The Dental Truth Project

Matthew McGaw, founder of DSO Compass, drops a controversial truth bomb: The dental conference circuit that once drove industry innovation has become a pay-to-play scheme where vendors buy stage time, authentic value has been replaced by Instagram theater, and attendees are walking into rooms with 6 people seated in spaces built for 1,000. Post-pandemic, connection now matters more than content -...

Gabe Hoffman, operational efficiency coach and former DSO director, drops a truth bomb the dental industry desperately needs to hear: Your culture isn't failing because of team lunches or pizza parties—it's dying from gossip, indirect communication, and the cancer of unresolved conflict. With 50% of every dollar going to people costs, most groups are hemorrhaging profits through toxic communicatio...

David Harris, CEO of World's Largest Dental Forensic Accounting Firm, Drops a Bombshell: 70% of Dental Practice Owners Will Be Embezzled—And the Bigger You Grow, the Worse It Gets.   David Harris reveals the shocking truth dentistry doesn't want to admit: If you own 20 practices, there's an 80% chance someone is stealing from you RIGHT NOW. The digitization of payments didn't make dental practices...

Louis Chan (Kaylie.ai CEO) and Jonas Sison (Kaylie.ai CFO) shut down the industry's biggest AI fear: At a DEO conference, someone asked if AI could "fire their RCM team" - the answer reveals why that DSO is already failing. The real threat isn't automation replacing humans; it's leaders who don't understand that AI exists to eliminate "unsuitable for human use" tasks (like calling insurance compan...

Francesca Pregano's 30% Growth Formula: Remove Insurance Drama From Your Front Desk + AI-Powered "Wheel of Retention"   Francesca Pregano, COO with 19 years in dental, discovered the real reason multi-location practices bleed patients: It's not bad dentistry - it's front desk staff drowning in insurance conversations they can't win. Her radical solution? Strip all financial chaos out of the office...

Ken Kaufman & Nathan Chitty dive deep into the first 4 episodes of Dental Truth Project - uncovering the game-changing insights from industry legends Brian Calao, AJ Peek, Eric Roman, and Gareth that every DSO leader needs to understand. The brutal truth about advisors flooding into dental for easy money, why the "highest bidder" might bankrupt your equity rollover, and the associate dentist m...

Nathaniel Baker, Overjet Key Account Executive, drops truth bombs about why DSOs and dental tech companies keep missing the mark: Most DSOs are "organized chaos" that don't have their act together (even the biggest ones), industry partners are pitching products without understanding what success actually means to each stakeholder, and the #1 reason pilots fail isn't the technology - it's that nobo...

Alex Sharp, CEO of Shared Practices Group, exposes the hidden cause of dental burnout: You're stressed because you're trying to be everything to everyone. The dentists thriving right now? They've niched down, gone deep on one thing, and escaped the hamster wheel. The Amazon model of dentistry (crowns, fillings, root canals, sleep apnea, ortho aligners, implants - all in one day) is literally desig...

Maria Melone, former KPMG auditor turned M&A advisor with 100+ dental transactions under her belt, exposes the valuation myths costing dentists millions: "Percentage of collections" isn't a valuation method - it's just a reference point.   Unqualified brokers are flooding the market with misleading valuations. And here's the kicker: the exact same practice sale can legitimately be framed as 28...

Howard Polansky, former practicing dentist turned financial strategist, exposes a controversial debt elimination system that has CPAs arguing and dentists gasping: One client freed up $190,000 in annual cash flow in a single hour without changing a thing about their practice. The secret? "Velocity banking" - strategically using lines of credit to reverse-engineer the tools banks use against you.  ...

Josey Sewell, Former DSO COO and Clinical Leadership Expert, Reveals Dentistry's Uncomfortable Truth: Nobody Wants to Manage the Doctors.   Josey Sewell pulls back the curtain on the industry's most avoided conversation: Despite building org charts for hundreds of dental groups, she's never seen a hand immediately raise when it's time to fill the clinical director seat. The excuse? "Dentists don't...

Austin Hair, real estate strategist and former professional wakeboarder turned DSO site selection expert, destroys the biggest wealth myth in dentistry: "Renting is throwing money away." The reality? Premature real estate ownership is killing DSO growth, trapping practices in the "dark tunnel" of 3-8 locations, and costing operators millions in missed opportunities - all while DSOs sit in receiver...

Steve Craig, VP at Solmetex and former Johnson & Johnson Senior Leader, exposes uncomfortable truths about dentistry's people problem: Post-COVID, 60% of insured Americans don't even use their dental benefits, practice owners are hemorrhaging patients out the back door while obsessing over new patient numbers, and the industry's dirty secret about dental unit water lines is making teams &...

Accelerate Dental CEO, Mike Baird, drops a devastating warning: This generation of dentists is actively selling out their entire industry - and the private equity deals that seemed attractive just years ago are now trapping doctors in receivership nightmares while permanently stripping dentistry of professional ownership.⁣ ⁣ Key Revelations:⁣ The Great Dental Industry Sellout⁣ Medical precedent is...

DSO founder AJ Peak, who built a $100M dental empire, delivers a brutal reality check: Chasing the highest multiple on your practice sale might be the worst financial decision of your life. In this explosive episode, Peak exposes how private equity deals are creating "zombie DSOs" trapped in debt - and reveals the billion-dollar real estate secret that 95% of dental sellers are missing.⁣ Key Revel...

Dr. Eric Roman reveals that associate dentist underperformance could be costing dental groups millions of dollars per year - even for smaller DSOs with just 5-10 locations.⁣ Key Revelations⁣: The Associate Crisis No One Talks About⁣ 50% of dentists are now associate employees (up from 10-15% previously)⁣ Patient trust in dentists has plummeted - they're no longer in the top 3 most trusted professi...

Brandi Marzolino reveals the hidden crisis destroying women leaders in dentistry: despite women making up over 50% of dental school graduates, they represent a drastically smaller percentage in ownership and full-time practice - and the cost is millions in lost potential across the industry.⁣ ⁣ Key Revelations:⁣ The Numbers Don't Lie - The Great Dental Dropout⁣ Despite 50%+ graduation rates, women...

Investment banker Gareth Petsch exposes the brutal reality crushing DSO owners: despite years of promises about dental being a "safe investment," the M&A market has completely collapsed - and the deals that worked in 2021 are now failing spectacularly in 2024, leaving owners trapped with businesses they can't exit.⁣ ⁣ Key Revelations:⁣ The Great DSO Valuation Crash⁣ Investors have abandoned de...

DSO Titan, Brian Colao, who's guided over 750 dental organizations through 30 years of industry chaos, delivers a scathing reality check: "Folks that didn't fundamentally understand the business of dentistry really got involved in dentistry, whether it was an advisory capacity, an investing capacity or an operational capacity, and we're still working right now to clean it all up."⁣ In this explosi...