The Next Chapter at DCA

AS WE EMBARK ON the new year and accelerate our efforts to elevate Dental Care Alliance and the support that we provide to the practices we serve, I could not be more excited. Reflecting on a tough year in 2022, but with a strong start to 2023 and new and renewed investment from Mubadala Investment Group and Harvest Partners, respectively, I am tremendously excited about our potential here at DCA.

It’s a new chapter for us. Exciting, trepidatious, promising, unknown. And with a challenging economy with rising interest rates, it will be a challenging year for us in 2023. However, we have overcome every obstacle that has come our way in our 32+ year history and I know that together we will do the same in our future.

A commitment to service excellence and continuous improvement will be an important focus for us in 2023.

DCA is fortunate to have a team of professionals with decades of experience and dedication to serving patients –as evidenced in the Service Anniversaries at the conclusion of this DCA Insider.

Engagement Begins with Me

Team member engagement and retention will continue to be a top priority for our success in 2023 and beyond. We are thrilled to be back out and meeting together in person with our Town Hall Meeting series – an opportunity for our team members, DCA Support staff, and senior leaders to gather together and discuss the state of the company, industry, and your respective regions. Since mid-2022, we’ve been able to meet safely, in-person with allies in Northern Virginia, Wisconsin, Georgia, and West Florida. We come to share pertinent information, hear directly from you, and answer any questions you may have. Look for additional dates to be announced soon.

Jeff Koziel President Ally Since 2020

Our 2022 December Pulse Engagement Survey was an opportunity for our team members to share your voice and perspective on what’s going well at DCA, and where we have opportunity to improve. Results were mixed and response rate was down markedly from previous years. We will continue to ask you to share your opinion and help us make DCA the best DSO and workplace in our industry.

There are questions about the confidentiality of the survey. We partner with an outside, third-party vendor – Reward Gateway, headquartered in the UK, with strict data protection laws in the EU. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the toughest privacy and security law in the world. Though it was drafted and passed by the European Union (EU), it imposes obligations onto organizations according to seven protection and accountability principles.

1 Lawfulness, fairness and transparency — Processing must be lawful, fair, and transparent to the data subject.

2 Purpose limitation — You must process data for the legitimate purposes specified explicitly to the data subject when you collected it.

3 Data minimization — You should collect and process only as much data as absolutely necessary for the purposes specified.

4 Accuracy — You must keep personal data accurate and up to date.

5 Storage limitation — You may only store personally identifying data for as long as necessary for the specified purpose.

6 Integrity and confidentiality — Processing must be done in such a way as to ensure appropriate security, integrity, and confidentiality (e.g. by using encryption).

7 Accountability — The data controller is responsible for being able to demonstrate GDPR compliance with all of these principles.

I assure you that the survey and data collected is confidential. We do ask demographic questions in our survey – only to help us identify areas and roles where there is opportunity to improve. Without this data, we have no actionable way to make a difference based on the feedback you share.

As we have communicated in the past, results are NEVER reported where there are less than 5 responses. i.e. if there are only four responses in an office, those results are not shared, they are rolled into the aggregate regional results. i.e. if there are only three responses from doctors in an office, those results are not shared, they are rolled into the aggregate regional or provider results.

I share this information to encourage you to participate fully and candidly in future surveys. Engagement is the responsibility of each and every one of us and your voice does matter.

Levers to Achieve Success in Q1 and Beyond

The industry trends are clear and show a challenging labor industry that has extended since the rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. We are faced with staffing shortages and elevated levels of patient cancellations. To achieve a positive Q1, we will focus on adding and improving year over year provider days, maintaining a mix of services at January 2023 levels, and filling the schedules by creating appointments and focusing on achieving our KPIs (answer rate, conversion rate, walkout rate).

Our collective and laser-focus on these important levers will allow us to meet and exceed our goals as an organization, but it will take each and every one of us. A team working together to overcome this challenging time in our industry. I encourage each of you to make a commitment to go above and beyond, to shoot for the stars, and commit with me to a tremendous 2023. I am confident that together we can achieve the unprecedented.

If there is anything we can do to support you, please reach out to your manager or me directly.