Corporatisation (in Dentistry) — Good or Bad?

Australian Central Association of Dentists Inc & Centre of Implant Dentistry Conference 2009, Niseko, Japan, January 26 - 30, 2009

An address to the conference by Dr. Daryl Holmes

The organisers of this conference suggested that I speak on the topic “Corporatisation—Good or Bad?"

With all due respect, that would be a little like arguing about whether women should have the vote.

You can have the argument, if you want, but universal adult suffrage is the rule in all civilised countries and
it’s not going away. Neither is the corporate dental sector.

Instead of talking about whether corporatisation is good or bad, I propose to speak instead about which corporate operators will do a good job of it. By a good job, I mean providing a sound permanent infrastructure from which you can operate your practice on your own terms. I mean a setting in which you have truly collegial relations with other dentists, one in which you can learn from the more senior dentists and pass your knowledge and experience to younger dentists. I mean a setting which enables each dentist to give top quality service to every patient.

But first let me say that I recognise that not every dentist will end up in a corporate setting. Some dentists will always prefer to operate solo or in small partnerships. Nothing will stop them from doing so.

Over the next few years, however, we will see a sudden shift in the industry. The trend toward corporatisation is accelerating rapidly, and the equilibrium between solo practices and professionally managed practices will be entirely transformed over the next five years.

Corporatised dentistry is here to stay. Over the next few years every one of you will have to face this fact. Some of you will choose to shift your practices to a corporate setting. Others of you may find that you have to change your practices somewhat to meet the competition from colleagues working in larger, professionally-managed practices. It doesn’t matter whether you love the fact of gathering corporatisation or you hate it; all of you will have to deal with it.

I’ll organise today’s talk around three topics:

First, I’ll tell you a bit about 1300 SMILES Ltd and our approach to managing dentistry on a large scale.

Second, I’ll tell you a bit about why dentists have chosen to base their practices within facilities operated by 1300SMILES.

Third and last, I’ll talk a bit about some of the different corporatisation models and tell you which ones I think will survive. This last bit is important to you because you don’t want to waste your time and risk your practice with a company which isn’t going to last.

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