Pacific Dental Services Celebrates 2022 Milestones and Achievements

Pacific Dental Services (PDS) announced that the company achieved yet another outstanding year in 2022.

In addition to expanding market share in several states, implementing clinical innovations that enhance patient care, and increasing efforts to advance medical-dental integration through multiple strategic partnerships and technologies, other notable achievements in the past year served as the foundation to poise the organization for continued growth in 2023.

“As we reflect on the past 12 months and celebrate our achievements, I want to take a moment to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the oral health providers and team members who make Pacific Dental Services the world-class organization that it is,” said PDS founder and CEO Stephen E. Thorne IV. “Despite the economic turbulence that companies such as ours have faced over the past few years, our innovative and comprehensive efforts in 2022 resulted in a year of extraordinary progress and helped position us incredibly well for continued growth in the years ahead.”

Pacific Dental Services currently supports over 2,600 dentists who provide oral healthcare services at more than 915 practices nationwide. Through the company’s unique Private Practice +® business model, dentists can own their dental practice and focus on clinical excellence while PDS provides world-class business support and operational efficiencies. In addition to gaining access to PDS’ economies of scale and industry-leading technologies, practice owners and their clinical teams can thrive in an environment that helps them elevate their role as a healthcare professional – not only in assisting patients with their dental needs but also improving their overall health.

Highlights from Pacific Dental Services’ substantial list of achievements in 2022 include:

Dental-Medical Integration and Partnerships

• Launched a unique joint venture with MemorialCare, a regional healthcare system based in Southern California, to open at least 25 co-located practices over the next five years, with PDS-supported dental offices located inside select MemorialCare Medical Group health centers across California’s Orange and Los Angeles counties. Patients’ dental and medical health records will be integrated through Epic’s EHR system, giving providers insight into patients’ overall health.
• Launched an integrated medical-dental practice, Sahara Health Group, in Las Vegas, Nev. The innovative, integrated practice offers patients a holistic strategy to managing their overall health care through a variety of services under one roof. 
• Partnered with the American Diabetes Association to launch an awareness campaign to educate people on the link between periodontal disease and diabetes. 
• Partnered with Arizona-based accountable care organization Commonwealth Primary Care ACO to provide integrated medical-dental services for in-network patients who have been diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetes. 
• Launched a pilot program to offer blood sugar (HbA1c) testing in 30 supported practices. 
• Sponsored and promoted a clinician education event focused on the connection between oral health and women’s health in partnership with the Colgate Oral Health Network. 
• In partnership with the March of Dimes, sponsored and participated in a patient education event that focused on link between oral health and women’s/maternal health. 

Company Growth and Milestones

• Welcomed a record number of new hires bringing current totals to over 13,800 team members, including 4,100 clinicians (dentists, dental hygienists, physicians, and nurse practitioners combined).
• Achieved 31 percent growth over the past three years (2020 – 2022).
• Opened its 900th supported practice, Aspen Hill Modern Dentistry in Silver Spring, Md.
• Partnered with its 700th dental practice owner, Stacey Howes, DDS, FAGD, of River Point Dental Group and Orthodontics in Sheridan, Colo.

Advanced, Proven Technologies

• The world’s first dental support organization to integrate Epic’s comprehensive health records system into all supported dental practices. The move ushered in a new era of dentist-physician relationships and holds promise for improved oral-systemic health. To date, over 56.8 million patient records have been exchanged between PDS-supported dentists and their medical colleagues, helping to improve patients’ overall health.
• Surpassed three million same-day dental restorations using CEREC CAD/CAM technology milestone, and produced 406,115 dental restorations (crowns, inlays/onlays, and veneers) in 2022 alone.
• Implemented cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) technology in 196 supported practices. 3D imaging helps patients with improved diagnoses, precise implant placements, and better clinical outcomes. To date, 558 practices – or 61 percent of all practices supported by PDS – now offer CBCT technology.
• Administered over 41,000 salivary diagnostic tests in partnership with OralDNA Labs. These tests can help establish a patient’s predisposition to periodontal disease using a DNA measurement, and also measure the quantities of a patient’s pathogenic bacteria that may put them at risk for advancing periodontal and systemic diseases.
• Launched a partnership with Envista to implement its assisted intelligence technology DTX Studio into all supported practices.

Community Impact and Service

• Participated in a consortium that successfully advocated for the expansion of Medicare to cover certain medically necessary dental procedures.
• Over 75,000 hours of volunteer time provided to local communities and charities by PDS team members in 2022.
• Over $7.6 million of donated dental care provided to underserved patients during Smile Generation Serve Day, an annual day of service for PDS-supported practices.
• Raised and contributed over $821,000 for charity: water, funding clean water sources for an estimated 11,800 people in need.
• Raised over $573,000 for the Pacific Dental Services Foundation to increase access to dental care for patients with special needs and to provide specialized training for clinicians focused on special needs dentistry.
• Sponsored and built 17th playground in partnership with KABOOM!
• Named as an honoree of The Civic 50 Orange County by OneOC and Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service. 2022 marked the fourth year Pacific Dental Services received this recognition for its commitment to serving local communities.
• Recognized by the Orange County Business Journal as one of Orange County’s “2022 Companies That Care.” This is the third consecutive year that Pacific Dental Services has been honored by the Southern California-based publication since the award’s inception in 2020.

Looking Ahead

Looking forward to 2023, PDS continues to identify opportunities for strategic growth, establish partnerships with clinicians who strive to be the provider of choice within the communities they serve, and support efforts to advance medical-dental integration. Thorne added, “It is so exciting to look back at what began in a single dental practice over 28 years ago and compare it to where we are today. I’ve never been more excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for us in the world of oral healthcare.”

For more information about Pacific Dental Services, visit pacificdentalservices.com.

About Pacific Dental Services

Founded in 1994, Pacific Dental Services (PDS) is one of the country’s leading dental support organizations, providing supported autonomy that enables dentists to concentrate on clinical excellence and the highest levels of cost-effective comprehensive patient care. PDS originated the Private Practice+ model to enable dentists to focus on their passion: serving patients. PDS also pioneered the concept of modern dentistry so that dentists are equipped to combine advances in the latest technology with the best operational practices and procedures, highly skilled support staff and a commitment to ongoing training and education.

PDS continues to grow, and currently supports more than 2,700 dentists in over 900 dental offices across 25 states. PDS-supported dentists aim to be the provider of choice in all the markets they serve and to develop Patients for Life. For more information, visit us at pacificdentalservices.com or follow us on Facebook: @pacificdentalservices, Instagram: @pacific.dental, LinkedIn: @pacific-dental-services, Twitter: @pacificdental, and YouTube: @pacificdentaltv.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Cottonbro studio.