types that are out there. And it's interesting. If you start from, let's say, the beginning and you say pediatric Medicaid, and then you kind of move up across all the way to geriatric, cosmetic.

None of us looking at these extremes would say a dentist needs to know the exact same things to do both. There's absolutely some basic things that are the same.

There's also some very specific things that are different. So how do you provide the right support as a clinical leader if you're not being specific around, are we doing this? Are we doing this? Are we doing this? Now, I use two big extremes that everyone can get their arms around, but as you start moving towards the middle, it's still really important that you're very clear. So what happened in the operating system world? Well, there was this company that struggled, and people kind of hated them because they didn't let you take their software and put it on any hardware. They said, listen, we're going to develop software, we're going to listen to what the customer wants, but at the end of the day, it's going to work better if we're specific about what we're trying to do in the marketplace. We're going to combine the hardware and the software, and they are going to work together to support a better customer experience. And as the market moved, people said, man, I'd really love to have better performance and I'd love for things to integrate better and work better. I want my phone and my computer and all of these things, and so you had this little company, Apple, that started to gain traction on the other mindset, which was, we'll just put a software on anything. So I see this happening now in a lot of circles that clinical leaders are starting to say, who are we and who do we want to become? The example I've often given, it's not perfect, but is Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and some of the best say, here's how we're going to operate here. And what's great for clinicians is they know what they're getting when they sign up. They know what kind of support, what kind of mentorship, what kind of patient types they're going to be focused on as they go to each of these groups because they've been specific about the value they want to bring in the marketplace. So I'm curious what you're doing to drive to this next level. Or are you someone who's maybe frustrated because you can't figure out how to do that?

Maybe you're one of the associates who's

frustrated because you feel like you're not getting the mentoring and support that you want? You know, I've looked at some of

the largest dental groups, and I've tried to break down what is it that they're really doing different. And there's honestly incredible leadership that's happening at multiple levels. But I did find something tactical that I think is interesting, is that their clinical team is specific about the procedure types.

Let's say that they want to bring

to the marketplace, not all the procedures. They're not saying how much of everything has to be done. Don't take it to the extremes. But they are saying, hey, if we're in the geriatric dentures market, do we want to set a target to be

able to provide a certain amount of

dentures to the marketplace? Because here's what happens.

If you do well, then we can

drop a lab right there in the practice and create a better experience for the patient. See, if you say to me, emmett, I might do dentures, I might do implants, I might do this, I might do that, what kind of resources can the clinical leader bring to that practice? Well, none, because they can't afford to chase that many rabbits of potential patient care. So oftentimes things just get watered down to bread and butter.

Dentistry.

Now, what you're seeing is, no, there's a specific patient group that we want to serve, and we want to bring something special. We've all seen amazing groups who say, we want every one of our practices to have cerec Machines in them or whatever printing machine that you want to use. It's out there. But you said, this is what I'm going to do to make a difference. And, man, do the patients love watching their crown get created? Absolutely.

Do.

Do they love not having to leave and then come back for another appointment? Absolutely. Do you, as clinical leaders, need to know how many crowns you're going to do on some kind of average to make those investments? Absolutely. So you can't do all of these things, right? You can't be great at pediatric Medicaid, but you'd say, well, what do you have to be good at on the pediatric side of pediatric? Guys are like, yes, I know a million things you have to be good at. But, but behavioral management, what kind of investment are you doing there to be able to work with kids and have them have a proper experience? Are you doing things like general anesthesia? Are you doing oral conscious sedation? What kind of experience are you providing for the mom, the dad, the children in that? Well, you can get really specific if you say, that's who we are. What kind of. If you're taking Medicaid, what kind of investment are you making on compliance and billing procedures? See, if you just do this one off, wow, that's dangerous, first of all. But you're not going to put the right amount of investment into it to meet what you really have to do to take that insurance appropriately. So each of these things, you can't do the pediatric Medicaid and the geriatric cosmetic in the same office with the same degree of patient experience as someone who says, this is who we are and this is what we're going to do, what kind of support do doctors get from the moment they're onboarded? Heck, before they're onboarded, when they're being recruited, when they're getting told the story of what value, how much clearer are they of like, yes, that's who I want to be, or no, I'm out, I'm more interested in this part of the market, et cetera.

Right.

But then once they come on, what kind of support can you provide them when you're that clear on, here's who we are, here's the CES we want you to take on. I mean, that first 90 days, six months, one year. Think about an associate that's in a practice or group of practices that's super focused on who they want to be in the marketplace and the clinical leadership and support that comes with that versus someone who says, you know, we just want to give you Your autonomy, like, whatever you want to do.

That sounds great.

Nothing wrong with that model. Fine. But you're not going to be able to provide the same level of resources to support that associate. So I'm curious if there's a third option. Am I bifurcating this out wrong or do I have it right that the industry is clearly moving as it wants to provide more value to patients? It's clearly moving in a direction where

it says, well, if we're going to do that, we've got to get clearer on our clinical model and how we're going to lead this. Now, for those who want to throw stones at this and say, emmett, this is going to lead to DSOs controlling clinicians, I have no interest in that. You all know my stance. If you've listened to any of my other podcasts, I. I love the name DSO because it's dental support organization. It's always plain second fiddle. It's always second tier. It's support. What that's talking about is a dental control organization. I always want dental support organizations to stay second. But the clinical team, the leadership, the mentorship, and I will say that a DSO can support better a clear vision from a clinical team than they can of whatever they want to do we're doing. Anyway, I'm really excited about opening up this topic. I'm curious how you all are thinking about this. Are you at a stage where this is important to you? Do you see this as the next step? Are you someone who feels a lot of frustration? Maybe you're a CEO that's trying to support a clinician that's really said no. I just don't want to have any of that kind of vision stuff. Let's just let everybody do whatever. Are you in an organization where they're just buying a lot of different practices and there's just no real clear vision? Are you someone who said no? We've actually created like a clinical vision statement. We've started to get clear on what patient avatars we're focused on. We're really getting clear on how are we going to measure success clinically. Listen, the marketplace, if they were going to throw any stones at dentists, I just got a call from a reporter from New York Times saying, hey, we're going to. It's the same article we've heard about, hey, can you explain to me why when we go to a dentist, this one says I have. This is what they said. This one says I have three cavities, this one says I don't have any. The marketplace is interested in us. Starting to define how we're going to take care of them from an experience perspective. They're not interested in us just like eh, just general whatever. Anyway, really excited to hear how you guys are solving this. Excited to see DEO and other clinical groups starting to take this on. Please give us your feedback. Come over to our Facebook site at DSO Secrets and until next time, keep smiling.

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