Becker's Dental Review just came out with a new article asking 24 dental leaders the same question: what's the one decision you can't afford to get wrong this year? Dr. Vilas Sastry, CEO of Teledentistry.com, was one of the leaders they asked.
What Becker's Asked
Every year, Becker's checks in with CEOs, COOs, and other leaders from around the dental industry before their big fall conference. This year's question was straightforward: with AI, staffing shortages, and changing patient expectations all hitting at once, what's the one call dental leaders really need to get right?
The answers covered a lot of ground — how to keep staff from quitting, how to protect patient data, how to grow without losing good culture. But one topic came up again and again: AI and technology, and how to actually use it well instead of just having it.
What Dr. Sastry Said
Dr. Sastry's answer was about virtual care. For a long time, he said, most of the industry has treated virtual visits as a backup plan — something you use for after-hours emergencies or quick triage, not as a real part of everyday care.
He thinks that has to change. Costs are going up, insurance is paying less, and it's hard to find and keep clinical staff. Because of that, requiring every single patient interaction to happen in an actual dental chair just isn't realistic anymore. His point was that practices need to save chair time for the care that truly needs it in person, and use virtual visits to take pressure off everything else. Patients are also used to fast, convenient, digital experiences in every other part of their life now, and they expect the same from dental care.
His bottom line: the practices that win over the next several years will be the ones that stop treating in-person and virtual care as two separate things, and instead build them into one smooth experience for the patient.
Dr. Sastry Wasn't the Only One Talking About This
A lot of other leaders in the article made similar points, just from different angles:
- Leaders at Great Lakes Dental Partners and Rock Dental Brands both said the real question isn't whether you use AI, it's whether you actually build it into how the practice runs day to day, instead of treating it like an add-on.
- Leaders at PDS Health and Haworth Capital Dental Partners made a similar point about tools in general — a lot of practices have separate software for scheduling, billing, and imaging that don't talk to each other, and that's becoming a real problem.
- A few other leaders, including ones from Specialty1 Partners and Providence Dental Partners, made sure to add that none of this matters if it comes at the cost of trust with patients and staff.
So while everyone framed it a little differently, the general idea matched up with what Dr. Sastry said: technology only helps if it's actually built into the practice, not just bolted on — and it should make care easier and more personal, not less.
Why This Matters
It's a good sign to see this idea getting so much agreement across the industry, since it's the same direction Teledentistry.com has been building toward — a model where virtual care and in-person care work together instead of being treated as separate things. With costs rising and staffing still tight, that kind of hybrid approach is looking less like a nice extra and more like something practices actually need.
You can read the full article, with all 24 responses, on Becker's Dental Review.
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