Tempe, AZ, Feb. 15, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gen4 Dental Partners, a Thurston Group portfolio company, has had explosive growth in 2022, welcoming over 150 doctors and over 300 hygienists into the 22-month-old Dental Service Organization (DSO). The innovative, dynamic DSO based in Tempe, AZ, has entered into partnerships with 73 partner doctors, such as nationally recognized cosmetic doctors like Dr. Bill Dorfman, Dr. Joseph Field, and Dr. Dennis Wells, Periodontic & Implant Specialist such as Dr. Jason Stoner, and Pediatric Dentists such as Dr. Jennifer Keen.

“Gen4 Dental Partners continues to impress and outperform high growth targets. In such a short period of time, the team has been able to put in place the building blocks of a world-class organization. The value proposition and differentiation of the platform has attracted the highest quality of partners across multiple dental specialties which has positioned Gen4 as a market leader.” Said Patrick J. Haynes III, Chairman and CEO of Thurston Group.

New partnerships throughout the country

In 2022, Gen4 completed 16 partnerships comprising 72 dentists across 40 new offices. These new partnerships included continued expansion in Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and Utah. In addition to expanding into California, Texas, Ohio, and Minnesota.

Notable acquisitions in 2022 included: 

• Bay Area Dental, a four-location practice with 16 clinicians in the San Francisco Bay area. “Gen4 seemed a natural fit for us,” said Dr. Joseph Field, founder. “Their vision of all-star doctors collaborating to elevate patient-centric dentistry resonates with us, and their top-tier back-office support will free us to expand our premier-quality dental care to even more patients. We’re looking forward to growing together.”
• Stoner Periodontic & Implant Specialists, a five-location practice with five clinicians in Ohio. The partnership brought world-class periodontal expertise, including gum grafting, TMJ therapy, frenectomy, and gum disease treatment, as well as dental implant surgery, allografts and 3D Cone Beam technology into the Gen4 Dental Partners family.
• New Horizons Dental Practice Management, a DSO serving eight locations in Kansas. Drs. Guy and Kate Gross, co-founders, said their DSO emphasizes a positive, caring, patient-centric corporate culture – much as does Gen4 Dental Partners. “Lamonte (Jensen, CEO), Mitch (Ellingson, CCO) and their team are terrific people who are building a terrific culture,” Guy Gross said. “We are excited for the opportunity to grow with them.”
• And to cap off the year, in December Gen4 Dental Partners proudly announced a new doctor-partner: Bill Dorfman, DDS, a top Hollywood cosmetic and general dentist, world-renowned lecturer, and author of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Smile. Founder of Century City Aesthetic Dentistry in Los Angeles, CA, Dr. Dorfman has earned 21 Lifetime Achievement Awards, Order of Constantine Knighthood and is a two-time Guinness Book of World Records holder. Dr. Dorfman has appeared on numerous television shows, including a recurring role on ABC’s Extreme Makeover and CBS’s The Doctors, as well as appearances on Oprah, Larry King Live, The View, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Tonight Show, Dr. Phil Show and many others. “He is a superstar addition to our all-star team.” Jensen said.

Looking at 2023, Dr. Ellingson said Gen4 expects its unique doctor-centric, patient-obsessed model to continue to attract more premier dental practices across the country.  “We want it to be more about the doctors and the patients, and less about the organization,” Dr. Ellingson said. Traditional DSOs focus on business efficiencies, but “we know that it really comes down to the hands of the dentist.”

Executive Team

In 2022, Gen4 completed its executive team buildout to include the following:

• Braden Anderson, COO
• Scott Dever, CIO
• Bryce Block, VP of Mergers & Acquisitions
• Danielle Cuthbertson, VP of Revenue Cycle Management
• Julia Devine, VP of Finance
• Susan Hall, Director of Partner Alignment
• Richard Sisk, Director of Procurement

The Standard of Excellence

Gen4 is growing so rapidly due to its distinctively collaborative business model that combines the best ideas of all its dentist partners to form a dentist-centric, patient-obsessed organization. The best traits of individual practices are preserved – each practice keeps its own way of caring for patients. And the best traits of large businesses are added –robust IT platform, HR, accounting, marketing support, and – most of all – a cadre of highly skilled, motivated, and collaborative dentists.

“We believe in partners. We believe in a doctor-centric model. We believe in collaboration,” Lamonte Jensen, CEO declared.

Lamonte Jensen, proposed a framework to judge each clinician’s excellence, using a set of metrics to drive actionable feedback.

• Clinical competency – How much rework do you have to do? How does your staff rate your competency? What’s your breadth of skills (ortho, endo, implants, etc.)
• Patient satisfaction – How many patients come back? What reviews do they give? Do they refer friends to you?
• Team engagement – What’s your staff turnover rate? What’s the trend in your employee satisfaction survey?
• Personal development – How well developed are your leadership skills? Communication? Collaboration?
• Community involvement – How do you give back to your community?

He proposed this framework as a starting point for Gen4’s partner dentists to collaborate on strategies to “embed excellence into its DNA.”

Individual Growth and Collaborative Growth

In an address titled “Individual Growth Engine,” Dr. Mitch Ellingson, Gen4 Chief Clinical Officer, dove into the vision of empowering the creation of custom career paths for 300-plus (and growing) dentists and dental professionals.

“The key to making this whole thing work is you, the dental professional. So how do you, as an individual, contribute to what we’re pursuing in a uniquely authentic individual way”, he asked. 

The model has 5 parts: 

• Clinical Excellence Partners. Each doctor is paired with a mentor to chart a professional growth plan.
• Hygiene Excellence Partners. In a typical office, dental hygienists provide 70% of interactions with patients, so enlisting them in the plan is critical.
• Operations. Corporate helps the doctor structure their plan.
• Office managers. The local team is aligned to support the execution of the doctor’s plan.
• Patient experience. Measuring patient satisfaction to measure the success of the plan quantitatively.

The result: clinicians who are 25% more productive and yet see 20% fewer patients. Sounds counterintuitive, but that’s Gen4. “We know we must change it all in order to keep things the same,” he said. “We must change the way we think, the way we collaborate, and the way we do dentistry, if we want to keep dentistry the way it is today” – with dentists, not administrators, in control. Gen4 calls it “The Collaborative Doctor Model,” elaborating on Gen4’s mission to be a doctor-led, patient-obsessed DSO.

4Front Symposium: ‘It’s limitless what we can accomplish’

The highlight of the year was 4Front, the 2022 Gen4 Symposium held by Gen4 Dental Partners for its dentist partners and team members Oct. 6-9 in Phoenix, AZ.  Collaboration, innovation, and disruption of the status quo in dentistry were dominant themes.

“With the collaboration that we have here, the amount of expertise that’s in this room, it’s limitless what we can accomplish,” said Dr. Trish Takacs of Beaumont Family Dentistry in Lexington, KY, reflecting on the transformative event.

More than 200 dentists and dental professionals attended the symposium, the first of its kind to be held by the now 22-month-old DSO at the Arizona Biltmore resort. It featured 16 main sessions, two panel discussions, and 32 breakout sessions. It was co-hosted by 15 sponsors, including Envista, the title sponsor, and Nobel and Straumann, who provided hands-on training.

Highlights of the symposium included: 

• “Making It Easy for Patients to Say ‘YES!’ “ by Dr. Paul Homoly, who coaches dental professionals on how to walk patients into understanding the value of “Total Patient Care.”
• “Social Media Marketing,” by Dr. Bill Dorfman, who gave specific practical tips on raising a practice’s brand identity on the web, mobile, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Google Reviews.
• “Women at the 4Front of the Dental Industry,” a panel discussion led by Spencer Pierce, Gen4 VP of People & Culture, and Dr. Patricia Takacs, Dr. Jennifer Keen, Dr. Carrie Petersen, Dr. Emily-Ann Cowlin, Dr. Hannah Naeger, and Danielle Cuthbertson.
• “Nuts and Bolts of Pediatric Dentistry,” by Dr. Jennifer Keen, who shared her experience treating children – what works and what doesn’t work.
• “Our Business, Our Responsibility,” by Dr. Joseph Field, drilling into Gen4’s Big 3 Goals: Top-tier infrastructure, top-tier practices, and top-tier doctors.

The symposium also included introductory and advanced classes in implants and hybrid dentures, orthodontics and clear aligners, digital dentistry, pediatric dentistry, and esthetic dentistry, as well as business practice classes in patient case acceptance and scheduling, mentoring young dentists, and building a positive office culture.

Final Thoughts

2022 has been a year of rapid growth and success. With an industry-leading executive team buildout complete and some of the country's best doctors leading the way, nothing is stopping Gen4 from becoming a world-class DSO. 

About Gen4 Dental Partners

Gen4 Dental Partners, led by CEO Lamonte Jensen and CCO Dr. Mitch Ellingson, is one of the fastest-growing and highly innovative Dental Service Organizations, providing world-class support to leading providers of dental services.

Gen4 was created to challenge the status quo in the consolidation space. The Gen4 Platform is designed to allow dentists and their teams the ability to practice dentistry their way while experiencing the benefits of financial and operational support. https://gen4dental.com/

About Thurston Group

Thurston Group is a Chicago-based private equity firm that focuses on building industry-leading companies in the healthcare and related business service sectors. Thurston has an extensive track record of partnering with physicians and building fast-growing healthcare businesses, including SGA Dental Partners, Gen4 Dental Partners, Smiles Dental, ARC Health, Options Medical Weight Loss, and U.S. Orthopedic Partners. Over its 37-year history, Thurston Group has returned over $4B of invested capital. For additional information about Thurston Group, please visit Thurston Group's website at www.thurstongroup.com.

Contact:

Amy McNeill
+1-801-913-7493 

SOURCE Gen4 Dental Partners

https://gen4dental.com/
https://www.thurstongroup.com/