Explore every episode of the podcast Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

In this episode, Howard Farran welcomes back Dr. Wardah Inam, MIT PhD and co-founder and CEO of Overjet, five years after her first appearance — joined partway through by Dr. Natalia Chalmers, DDS, PhD, MHSc, Overjet's Chief Dental Officer and former Chief Dental Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where she was the only dentist among 6,000 employees. Dr. Inam traces what's changed since their last conversation, starting with Overjet becoming the first dental AI company to receive FDA clearance and expanding from clinical imaging into administrative workflows. She walks through the current product landscape: Vision AI for radiographic interpretation, Iris as a fully AI-native imaging software that improves image quality and capture feedback in real time, voice AI for ambient charting that eliminates manual note-taking, perio charting, and hard tissue charting, and an insurance verification product that goes beyond eligibility to calculate actual patient estimates from the fine print.

The conversation covers both the practical and the philosophical. Howard pushes back on the "over-diagnosis" criticism of imaging AI, pointing to dentists using Overjet alongside silver diamine fluoride who can now watch lesions remineralize over 6 to 18 months — and tracing SDF all the way back to G.V. Black's volume on pathology of the hard tissues. Dr. Inam explains why she'd recommend Open Dental to a new graduate (open, low-cost, connects to anything), and both guests make the case that AI's real power is helping patients see what the dentist sees, removing the perceived financial incentive from diagnosis and acting as a neutral second opinion that lifts case acceptance. Dr. Chalmers brings the access-to-care lens, arguing that thin-margin Medicaid practices benefit most from efficiency gains, and describes watching the documentary Invasive: Modern Dentistry Reimagined through four simultaneous perspectives — patient, pediatric dentist, general dentist, and policymaker. The episode closes on workforce and education: Overjet now partners with 25% of dental schools, new grads entering DSOs are already expected to be AI-fluent, and both guests argue the technology will democratize capabilities once exclusive to large groups down to the 80% of the market still practicing solo.

Check out Overjet: Overjet Platform | Book Your Demo 

Episode #1748 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard welcomes back Dr. Wardah Inam — MIT PhD and CEO of Overjet — five years after her first appearance, joined by Dr. Natalia Chalmers, Overjet's Chief Dental Officer and former Chief Dental Officer at CMS.

From Vision AI reading radiographs to Iris imaging software, ambient voice charting that eliminates manual perio and hard tissue charting, and AI insurance verification that calculates patient estimates — they break down what AI actually does in a practice today.

Plus: why AI may democratize DSO-level capability down to the solo practitioner, and why new grads will be expected to be AI-fluent on day one.

🎧 Essential listening for any dentist trying to understand where dental AI really stands in 2026.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalAI #Overjet #ArtificialIntelligence #DentalTechnology #CaseAcceptance

Links:

• Dentaltown: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_1748 

• Apple: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_ApplePodcast 

• Spotify: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_SpotifyPodcast 

• YouTube: https://bit.ly/DUHF_YouTube 

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@howardfarran 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dentaltownmagazine 

• Twitter/X: https://x.com/Dentaltown 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dentaltown 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Dentaltown

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Courtney Wager, RDH, a registered dental hygienist with 20 years of clinical experience and the founder of Wager Practice Systems, a consulting company focused on improving the efficiency, productivity, and profitability of hygiene departments. For her entire career, Courtney has practiced in a two-column assisted hygiene model, consistently seeing 12 to 14 patients a day while maintaining a strong emphasis on comprehensive care and clinical outcomes. She has also lectured nationally and internationally on dental hygiene and myofunctional therapy, served on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Orofacial Myology, and co-chaired the Southeastern Component of the Massachusetts Dental Hygienists' Association.

The conversation tackles assisted hygiene head-on — why the topic remains so controversial, what a genuinely successful model actually looks like in practice, and whether comprehensive care is realistically possible in a 30-minute appointment. Courtney and Howard dig into whether assisted hygiene can be both clinically excellent and financially successful, how a practice owner can tell if their office is even a good candidate for it, and what separates high-performing hygiene departments from merely average ones. They also address the pressures facing hygiene right now, including staffing shortages, burnout, and scheduling inefficiencies, along with the practical question of how hygienists and hygiene assistants should be compensated. The episode closes on a thoughtful note: the one thing Courtney wishes every dentist understood about hygienists, and the one thing she wishes every hygienist understood about practice ownership.

Episode #1747 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Courtney Wager, RDH — 20-year hygienist and founder of Wager Practice Systems — to tackle one of dentistry's most divisive topics: assisted hygiene.

She's practiced in a two-column assisted model her entire career, seeing 12–14 patients a day without sacrificing comprehensive care. So why does the topic still spark so much debate?

From whether you can truly deliver quality care in 30 minutes, to how hygienists and assistants should be compensated, to what separates high-performing hygiene departments from average ones — this is an honest look at the department that quietly makes or breaks a practice.

🎧 A must-listen for hygienists and practice owners alike.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalHygiene #AssistedHygiene #HygieneDepartment #PracticeManagement #RDH

Links:

• Dentaltown: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_1747

• Apple: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_ApplePodcast

• Spotify: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_SpotifyPodcast

• YouTube: https://bit.ly/DUHF_YouTube

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@howardfarran

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dentaltownmagazine

• Twitter/X: https://x.com/Dentaltown

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dentaltown

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Dentaltown

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Deren Flesher, founder and CEO of AiroDental. Trained as a dentist, Deren spent enough time on the operations side of the business to conclude that a practice's success or failure has far less to do with what happens in the operatory than with what happens at the front desk, on the phone, and in how the office is run day to day. He built AiroDental to close that gap, bringing everyday practice workflows into one connected system — including Laine, an AI voice agent that answers and works patient calls, and Saige, an AI coach and training layer for front-desk teams — on the thesis that dentistry deserves software built for it from the inside rather than retrofitted from generic tools.

The conversation is refreshingly blunt about where practices go wrong. Deren and Howard dig into why so many coaching programs produce the same notebook of advice year after year with so little actual change, and what owners should really expect from a coach. He lays out the mismanagement patterns he keeps encountering across the country: the owner who has become the bottleneck, the office manager carrying the entire organization on her shoulders, a front desk nobody has trained in two years, and dashboards nobody reads. He also names what he calls the identity trap — "I am a clinician, not a CEO" — as one of the most expensive sentences in dentistry, and explains the myth of the great hire and why the next front-desk person rarely fixes anything on their own. The episode also covers the ADA HPI staffing numbers showing roughly 62% of practices in active shortage, what the owners who are still winning do differently, why most dental software decisions get made for the wrong reasons, and where AI genuinely fits inside a practice — and where it doesn't.

Episode #1746 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Deren Flesher — dentist turned founder and CEO of AiroDental, the AI platform built specifically for dental practices.

His core argument: most of dentistry's biggest problems aren't clinical at all. They're operational — the untrained front desk, the missed calls, the owner who's become the bottleneck, and the dashboards nobody reads.

Plus honest talk on why practice coaching so often fails, the myth of the great hire, and where AI genuinely belongs in a practice (and where it absolutely doesn't).

🎧 A direct, no-fluff conversation on operations, leadership, and running a practice like a business.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalAI #PracticeManagement #FrontDesk #AiroDental #DentalOperations

Links:

• Dentaltown: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_1746 

• Apple: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_ApplePodcast 

• Spotify: https://bit.ly/DUwHF_SpotifyPodcast 

• YouTube: https://bit.ly/DUHF_YouTube 

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@howardfarran 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dentaltownmagazine 

• Twitter/X: https://x.com/Dentaltown 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dentaltown 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Dentaltown

In this two-guest episode, Howard Farran sits down with Drs. Stephanie Ganter and Robert "Bobby" McNeill — a periodontist and oral and maxillofacial surgeon couple who do almost everything together. Steph is a board-certified periodontist, a past ADA 10 Under 10 honoree and Incisal Edge 40 Under 40 recipient, and a graduate of Harvard's Surgical Leadership Program. Bobby is a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon who has served with the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners since 2017 and holds an MBA in healthcare management. The two practice together just outside Dallas, are currently classmates in Northeastern University School of Law's part-time FlexJD program, and host the Between Two Teeth podcast.

The conversation starts with the obvious question: why would two established dental surgeons take on law school mid-career, and what is that experience teaching them about dentistry, regulation, risk, and professional independence? From there, Steph and Bobby explain how they built a genuinely collaborative surgical practice without silos or turf battles, and share a candid view on clinical independence in a changing profession — including DSOs, corporate ownership, and the growing tension between business priorities and clinical judgment. They also take aim at what dentistry gets wrong about success, burnout, and professional identity, making the case that an ambitious career should still leave room for relationships, health, and purpose. Along the way they talk motorcycles, hockey, and recent trips through the Himalayas and across Morocco — usually on two wheels and rarely by the easiest route — and why curiosity and a willingness to keep reinventing yourself may be the most essential skill for dentists over the next twenty years.

Between Two Teeth Podcast: Between Two Teeth - YouTube 

Disclaimer: This interview does not constitute legal or tax advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. This interview is for educational purposes only.

Episode #1745 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Drs. Stephanie Ganter and Bobby McNeill — a board-certified periodontist and oral surgeon couple who practice together outside Dallas, attend law school together, and ride motorcycles through the Himalayas together.

Why would two established surgeons go back to law school mid-career? What does it teach you about regulation, risk, and clinical independence? And how do you build an ambitious career that still leaves room for an actual life?

🎧 A refreshing conversation about collaboration, curiosity, and reinventing yourself in dentistry.

#DentistryUncensored #Periodontics #OralSurgery #DentalLaw #ClinicalIndependence #WorkLifeBalance

Dr. Jack Hahn returns to Dentistry Uncensored for round two — a pioneer of modern implant dentistry with over 58 years in practice, 54 of them devoted entirely to implants, and the designer of four implant systems including the Steri-Oss, the Replace Tapered implant for Nobel Biocare, and the Hahn Tapered implant at Glidewell. This time he picks up the stories he didn't get to the first time. He walks through two of his lesser-known inventions — the JAH 2000 blade, with a curved neck designed to let you graft the day you place it, and the IPI provisional implant that predated minis — along with the industry realities that killed both. He recalls showing blade results at the 1986 Academy of Osseointegration meeting in Dallas, where oral surgeons quietly cleaned out the entire supply of brochures at the booth during the break, and makes the case that the true pioneers of implant dentistry were the clinicians doing subperiosteals, ramus frames, and blades in the '70s and '80s — with subperiosteals now coming back into vogue thanks to 3D printing.

The conversation turns to the business and regulation of implants. Jack shares the untold story of meeting Don Maloney at the Chicago Midwinter and advising him to build Clear Choice like McDonald's — same implant, same everything, at every center — only to have investors look at his contract and ask, "What do we need him for?" He and Howard dig into the Ohio State Dental Board's March 2026 move on specialty advertising rules, and whether implant dentistry should finally be recognized as a specialty. Jack's position is nuanced: he wants credentials to count without freezing out the "onesie-twosie" GPs, while Howard argues patients deserve one place that can take them from A to Z, since surgeons who place implants often can't restore them. Jack also offers a clinic's worth of hard-won guidance — his pilot's checklist for new patients, why patient musculature should influence implant count, never penny-pinching on the extra implant, treating soft tissue as a barometer, and his warning that an implant in a bad position always integrates. He closes with a caution about over-reliance on digital planning and AI ("put in 50 implants the conventional way first"), his advice to a senior in dental school to get hands-on before graduating, and why his criteria for any system comes down to three S's: simple, safe, and successful.

Episode #1744 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Dr. Jack Hahn is back for round two — 58 years in dentistry, 54 of them in implants, four implant systems designed, and over 5,000 Dentaltown threads mentioning his name.

This time he digs into the stories he didn't get to the first time: the blade implant oral surgeons secretly swiped brochures for, the Clear Choice deal he was cut out of, the HA coating study that got destroyed, and his blunt take on whether implant dentistry should finally be a recognized specialty.

🎧 Pure, unfiltered wisdom from the GOAT of implant dentistry.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalImplants #ImplantDentistry #DentalHistory #Dentaltown #JackHahn

In this two-guest episode, Howard Farran sits down with the leadership team behind DOCS Education. Dr. Michael D. Silverman, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, is a globally recognized lecturer, author, and patient advocacy leader with more than four decades of clinical experience as a general dentist. He co-founded the Dental Organization for Conscious Sedation in 1999 to give dentists the training and safety protocols needed to treat high-anxiety patients, and as President — and a Fellow of both the International College of Dentists and the American College of Dentistry — he has helped teach over 40,000 dental professionals how to safely implement sedation. Joining him is Dr. Anthony Feck, DOCS Education's Dean of Faculty and an engaging international lecturer across the United States, Canada, and Europe, whose teaching style blends humor with contagious passion and whose career spans sedation dentistry, dental technology, pharmacology, and practice building.

The conversation centers on sedation as a path to expanding access to care — reaching the enormous population of patients whose fear keeps them out of the dental chair entirely, and doing it with the protocols and training that keep it safe. Dr. Silverman draws on his experience appearing before numerous state dental boards to advocate for safe, reasonable regulation, while Dr. Feck brings the educator's perspective on what it actually takes to bring sedation into a practice successfully. Together with Howard, they explore the clinical, business, and regulatory sides of sedation dentistry, and how a practice that can confidently treat anxious patients opens a door that most of the profession leaves closed.

DOCS Education: DOCS Education (@docsdentaleducation) • Instagram photos and videos 

Dentistry Uncensored by DOCS: Learn Sedation Dentistry | DOCS Education 

Episode #1743 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with the leadership behind DOCS Education — Dr. Michael Silverman, co-founder and President, and Dr. Anthony Feck, Dean of Faculty.

Between them, they've taught over 40,000 dental professionals how to safely implement sedation and treat the high-anxiety patients most practices never reach. Add four decades of clinical experience, advocacy before state dental boards, and a passion for practice building — and this one covers a lot of ground.

🎧 A must-listen on sedation dentistry, patient safety, access to care, and reaching the patients who've been avoiding the chair for years.

#DentistryUncensored #SedationDentistry #DOCSEducation #DentalAnxiety #DentalCE #PatientSafety

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Tobi Bosede, a recognized leader in artificial intelligence and machine learning — named one of Samasource's "12 Women in Machine Learning to Watch" — who left a career building production AI systems for Fortune 500 companies to found DentalFynd, an AI-powered prepaid booking marketplace for fee-for-service dentistry. The conversation leans hard into the AI question dominating the dental community right now. Tobi draws a clear line between genuine application and buzzword, describing overkill AI as "trying to hit a fly with a hammer when you can just use a swat," and pointing to where it earns its keep: complex and tedious work, like the patented AI quality score she designed to give patients an objective measure of care quality rather than relying on subjective star ratings. She also walks Howard through GEO — generative engine optimization, the emerging successor to SEO — explaining that patients are now searching for dentists inside ChatGPT and Claude rather than Google, and that practices need to show up in those answers. The two also take on the existential debate head-on: Tobi argues that fears of AI revolting or making humans extinct are overblown, that AI only reasons from data humans have already fed it, and that it will most likely fade into the background like electricity or the internet.

The business half of the conversation centers on breaking free from insurance dependence. Tobi lays out the opportunity: roughly 70 million Americans — about 25% of the population — have no dental insurance, representing more than $50 billion in out-of-pocket spending. DentalFynd lets patients browse procedures, see transparent pricing, and prepay at 2 a.m. without playing phone tag, meaning dentists get paid in days rather than months and patients have skin in the game, which sharply reduces no-shows. She and Howard swap stories on the psychology of free versus paid — from FQHC no-show rates to London's congestion charge — and Howard delivers a characteristically blunt rant on why dentists will sign a 40%-off PPO contract without blinking but hesitate over a few hundred dollars in marketing. The episode closes on People of Color in Dental, the nonprofit Tobi founded to build trust, visibility, and connection for minority and newcomer dental professionals — and an on-air invitation for Howard to join the board.

Episode #1742 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Tobi Bosede — AI and machine learning leader, founder & CEO of DentalFynd, and founder of People of Color in Dental.

Before dentistry, she built production AI systems for Fortune 500 companies that generated billions in revenue and multiple patents. Now she's tackling the biggest AI question in dentistry right now: where does it actually create an advantage, and where is it just a label everyone's slapping on things?

From GEO (the new AI-driven SEO — patients searching for dentists in ChatGPT instead of Google), to patented AI quality scoring, to whether AI will ever outsmart the humans who built it — this one goes deep.

🎧 Essential listening for any dentist trying to separate real AI value from the hype.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalAI #ArtificialIntelligence #FeeForService #DentalMarketing #DentalFynd

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with brothers Jordon and Justin Comstock to dig into the economics of recurring revenue in dentistry. Jordon is the founder and CEO of BoomCloud, a dental membership-plan platform he bootstrapped into a multimillion-dollar SaaS company now serving hundreds of practices. He has spent years helping dentists create, automate, and scale in-house membership programs as an alternative to relying exclusively on traditional insurance and PPO reimbursement, with a focus on shifting practices from one-time transactional revenue toward systematic recurring income.

The conversation starts with a blunt observation: most dental practices begin every month at $0 in collections, and membership revenue fundamentally changes that position. Jordon and Justin walk through the "PPO tax" — how stagnant reimbursements, rising overhead, and write-offs quietly squeeze profitability — and how practices can reduce PPO dependence without recklessly dropping insurance overnight. They explain how membership plans convert uninsured and out-of-network patients into loyal recurring members who often behave differently than cash or PPO patients in terms of retention, treatment acceptance, and lifetime value. The discussion also covers what a high-performing membership-driven practice actually looks like by the numbers, the biggest mistakes practices make when launching a plan, how technology can automate billing and enrollment without burdening the front desk, and the bigger picture of where dental economics is headed as inflation, staffing costs, and insurance pressure continue to mount. Jordon also shares lessons from building BoomCloud as a bootstrapped vertical SaaS company focused tightly on a niche.

Episode #1741 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with brothers Jordon and Justin Comstock to talk about one of the biggest shifts happening in dental economics: recurring revenue.

Most practices start every single month at $0 in collections. Jordon, founder and CEO of BoomCloud, makes the case that in-house membership plans change that math entirely — reducing PPO dependence, boosting retention and case acceptance, and getting practices paid before the doors even open.

🎧 A smart conversation on the "PPO tax," membership plans, and building a more predictable practice.

#DentistryUncensored #BoomCloud #MembershipPlans #RecurringRevenue #DentalBusiness #PPO

In this episode, Howard Farran welcomes back Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca for her sixth appearance on the show. An orthodontist with more than 36 years of experience, she is a graduate of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine with a Master's in Public Health from Harvard's Department of Health Management and Policy, completed her orthodontic residency at Northwestern, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics and Past President of the Northern California Angle Society of Orthodontists. She taught practice management to orthodontic residents in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly a decade, leads her team at Gorczyca Orthodontics in Antioch, California, and is the author of five practice management books — with her sixth and final entry in the series, One Team, One Score, arriving in September 2026.

The conversation centers on leadership as the capstone of everything she's written. Dr. Gorczyca explains what "One Team, One Score" actually means, walks through the four forms of leadership — authoritative, bureaucratic, democratic, and laissez-faire — and how a dentist knows which to use and when. She shares what she learned studying leaders like Alan Mulally, Indra Nooyi, and Ursula Burns, why the single word "WE" changes the dynamic of an entire practice, and the "Achilles' heel" she sees in women leaders and how she coaches them through it. She and Howard also dig into the deceptively simple communication rules teams still get wrong, the warrior-versus-victim mindset in daily practice, where most dental teams get stuck in the forming-storming-norming-performing cycle, and the right way to address insubordination before it quietly poisons a team. The episode closes on a fitting note: quoting Michelangelo at 87 saying "I am still learning," Dr. Gorczyca reflects on what she's still figuring out after 36 years and six books.

Episode #1740 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard welcomes back Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca — orthodontist, author, and practice management expert — for her sixth appearance on the show!

With 36+ years in orthodontics and a Harvard DMD and MPH behind her, Dr. Gorczyca joins to discuss her sixth and final book, One Team, One Score. From the four styles of leadership to the warrior-versus-victim mindset, she breaks down how great dental teams are actually built.

🎧 A must-listen for any dentist leading a team — and still learning how to lead it better.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalLeadership #PracticeManagement #TeamBuilding #Orthodontics #OneTeamOneScore

In this special episode, Howard Farran steps into the lecture hall rather than the studio, delivering a guest lecture to dental students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas at the invitation of Dr. Karen Kucharski, Assistant Professor in Residence in Clinical Sciences. The talk — titled The Business of Dentistry After Graduation: DSOs, Practice Ownership, Student Loans, and Career Strategy — was requested for a simple reason: students are increasingly convinced that practice ownership is a dream that has died, and they want an honest, balanced education on what actually awaits them after graduation.

Howard works through the questions students themselves submitted, covering the realities of production inside a DSO and how much control an associate truly has over it, what separates thriving associates from those who feel taken advantage of, and which clinical skills new grads most wish they'd developed more in school. He addresses the pressure to produce at or beyond one's level of clinical expertise, what a genuinely competitive associate contract looks like and which terms are actually negotiable, whether associates are converting their own cases or depending on a treatment coordinator, and how much the mentorship and CE promised by large groups really improves clinical competency. The lecture closes on the bigger career questions: appointment length and autonomy, what high-production associates actually take home, student loan strategy, and the honest case for and against lifelong associateship versus ownership — delivered with the goal of educating rather than selling students on either path.

Episode #1739 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard Farran takes the podium at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Dental Medicine, invited by Dr. Karen Kucharski to speak to her students on The Business of Dentistry After Graduation: DSOs, Practice Ownership, Student Loans, and Career Strategy.

Students today are being told the dream of ownership is dead. This lecture is a straight, no-spin education on the real trade-offs between DSO associateship and owning — production limits, contracts, mentorship, case conversion, and the numbers behind it all.

🎧 Required listening for dental students, residents, and any new grad weighing their first job offer.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalStudents #DentalEducation #PracticeOwnership #DSO #NewGrad #UNLV

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Jill A. Tanzi, current president of the Alliance of Independent Dentists and a partner in Shero Dental Advisors. A valedictorian from Oxford, Massachusetts, she earned her BA cum laude in Biology from the University of Rochester and her DDS with honors from the University of Maryland, and has owned and practiced in a successful group practice in Hopkinton, MA for the past 23 years. That combination of hands-on ownership and organized advocacy gives her a grounded perspective on the pressures facing independent practice today.

The conversation tackles the question at the heart of her work: who is actually representing independent dentists, and why multiple voices serve the profession better than a single unified one. Dr. Tanzi and Howard explore why independent dentists should care about advocacy at all, why a retiring dentist might be better off selling to another dentist than to a DSO, and what's really at stake as consolidation accelerates. They also dig into bigger policy questions — whether dental coverage should be folded into medical insurance, and what the "Break Up Big Medicine" movement is aiming to accomplish and why it matters to dentistry.

Episode #1738 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Jill Tanzi — president of the Alliance of Independent Dentists, partner in Shero Dental Advisors, and owner of a thriving group practice in Hopkinton, MA for over 23 years.

Who's actually representing independent dentists? Why are multiple voices better than "one voice"? And why should a retiring dentist sell to another dentist instead of a DSO? Dr. Tanzi doesn't hold back.

🎧 A passionate, pointed conversation on advocacy, independence, and the fight for the future of private practice.

#DentistryUncensored #IndependentDentists #PrivatePractice #DentalAdvocacy #DSO #DentalPolicy

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Lior Tamir, a practicing dentist and entrepreneur who spent more than a decade in marketing technology — building platforms that turned data into action for global consumer brands — before returning to dentistry and finding a fragmented, outdated ecosystem with almost no real-time clarity. He grew his de novo practice, Bloom Dental Group, to $5M in its first seven years and used it as the testing ground for The Dental App, a cloud-based platform combining practice management, patient relationships, and real-time analytics into a single AI-powered system.

The conversation centers on a provocative claim: the traditional practice management system is no longer enough. Built for an era when front desk teams manually handled everything, today's PMS simply stores data while practices juggle thousands of patients, hundreds of unscheduled treatment plans, and endless overdue recall — forcing dentists to bolt on third-party tools just to drive action. Lior argues that dentistry is only now entering the era that sales and marketing entered years ago with CRM and automation, and that data without action is worthless. His central point: most diagnosed dentistry never gets done, and while the profession obsesses over marketing, SEO, and Google reviews, millions of dollars in already-diagnosed treatment sits idle in the database.

From there, Lior and Howard explore AI agents as a genuine digital workforce — software that can identify patients with outstanding treatment, reach out automatically, answer questions, book appointments, fill schedule holes, reactivate overdue patients, and collect balances at a scale no human team could match. His view is that AI won't replace staff but create "super staff," turning a treatment coordinator managing 100 cases into one managing 1,000, while freeing teams to focus on relationship building, problem solving, and patient experience. The episode closes on the rise of the dentist CEO and where the profession heads over the next decade: collapsing software categories, real-time business intelligence as standard, and winners determined less by clinical technique than by an understanding of business, hospitality, and a willingness to adopt change.

Episode #1737 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Lior Tamir — practicing dentist, entrepreneur, and founder of The Dental App — who grew his de novo practice, Bloom Dental Group, to $5M in seven years and used it as the proving ground for a new kind of platform.

His argument: the PMS was built for an era that's gone. Meanwhile, millions of dollars in diagnosed treatment sit unscheduled in practice databases while everyone obsesses over new patients and Google reviews. The fortune is in the follow-up — and AI agents can finally do it at scale.

🎧 A sharp look at AI, systems, and the rise of the dentist CEO.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalAI #PracticeManagement #DentalTechnology #TheDentalApp #DentalBusiness

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Jim Glidewell — the man he calls his idol, mentor, and the GOAT of crown and bridge — for a conversation nearly 1,800 episodes in the making. Jim traces his improbable path from a one-room Kentucky schoolhouse with a coal stove and no electricity, to returning from Vietnam, selling insurance at 21, and stumbling into dental technology after visiting a friend at his lab bench. He explains the philosophy that shaped everything since: like Henry Ford, Sam Walton, and Southwest Airlines, the winner isn't whoever charges the most, it's whoever delivers the most value for the dollar — and why he's always built for the working man rather than the "Neiman Marcus of dentistry." From there the conversation covers an enormous amount of ground on technology and the trade, including AI trained on 45 million archived crown designs that can match a crown shape in 8 to 10 seconds, the "Lego partial" that prints frame, teeth, and tissue simultaneously for a four-hour turnaround, and the surprisingly brutal engineering behind diamond-coated burs for milling sintered zirconia. Jim predicts chairside-printed dentures within three to five years and the decline of metal partials, reflects on how introducing zirconia in 2007 ended the gold and PFM markets overnight, and notes an industry that has consolidated from 17,000 labs down to just over 4,000.

The back half turns candid and personal. Jim weighs in on open versus closed systems, why scanner prices are collapsing, and what actually keeps customers loyal — not the hardware, but someone picking up the phone on the first ring. He offers blunt advice to indebted young dentists about whether dentistry was ever the right fit, predicts DSO penetration could reach 70%, and shares his distaste for exit-strategy thinking and EBITDA-driven ownership, noting that most dentists he meets who sold to private equity wish they hadn't. He also talks about his management philosophy of staying out of employees' way, the AI avatars now handling customer calls, his son leaving college to learn in-house, and his near-death experience with COVID, when he was intubated at 32 pounds down with less than a 10% chance of survival. Asked why he's still first in the door at 81, his answer is simple: this isn't a business he's building to sell. His exit strategy is death.

For more information on Glidewell TV: https://glidewelldental.com/company/tv 

Episode #1736 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with his longtime idol and mentor — Jim Glidewell, founder of Glidewell Dental and, in Howard's words, "the GOAT" of crown and bridge.

From a one-room Kentucky schoolhouse with no electricity, to the largest private employer in Orange County with a million square feet of space. From selling insurance at 21 to building an empire on a simple belief: the winner is whoever delivers the most value for the lowest price.

🎧 A candid, wide-ranging conversation on AI, dentures, DSOs, private equity, and why at 81 he still shows up at 7:15 every morning.

#DentistryUncensored #GlidewellDental #DentalLab #DigitalDentistry #DentalIndustry #Zirconia

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Arthur Volker, a graduate of the Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery who went on to complete a Master's degree in Prosthodontics and New Technologies from the University of Siena. In addition to his private practice in Sunnyside, New York, Dr. Volker owns DigiDent Laboratory — giving him a valuable dual perspective from both the operatory and the lab bench. He has published multiple articles and textbook chapters and lectures nationally and internationally on cosmetic dentistry, minimally invasive dentistry, dental materials, and digital dentistry.

The conversation centers on one of the most underrated fundamentals in clinical dentistry: isolation. Dr. Volker walks through practical isolation tactics and the specific advantages of the Isolite system, explaining how proper isolation affects everything downstream — bonding, material performance, patient comfort, and long-term restorative success. From there, he and Howard range across restorative, esthetic, and digital topics, drawing on Dr. Volker's expertise in materials science and his hands-on experience running a digital dental laboratory.

Episode #1735 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Arthur Volker — Columbia-trained clinician, owner of DigiDent Laboratory, and an internationally recognized lecturer on cosmetic, minimally invasive, and digital dentistry.

From isolation tactics and the real advantages of Isolite, to dental materials and digital workflows, Dr. Volker brings a rare combination of clinical depth and lab-side perspective to the conversation.

🎧 A practical, technique-driven episode for any dentist who wants better isolation, better materials decisions, and better restorative outcomes.

#DentistryUncensored #DigitalDentistry #MinimallyInvasive #CosmeticDentistry #DentalMaterials #Isolation

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. George Hariri, entrepreneur, educator, and co-founder of Shared Practices — one of dentistry's leading coaching and consulting organizations. After acquiring and scaling his own practices, George built a reputation for a candid, systems-driven approach to ownership and a willingness to challenge the conventional wisdom that leaves too many dentists overworked and underpaid. The conversation arrives at a milestone moment: the Shared Practices Podcast turns ten this year, and George reflects on what has changed across a decade of coaching aspiring and current practice owners, the growth of the coaching program, and the release of his books Dental Moneyball and a new title aimed at pre-owners.

At the heart of the discussion is a claim George is happy to argue: the industry insists 10%+ same-store growth is impossible, and he believes that's simply wrong — pointing to clients posting 37 to 39% growth year after year. He walks through the four levers behind that performance — patient retention, case acceptance, consistency in the team, and efficiency — and how that framework came together. Along the way, George shares how Howard's own work in practice management shaped his thinking about growth, and makes the case for building a practice that's both genuinely profitable and sustainable, without sacrificing your life to get there.

Episode #1734 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. George Hariri — entrepreneur, educator, and co-founder of Shared Practices — as the Shared Practices Podcast celebrates 10 years.

The industry says 10%+ same-store growth is impossible. George flatly disagrees — and his clients are posting 37–39% growth year after year. He breaks down the four levers behind it: patient retention, case acceptance, team consistency, and efficiency.

🎧 A candid, systems-driven conversation on growth, burnout, and building a practice that doesn't cost you your life.

#DentistryUncensored #SharedPractices #PracticeGrowth #DentalBusiness #PracticeOwnership #DentalCoaching

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Anthony "Tony" Gedge, who has spent 24 years in dentistry focused on the one thing most systems overlook: trust. His route into the profession was anything but conventional — he moved from running nightclubs into dentistry, where he built a pain-free movement around anxious patients and the fear of the injection, founded the Pain-Free Dentistry Institute, and co-founded Dental Mavericks, a charity that has now helped more than 180,000 children. He also took John Lennon's tooth and Elvis Presley's crown on tour to raise mouth cancer awareness — a campaign with fresh urgency given that UK deaths have climbed from roughly seven a day when he started to closer to ten today, with cases up nearly 50% over the past decade.

The conversation then turns to Tony's current work with Dental Group Signal, an evidence-led benchmarking platform studying how dental groups actually show up to patients, clinicians, investors, and the wider market. He walks through the twelve public signals the platform measures — from leadership and recruitment to patient trust, telephone access, review response, pricing visibility, digital journey, brand coherence, governance, and seller and investor signals — and shares findings from the May 2026 US DSO CEO Visibility benchmark, where only one of twenty leaders scored as a meaningful visibility leader and fifteen were rated underdeveloped. Howard and Tony explore what the US DSO market can learn from public-evidence benchmarking, why CEO and recruitment visibility have become commercial signals rather than marketing activity, and the crucial difference between simply being a large dental group and being a trusted, visible, coherent one.

Episode #1733 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Anthony "Tony" Gedge — a genuine dental maverick whose path ran from nightclubs to needles to benchmarking the entire industry.

Over 24 years, Tony founded the Pain-Free Dentistry Institute, co-founded Dental Mavericks (which has helped 180,000+ children), toured John Lennon's tooth and Elvis Presley's crown to raise mouth cancer awareness, and now leads Dental Group Signal, measuring the public trust signals behind dental group growth.

🎧 A wild, thought-provoking conversation about fear, trust, and why dentistry should measure trust as seriously as it measures EBITDA.

#DentistryUncensored #PainFreeDentistry #DentalMavericks #DSO #MouthCancerAwareness #DentalLeadership

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Philippe Salah, a PhD-trained scientist with a lifelong passion for innovation in orthodontics. Philippe co-founded Harmony, a pioneering lingual orthodontics company, in 2007, before founding DentalMonitoring in 2013 — a company he still leads as CEO and which has become a driving force in AI-powered, remote patient care.

The conversation explores how DentalMonitoring supports the full patient journey, from initial observation through active treatment and all the way to retention, and what continuous remote monitoring changes about the way orthodontists practice. Philippe and Howard also dig into a question weighing on many clinicians today: how orthodontists should position themselves in an increasingly challenging and competitive market, and what role AI and remote care will play in defining who thrives.

Episode #1732 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Philippe Salah — PhD-trained scientist, co-founder of lingual orthodontics pioneer Harmony, and founder & CEO of DentalMonitoring.

From AI-powered remote monitoring to managing the patient journey end-to-end — from first observation all the way through retention — Philippe shares how technology is reshaping orthodontic care and what it means for practices competing in an increasingly crowded market.

🎧 A forward-looking conversation on AI, remote care, and the future of orthodontics.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalMonitoring #Orthodontics #DentalAI #RemoteMonitoring #DigitalDentistry

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Erin Sheffield, a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon who has built a career breaking barriers in one of medicine's most male-dominated specialties. Beyond the operating room, she is an international speaker, educator, content creator, and advocate — the founder of The Doctor Is ALL In, a retreat helping high-achieving women doctors reconnect with their purpose and reclaim their well-being, and the host of The Resting Stitch Face podcast, where she leads candid conversations about identity, leadership, and the cost of fitting in.

The conversation moves fluidly between the clinical and the personal. On the surgical side, Dr. Sheffield digs into difficult third molars and coronectomy, bone grafting, and antibiotic stewardship — practical topics every general dentist and surgeon wrestles with. On the human side, she speaks openly about navigating discrimination and harassment in her own career, and what resilience, integrity, and reclaiming your voice actually look like in practice. Howard and Dr. Sheffield also explore trauma-informed care for dentists, the role of social media in modern practice, and the intertwined challenges of imposter syndrome, authenticity, and burnout. Her central message cuts across specialties and generations: real success isn't about perfection or approval — it's about showing up fully as yourself and making room for others to do the same.

Check out Dr. Sheffield's website for more info: www.Doctorisallin.com 

Episode #1731 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Erin Sheffield — board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon, international speaker, educator, and founder of The Doctor Is ALL In, a retreat for women doctors.

From difficult third molars, coronectomy, and bone grafting to antibiotic stewardship, trauma-informed care, and the honest realities of burnout and imposter syndrome — Dr. Sheffield brings both surgical precision and rare human insight.

🎧 A candid conversation about clinical excellence, authenticity, and building space for others in rooms that weren't built for everyone.

#DentistryUncensored #OralSurgery #WomenInDentistry #WomenInSurgery #DentalBurnout #Authenticity @drerinsheffield @restingstitchfacepodcast @thedoctorisallin

In this episode, Howard Farran podcasts live from Guatemala with Dr. Tommy Murph — the Myrtle Beach–area general dentist and Dentaltown legend behind more than 50,000 posts and the longest-running threads in the community's history. Speaking from the clinic floor between patients, Tommy walks through the scale of the operation: 46 dentists from four countries, roughly 250–300 patients a day, twelve-hour days, and nearly 1,000 teeth extracted in a single day, with about 45% of them wisdom teeth. Four times a year, he and Dr. Fletcher run these trips as a hybrid of charity dentistry and hands-on continuing education, delivering 54 hours of participation credit through WeTeachExtractions.com — training dentists who graduated without ever performing an extraction to confidently handle full bony horizontal impactions.

The conversation ranges well beyond Guatemala. Tommy shares his philosophy that any general dentist should be able to remove a visible tooth in ten minutes or less, and that success comes from a few well-understood instruments and proper luxation technique rather than a drawer full of forceps. He makes a blunt case for same-day emergency treatment, explains the cash-pay, out-of-network model he's run since 1999, and argues that most dentists could thrive without insurance participation. He also talks about running a lean practice with a staff of two, keeping overhead under 25%, why new grads should work for someone else for a year or two before ownership, and why extraction skill should come before implant training. Throughout, Howard and Tommy return to what makes these trips meaningful — patients who arrive at 4 a.m. and hug you afterward, Tommy's 81-year-old mother handing out toothbrushes and toys, and the way stepping into someone else's world can reset a stressed-out dentist's perspective entirely.

Episode #1730 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard Farran catches up with Dentaltown legend Dr. Tommy Murph — 50,000+ posts and counting — literally on the clinic floor in Guatemala, mid-mission, with 300 patients waiting outside.

46 dentists from 4 countries. Nearly 1,000 teeth extracted in a single day. Hands-on CE where dentists who never touched an extraction in school leave doing full bony impactions.

🎧 Charity dentistry, low overhead, straight talk, and one of the most unfiltered voices in the profession.

#DentistryUncensored #CharitableDentistry #Extractions #DentalMissions #Guatemala #Dentaltown

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Peeyush Ranjan, a board-certified pediatric dentist in both the United States and Canada and the owner of Tooth Pals in Airdrie, Alberta. Dr. Ranjan began his career in general dentistry in 2009 before discovering his passion for treating children, which led him to complete his pediatric residency at Nova Southeastern University and Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital, where he served as Chief Resident. His master's research explored using picture-guided techniques to improve oral hygiene in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder — work that continues to shape how he cares for kids today.

The conversation spans Dr. Ranjan's unique cross-border journey — training in the U.S., practicing in rural Washington, and building a practice in Canada — and what it taught him about the profession in both countries. He makes a compelling case that rural America is dramatically underserved and full of opportunity most young dentists overlook, and shares why he remains a strong believer in independent ownership even in an age of consolidation and DSOs. Howard and Dr. Ranjan also dig into the role of culture and team (he runs his practice alongside his wife and treats his staff like family), how technology like the Solea laser and dental-specific VR transforms a child's experience in the chair, and his collaborative approach to infant tongue-tie treatment. The episode closes on the community work at the heart of his practice — from the Switch Witch candy buyback to toy drives and free screening camps — and the most important lessons he'd pass on to any young dentist starting out today.

Episode #1729 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Peeyush Ranjan — board-certified pediatric dentist in both the U.S. and Canada, and owner of Tooth Pals in Airdrie, Alberta.

From training in the U.S. and practicing in rural Washington to owning a practice in Canada, Dr. Ranjan brings a rare cross-border perspective — plus a passion for technology, community giving, and making sure no child grows up fearing the dentist.

🎧 A heartfelt, insightful conversation on pediatric care, independent ownership, and the opportunity most young dentists overlook.

#DentistryUncensored #PediatricDentistry #IndependentPractice #RuralDentistry #KidsDentist #PracticeOwnership

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with JoAnne Tanner, founder of Tanner Management, a dental practice consulting firm specializing in acquisitions, financial due diligence, and operational systems. With more than 20 years of experience, JoAnne has guided countless dentists through the process of buying a practice — helping them avoid costly mistakes and build strong business foundations from day one. She's also the author of The Smart Dentist's Guide to Buying a Dental Practice, and is known for a clear, no-nonsense approach that makes complex transactions understandable.

The conversation focuses on what dentists need to know before signing on the dotted line. JoAnne breaks down the biggest mistakes buyers make and how to avoid them, why financials alone don't tell the full story of a practice, and the critical reports every buyer should review before closing. She and Howard dig into how to spot hidden risks in hygiene, scheduling, and accounts receivable, why treatment philosophy differences between buyer and seller can make or break a transition, and how insurance participation — including Delta Dental — can shape future income. The episode closes on the most important question of all: how to tell whether a practice is genuinely sustainable or quietly declining.

Episode #1728 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with JoAnne Tanner — founder of Tanner Management and author of The Smart Dentist's Guide to Buying a Dental Practice — for a no-nonsense look at what it really takes to buy the right practice.

From the biggest mistakes buyers make, to why the financials never tell the whole story, to the hidden risks lurking in hygiene, scheduling, and AR — JoAnne breaks down how to buy with clarity and confidence.

🎧 Essential listening for any dentist thinking about ownership.

#DentistryUncensored #PracticeAcquisition #DentalOwnership #DueDiligence #DentalBusiness #BuyingAPractice

In this two-guest episode, Howard Farran brings together two clinicians unafraid to challenge the status quo. Dr. Michael DeLuke is a board-certified orthodontist who graduated valedictorian from SUNY Stony Brook and served as Chief Resident at UConn before owning DeLuke Orthodontics for nearly two decades. He has since retired from private practice to teach and coach full-time, serving on faculty at Montefiore Einstein and a Florida pediatric dental residency, and founding DeLuke Orthodontic Coaching ("DOC") and The DOC Podcast. Dr. Mark Levi is a Sydney-based dentist who, after his own severe obstructive sleep apnea diagnosis in 1998, dedicated his career to airway-focused care — co-founding integrated medical/dental sleep clinics, publishing in the European Sleep Journal, and in 2021 transitioning to an exclusive pediatric airway, breathing, and sleep clinic treating children aged 3 to 12.

The conversation dives into early, airway-focused orthodontic and orthopedic treatment — why both guests believe it matters so much, and why the orthodontic establishment and academia have been so resistant to it. They explore what pediatric sleep-disordered breathing actually is and why it should be on every dentist's radar, what "evidence-based practice" really means, and the long-term physiological payoff of intervening in a generation of four-to-six-year-olds before problems compound. Dr. Levi shares his philosophy of engaging parents by talking symptoms rather than treatment protocols — the approach behind hundreds of five-star reviews and his plans to expand into the U.S. — while Dr. DeLuke also opens up about the business side of dentistry, including how he reached financial freedom at 46 after starting his practice at 30 with zero assets and a mountain of student debt.

Episode #1727 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with two outspoken voices in orthodontics and airway: Dr. Michael DeLuke — board-certified orthodontist, coach, and host of The DOC Podcast — and Dr. Mark Levi, an Australian pioneer in pediatric airway, breathing, and sleep.

From why the ortho establishment resists early airway-focused treatment, to treating a generation of 4–6 year olds, to achieving financial freedom in dentistry — this conversation pulls no punches.

🎧 A must-listen on early intervention, pediatric sleep-disordered breathing, and the business of orthodontics.

#DentistryUncensored #Orthodontics #AirwayHealth #PediatricSleep #EarlyOrthoTreatment #DentalSleepMedicine

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Kevin Lassiter, an Arizona native and proud Army veteran who earned his bachelor's degree from Arizona State University and his Doctor of Dental Medicine from Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine. Dr. Lassiter spent 12 years serving as a dentist in the U.S. Army, completing his specialty training through the United States Army Prosthodontic Program, and today provides relationship-centered dentistry that blends science and artistry to create healthy, natural-looking, long-lasting smiles.

The conversation traces Dr. Lassiter's path from a 19-year-old applying to dental school — admittedly naive in those early interviews — through his entry into the Army via officer basic training and an AEGD program, to years of service that included time living in Germany. He shares an honest look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of Army dentistry, what drew him to prosthodontics, and the experience of caring for veterans and soldiers during his residency. The episode closes on his transition into civilian private practice and the journey from associate to ownership, offering a grounded perspective for anyone weighing a similar route into military or specialty dentistry.

Episode #1726 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Kevin Lassiter — Arizona native, proud Army veteran, and prosthodontist who spent 12 years serving as a dentist in the U.S. Army before transitioning to private practice.

From applying to dental school at 19, to Army life and training in Germany, to finding his passion in prosthodontics and making the leap from associate to owner — this is a candid, inspiring look at one dentist's unconventional path.

🎧 A must-listen for anyone curious about military dentistry, prosthodontics, or building a career with purpose.

#DentistryUncensored #MilitaryDentistry #Prosthodontics #ArmyVeteran #DentalCareer #PracticeOwnership

In this two-guest episode, Howard Farran sits down with two financial leaders from PracticeCFO. Wes Read is a CPA, Certified Financial Planner™, and Registered Investment Advisor who began his career in Big 4 accounting at Ernst & Young before founding PracticeCFO in 2009 to give practice-owning doctors access to CFO-level financial leadership. He's also the founder of Practice Orbit and creator of Associates On Fire, a free financial education platform for dental associates. Joining him is Paul Lipcius, a CPA, Series 65-licensed Investment Adviser Representative, and CFO Advisor at the firm with nearly a decade of experience, who focuses on higher-net-worth clients, capital markets, and portfolio strategy, and serves on PracticeCFO's board and investment committee.

The conversation centers on investing philosophy for busy dentists who aren't watching the markets every day. Wes and Paul unpack how they define and manage risk in a practical, long-term sense rather than just as volatility, and what a good advisor actually does to create value beyond picking investments. They explore how dentists should think about retirement vehicles like 401(k)s, defined benefit plans, and IRAs, how to stay disciplined and avoid emotional decisions during market swings, and the unique advantage of integrating CPA services with investment management under one roof. The episode closes on the perennial industry debate over fees — whether advisors truly justify their cost, and how dentists can evaluate whether they're getting real value for their money.

Episode #1725 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Wes Read, CPA, CFP® — Founder & CEO of PracticeCFO — and Paul Lipcius, CPA and CFO Advisor at the firm, for a deep dive into smart investing and wealth strategy for dentists.

From defining real "risk" beyond market volatility, to the advantage of having your CPA and investment strategy under one roof, to whether advisor fees are truly worth it — this is straight talk on building lasting financial independence.

🎧 A must-listen for any dentist who wants to run their practice and their money like a pro.

#DentistryUncensored #PracticeCFO #DentalFinance #WealthManagement #DentistMoney #FinancialPlanning

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Paul Homoly, one of the profession's foremost authorities on treatment acceptance and the new patient experience. After 20 years in clinical reconstructive dentistry, Paul devoted the following decades to building what many consider the most comprehensive body of work on guiding dentists and their teams toward successful complete-care practices. He's the author of several influential books — including Dentists: An Endangered Species, Isn't It Wonderful When Patients Say "YES!", and Just Because You're an Expert… Doesn't Make You Interesting — and the first dentist worldwide to earn the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, the highest earned distinction in professional speaking.

The conversation explores Paul's central mission: making it easy for patients to say "yes" to complete care. He shares the communication and leadership principles behind his Treatment Acceptance Mastery curriculum — which now includes a first-of-its-kind AI Accelerator Coach — and why being a clinical expert doesn't automatically make a dentist compelling or persuasive at the chairside. Drawing on work that has contributed millions of dollars in monthly collections for his clients, Paul and Howard dig into how dentists can connect with patients, present treatment in a way that resonates, and build practices where complete care becomes the norm rather than the exception.

Episode #1724 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Paul Homoly — a leading authority on treatment acceptance and the new patient experience, and the first dentist in the world to earn the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation.

After 20 years in clinical reconstructive dentistry, Paul has spent decades cracking the code on one question: how do you make it easy for patients to say "yes" to complete care? His work has driven millions in monthly collections for his clients.

🎧 A must-listen for any dentist who wants better case acceptance without the hard sell.

#DentistryUncensored #CaseAcceptance #TreatmentAcceptance #DentalPracticeManagement #PatientExperience #CompleteCare

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Chanelle Small, an endodontist who earned her Certificate of Endodontics from Tufts and both her DDS and undergraduate degree from Howard University, and who served as a Clinical Instructor at Columbia. Beyond founding Midtown Endodontics in New York City, Dr. Small works as a dental expert witness, retained by both plaintiff and defense attorneys across multiple states to determine whether the standard of care was met in malpractice cases.

The conversation demystifies the legal side of dentistry that most clinicians never see until it's too late. Dr. Small breaks down the four elements of a malpractice claim — duty, breach, causation, and damages — through a real endodontic scenario, and explains how "standard of care" actually gets defined in the courtroom versus the textbook. She walks through the anatomy of a case from the initial complaint to resolution, when and how an expert witness enters the picture, and whether she's ever felt pressured by attorneys to shade her opinion to strengthen a case. The episode closes on the practical side every dentist can act on today: why radiographic documentation matters so much, what's most often missing from the record, and the habits beyond documentation that help protect a practice.

Disclaimer: This interview does not constitute legal or tax advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. This interview is for educational purposes only.

Episode #1723 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Chanelle Small — endodontist, founder of Midtown Endodontics in NYC, and a dental expert witness retained by both plaintiff and defense attorneys.

From the four elements of a malpractice case to how "standard of care" actually gets defined in a courtroom, Dr. Small pulls back the curtain on what really happens when a dentist gets sued — and the documentation habits that protect you.

🎧 A must-listen for every dentist who wants to practice with confidence and cover their bases.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalMalpractice #Endodontics #StandardOfCare #RiskManagement #DentalLaw

In this two-guest episode, Howard Farran brings together two very different but complementary paths in reconstructive surgery. Nancy Hairston is the founder and CEO of MedCAD, a Dallas-based medical technology company specializing in patient-matched cranial, facial, and mandibular implants. A sculptor by training — with a fine arts degree and an early career designing toys for Mattel and Disney and building 3D animation software that became Maya — Nancy channeled her mastery of digital sculpting into medicine, earning FDA clearance for her AccuShape cranial implant in 2011 and delivering custom, patient-specific solutions for more than 8,000 individuals since. Dr. Samir Singh is a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon and Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, trained at VCU in complex implant surgery, bone grafting, orthognathic surgery, and maxillofacial trauma, who now practices in North Pittsburgh, teaches and mentors residents, and lectures nationally on full-arch implant reconstruction.

Together, the conversation walks through how custom implant design and surgical expertise intersect — the MedCAD process of turning precise imaging into a planned, in-house-manufactured implant delivered to surgical teams around the world, and how that planning removes friction, shortens procedure time, and boosts a surgeon's confidence before the first incision. Dr. Singh shares his journey from Pittsburgh to the operating room, the growth and technology behind his practice, and memorable orthognathic and reconstruction cases, along with his heart for mission work — including trips to treat children with cleft lip and palate in Peru. The episode closes on mentorship and the shadowing and hiring opportunities both guests see for the next generation of surgeons and innovators.

Episode #1722 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with two guests at the cutting edge of surgical reconstruction: Nancy Hairston, founder & CEO of MedCAD, and Dr. Samir Singh, board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon.

From an artist-turned-medical-tech founder who's created patient-matched implants for 8,000+ people, to a surgeon rebuilding faces and jaws with full-arch and orthognathic expertise — this is a fascinating look at how custom design and surgical skill come together in the OR.

🎧 A must-listen on 3D printing, patient-specific implants, and the future of reconstructive surgery.

#DentistryUncensored #OralSurgery #MedCAD #3DPrinting #DentalImplants #MaxillofacialSurgery

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Bob "Dee" Dokhanchi — a private practice dentist since 1993, entrepreneur, media publisher, and tireless advocate for the profession. A 1992 graduate of Loyola University Chicago College of Dental Surgery, Bob has earned a reputation as a forward-thinking leader with a deep interest in technology, software, and cloud systems, becoming widely known as the "cloud guy" for his practical advice on dental tech and digital strategy. He's also the founder of Dentistry in General, a large verified dentist-only community built to foster candid discussion, support, and connection, along with its media arm spanning the DIG Radio Network, Dentistry's Digest, and the DIG-A-PALOOZA live CE event.

The conversation centers on organized dentistry and advocacy — the role of the ADA, the communication gap between organized dentistry and everyday dentists, and how the Dentistry in General Advocacy Coalition aims to improve transparency and engagement across the profession. Bob also shares his personal decision to run for office, seeking the Secretary position within the Illinois State Dental Society through a ladder system that leads to the presidency, and what motivated him to step off the sidelines and get directly involved. It's a candid look at why grassroots leadership matters and how individual dentists can shape the direction of their own profession.

Episode #1721 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Bob "Dee" Dokhanchi — private practice dentist, entrepreneur, media publisher, and founder of Dentistry in General, one of the largest dentist-only communities online.

Known as the "cloud guy," Bob is a passionate advocate for the profession. This conversation digs into organized dentistry, the ADA, and what it really means to step up and run for office to make dentists' voices heard.

🎧 A must-listen for any dentist who cares about the future and direction of the profession.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalAdvocacy #OrganizedDentistry #ADA #DentistryInGeneral #DentalCommunity

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Joseph Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology — the company behind Invisalign and the iTero scanner. Hogan brings an extraordinary executive background to the conversation, having led ABB, a $40 billion global automation company, and spent 25 years at General Electric, including eight years as CEO of GE Healthcare, where he more than doubled revenues from $7 billion to $16 billion.

The discussion explores where Align is focusing its efforts to meet dentists where they are today, the recent innovations Hogan is most excited about, and what separates the most successful Invisalign-trained doctors from the rest. Howard and Hogan dig into Align's approach to AI across its product portfolio, how the company is leveraging additive manufacturing and 3D printing, and its plans for direct fabrication. They also examine trends among growing patients, how Invisalign fits into ortho-restorative workflows, and the biggest challenges Align is hearing from doctors around training and education. The conversation closes with a forward-looking discussion on expanding global access to clear aligner therapy and what excites Hogan most about the future of orthodontics and digital dentistry.

Want to know more about Align? - https://www.aligntech.com/

Episode #1720 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Joseph Hogan — President & CEO of Align Technology, the company behind Invisalign and iTero.

With a career that spans GE Healthcare and ABB before leading Align, Joe brings a rare view of where digital dentistry is headed — from AI and 3D printing to direct fabrication, global access to clear aligner therapy, and what the most successful Invisalign doctors are doing differently.

🎧 A must-listen for anyone curious about the future of orthodontics and digital dentistry.

#DentistryUncensored #Invisalign #AlignTechnology #DigitalDentistry #ClearAligners #Orthodontics

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Karl Frye, Principal Broker and owner of Frye Practice Sales, a Scottsdale-based practice and commercial real estate brokerage, and current President of the National Association of Practice Brokers. Before founding his firm in 2015, Karl spent more than a decade in commercial banking serving the M&A needs of doctors — financing the startups, growth, sales, and refinances of dental practices nationwide. That credit background gives him a distinctive, outcome-focused perspective on what's actually realistic in today's healthcare acquisition market.

The conversation tackles the questions on every practice owner's mind: whether the private-practice buyer is truly a thing of the past (Karl says not so fast), and whether dentists should simply say "no" to the DSO (his answer is more nuanced than you'd expect). Howard and Karl walk through how sellers should navigate a shifting market, what buyers should be doing right now, and a recap of where the lending market stands. They close on a decision many selling dentists overlook — whether to sell the commercial real estate along with the practice or hold onto the building and collect rent.

Episode #1719 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Karl Frye — Principal Broker and owner of Frye Practice Sales and current President of the National Association of Practice Brokers — for a straight-talking look at the dental transitions market.

With 12+ years financing healthcare M&A before becoming a broker, Karl brings rare credit-side insight. Is the private practice buyer a thing of the past? Should you say no to the DSO? And what should you do with your building when you sell?

🎧 Essential listening for any dentist thinking about buying, selling, or planning an exit.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalTransitions #PracticeSales #DentalBusiness #DSO #PracticeOwnership

In this four-guest roundtable — part three of the show's airway and sleep series — Howard Farran brings together a genuinely multidisciplinary panel: Patrick McKeown, an internationally recognized breathing expert, author of eleven books, and creator of MyoTape and the modern Buteyko approach; Dr. Felix Liao, an engineer-turned-dentist who coined "Impaired Mouth Syndrome" and developed Airway Facial Epigenetics through his AMD Academy Global; Nerissa Boggan, a myofunctional therapist and sleep-and-breathing educator with 25+ years in dental hygiene and author of the children's book My Dog Myo and My Nose; and Dr. Anthony Bolamperti, a second-generation laser dentist running Omaha Laser Dentistry and its Airway Institute. Together they approach the same overlooked problem — the airway — through four lenses: epigenetics, Buteyko breathing, myofunctional therapy, and laser dentistry. The conversation explores how a mouth-breathing habit reshapes the face and drives malocclusion, why restoring the airway can ease chronic pain and improve sleep and mood, and how starting with the nose — nasal hygiene, lip seal, tongue posture, and early intervention — changes outcomes from infancy through old age.

Throughout, Howard returns to his recurring theme of transferring hard-won knowledge to the next generation, asking each guest what they'd tell a newly graduated dentist. The answers converge: pay your dues and your loans, but don't stay siloed — see the whole patient behind the tooth, learn airway health, and think like an oral physician rather than a "trinket" dentist. The panel also confronts the sobering sleep-apnea funnel (only about five of every hundred sufferers are actually treated), the ongoing debate over tongue ties and frenectomies, and the profession's burnout crisis — united by the conviction that dentists, who see patients more often than physicians do, are uniquely positioned on the front line of whole-health care.

The American Sleep and Breathing Academy: https://asba.life/ 

Episode #1718 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard hosts a four-guest airway roundtable with breathing expert Patrick McKeown, "Airway Mouth Doctor" Dr. Felix Liao, myofunctional therapist Nerissa Boggan, and laser dentist Dr. Anthony Bolamperti.

Four disciplines — epigenetics, Buteyko breathing, myofunctional therapy, and laser dentistry — all treating the same overlooked problem: the airway. From why "straight white teeth is the wrong goalpost" to the sleep-apnea funnel where only ~5 of 100 patients ever get treated, this one connects the dots.

🎧 A must-listen on whole-health dentistry, breathing, and treating the whole patient behind the tooth.

#DentistryUncensored #AirwayHealth #Buteyko #Myofunctional #LaserDentistry #DentalSleepMedicine

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Brian Hanks, MBA, CFP — a national dental transitions expert, author, accountant, and Certified Financial Planner who has been directly involved in hundreds of dental practice transitions across all fifty states. Through his firm, Dental Buyer Advocates, Brian works exclusively with buyers, guiding them through due diligence, negotiation, financing, and transition. He joins the show to explain what recent turbulence in private credit markets could mean for dental practice valuations.

The conversation starts with the Blue Owl private credit situation and why a fund halting redemptions matters to everyday dentists. Brian explains how private equity and private credit have fueled the dental acquisition boom, and what happens when that fuel gets more expensive — specifically how EBITDA multiples compress as borrowing costs rise, and what that looks like in real dollar terms for a selling dentist. He also addresses why changes in credit markets typically take 12 to 24 months to show up in practice valuations, and how to tell whether the current moment is the start of a genuine shift or just a temporary blip.

From there, Brian offers practical guidance for both sides of the market: what dentists thinking about selling in the next few years should be doing right now, how a cooling acquisition market can create real opportunity for buyers, and the early warning signs brokers and advisors are already watching — longer timelines, fewer bidders, and more selective buyers. He closes with the single biggest mistake dentists make when selling, what a truly well-prepared practice looks like to a serious buyer today, and where he thinks valuations are headed over the next 24 months.

Episode #1717 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Brian Hanks, MBA, CFP — national dental transitions expert, author, and founder of Dental Buyer Advocates — to unpack what recent turbulence in private credit markets could mean for dental practice valuations.

Most dentists have never heard of Blue Owl. Brian explains why they should care — how rising borrowing costs compress EBITDA multiples, what that means in real dollars for a selling dentist, and why credit market shifts take 12–24 months to show up in what your practice is worth.

🎧 Essential listening for any dentist thinking about buying or selling in the next few years.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalTransitions #PracticeValue #DentalBusiness #PrivateEquity #DSO

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Eric J. Morin, MBA, Founder and President of Tower Leadership, a Forbes speaker and best-selling author who has spent more than two decades helping doctors build more profitable, scalable, and valuable businesses. The conversation focuses on the operational and financial disciplines that separate a practice that simply produces well from one that commands real enterprise value.

Eric explains how dentists can grow EBITDA without just doing more dentistry — by finding the profit quietly lost to overhead, inefficiency, weak scheduling, and poor case acceptance — and walks through the key KPIs every owner should actually be tracking to make better decisions. He and Howard dig into the most common operational blind spots, including why what looks like a production problem is often really a leadership, accountability, or systems problem. The discussion also covers how to scale from a strong single location into a larger, sustainable business without sacrificing culture, patient experience, or profitability, and closes with how owners should think about private equity, DSOs, and timing a potential exit before deciding whether to stay independent, keep growing, or prepare for a transition.

Episode #1716 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Eric J. Morin, MBA — Founder & President of Tower Leadership, Forbes speaker, and best-selling author who's helped thousands of doctors turn good practices into high-value enterprises.

From growing EBITDA without just "doing more dentistry," to the KPIs every owner should know, to what actually makes a practice valuable in today's market — Eric breaks down the business side dental school never taught.

🎧 A must-listen for any dentist thinking about profitability, scale, or an eventual exit.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalBusiness #PracticeManagement #EBITDA #DentalLeadership #PracticeValue

In this roundtable — part two of the show's airway and sleep series recorded around an ASBA gathering — Howard Farran sits down with three leaders working at the intersection of dentistry, sleep, and medicine: Dr. Luann Hall, a UCSF-trained "recovering pediatric dentist," minimally invasive advocate, and regent of the American College of Dentists; Dr. Manisha Witmans, a board-certified sleep physician, pediatrician, and pediatric pulmonologist who built the pediatric sleep program at Stollery Children's Hospital and recently learned she's been an OSA patient herself since childhood; and Dr. Janelle Crichton, an orthodontist and airway specialist whose practice ranks #1 in Canada for Invisalign volume and who is entering Stanford's Orthodontic Dental Sleep Medicine program as one of only six orthodontists in North America accepted.

The conversation opens on a philosophy of preservation — the idea that a tooth can outlive us but rarely survives the drill — and Dr. Hall's case for minimally invasive care, arresting decay and remineralizing rather than cutting. She also introduces two ventures she advises: Auris DX, an FDA-approved salivary test for oral cancer often described as a "pap smear for the mouth," and InHand Dental, a teledentistry tool built during the pandemic. That leads into a recurring theme of the episode: the artificial divide between medicine and dentistry, why oral cancer screening isn't reimbursed like its medical equivalent, and the panel's shared vision of collaborative care built around a single shared medical record and integrated practices where orthodontists, myofunctional therapists, and physicians work under one roof.

Much of the discussion centers on airway and sleep. The doctors walk through how mouth breathing shows up in the chair — lips apart, dry inflamed gums, high narrow palates, dark under-eye circles, brain fog, grinding, bite changes, crowding, delayed eruption, and white-spot lesions driven by reduced salivary buffering — and Dr. Witmans drives home the loop between poor sleep and systemic inflammation. She also highlights a striking inequity: women weren't included in obstructive sleep apnea research until 1993, decades after REM sleep was discovered, leaving today's screening tools heavily weighted toward men and countless anxious, exhausted, chronically-in-pain women underdiagnosed. Howard adds his own near-fatal kidney stone story as a vivid example of how men delay seeking care. The panel debates when children should first see an orthodontist — landing firmly on early, growth-modification-focused intervention rather than the traditional "wait until twelve" — and closes with practical, fear-reducing exam tips for new dentists, like asking a child whether their teeth feel "happy or sad" and letting patients tell you what they think is going on.

Episode #1715 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard hosts a powerhouse airway roundtable with Dr. Luann Hall, Dr. Manisha Witmans, and Dr. Janelle Crichton — a "recovering" pediatric dentist, a sleep physician, and one of North America's top airway orthodontists.

From why "you can survive without a tooth but not the drill," to the decay patterns that secretly signal an airway problem, to how women went unstudied in sleep medicine until 1993 — this conversation connects dots most dental schools never do.

🎧 A must-listen on airway, sleep, prevention, and bridging the gap between medicine and dentistry.

#DentistryUncensored #AirwayHealth #DentalSleepMedicine #PediatricDentistry #Orthodontics #SleepApnea

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Eric Recker — a dentist of 24 years, keynote speaker, author, pilot, mountain climber, and success coach based in Pella, Iowa — for a candid conversation about burnout and the path back from it. Eric opens up about how close he came to leaving dentistry entirely: he tried to sell his practice, and when the deal fell through, he was forced to confront the tension headaches, heart palpitations, and panic attacks he'd spent a decade dismissing as "just how it is" — including one attack that left him on his office server room floor on a Monday morning.

The conversation traces how COVID became an unexpected turning point, giving Eric the space to step back and ask what was really unsustainable about the pace he was keeping. He shares the concept that changed everything — "boundarying" his day, a phrase from his outside-dentistry mentor — and makes the case for having two coaches: one inside dentistry and one for life beyond it. Eric and Howard dig into the "false sense of urgency," the voice of should that runs like a background app draining energy, and the simple practice of writing those thoughts down and asking, "What can I do about it?"

Eric explains the framework behind his book, The Dam Analogy: we're all like a dam balancing stored energy (the lake) against our impact on the world (the river) — and while dentists are exceptional at output, most are terrible at refilling themselves. He describes retreating to a monastery for 24 hours as one way he refills, and lays out the choice between "Mountain A" (grumpy, doom-scrolling, being everything to everyone) and "Mountain B" (intentional living, self-care, and pursuing what matters most). Along the way, the two share practical hacks — protecting your Monday morning schedule, doing more of the dentistry you love and less of what drains you, firing the "Mrs. Murgatroyd" patients who exhaust the whole team, and using the freeing phrase "what you're asking me to do is unreasonable" to hold boundaries with patients. The episode closes on the importance of raising your hand and asking for help, and Eric's invitation to any struggling dentist to simply start a conversation.

5-Day Knock Back Burnout Challenge- https://ericrecker.com/knock-back-burnout/

Episode #1714 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Eric Recker — dentist, keynote speaker, author, pilot, and success coach — who nearly walked away from dentistry before turning his burnout into a mission to help others.

From panic attacks on the server room floor to "boundarying" his day, the Dam Analogy, and choosing "Mountain B," Eric shares hard-won, practical tools for any dentist quietly telling themselves "this is just how it is."

🎧 An honest, hopeful conversation about burnout, boundaries, and building a life you don't need to escape from.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalBurnout #WorkLifeBalance #DentalWellness #DentistCoaching #MentalHealth

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Randolph Cross, a private practice endodontist in Watsonville, California, and the inventor of the EndoCator — a first-of-its-kind chairside ATP test that tells clinicians, in five seconds, whether a root canal is truly clean before they close it. Dr. Cross traces the idea back to a finals-week breakdown during his residency at USC, when he realized the profession had no reliable, real-time way to confirm disinfection. Drawing on his biochemistry background, he bought a cheap ATP tester off eBay, tried it on extracted teeth, and watched the readings drop from dirty to clean as he worked — the moment he knew he was onto something.

Randy explains the science in plain terms: ATP is the energy molecule found in every living cell, and when it hits the enzyme luciferase, it emits light the device measures on a 1–100 scale. Because it detects ATP rather than culturing bacteria, it's more sensitive than traditional methods and picks up anaerobes and even fungi that cultures miss. He even demos it live, licking a test tube to show how a "clean-looking" sample still lights up as filthy. Along the way he shares the anecdote that crystallized it all — a case where a textbook-perfect obturation tested dirty while a squiggly-looking fill tested spotless — and how the patent office initially rejected the idea twice for being "too obvious."

The conversation dives deep into practical disinfection: why full-strength sodium hypochlorite and contact time still matter most, his use of Triton on necrotic cases, the trade-offs of lasers, heated irrigants, and ultrasonic activation, and his "apical barbarian" approach to working to length. Dr. Cross frames the EndoCator as smaller, faster, and cheaper than the alternatives — roughly $1,800 for the unit and about $7 per test, versus six figures for a GentleWave — and stresses that patients deserve to know their infection is gone before the canal is sealed. Howard and Randy also cover one-visit versus two-visit endo, the overprescription of antibiotics, posts and the ferrule effect, intentional reimplantation, and the realities of practicing endo in rural America, closing with candid advice for any dentist sitting on an idea: go for it, prototype early, and pass the baton when it stops being fun.

Episode #1713 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Randolph Cross — private practice endodontist and inventor of the EndoCator, a 5-second chairside ATP test that finally answers the question most dentists never ask: is this root canal actually clean before I fill it?

Born out of a finals-week epiphany in residency and a $20 tester bought off eBay, Randy's device gives real-time feedback on canal cleanliness — and the readings have humbled a lot of egos.

🎧 A must-listen on disinfection, invention, and why the pretty X-ray isn't the whole story.

#DentistryUncensored #Endodontics #RootCanal #DentalInnovation #EndoCator #DentalInventors

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Sompop Bencharit, a board-certified prosthodontist, innovation strategist, and Director of Innovation at the Austin Institute of Dental Medicine, who has led technology transformation at VCU, the Medical University of South Carolina, and High Point University. A Fellow of the American College of Prosthodontists with over 100 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Bencharit also serves as president of HADEN — the Haptic and AI in Dental Education Network — connecting more than 70 educators worldwide.

The conversation opens by demystifying "haptics" — the virtual-reality, flight-simulator-style training that lets students feel the difference between drilling enamel and dentin, turning passive learning into muscle memory before they ever touch a patient. Dr. Bencharit argues that the single biggest barrier keeping dental schools from modernizing isn't money or expertise, but fear. He shares how he digitized VCU's dental school — flipping a program that once took 79 days to deliver a single crown into one where students routinely complete same-day, in-house digital restorations — and stresses that the real key wasn't machines, but workflow.

Howard and Dr. Bencharit dig into what a truly future-ready dental school looks like, the core digital skills every new graduate should master (intraoral scanning, 3D printing, same-day restorations, and implant planning with guided surgery), and why robotic implant placement is now the most accurate method available. They also take on the AI debate head-on — with Dr. Bencharit explaining that dentistry has quietly used AI for years, that generalists will increasingly perform work once reserved for specialists, and that his real concern isn't AI replacing jobs but its potential to fabricate undetectable research. The episode closes with a passionate discussion on the maldistribution of dentists, the crushing burden of student debt, and why subsidized dental education — like the tuition-free residency model at the Austin Institute — may be essential to serving underserved communities.

Episode #1712 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Sompop Bencharit — board-certified prosthodontist, innovation strategist, and president of HADEN, the world's largest community advancing haptic and AI technologies in dental education.

From flight-simulator-style "haptic" training and same-day digital dentistry, to why he says fear is the #1 barrier holding dental schools back, to how AI will reshape all 12 specialties — this is a candid look at where dental education must go next.

🎧 A must-listen for students, educators, and any dentist thinking about the future of the profession.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalEducation #DigitalDentistry #DentalAI #Prosthodontics #FutureOfDentistry

In this episode, Howard Farran welcomes back Dr. Densen Cao — physicist, prolific inventor, and founder and CEO of CAO Group and AMD Lasers — for his first return to the show in eight years. Mentored early in his career by Dr. Gordon and Dr. Rella Christensen, Dr. Cao has spent decades developing disruptive dental technologies at the intersection of physics, materials science, and clinical dentistry.

The heart of the conversation is his newly released LEAP procedure (Laser Endodontic Ablation Procedure), unveiled at AAE 2026 after five years of FDA review and more than 100 U.S. cases. Dr. Cao explains why disinfection — not obturation — is the true key to root canal success, and how LEAP uses a low-energy diode laser to ablate residual tissue and bacteria, paired with a proprietary LEAP solution of chlorhexidine and ethanol to reach the fins and side canals. The result, he says, is a five-nines (99.999%) bacteria reduction achieved in live patients, with an independent clinical study by Dr. Rella Christensen now underway.

The discussion then moves to prevention, where Dr. Cao introduces his caries risk testing strips — which measure salivary pH and buffer capacity with a simple lick — and "Cavity Fighter" mints designed to neutralize acid and remineralize enamel during the critical window after eating. Along the way, Howard and Dr. Cao explore why a small percentage of people never get cavities, the impact of vaping and dry mouth on caries risk, the physics of curing lights, and the history behind AMD Lasers. The episode closes with Dr. Cao's reflections on COVID and disinfection, the future of AI in dentistry, and what a lifetime in physics has taught him about trusting science and data above all.

Episode #1711 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard welcomes back his friend Dr. Densen Cao — physicist, inventor, and founder & CEO of CAO Group and AMD Lasers — eight years after his first appearance.

From a groundbreaking new laser root canal disinfection procedure (LEAP) that just earned FDA clearance, to caries risk strips and "Cavity Fighter" mints that could change how we prevent decay, Dr. Cao shares what happens when a physicist tackles dentistry's oldest problems.

🎧 A fascinating deep dive into disruptive innovation, science, and the future of dental care.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalInnovation #Endodontics #DentalLasers #AMDLasers #DentalTechnology

In this episode, Howard Farran reconnects with longtime friend Dr. Ben Wachter, a Mesa, Arizona native and 2017 graduate of A.T. Still University whose career has been shaped by service, perseverance, and a passion for caring for the underserved. Ben opens up about the mentor who changed his life — the late Dr. Tim Lukowski — who inspired him to leave a path toward medical school, took him on his first mission trips to Mexico, and believed in him through three rounds of dental school applications.

The conversation moves through Ben's remarkable commitment to charitable care, including 10 dental mission trips to Mexico, his work with Arizona Sunshine and the Arizona Mission of Mercy, and his role in helping create clinics that serve those who need it most. He also reflects on training under implant and sedation experts like Dr. Richard Feldhake and Tom Mattern, launching the first special care clinic with Pacific Dental Services in Scottsdale, and building his skills across oral conscious sedation, IV sedation, and general anesthesia for patients with special needs.

Howard and Ben also get candid about the realities facing new graduates — how to read a DSO contract, why the "owner doc" model can be misleading, the importance of looking closely at the numbers before taking a job, and the staffing and hygienist shortages that make rural practice both rewarding and challenging. The episode closes with Ben sharing the story behind his invention, the Nova Flow Adapter — an affordable, autoclavable, Arizona-made alternative to pricey isolation systems — and a shared reflection on why missionary dentistry has a way of resetting a burned-out clinician's soul.

Episode #1710 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with friend and fellow Arizonan, Dr. Ben Wachter — a Mesa, Arizona native and general dentist whose career has been built on service, grit, and a deep commitment to underserved patients.

From applying to dental school three times, to 10 mission trips to Mexico, to launching a special care clinic and inventing his own affordable dental tool — Ben's story is a reminder of why so many of us got into this profession in the first place.

🎧 An honest, heartfelt conversation about mentorship, mission work, and finding your place in dentistry.

#DentistryUncensored #MissionaryDentistry #DentalCareer #SpecialCareDentistry #GivingBack #DentalCommunity

In this two-hour roundtable recorded at a global airway, breathing, and sleep conference, Howard Farran sits down with three of the field's most passionate voices: Dr. Toshi Hart, Diplomate and President-Elect of the American Sleep and Breathing Academy; Dr. Kimberly Ann Meyer, current President of the American Academy of Craniofacial Pain; and Dr. Mark Levi, a Sydney-based diplomate who turned his own severe sleep apnea diagnosis into a career treating children.

The conversation centers on a provocative idea: that the malocclusion, crowded teeth, and breathing problems flooding modern dental practices stem from generations of underdeveloped jaws — driven by softer diets, less nursing, and mouth breathing. Dr. Hart shares how a single 45-minute lecture on craniofacial epigenetics redirected her career, leading to a study in which guided growth appliances produced a 76% reduction in decay. Dr. Levi makes the case for early intervention in children as young as three, explaining why the window to influence facial growth closes far earlier than most clinicians realize. Dr. Meyer connects the dots between nasal breathing, nitric oxide, tongue posture, tonsils and adenoids, and the cascade of downstream effects on sleep, behavior, and long-term health.

Along the way, the group tackles the fierce professional pushback they face, why mothers — not journals — are driving change, the relationship between bruxism, airway, and even implant failure, and how a single-chair, drill-free practice can outperform a traditional one. The episode closes with practical guidance for young dentists on where to begin, why education matters more than expensive machinery, and how building thriving children builds a thriving practice.

Episode #1709 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with a powerhouse airway roundtable — Dr. Toshi Hart, Dr. Kimberly Ann Meyer, and Dr. Mark Levi — three leaders changing how dentistry thinks about jaw development, breathing, and sleep.

From why 80% of kids have underdeveloped jaws, to a 76% reduction in decay through early intervention, to the pushback these "myofunctional quacks" proudly embrace — this is a candid, eye-opening conversation about treating the root cause, not just the cavity.

🎧 If you've ever heard a child grinding their teeth at night, this episode will change how you see it.

#DentistryUncensored #AirwayHealth #DentalSleepMedicine #PediatricDentistry #Myofunctional #CraniofacialEpigenetics

In this episode, Howard Farran is joined by Ellen Bösl, Vice President of Research and Development at Solventum, where she leads the strategy and execution of the Global Dental Solutions R&D organization. A chemical engineer by training with a 25-year career spanning Solventum and 3M — including R&D leadership across MedSurg, Transportation, and Electronics — Ellen brings a systems-level lens to one of the profession's most stubborn problems: oral health inequity. The conversation confronts why oral health remains one of the most unequal corners of healthcare despite unprecedented advances in technology, materials, and knowledge. Ellen and Howard dig into the root causes that rarely get discussed, whether inequity is best understood as a clinical, business, or policy challenge, and which innovations genuinely broaden access versus those that merely sound impressive. They also explore the gaps between urban, rural, private, public, and corporate dentistry, what frontline providers actually need, and what realistic progress could look like decades from now.

Episode #1708 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard welcomes Ellen Bösl — Vice President of R&D at Solventum — to tackle a question the industry doesn't ask often enough: with more technology and knowledge than ever, why is oral health still so deeply unequal?

Drawing on 25 years of innovation leadership, Ellen separates the technologies that truly expand access from the ones that just make good headlines.

🎧 A candid, big-picture look at equity, innovation, and the future of dental care.

#DentistryUncensored #OralHealthEquity #DentalInnovation #Solventum #AccessToCare #DentalResearch

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Tobias Richter, founder of TRI® Dental Implants and a dental entrepreneur with two decades of experience at the cutting edge of the implant industry. Tobias traces his journey from launching product innovations like SLActive at Straumann, to co-founding Implant Direct Europe and building the business across 25 markets before its sale to the Danaher Group, to eventually founding TRI® as an innovative digital implant company. Beyond TRI®, he is also a co-founder of the German dental clinic group DENTABENE, a partner in the e-learning platform Dental Campus, and a board member of the dental lab group DELABO.GROUP. The conversation explores the digital dentistry revolution and the trends shaping its future, why workflow thinking has become mandatory for everyone in the industry, and how no-abutment implant innovation aims to fundamentally improve the experience for both patients and clinicians by reducing pain, time, and cost.

Check out their website: www.tri.swiss 

Episode #1707 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Tobias Richter — founder of TRI® Dental Implants and a 20-year veteran of the global dental industry.

From launching innovations at Straumann to building Implant Direct across 25 European markets, Tobias has spent his career pushing implant dentistry forward — and now he's rethinking it entirely with no-abutment innovation designed to save patients and clinicians pain, time, and money.

🎧 A forward-looking conversation on the digital dentistry revolution and where the industry goes next.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalImplants #DigitalDentistry #TRIImplants #DentalInnovation #ImplantDentistry

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Jack Hahn, a pioneering figure in implant dentistry whose career spans more than 58 years — 54 of them dedicated to implants. Dr. Hahn takes listeners through a remarkable journey that began with placing bilateral blade implants in 1970, evolved through subperiosteal and early root form implants, and ultimately led him to design four distinct implant systems, including the Steri-Oss, the Replace Tapered Implant, and the Hahn Tapered Implant now manufactured by Glidewell. Along the way, he shares stories of treating patients and teaching dentists across the globe — from Russia to Saudi Arabia — the skepticism he faced early in his career, and the lessons he learned both in clinical innovation and in business. A recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award and past president of the American Board of Oral Implantology, Dr. Hahn offers a rare firsthand account of how implant dentistry grew from a fringe idea into a cornerstone of modern care — along with candid advice, including the mistakes he made selling his own practice.

Episode #1706 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Jack Hahn — a true living legend of implant dentistry with over 58 years in practice and 54 of them devoted to implants.

From placing his first blade implants in 1970 to designing four implant systems — including the Hahn Tapered Implant — Dr. Hahn has quite literally helped shape modern implant dentistry as we know it.

🎧 An unmissable conversation with one of the field's founding pioneers.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalImplants #ImplantDentistry #DentalLegend #DentalHistory #HahnImplant

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Jay Reznick, a Diplomate of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and one of North America's earliest adopters of fully-guided, prosthetically-based implant surgery. Trained at Tufts, USC, and L.A. County-USC Medical Center, Dr. Reznick holds both a DMD and an MD — and has spent the last two decades at the forefront of 3D digital technology in dentistry, becoming the first specialist in the U.S. to integrate CBCT and CAD/CAM into clinical practice. He is a co-founder of OnlineOralSurgery.com, a leading educational platform for practicing dentists seeking to expand their surgical skills, and a frequent lecturer and live-course instructor for dentists around the world. The conversation draws on his extensive clinical and teaching experience, exploring the evolution of implant surgery, the impact of digital workflows, and what it takes to bring advanced surgical techniques into everyday dental practice.

Episode #1705 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Jay Reznick — oral and maxillofacial surgeon, DMD, MD, and one of the true pioneers of digital implant surgery in the United States.

The first specialist in the country to integrate CBCT and CAD/CAM in practice, Dr. Reznick has spent two decades teaching dentists around the world how to think bigger, operate smarter, and deliver better surgical outcomes.

🎧 A masterclass in implant surgery, 3D technology, and the future of oral surgery education.

#DentistryUncensored #OralSurgery #DentalImplants #DigitalDentistry #CBCT #DentalEducation

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Drs. Jessica and Richard Marn — a wife-and-husband team whose combined expertise in pediatric dentistry and anesthesiology has led them to a mission-driven focus on sedation safety in dental and oral surgery practices. Jessica is a board-certified pediatric dentist and private practice owner with over two decades of experience in New York City, while Richard is dual board-certified in anesthesiology and pediatric anesthesiology, with over 18,000 anesthetics delivered and faculty experience training Harvard Hospital anesthesiologists in crisis resource management and performance under pressure. Together, they developed the Boring Sedation Method — a systems-based approach built on the belief that sedation is a practice capability, not just a provider technique. The conversation explores what most practices are missing even when they have the right permits, monitors, and emergency drugs in place, how stronger systems make routine sedation smoother and deviations less likely to become emergencies, and what dentists and oral surgeons should assess first if they want to know how solid their sedation systems really are.

Episode #1704 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Drs. Jessica and Richard Marn — a pediatric dentist and dual board-certified anesthesiologist who together are redefining how dental practices approach sedation safety. 

Their concept? Boring Sedation. The goal isn't dramatic rescue — it's building systems so reliable that problems get caught early and cases stay predictable. 

🎧 A fascinating, potentially life-saving conversation for any dentist who offers sedation in their practice. 

#DentistryUncensored #DentalSedation #PediatricDentistry #PatientSafety #DentalAnesthesia #DentalSystems

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Shreyas Parab, co-founder and CEO of DayDream, an AI-powered dental revenue cycle company serving hundreds of practices nationwide. Shreyas opens up about growing up in his mother's dental practice — and how watching real inefficiencies play out every day ultimately inspired him to build what she never had. The conversation is candid and wide-ranging, covering what Shreyas looks at first when assessing the true health of a practice, where dentists are overcomplicating things that have simple fixes, and where AI in dentistry is genuinely overhyped right now. He also shares what he would do differently if he could design a dental practice from scratch today — a question that draws on both his insider upbringing and his outsider perspective as a tech founder building solutions for the profession.

Episode #1703 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Shreyas Parab — co-founder and CEO of DayDream — who grew up in his mother's dental practice, saw the broken systems up close, and built the solution he wished they'd had.

From spotting hidden revenue leaks to cutting through the AI hype, Shreyas brings a refreshingly honest outside perspective on what's really holding dental practices back.

🎧 Smart, direct, and full of practical insight for practice owners ready to think differently.

#DentistryUncensored #DayDream #DentalBilling #RevenueCycle #DentalAI #PracticeManagement

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Bob Marcus, retired San Diego dentist, dental office coach, and co-founder of Kick Your Apps, Inc. — the company behind DDS GP, an award-winning iPad app that helps dentists explain conditions and treatment options through simple, patient-friendly visuals. Dr. Marcus brings a psychologist's eye to the treatment planning conversation, exploring why so many offices feel busy but fail to convert that activity into real production. The discussion covers what a great treatment plan presentation actually looks like, why case acceptance is about trust and clarity more than price, and how shoulder-to-shoulder communication transforms the patient experience. Dr. Marcus and Howard also dig into smarter ways to stay profitable within insurance networks and share the story behind DDS GP — now used by over 15,000 dental professionals across 65 countries.

Episode #1702 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Bob Marcus — retired clinician, dental coach, and co-founder of DDS GP, the award-winning iPad app used by over 15,000 dental professionals in 65 countries.

From the psychology of treatment planning to why busy practices still struggle with production, Dr. Marcus breaks down what case acceptance really means — and how better patient communication changes everything.

🎧 Practical, patient-focused, and packed with insight for any dentist looking to present treatment more effectively.

#DentistryUncensored #CaseAcceptance #DentalCommunication #DDSGP #DentalCoaching #PracticeManagement

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Sarah Beth Herman, CEO of Dentistry Support®, Dentistry Support Academy, and a nationally recognized leader in dental operations, staffing, and team development. Armed with an MBA earned Summa Cum Laude and over two decades of real-world experience, Sarah Beth brings sharp opinions and practical solutions to some of the most overlooked problems in dental practice management. The conversation covers why percentage-of-collections pricing models misalign incentives and penalize growing practices, why insurance verification should be treated as a standard of care rather than an add-on service, and how clean AR is achievable at any size with the right staffing and systems in place. Sarah Beth and Howard also dig into what makes a schedule truly profitable versus just full, and why SOPs — far from being a corporate bureaucracy — are the single greatest tool a dentist has for removing themselves as the bottleneck. Sarah Beth also shares the story behind Dentistry Support's 2025 BBB Torch Award for Ethics and what building a global team across nine countries has taught her about leadership done right.

Episode #1701 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Sarah Beth Herman — CEO of Dentistry Support®, 2025 BBB Torch Award winner, and one of dentistry's most candid voices on leadership, systems, and back-office operations.

From percentage-based billing models she disagrees with, to AR aging, scheduling structure, and why SOPs aren't corporate — they're freedom — Sarah Beth doesn't hold back.

🎧 A practical, no-nonsense conversation for any dentist ready to fix what's quietly costing them.

#DentistryUncensored #DentistrySupport #DentalOperations #PracticeManagement #DentalLeadership #DentalBusiness

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Kiera Dent, founder and CEO of The Dental A Team, whose nearly 2 million podcast downloads and hundreds of coached practices speak for themselves. Kiera cuts straight to the heart of why so many dental practices feel stuck — not because they lack patients or production, but because they lack systems. The conversation covers the hidden gaps that drain profitability even in high-producing practices, why dentists often become the ceiling of their own growth, and how to build a team that supports the doctor instead of depending on them. Kiera and Howard also dig into scheduling as a revenue lever, the real reasons patients say no to treatment, the KPIs that actually drive decisions, and the difference between a nice culture and an accountable one. Whether you're feeling chaotic, stalled, or simply ready to level up, this episode delivers both the clarity and the practical tools to move forward.

Episode #1700 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Kiera Dent — founder and CEO of The Dental A Team — for a straight-talking conversation on why busy practices still struggle, and what it actually takes to build a profitable, system-driven dental business.

From scheduling and case acceptance to culture, accountability, and breaking the "rockstar employee" dependency — Kiera brings the energy and the answers.

🎧 Packed with practical wins you can implement this week.

#DentistryUncensored #DentalATeam #PracticeManagement #DentalBusiness #DentalLeadership #DentalConsulting

1699 The Irreplaceable Dental Team - Heather-Dawn Lawson-Meyers : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

In this special episode, the tables are turned — Howard Farran joins Dr. Heather-Dawn Lawson-Myers as a guest on The Irreplaceable Dental Team Podcast. Dr. Lawson-Myers, a transformational speaker, Maxwell Leadership Certified Trainer, and Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach with over 30 years in dentistry, brings a sharp set of questions that pull some of Howard's most direct insights to the surface.

The conversation covers Howard's foundational framework of People, Time, and Money — and the order in which practices should prioritize them. Howard shares counter-intuitive business rules most dentists ignore, what it really means to empower a team member in a single day, and why collecting payment upfront doesn't just improve cash flow — it actually strengthens the patient relationship. The episode also tackles the metrics that matter most in a healthy practice, the systems that are overcomplicated and how to simplify them, and the one non-negotiable trait Howard hires for beyond clinical skill. The conversation closes with a reflection on building community — locally and globally — and the single piece of advice Howard would give his younger self on day one.

Episode #1699 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, This time, Howard Farran is in the guest seat — joining Dr. Heather-Dawn Lawson-Myers on The Irreplaceable Dental Team Podcast for a candid, no-holds-barred conversation on people, money, leadership, and what it really takes to build a thriving dental practice.

From hiring for character over skill to getting paid upfront and building community, Howard brings decades of hard-won wisdom in true uncensored fashion.

🎧 A must-listen for dentists and team members who want straight talk on running a better practice.

#DentistryUncensored #IrreplaceableDentalTeam #DentalLeadership #PracticeManagement #DentalBusiness #HowardFarran