Good morning. Forget text messages. This toothbrush had receipts.

In the UK, a smart toothbrush busted a cheating husband after it logged him brushing at home every Friday morning during work hours. His wife checked the app, connected the dots, and the affair came out, bristle by bristle. Turns out the real cavity was in his alibi.

Inside this issue:
- Hygienists bite back
- Your website just got an AI middleman

⏰ Your reading time today: 5 mins 10 seconds

👑  Enjoy your coffee break with Word of Mouth, a dental-themed word game inspired by Wordle … guaranteed to leave you grinning, not grinding! Congrats to Opal Anderson, chief operating officer of the Dental Associates Group, for joining this week’s leaderboard.

MARKETS

📈 3D Systems Corp ($DDD) – 1.94 | +0.045 (2.37%)
📈 Align Technology ($ALGN) – 182.52 | +0.060 (0.033%)
📉 Colgate-Palmolive ($CL) – 90.11 | -0.95 (1.05%)
📉 Dentsply Sirona ($XRAY) – 15.93 | -0.44 (2.69%)
📉 Envista Holdings ($NVST) – 18.98 | -0.020 (0.11%)
📉 Henry Schein ($HSIC) – 70.76 | -0.015 (0.021%)
📉 Straumann Holding AG (STMN.SW) – CHF 105.60 | -2.65 (2.45%)
📉 Weave Communications ($WEAV) – 8.65 | -1.26 (12.71%)

Data is provided by Google Finance. Stock data reflects market close at 5:00 p.m. ET, showing changes over the past five days.

THE DRILL DOWN

🏛️ Montana passes dental loss-ratio legislation, requiring insurers to report what percent of premiums actually fund patient care. 

🇺🇸 California DSO warns Prop 56 cuts will force it to close up to fifty offices, citing risks to the Medi-Cal Dental program, which is funded by the state’s $1.1B tobacco tax and supports care for low-income patients. 

📊 New report says 72M U.S. adults lack dental insurance, nearly triple the number who lack medical coverage, highlighting systemic barriers. 

🔐 Major U.S. dental marketing firm may have leaked 8M+ user files, after an unsecured database exposed patient leads, appointments, and contact info with no encryption. Not the type of buzz we wanted.

🔍 Gen Z and millennials are most likely to fall for online dental misinformation, with surveys finding younger adults twice as likely to skip dentist visits due to viral hoaxes. One-star review for Dr. TikTok.

⚖️  Modeling shows fluoride bans could cost $9.8B and create 25M new cavities, projecting a 7.5% jump in tooth decay over five years if fluoridation ceases nationwide.

🧃 Utah considers gum-based prevention after ending water fluoridation, with fears of hikes in decay prompting proposals to distribute xylitol gum.

WORKFORCE

Revenge of the hygienists

The dental workforce crisis has reached a boiling point, with 90% of dentists reporting extreme difficulty recruiting hygienists. But a fierce battle in Nevada has crystallized the growing tension between “innovative” workforce solutions and “protecting” professional standards.

After defeating a controversial bill that would have allowed dentist-trained hygienists, the American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA) isn't just pushing back: They're declaring war on what they call attempts to prioritize "private practice profits over patient safety."

The Nevada blowup reflects a national feud on the topic and should be read as a warning for DSOs watching from the sidelines. We’re diving into what happened, what it signals, and why it could hit your ops next.

What happened: Nevada Senate Bill 495 just got defeated after a tense fight by the nation’s hygienists. The legislation would have allowed individuals to become licensed hygienists without graduating from a program accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA). Instead, candidates could complete training under a dentist’s supervision through a board-approved program.

The bill followed an earlier proposal, Assembly Bill 334, which attempted to expand dental assistant functions. After AB 334 drew criticism and was scaled back, SB 495 emerged as a more direct challenge to traditional hygiene licensure. It gave dentists broad authority to train and delegate hygiene procedures.

The ADA supported the Senate bill, calling it a creative response to workforce gaps. The ADHA saw it as a threat to patient safety and launched a national mobilization effort that was ultimately successful.

Not just Nevada: Across the country, similar policies are emerging. California reduced training requirements for dental assistants from fifteen months to 800 hours. Massachusetts now allows foreign-trained dentists to qualify as hygienists by passing board exams. Missouri is piloting programs that authorize specially trained assistants to perform scaling.

The ADA’s strategy is found within the Dental Access Model Act. It proposes a new role: the Oral Preventive Assistant (OPA). Think partial hygiene training, lower credentialing, and scaled-down preventive scope.

Hygienists say nope: The ADHA is not sitting still. The organization points out that dental hygiene programs include significant clinical education, alongside training in pathology, infection control, and cancer screening. Licensure requires passing national, state, and clinical board exams.

Allowing assistants to perform hygiene duties without that same rigor, they argue, puts patients at risk and devalues the profession.

Why DSOs should care: This is not just a professional turf war. For DSOs, it is an operational crossroads. Expanded-function assistants offer speed, flexibility, and lower costs. Research from Colorado shows delegation to trained auxiliaries can drive 12% to 27% productivity gains. For multisite organizations, those numbers matter.

But the risks are real. Regulatory uncertainty, workforce opposition, and media scrutiny are growing. In Nevada, ADHA-led campaigns triggered national coverage, lawmaker pullback, and reputational fallout for those seen as pushing too hard, too fast.

DSOs need to consider how to balance workforce flexibility with keeping the peace. Knowing the risk, some DSOs may opt to develop in-house training for assistants, explore partnerships with dental therapy programs and design workflows that can flex if licensure rules change. More cautious organizations may choose to stay close to hygienist teams, avoiding a potential hygienist backlash.

Bottom line: Nevada’s fight may have ended, but the policy push has not. States are still under pressure to fix dental workforce shortages. The ADA is writing letters, models, and bills. And the ADHA is projecting force to protect its lane.

For DSOs, the advantage will go to those who prepare for multiple futures. That means knowing the politics, watching the bills, and designing systems that can scale … without setting off alarms.

BUSINESS BITES

🧑‍⚖️ Corus Orthodontists adds two new board members as it prepares for future growth, appointing investor Tim Patterson and Doctor-Partner Dr. Nicole Nalchajian to strengthen alignment between strategy and clinical. New oversight, same treatment plan.

💸 Sonendo raises $5M in private funding, supporting commercial growth and continued business restructuring. Still flushing, still funding.

🧑‍💼 Positive Impact Dental expands leadership team to drive growth, appointing healthcare veterans Christopher Blann and Ed Dallwein as COO and CFO, respectively, to support its expansion strategy.

🎤 ADA to sunset SmileCon after 2025, citing post-pandemic attendance declines and escalating event costs. The last round of tote bags drops in New Orleans.

👔 Sun Life appoints Dr. Todd Gray as chief dental officer, putting the former DentaQuest leader in charge of clinical strategy. 

💰 Delta Dental invests $119M to improve community oral health, funding programs for children, seniors, veterans, and rural populations. Philanthropy with bite.

🫶 Aspen Group launches free dental care program for patients with ectodermal dysplasia, partnering with NFED to provide implants and other services through Smile Bridge for patients under the age of twenty-two. Bridgework with actual impact.

🏆 Delta Dental exec Daniel Croley to be honored for integrating oral and cardiac care, receiving an AHA award for leading a “Healthy Smiles, Healthy Hearts” initiative. Hearts and mouths together at last.

📍 SALT Dental Partners expands into New York with Sitwell Dental affiliation, adding four Upstate locations as part of its Northeast entry. Empire State, meet footprint expansion.

MARKETING

Your website just got an AI middleman

When a patient in Phoenix searches "best dentist near me," the answer might not come from Google Maps or your website. It might come from ChatGPT. Or Google's AI Overviews. Or a chatbot pulling data from a directory you forgot you were listed on.

To understand what is changing and how DSOs should prepare, The Morning Grind spoke with Andrew Shotland, CEO of Local SEO Guide, and Darren Shaw, founder of Whitespark, two of the sharpest voices in local search engine optimization (SEO). Their message: This shift is real but gradual. And the organizations that adapt early will shape the new rules of visibility. Search is not dead. It just has a narrator now.

What's happening: When it comes to search, the robots are coming. "ChatGPT is picking up some steam," Shaw told us. "You will hear from businesses that when they ask their clients, 'How did you hear about us?' the response is often, 'I ran a search on ChatGPT.'” But the numbers tell a different story. "If you look at the actual data, it will show you that it's still 90% Google," Shaw explained. "The remaining 10% is everything else ... and a small part of that is through technology like ChatGPT." 

And the rollout has been uneven. Google's own AI systems aren't fully leveraging their local data that many dental operators are familiar with. "Google appears to have not connected their AI mode chat or their AI overviews to their insanely information rich database of local businesses called Google Business Profiles," Shaw explained. "It's almost exclusively based off of the website."

But both experts agree, AI search is growing and something to prepare for.

What does this mean? The rules are changing, but not how you'd expect. Shotland noted that for standard local queries like "dentists near me," AI hasn't radically changed results yet. "The list of dentists within ten miles of my location is the same, no matter whether AI or Google search looks for it," he said.

But informational queries are getting "eaten up by AI results," Shotland explained, with AI summaries displacing eyeballs and clicks. Shaw confirmed: "The AI overviews are triggered much more by informational type queries. So if you type in something like, 'How much does a crown cost?' that's going to trigger the AI."

Traffic patterns are already shifting. "Since March, we're seeing, especially on bigger sites that we work on ... you can see two things diverging, the impressions are either growing or staying the same but clicks are going down," Shotland said, denoting the impact of AI.

Why it matters: Search fundamentals still work, but you need to expand your toolset and prepare for tomorrow. Shaw emphasized two key shifts: "Do all the same stuff you're already doing, but you need to start thinking a little bit broader in two key areas. One is your review strategy. If your entire strategy was just getting reviews on Google, that's not going to cut it."

The second area? Digital PR. "What seems to have an impact, is, let's call it brand visibility, or PR,” Shotland tells us. “If your brand is cited across the web, mentioned across various websites or web pages in different ways, that’s what the AIs are using."

Even "best of" lists suddenly matter. "In the past, people used to roll their eyes about them. These days, we know the chats are pulling them in," Shaw explained.

What DSOs can do now:

• Diversify review platforms: Stop focusing only on Google. Get reviews on Facebook, Yelp, and dental-specific sites.

• Invest in digital PR: Sponsor events, get media mentions, and appear in local blogs. Community partnerships matter.

• Focus on specific content: Answer the exact questions patients ask. "You want to make it really clear to this machine ... that this is the question about teeth whitening, and this is the answer about teeth whitening," Shotland said.

• Monitor traffic patterns: Watch for impressions staying steady while clicks drop. That's AI eating your informational traffic, warranting a response. 

Bottom line: This is not an SEO fire drill. But it is a potential sign for a course correction. The way patients search is shifting. AI is compressing options, rewriting content, and choosing who appears first. For DSOs, the fundamentals still apply. But now, visibility lives across a wider web.

Optimize your presence. Control your footprint. And remember: If the AI cannot find you everywhere, the patient will not either. The new front page is a narrative. Better make sure you're the star character.

CLINICAL NOTES

🧠 Gun violence linked to increased tooth loss, with higher shooting rates correlating to reduced dental care in underserved communities. When public safety erodes, so does enamel.

⚽ Study finds high prevalence of dental issues among teenage footballers in England, with 77% showing signs of gum inflammation and 31% needing fillings, highlighting the impact of poor oral hygiene and diet on young athletes. Red card!

🤖 Global survey reveals dental educators see promise in VR-haptic training but face challenges in integrating the technology into curricula, citing costs, and technical limitations. 

🦷 Vitamin D supplementation improves periodontal health, with researchers reporting reductions in key inflammatory enzymes tied to gum disease. Sunlight with side effects.

📘 Penn Dental helps develop AI-powered living guidelines for oral health, using machine learning to update care recommendations in real time. Faster than your CE refresh.

BEYOND THE CUSP

• Artist unleashes psychedelic mouths at high art gallery, turning oral anatomy into abstract symbolism. 

• Dentist Matt Vogt makes US Open debut, returning to the course where he once caddied while honoring his late father. 

• There’s a “top down” reason ice cubes are better at a restaurant than at home.

• No more free whitening? Giving things away for free can erode long-term strategy.

• Nutella announces first new flavor in sixty years.