🦷 When change is a challenge

December 02, 2025

Good morning. Our top story covers how to get your staff to use new digital systems, but you can file this bizarre story under how not to use new tech: A Melbourne periodontist allegedly called police on a patient who refused to let him use AI for clinical notes. 

According to the patient, the dentist became agitated when the patient said she didn’t want AI being used during the session, chasing her into the waiting room and demanding his receptionist call law enforcement to make an arrest. You won’t be shocked to learn the police declined.

Inside this issue:

- Getting your team comfortable with new tech
- Retention strategies that work

⏰ Your reading time today: 5 minutes 54 seconds

🏆 Enjoy your coffee break with Word of Mouth, a dental-themed word game inspired by Wordle.

MARKETS

📈 3D Systems Corp ($DDD) – 2.00 | +0.025 (1.27%)
📈 Align Technology ($ALGN) – 146.72 | +4.81 (3.39%)
📉 Colgate-Palmolive ($CL) – 79.94 | -0.87 (1.08%)
📈 Dentsply Sirona ($XRAY) – 11.18 | +0.48 (4.49%)
📈 Envista Holdings ($NVST) – 20.77 | +0.64 (3.18%)
📉 Henry Schein ($HSIC) – 73.11 | -0.20 (0.28%)
📉 Straumann Holding AG (STMN.SW) – CHF 93.00 | -5.60 (5.68%)
📈 Weave Communications ($WEAV) – 6.31 | +0.35 (5.87%)

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

📉 General practitioner dentists' net income fell in 2024 to an average of $207,980, a drop of over $17,000 from the previous year, according to new data released by the ADA—the pay cut came despite GP dentists working slightly more hours each week. More hours for less pay—not a great bargain.

💰 ADHA opposes the Education Department’s proposed loan caps for dental hygiene students, arguing the policy will create financial barriers for dental students amid ongoing workforce shortages.

🎓 The number of graduates from dental assisting programs declines by nearly 5% in 2024 from the previous year, according to new ADA data, but the enrollment of students ticked up slightly, reversing years of decline. A ray of hope that the staffing shortage might be improving.

⭐ Align Technology and Dentsply Sirona are named in Forbes list of “America’s Dream Employers,” ranking 188th and 373rd, respectively. Dreams do come true.

🔒 Delta Dental of Virginia faces scrutiny as a class-action law firm investigates a recent data breach, potentially exposing sensitive information of patients, though the company claims no misuse has occurred.

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TECH

How to get your team to trust new tech

You are wowed by the demo, sign the contract, and flip on the new digital tool that promises serious ROI for your practices. Three months later, half your locations are still doing things the old way and your staff swears the tool “slows them down.” 

It’s a common story when it comes to introducing new tech, but the stakes have been raised as AI rapidly improves, and being able to successfully implement a digital transformation strategy is quickly becoming a major competitive advantage for DSOs.

What’s happening: Around 20% of dental owners have installed new software or digital systems this year, but research by the Boston Consulting Group found that about 70% of digital transformations fail.

  • In healthcare specifically, introducing new tech can often be an even trickier undertaking and requires buy-in from clinicians who may see it as interfering with their care.

  • Patients themselves can also be wary of new technology, particularly when it comes to the use of AI in healthcare settings. 

Why it matters: DSOs are being pulled in two directions: pressure to modernize and the real risk of alienating both clinicians and patients if they botch the rollout. So, how do you get it right?

  1. Start with an outcome, not a feature list. Pick a single success metric per deployment that ties the tool directly to revenue, cost, or clinical quality. For example: Increasing accepted treatment for periodontitis by 5% in 12 months or reducing average new‑patient charting time by 3 minutes.

  2. Co-design with clinicians instead of pushing from corporate. McKinsey’s work on transformations shows success rates jump when frontline staff drive change rather than simply receiving it. Build a pilot group that includes at least a lead dentist and hygienist from different cohorts, an office manager, and someone from your IT team. Give them real authority to shape and adjust the rollout before you scale to the rest of the network.

  3. Treat training as a clinical skill, not a one-time webinar. A recent survey by the American Medical Association shows that trust in AI among healthcare providers grows with experience and with strong feedback loops, not with generic “AI is the future” messaging. Create an ongoing training program that includes follow-up coaching sessions with your team, not just at launch.

  4. Build ethical guardrails into policy. Communicate clearly that clinicians retain final say and can override tech systems without penalty, spell out clear boundaries for how data can be used, and be explicit that new tech systems don’t come with hidden surveillance tools that undermine trust.

  5. Design workflows to make your team’s jobs easier. It should go without saying, but new tech shouldn’t add to your staff’s workload. Often, however, it does. This is a recipe for dissatisfaction and burnout. A simple standard to stick to: Every new digital deployment must remove one meaningful task for every new click added.

Bottom line: As sophisticated tech and AI moves from “nice to have” to basic infrastructure, DSOs that can reliably deploy new systems without losing clinicians (and alienating patients) will have a durable advantage.

BUSINESS BITES

💰 Dental staffing platform GoTu raised $45M in a fundraising round led by Long Ridge Equity Partners, saying it will use the capital to expand nationwide and accelerate development of its marketplace platform. 

🤖 Former Chief Dental Officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Dr. Natalie Chalmers joins Overjet as the Head of Clinical Innovation for the AI dental platform.

💵 Dentsply Sirona named Michael Pomeroy as interim Chief Financial Officer while the search for a permanent CFO continues—whoever gets the job will have their hands full, as the company’s shares are down around 41% so far this year.

LAST ISSUE’S POLL RESULTS

TALENT

It now takes more than a paycheck to keep good staff

Staffing has gone from headache to chronic condition. We don’t need to tell you that hiring hygienists, assistants, and other clinical staff is challenging—the proof is in the data.

What’s happening: New research from the ADA shows the pipeline for clinical staff may be improving slightly, but we’re still in a sellers market for talent, and good people aren’t afraid to walk. Roughly 20% of hygienists changed jobs in the last year and almost 30% of front office staff did the same, with 35% actively eyeing new roles.

  • Associate dentists are the most likely to churn, with 29% job-switching last year and almost 50% searching for new work. 

What it means for you: Hiring is one way to fill staffing gaps, but keeping your people is a lot easier (and cheaper) than finding new ones. So, how can you build a retention strategy that actually works in a market where clinicians and staff know they have options? Start by looking at what they want out of their job.

  • Among hygienists considering a job change, 73% want higher income, 40% want better benefits, 30% want more flexibility, and 29% cite office dynamics, according to a GoTu survey.

  • The Dental Assisting National Board finds similar patterns in their research: low pay (the vast majority of hygienists and assistants say they’ve never received a raise), shoddy benefits, and workload are all cited as top factors for leaving a job.

  • But don’t count out the importance of culture: ADA research found that while DSOs are more likely to offer robust benefits, DSO staff were more likely to feel dissatisfied than their counterparts at independent practices.

What you can do: None of this is rocket science: People want to be paid fairly, supported as humans, and treated as professionals with a future, but making it a reality isn’t always straightforward. Here are four ideas you can use to start building retention into your day-to-day ops: 

  1. Make benefits non‑negotiable and visible. Set a clear benefits floor by role, then publish it everywhere. Consider making health insurance standard once a team member hits a defined hours threshold. Use your scale to extend at least partial benefits to part-timers and highlight the total package, not just hourly rates, in every offer and review.

  2. Build flexibility into the schedule. Define a small menu of approved schedule models instead of ad hoc exceptions. Think four-day weeks in key roles, staggered start times for parents, and internal float pools that cover vacations and peaks.

  3. Show a real career path. Publish visible ladders for each role, with skills and pay bands attached. Fund continuing education and cross training that point directly at those next steps.

  4. Manage culture like a clinical risk. Train practice leaders in basic people management and hold them accountable. Standardize huddles, one‑on‑ones, and simple recognition rituals so appreciation is baked into the week, not left to chance.

Bottom line: The labor market for DSOs is likely going to be tight for years to come. Sign-on bonuses and temp platforms might fill a slot in your org chart for a quarter, but a smart retention strategy that matches what your team is asking for will keep it filled for years.

🗳️ The Check-up:

⬆ VOTE: Has staff turnover been a problem for your business recently?

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CLINICAL NOTES

🏫 Childhood exposure to fluoride is associated with improved cognitive performance in secondary school, according to a new study that looked at the mathematics, reading, and vocabulary achievement of 26,820 students from more than 1,000 U.S. high schools. 

🩸 Root canals may be associated with lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels, with researchers at King's College London finding that patients who received successful root canals for a common dental infection had significantly lower blood sugar levels 2 years after the procedure, along with improvements in cholesterol and fatty acid levels. Now patients will be totally cool with root canals, right?

🧠 People with periodontal disease are more likely to show higher levels of white-matter damage on brain MRIs, a change linked to stroke risk and cognitive decline, with severe periodontitis linked to more serious damage. Flossing: good for your oral health, good for your brain health.

🤰 Babies whose mothers had higher stress-related hormone levels during pregnancy tend to get their teeth earlier, a new study showed, suggesting that the prenatal hormonal environment may meaningfully influence when primary teeth erupt.

FUN AND GAMES

BEYOND THE CUSP