Dental Mentors

Dental Mentors
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Entrepreneurship

Learn strategies for building wealth in dentistry. Hosted by Matt Ornstein, Eric Morin, and Neil Zemba. Whether you’re focused on optimizing your practice, expanding your portfolio, or designing a life of abundance and impact, Dental Mentors is your space to learn, connect, and build alongside the most driven minds in dentistry. We started Dental Mentors to change the conversation around money in dentistry. For too long, the topic of wealth has been treated as delicate or taboo — yet financial growth is one of the most empowering forms of professional and personal mastery. We believe that building wealth is a responsibility, allowing you to create freedom for your family, support the causes you believe in, and live life on your own terms. Dental Mentors exists to demystify wealth-building and share the strategies of the wealthy so every member can benefit, grow, and give back with greater purpose.

  1. 21h ago

    It’s Not the Surgeon, It’s the System: Scaling OMS 360 to 29 Locations with Trevor Maurer

    In this episode of Dental Mentors, host Matt Ornstein sits down with Trevor Maurer, CEO of OMS 360—a premier oral surgery group spanning 55 doctors, 29 locations, and 9 states. From his origins as a Canadian farm kid to leading a 4,000-location eye care group and scaling major dental platforms backed by Shore Capital, Trevor shares his masterclass in specialty practice management and operations. Trevor unpacks the exact operational playbooks OMS 360 uses to drive 20% annual organic practice growth without expanding physical footprints, how an industrial engineer with a stopwatch revolutionized their patient journey, and why decentralized leadership outperforms corporate micromanagement. Key Highlights: The Canadian Farmer to PE Titan Journey: Trevor’s non-traditional path from Canadian farm life and college football to corporate executive roles at Procter & Gamble, Novartis, and leading massive healthcare groups.The "Industrial Engineer" Experiment: Why hiring an engineer with a stopwatch and clipboard revealed that practice bottlenecks aren't caused by surgeons—they are caused by flawed operational systems.Driving 20% Organic Growth: How focusing on practice optimization over immediate M&A acquisitions allows OMS 360 to outpace the industry average (where 5% is elite and most platforms sit flat).Scaling Surgeon Collections to $3M+: How removing administrative friction enables surgeons to collect 60% higher revenue than the U.S. average while preserving 100% clinical autonomy.Decentralized Leadership & Top Gun Training: Why OMS 360 invests heavily in a Nashville-based Leadership Academy to empower practice-level managers to solve problems without corporate intervention.The Specialty Referral Leakage Problem: Trevor reveals a major industry challenge—why 49% of referred specialty patients never make contact, and how solving pre-contact leakage transforms practice economics.Whether you are a general dentist looking to optimize your practice throughput, a specialist aiming to scale collections, or a DSO operator building private equity playbooks, this episode provides actionable strategies to elevate your healthcare leadership. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team: 👉 Trevor Maurer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevormaurer/ 👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/ 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/ 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/ 👉 Dental Mentors Website: https://www.dentalmentors.com/

  2. Sep 24

    The Legal M&A Playbook: How to Maximize Your Practice Exit with Eric White

    In this episode of Dental Mentors, host Matt Ornstein sits down with Eric White, a veteran healthcare transaction attorney and Managing Member at Dykema. Drawing on nearly 30 years of deal-making experience across hundreds of dental M&A transactions, Eric breaks down the legal playbook for practice owners looking to buy, scale, or execute a high-value exit. From unravelling messy ownership structures to navigating hidden liability traps, this conversation is an essential guide to protecting your practice's equity and maximizing valuation. Key Takeaways: ✅ Getting Your House in Order: Why practice owners need to clean up legal structures, state registrations, and former co-owner agreements before going to market to avoid steep price discounts. ✅ The "Bungalow vs. New Build" Valuation Model: How missing documentation or outdated practice infrastructure acts like asbestos in a home sale—prompting buyers to immediately dock hundreds of thousands off their offer. ✅ The Lease & EBITDA Trap: Why missing amendments or overlooked rent escalation clauses can derail cash flow models, crush valuations, and stall transactions at the 11th hour. ✅ Protecting Yourself Post-Closing: Crucial strategies for navigating indemnification provisions, holdbacks, earnouts, and seller notes without leaving yourself open to unnecessary legal risk. ✅ The Personal Guarantee Trap: How to ensure personal guarantees on real estate and equipment loans are formally released during a sale so you aren't left on the hook for someone else's debt. ✅ Scaling Past 4 Locations: How the role of a founder shifts from clinical oversight to talent management—and why getting completely out of the chair is the single best move to maximize exit value. ✅ Wild M&A War Stories: Unfiltered stories from the closing table, including messy marital timeouts, equity disputes, and catching a supposedly "disabled" seller pulling 10-hour workdays with a private investigator. Whether you are a solo practitioner preparing for a future sale or a multi-site operator scaling a DSO, this episode provides the legal framework required to safeguard your assets and close deals with confidence. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors Or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team: 👉 Eric White on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-white-754679a/ 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/ 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/ 👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/ 👉 Dental Mentors Website: https://www.dentalmentors.com/

  3. Sep 17

    Building a $1B+ AI Empire in Dentistry with Pearl CEO Ophir Tanz

    In this episode of Dental Mentors, hosts Matt Ornstein and Neil Zemba sit down with Ophir Tanz, founder and CEO of Pearl—the industry-leading AI platform transforming modern dentistry. Ophir shares his journey building multi-billion dollar technology companies, the science behind scaling Pearl to over 25,000 practices worldwide, and why he views AI not just as a diagnostic feature, but as the foundational operating system for the dental practice of the future. Key topics we cover in this episode: ✅ Delivering Inevitability: Ophir outlines his product philosophy of building software that represents inevitable standards of care, driving 7x growth over two years. ✅ The ROI of AI: How implementing radiologic AI and practice intelligence can deliver an automatic 10% to 35% revenue lift by catching missed disease and optimizing scheduling. ✅ The Future of Practice Operations: Why the next paradigm in dentistry will feature autonomous AI agents managing back-office friction points—from insurance verification to revenue cycle management. ✅ Navigating Software Fragmentation: The hidden architectural challenges that cause most healthcare software startups to fail, and how Pearl solved data normalization at scale. ✅ Design & User Experience: Why great UX and integrating directly into existing clinical workflows is essential for driving real software adoption. ✅ Venture Capital & Unicorn Mindsets: A look inside raising major funding rounds from top Silicon Valley investors (like David Sacks' Craft Ventures) and targeting a $1B+ enterprise valuation from day one. Whether you are a practice owner looking to boost profitability, a DSO executive evaluating AI integration, or a tech founder trying to break into healthcare, this conversation delivers a masterclass in product design, distribution, and enterprise scale. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors Or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team: 👉 Ophir Tanz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ophirtanz/ 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/ 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/ 👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/ 👉 Dental Mentors Website: https://www.dentalmentors.com/

  4. Sep 8

    Building a $600M Dental Empire with The Legendary Mitch Olan

    In this episode of Dental Mentors, hosts Matt Ornstein and Neil Zemba sit down with legendary dental industry executive Mitch Olan, former CEO and Executive Chairman of Dental Care Alliance (DCA). Over a career spanning more than four decades, Mitch helped build DCA from a 3-practice regional group into an enterprise scaling to over 350 locations generating $600 million in annual revenue. In this masterclass on practice management, M&A strategy, and executive leadership, Mitch shares the hard-earned lessons from taking a DSO public, navigating private equity exits, and avoiding the operational traps that burn out growing practice owners. In this episode, we cover: ✅ The Evolution of DSOs: Mitch walks through the historical shift in practice valuations—from standard revenue percentages (60–80% of trailing 12 months) to the private equity-driven EBITDA multiples used today. ✅ Protecting Your EBITDA: Why maintaining a 98–99% collection rate through negotiated insurance contracts and front-desk execution prevents the margin squeezes that sink multi-site practices. ✅ Buy & Build vs. De Novo: Strategic insights on why acquiring existing cash flow with aligned doctor partners is often faster and less risky than de novo site development. ✅ The Infrastructure Trap: How to time key corporate and field hires so you don't under-build and burn yourself out—or over-build and drown in overhead. ✅ Prepping for the Ultimate Exit: Essential advice for doctors considering a DSO sale, including clean financial reporting, office manager alignment, and avoiding "revenue juicing" before close. ✅ The $10M EBITDA Sweet Spot: A realistic look at valuations, strategic vs. financial buyers, and finding optimal enterprise size without sacrificing your quality of life. Whether you are an independent practice owner, a multi-site operator, or a DSO executive, this conversation offers an unfiltered look at what it takes to build, scale, and exit a high-value healthcare organization. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors Or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team: 👉 Mitch Olan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-olan-8a53a8/ 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/ 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/ 👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/ 👉 Dental Mentors Website: https://www.dentalmentors.com/

  5. Sep 1

    Meet The Mentors: Matt Ornstein

    In this exclusive Meet the Mentors segment, host Eric Morin and Neil Zemba flip the script and drill down into the investment philosophy, corporate history, and operational core of dental industry titan Matt Ornstein. Matt strips away the corporate vanity and provides a masterclass on what it actually takes to scale. From pulling paper routes at 8 years old to retrofitting massive New York-style lofts in Atlanta with personal-guarantee notes, Matt has spent his entire life mastering the mechanics of risk. He pulls back the curtain on how he took his DSO, Oak Dental Partners, from an initial 20 offices with $7 million in EBITDA to over 80 thriving locations producing more than $25 million in EBITDA. We talk about the psychological weight of backing over $100 million in bank debt, managing a hybrid leadership framework, and creating an ironclad baseline for communication clarity. In this episode, you’ll learn: ✅ The 1,000-Pound Boulder Analogy: The authentic psychological reality of balancing massive debt obligations while carrying the weight of supporting hundreds of team families. ✅ The 20% Private Equity Floor: Matt's strict, non-negotiable personal investment rule requiring a minimum 20% annual rate of return on invested corporate equity. ✅ The Revenue vs. Net Income Illusion: A prime warning on how confusing top-line revenue with true bottom-line net cash flow leads to catastrophic financial decisions. ✅ The 80% Personnel Rule: Why high-performing operators must get comfortable hiring leaders who execute at 80% of their personal capability in order to safely step away from daily management. ✅ Betting on the Jockey over the Horse: Matt's framework for evaluating capital stacks, tracking profit margins, and why a stellar business development team beats a flawless product every single time. If you are ready to pivot from simple lifestyle practices to driving institutional cash flow statements, this masterclass conversation with Matt Ornstein outlines the precise blueprint. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team: 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/  👉 Oak Dental Partners: https://www.oakdentalpartners.com/ 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/  👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/  👉 Dental Mentors Website: https://www.dentalmentors.com/

  6. Aug 20

    Meet The Mentors: Neil Zemba

    In this high-impact installment of our Meet the Mentors series, hosts Matt Ornstein and Eric Morin put their co-host on the hot seat: the master technical innovator behind modern healthcare attribution, Neil Zemba. Neil pulls back the corporate curtain on his unique journey to building Rise DDS. From driving stick shift across the fields of a rural country town with no street addresses to building software platforms in Silicon Valley that completely disrupt standard customer acquisition metrics, he shares the raw psychological reality of scaling his first tech venture, Serve Technology, up to a $30 million valuation, experiencing the brutal volatility of liquid wealth, and eventually stepping in as partner and CFO of multi-location dental brands like Executive Dental Partners. We dive deep into why global tech giants like Google and Meta build "vanilla" dashboards that fail the clinical needs of dental practices, how to map out a watertight case acceptance funnel, and why true tracking asset management always trumps the vanity metric of "raw brand recognition". In this episode, you’ll learn: ✅ The Full-Attribution Edge: How the Rise platform, Neil’s software, dropped a partner DSO's customer acquisition cost from $78 per patient down to a predictable $28 across 20,000 cases a year. ✅ The Middle School Middleman Lesson: How Neil built a candy ring distribution network that yielded 10x more weekly profit than every vending machine in the school building combined. ✅ The Blacked-Out Windshield Annovance: Why legacy dental marketing companies focus entirely on impressions and clicks rather than qualitative data and dollars spent. ✅ The Zero Waiting in Zen Strategy: The mental shift Neil learned from Silicon Valley accelerators where real-time problem solving completely replaces academic delay. ✅ The Geographic Quality Parameter: Why traditional geofencing copy isn't something to brag about, and how to track target insurance metrics within a strict driving radius. Whether you are trying to cut through fragmented vendor invoices or transition your dental brand into a high-margin corporate asset, this deep dive into Neil Zemba’s background gives you the foundational technical roadmap. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team: 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/ 👉 Website for Rise DDS: https://risedds.com/ 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/ 👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/

  7. Jul 9

    Meet The Mentors: Eric Morin

    In this cornerstone episode of our Meet the Mentors series, host Neil Zemba and Matt Ornstein switch seats to unpack the psychological core, operational methods, and foundational consulting logic of the absolute standard in dental group advisory: Eric Morin, founder and CEO of Tower Leadership. With over two decades of experience scaling dental organizations into high-valuation powerhouses, Eric drops a masterclass on moving past standard linear, incremental thinking into a massive exponential mindset. He shares the personal, driving origin story behind Tower Leadership—moving past his father’s traditional baseline view of a corporate pension into a burning desire to help high-achieving operators maximize their corporate assets and build multi-generational wealth for their family line. In this episode, you’ll learn: ✅ The 14-Day Chair Extraction: Eric’s precise methodology for pulling a dominant clinical founder out of dental production to focus entirely on standard operating leverage.  ✅ Constraint Theory Execution: How to play chess rather than checkers by identifying the single corporate bottleneck holding your organization back, pre-empting the next strain, and liquidating resource limits.  ✅ The Corporate Synergy Stack: Why traditional hiring interviews have an incredibly low correlation to clinical or operational success, and why you must screen for raw baseline cognitive intelligence.  ✅ The Single Advisory platform Model: The hidden cost of carrying 12 disjointed marketing, accounting, and consulting retainers, and how high sophistication centralizes cash flows. If you are a solo operator feeling stuck at a personal production ceiling or a growing DSO head navigating personnel friction, this unfiltered interview with Eric Morin gives you the ultimate leadership blueprint. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team: 👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/ 👉 Tower Leadership Website: https://towerleadership.com/ 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/ 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/ 👉 Dental Mentors Website: https://www.dentalmentors.com/

  8. Jun 15

    The 9% Organic Growth Blueprint: Mike Huffaker on Decoding the New Patient Pipeline

    In this high-impact episode of Dental Mentors, host Matt Ornstein sits down with a true scale innovator and technology executive: Mike Huffaker, Chief Revenue Officer at Planet DDS. Mike brings a powerful enterprise perspective, having helped lead Planet DDS through an explosive growth arc from $10 million to over $120 million in annual revenue. Today, his platform serves more than 14,500 practices and over half of the top 50 DSOs in the country. In this conversation, Mike pulls back the corporate curtain on why a fragmented technology stack can heavily penalize your valuation by millions of dollars, the danger of falling into the "fixer-upper" DSO trap, and the precise, data-backed operational metrics that separate double-digit growth empires from stagnant clinics. In this episode, you’ll learn:The $4 Million Fragmented Tech Stack Penalty: Why running multiple, disjointed practice management systems across 10 or 20 locations creates a "Wild West" environment that can instantly cost you 1 to 2 turns on your EBITDA multiple during buyer due diligence.The 20-Location Growth Wall: The structural reason emerging group practices hit a sharp operational deceleration at 20 offices, and how to pre-emptively professionalize your technology stack to scale past it.The Case Acceptance Illusion vs. Completion: Why raw case acceptance percentages have a shockingly weak correlation to revenue growth, and why elite operators focus entirely on minimizing the gap between initial acceptance and actual case completion.The 35 vs. 75 New Patient Benchmarks: The concrete industry data showing why practices with fewer than 35 new patients a month shrink, while those exceeding 75 new patients push past 9% organic growth annually. Whether you are an emerging group operator trying to build repeatable standard operating procedures (SOPs) or a single practice owner planning a highly lucrative future exit, this conversation with Mike Huffaker delivers the ultimate technology and data blueprint. 🚀 Join the Dental Mentors Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmentors Or visit: www.dentalmentors.com Connect with the team:  👉 Mike Huffaker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huffaker/  👉 Planet DDS Website: https://www.planetdds.com/ 👉 Matt Ornstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-ornstein-8363a756/ 👉 Neil Zemba on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zemba/ 👉 Eric Morin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjmorin/ 👉 Dental Mentors Website: https://www.dentalmentors.com/

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Learn strategies for building wealth in dentistry. Hosted by Matt Ornstein, Eric Morin, and Neil Zemba. Whether you’re focused on optimizing your practice, expanding your portfolio, or designing a life of abundance and impact, Dental Mentors is your space to learn, connect, and build alongside the most driven minds in dentistry. We started Dental Mentors to change the conversation around money in dentistry. For too long, the topic of wealth has been treated as delicate or taboo — yet financial growth is one of the most empowering forms of professional and personal mastery. We believe that building wealth is a responsibility, allowing you to create freedom for your family, support the causes you believe in, and live life on your own terms. Dental Mentors exists to demystify wealth-building and share the strategies of the wealthy so every member can benefit, grow, and give back with greater purpose.

Information

  • Creator
    Dental Mentors
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Dental Mentors
  • Show Website
    Dental Mentors

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