What's Driving Teledentistry Adoption in Dental Payers?
Tuesday, September 201:30 PM - 2:30 PM CT
Teledentistry was in its infancy as a technology, with few dental insurers providing it as a benefit until the Covid crisis hit. Quarantines were put into effect, and dental offices were closed across the country. Carriers were anxious to provide access for their groups, and their members and teledentistry helped fill the void. Insurers found that teledentistry, like telemedicine, became a high-demand value-added benefit for employers, members, and their sales and marketing teams. It was a requirement to be competitive in Requests for Proposals.
Teledentistry can increase member engagement, encouraging members to seek consultations for conditions that they may have left untreated due to concerns about cost, fear, convenience, or infection control safety protocols in an in-person environment. Public health initiatives revolve around teledentistry that can help bring improved access to underserved populations. In this session, you will hear from the leaders of some of the top teledentistry companies in the country about what is driving this growth.
Brant Herman
CEO and Founder, MouthWatch
During the first Silicon Valley technology boom, Brant Herman grew his passion for building companies. He is widely known in the teledentistry world and is a frequent public speaker and author of articles in leading oral health-related publications. Since Brant founded the company back in 2012, along with Bob Bellhouse and his father, Dr. Jerry Herman, the company has grown dramatically. MouthWatch products are used by over 15,000 practices in all US states and many countries. Brant loves spending time with his son and daughter, coaching sports, traveling, running, and cooking.
Dr. Bill Jackson
COO, Virtual Dental Care
Dr. Bill Jackson is the co-Founder and COO of Virtual Dental Care, the company behind Teledentix mobile and teledentistry software. For 10 years, Dr. Jackson practiced clinical dentistry while creating a small Knox-Keene-licensed managed dental plan in Los Angeles, which Prudential Healthcare acquired in 1985. He became president of the Dental Division in 1990. In 1994, shortly after Blue Cross of California went public as Wellpoint Healthcare Networks, he was hired by Wellpoint to run their national dental division. In 1989, Dr. Jackson Co-Founded DentalXChange, the industry’s largest real-time EDI clearinghouse. He then went on to help create Planet DDS in 2003, the industry’s first cloud-based enterprise dental practice management software. Jackson’s interest in the mobile and teledentistry delivery models was solidified when he saw an opportunity to help bridge the gap in oral care by expanding access to underserved communities. Telehealth and mobile-optimized technology allow providers to practice more efficiently and open the doors for cross-discipline collaboration and tighter medical and dental care integration. Dr. Jackson’s focus at Virtual Dental Care and Teledentix is to work with organizations and delivery systems to ultimately create solutions to enable healthier patient outcomes.
Dr. Vilas Sastry
CEO, Teledentistry.com
Dr. Vilas Sastry has been in the dental industry for over 20 years. A serial entrepreneur, he has founded several companies. From 2006 to 2017, as Chief Executive Officer of Aces Dental, he led a team of dentists to provide real-world dental services in the Las Vegas area. Concurrently from 2007-to 2016, as CEO of Health Networks of America, he grew a dental insurance brokerage firm from scratch to a multimillion-dollar operation supporting over 3000 dental offices nationwide. Having gained industry insight from both the dental practitioner’s perspective and that of the insurance companies he worked with, the foundation for Teledentistry.com was born. Today as CEO of Teledentistry.com, he leads a team that provides a service model that bridges the entire dental ecosystem, encompassing evolving patient demands, dental care, technology, and insurance. By partnering with over 40 insurance carriers, Teledentistry.com provides quick access to a virtual dentist to over 100 million covered members across the USA.
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