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MailMay 2022
Bringing the Dental Corp DPO model to the United States
At the March 2022, inaugural Women in DSO Conference in Las Vegas, Patient Prism’s CEO Amol Nirgudkar interviewed Dr. Ray Khouri, Executive Chairman and Founder of United Dental Corporation USA. Dr. Khouri has helped dentists accelerate the growth of their practice with complete autonomy in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. In the last twelve months, he has focused on replicating his DPO model in the United States.
Dr. Khouri launched and sold Dental Corp. of Australia and New Zealand to Bupa Dental Corp. – now the largest dental network in both countries – for $600 million 2013. He replicated the model in Canada, where Dental Corp. was launched and sold for $400 million to Canada’s pension fund. The company was subsequently sold to the private equity firm L Catterton for $1.6 billion in 2019, and today it is listed on Canada’s stock exchange.
As a dental partnership organization, newly founded United Dental Corporation USA (UDC) will focus on partnering with the top 10% to 20% of best-performing doctors in their fields to generate $2 million to $50 million or more in annual revenue. To do this, UDC will provide capital, technology, marketing, procurement, human resources, legal, and accounting services.
“The reality is that not all Dental Service Organizations (DSOs) are the same,” says Nirgudkar.
UDC is differentiated as a dental partnership organization because they partner with dentists to help them accelerate growth and maximize compensation, including an equity stake in UDC, if they so choose.
Awareness of P&L profits and losses benefits partners
Khouri’s partnership model recognizes partners’ innovative skills and the autonomy that drove best-performing doctors in the first place. “It’s all about validation, reward, and enabling,” says Khouri. “Each of these doctors are differentiated by their personality, skillset, and aptitude but the common denominator is that they are all successful. What we provide is a sophisticated finance team. The KPIs we share with them include what other top end clinicians are doing without identifying who they are. This creates competitive tension. Being A-type personalities, they want to know why they are not the best in the group. This curiosity and our support help them optimize their own practice and drive higher profits.”
Khouri explains that doctors are top line driven and focus on what they’ve collected rather than what it has cost them. We demonstrate their own gaps and then how their gaps compare to the gaps of other top performers.
In prior DPOs Khouri founded, in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, partnering dentists grew their profits at 5% to 10% year after year. After five years, their partner retention rate was 98%.
“That retention is what drove the platform value, and private equity groups bought into the platform or the listing that occurred in Canada,” says Khouri.
“We're bringing all those learnings to the biggest market in the world which is the United States,” says Khouri. “I've been in the U.S. now for six months, and the reception I've received from doctors has been nothing short of extraordinary. They keep affirming what I experienced in three other countries. Doctors are the same everywhere, whether they're in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, or Toronto. They're driven by the same fears, and they want to be successful. It's not unique to any one particular country.”
Nirgudkar applauds this, saying, “I'm really delighted to be in an industry, which has so many innovators that are coming in from all parts of the world and trying to create and add the value that our industry needs to reach its fullest potential and serve more people. The industry could be ten times where it is today.”
Khouri agrees, “The opportunities are vast here in the U.S., and I have to say how humbling it's been for me to be here.”
About United Dental Corporation USA (UDC)
United Dental Corporation (UDC) is a Dental Partnership Organization (DPO) that partners with high-performing dentists seeking to maximize the value of their practice. Founded by Dr. Ray Khouri, UDC provides doctors with full autonomy to run their business with support from a nationwide professional services organization that delivers
complete support for non-clinical functions. UDC is based on the same business model that has resulted in a 98% doctor retention rate in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. For more information about UDC, visit www.udc.dental.
Patient Prism Delivers Actionable Intelligence
Patient Prism’s artificial intelligence (A.I.) incorporates machine learning to provide deep insights into dental patient phone calls and conversion analytics.
Managers can easily see how many people asked about implants, the percentage booked, and the revenue opportunity won or lost.
- They can see how many people said they had Delta Dental PPO or spoke Spanish.
- They can see how many called in pain with emergency needs.
- They can see how many prospective patients did not book due to the unavailability of near appointments.
- They can determine if team members are uninformed about advertised promotions, don’t know how to respond well to financial questions, or are so pressed for time they fail to demonstrate empathy for callers’ concerns.
It's really quite simple. Patient Prism's dashboards provide unique insight as to what exactly is happening on the phones in any dental practice, including DSO or enterprise dashboards that include all practices' strengths and opportunities in one view.
These insights help managers identify where to expand services, better coach team members, increase staffing during peak hours, consider participation with an insurance provider, and adjust marketing.
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