Dave Gaspar didn't grow up wanting to run a DSO. He grew up in Arizona wanting to be a baseball broadcaster. Listened to Vin Scully every night. Got a communications degree. Worked in radio. Left when he realized small towns and small paychecks weren't the plan. He ended up in veterinary practice management. Then dentistry. And somewhere in between, a few doctors took him into the back of their practices and showed him what the job actually looked like from inside an operatory. That stuck. ow...
11 days ago • 4 min read
I have had this conversation more times than I can count. A doctor reaches out. They joined a DSO two years ago. They were told they would have clinical autonomy, a supportive team, and real income growth. They were told the organization cared about doctors. Then the first major business decision came down the line. And the doctor was not in the room. This is the most common friction point I hear. Not because DSOs are inherently bad. But because there is a gap between what gets promised...
18 days ago • 4 min read
There is a moment that happens in almost every aligner case. The patient leaves your office motivated. They have their trays. They know the rules. Twenty-two hours a day. Remove to eat. Clean before reinserting. And then real life happens. They grab lunch at their desk. They do not have a toothbrush. So they rinse with water, put the tray back in, and keep going. Happens at dinner. Happens at happy hour. Happens every single day for the length of their treatment. You already know what that...
25 days ago • 4 min read
When I was in dental school, success looked like one thing. Own a practice. Fill your schedule. Build a loyal patient base. Work hard for 30 years. Retire. That was the plan. That was what we were all quietly working toward. Nobody told me that owning a practice would feel like running a small business with no business training. Nobody told me that insurance reimbursements would keep shrinking while overhead kept climbing. Nobody told me I would be working harder than I ever imagined and...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
I took out $500,000 in loans to become a dentist. I want you to sit with that number for a second. Half a million dollars. Before I had seen a single patient. Before I had earned a single dollar. Before I even knew what kind of dentist I wanted to be. And nobody warned me about what that weight actually feels like. Nobody told me what it is like to show up every morning knowing that number is sitting there. Nobody talked about the days when you feel completely alone in your operatory,...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
I want to tell you about a pattern I have noticed. The dentists who grow the fastest are not always the most technically skilled. They are not always the ones with the best equipment or the biggest marketing budget. They are the ones who read. Not just dental journals. Not just CE materials. Books on sales. Books on psychology. Books on business and human behavior and communication. They are pulling ideas from completely different industries and bringing them into their practice. The dentist...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Most dentists track the wrong things. Production. Collections. New patients per month. These are real numbers but they do not tell you why your aligner program is working or why it is not. The number that actually tells you everything is your case acceptance rate. Out of every patient you present aligners to, how many say yes? That is it. That is the whole scorecard. If you do not know that number off the top of your head, you do not have a system. You have a series of random events that...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
I want to tell you something that took me a while to see. The doctor is not the reason most aligner cases fall apart. The team is. Not because they are doing anything wrong. Because no one ever trained them on what to do right. Here is what happens in most offices. The patient sits down. The doctor does the exam, sees a great aligner candidate, presents the case, and the patient says they will think about it. The doctor moves on. What the doctor does not know is that when the patient checked...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
You already have everything you need to grow your aligner practice. It is sitting in your schedule right now. Most dentists spend hundreds or thousands of dollars every month trying to bring in new patients. Ads. Mailers. SEO. And all of it to find someone who has never heard of them. Meanwhile the patients who already trust them, already like them, already show up every six months, are leaving without ever being offered aligners. That is not a marketing problem. That is a conversation...
2 months ago • 4 min read
