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    What is Gen4?

    Gen4 Dental Partners is a Dental Services Organization (DSO) built atop a new model: clinician-focused and patient-obsessed. What does that mean, exactly? Lamonte Jensen, Gen4 Dental Partners CEO, dives into the details.

    What makes Gen4 different?

    “One of the main problems with typical DSOs today,” Lamonte said, “is that most DSOs are built around the synergies of the business, such as standardized accounting, automated payroll and bulk purchasing. What we wanted to do was to make an organization that was clinician-focused and patient-obsessed.”

    A dental business focused on dentists and their team is going to get the best outcomes. “What we're really trying to do is grow dentists into what they want to be. Grow their skillset -- and thereby grow their production as well -- so that we get superior patient outcomes.”

    Lamonte brings a unique perspective to Gen4: Marine Corps officer, bachelor’s in psychology and MBA in Strategic Planning and Entrepreneurial Finance, strategic consultant with McKinsey & Co., and leader in multiple tech startups. And most recently, VP of Customer Success at Spear Education’s consulting branch, where he built an integrated service model of practice consultants.

    At McKinsey, Lamonte said, he learned the value of collaboration “because it's a highly collaborative consulting model. And that's what we want to do at Gen4 as well: We want to fill the room with some of the best and brightest, and we want to let these guys collaborate and teach each other what they have done to be successful. So you continue to get these little kernels of wisdom from all kinds of different sources.”

    Gen4 Vs Traditional DSO

    • Selective Partner Process – We partner with the only best and brightest.
    • New Technology Acquisitions – We bring in enabling technologies to enhance your patient care.
    • Practice Freedom – Your brand identity remains the same.
    • Patient Satisfaction Index – More time to devote to patients plus a more efficient office equals happier patients.
    • Modern Offices – Fresh ideas from your peers can help you enhance the total patient experience.
    • Autonomy Retention – Practice the way you want to. This is a partnership, not a takeover.
    • Freedom to take care of your patients and staff the way you need to.

    Collaborate with the Best Minds in Dentistry

    So how does the Gen4 model work, in practice? We regularly conduct collaboration sessions in which a clinician who is highly skilled in a particular branch of dentistry shares their expertise with others who want to learn it.

    “We have a dentist who is very interested in orthodontics -- highly skilled, does a lot of cases -- and he has taught other doctors how to do that as well. We have another doctor who is highly talented at comprehensive dentistry and does a lot of very large complex cases. And he has been teaching courses to other doctors and mentoring other doctors and helping them to see dentistry in a different way.”

    Dentists rarely get opportunities to collaborate, Lamonte noted.

    “If you think about what dentists typically do, they're alone. You know, it's one dentist and six employees at an office every day, and they don't have an opportunity to collaborate and think about things in a different way. So the greatest extent to which we can provide them collaboration tools and opportunities to talk to their peers, they're going to continue to upskill each other and get better and better.”

    “Patient-Obsessed” Isn’t Just a Saying

    The second leg of Gen4’s mission is what Lamonte calls “patient-obsessed.”

    That means “being really clear about patient outcomes. Practicing comprehensive dentistry as much as possible. And then making sure that we are really supporting our clinicians with capital expenditure investments, growth plans, education, and the right staff around them so that they can do a really high level of dentistry.”

    Dr. Mitch Ellingson, Chief Clinical Officer, echoes his passion.

    "I love being a dentist, and I want to try to protect my profession from becoming like medicine. In medicine, as it consolidated it became less about the doctors and patients, and more about the organization. We want it to be more about the doctors and the patients, and less about the organization.“

    Traditional DSOs focus on the business, but “we know that it really comes down to the hands of the dentist. I actually believe that if they are a brilliant dentist, they could practice in a parking lot and be great,” Mitch said.

    Does this model actually work?

    “Yeah! We're a young company still, but our early results are very promising,“ Lamonte said. “Three of our practices have had their best months in their history. We have doctors who have already gone up 30 to 40% in hourly production because they're seeing dentistry in a different way and their staff are interacting with them in a different way. So it's been very encouraging early results.”

    What does the Gen4 Dental Partners name mean?

    Gen4 is more than a brand name. It’s a whole new generation of dental practice – in particular, the 4th generation.

    There have been 3 generations of DSOs so far:

    • Generation 1 was the business automation model. Driven by accountants, it achieved some success in back-office efficiencies like HR, marketing, and purchasing. But it wasn’t clinician focused. You could end up having MBAs telling you how to practice dentistry. And that didn’t lead to good patient outcomes. You are the expert in your field, and this generation of DSO’s did not honor that.
    • Generation 2 was the standardization model. If you are at an office in Phoenix vs. Atlanta, Denver or wherever, you’re going to have the same customer experience, the supplies are in the same place, the operation runs exactly the same. While this is a very cookie cutter approach, some of the companies that adhere to this model are the biggest in the industry. “But I also don't think they're necessarily, uh, people's favorite places to work,” commented Lamonte.
    • Generation 3 is a mishmash of models. Dental practices are organizing into strategic buying groups, consortiums, direct-to-consumer groups, and specialties, trying to apply some automation and standardization but maintaining clinical autonomy. This model is still evolving, but has yet to find a strong place in the industry.

    Generation 4 is ... well, Gen4 Dental Partners. It’s the collaborative model. Each clinician has final say within their practice, and they collaborate with each other for better patient care, supported by centralized staff, systems and processes. As Gen4 rapidly grows across the nation, we believe we have found the superior model.

    So what's the future for Gen4?

    “What I would like to do is live up to our name. I would like to be on the cutting edge of DSOs—of dentistry, really. I would like to gather a group of very smart, very successful dentists together who like to collaborate so we can change the game a little bit. I think having the right corporate staff interact with the right clinical folks is going to provide superior patient outcomes. It's going to provide superior margins. And it's going to be a more exciting place to work -- a place where employees of all levels can come in and really spend their careers with us,” Lamonte concluded.

    Gen4 isn’t looking to select doctors to join a group for financial gain. We’re looking to the future. We want doctors we can really partner with and support. Your success is our success, and that can look different for everyone. Whether you’re a current partner of Gen4 or looking to join, let’s talk about what being a part of Gen4 can do for you.