Planet DDS is capitalizing on trends of dental offices looking to modernize their practices.
The Irvine-based provider of cloud-based dental software is leading the charge within the dental industry, which is still early in its adoption of cloud-based software.
High interest rates and other economic factors have caused a slowdown in consolidation through acquisition, according to Chief Executive Eric Giesecke.
“What we’ve seen as a result is practices trying to drive efficiency instead of trying to drive top line growth through acquisition,” Giesecke told the Business Journal.
One of these methods is evaluating their software options.
Planet DDS makes software to help dental offices manage their practice, dental imaging and patient engagement and retention capabilities that enable them to streamline operations.
Planet DDS’s customer bases largely consist of dental support organizations, or DSOs, including Irvine-based Smile Brands and Orange-based Western Dental.
The company ranked No. 3 on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing private companies in the medium category, with revenue nearly tripling to $78.6 million over the past two years.
Customizable Dental Software
Switching management software at a practice can be an arduous process, Giesecke said.
“It runs 80% to 90% of what you do in a dental office,” he said. “When you do that in multiple dental offices, that’s even more complex.”
One decision Planet DDS made this year was to make patient data more accessible to its partners through an operating system.
Many companies have to choose whether they want to implement open-source software or closed-source software when looking to scale their system of record, according to Giesecke.
While closed platforms integrate data into a central location, Giesecke said he believes in having an ecosystem that allows clients to customize the technology to meet their needs.
“I think it’s the right thing for us as a company, and the industry as well, to democratize data,” Giesecke said.
The decision has driven a lot of the company’s recent innovations, including a new application programming interface (API) platform that launched in July.
The platform has new writeback capabilities, enabling practices to make updates to patient information, documents, medical history and appointment status.
Planet DDS currently has over 13,000 practices in the U.S. using its software with the goal of growing by 3,000 practices every year.
Partners with Founder
Planet DDS in August announced a continuation of its nearly 20-year partnership with Irvine-based DentalXChange, a revenue cycle management platform.
DentalXChange’s XConnect APIs will be integrated directly into Denticon, Planet DDS’ core software platform, as part of the continued partnership.
Revenue cycles when it comes to dentistry is “a bit unique,” Giesecke said.
“Most folks in healthcare think of revenue cycle as like a complete cycle in all elements,” Giesecke said. “Dental data is really so incomplete that you have to round out a lot of the data around eligibility, claim submission and remittance.”
Giesecke said that DentalXChange is working with other companies to create a full data set in response to the issue.
DentalXChange was founded by Richard Lee, the same man who founded Planet DDS in 2003. The information technology entrepreneur now runs another Irvine company called Virtual Dental Care.
Lee developed the teledentistry firm’s Teledentix-branded platform, averaging about 4,000 to 10,000 video sessions and about 5,000 online appointments every month as of 2021.
In February, the company moved headquarters from Newport Beach to a larger space in Irvine, which houses 50 local employees.
Recent hires include Chief Operating Officer Matt Zelen, a former Salesforce and Oracle executive.
