Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Dr. Manu Chaudhry, President of Capitol Dental Care

Transcript

Dr. Manu Chaudhry, President of Capitol Dental Care · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
• 0:02
  I'm Mariah Muhammad, writer and moderator with Becker's
• 0:05
  Healthcare. And I'm thrilled to have with me
• 0:07
  today doctor Manu Chaudhry, president at Capital Dental
• 0:10
  Care. Doctor, welcome to the podcast. We're very
• 0:13
  excited to have you join us today. To
• 0:15
  get us started, would you mind please introducing
• 0:16
  yourself and telling us a bit about your
• 0:18
  background?
• 0:19
  Yes. Of course. Thank you again for the
• 0:22
  the honor and privilege to to be here
• 0:24
  and and take the time to have an
• 0:26
  open and open discussion about all the exciting
• 0:29
  things that are going on in our communities
• 0:31
  that we have. And, so my name is
• 0:34
  doctor Manu Chaudhary.
• 0:35
  I'm a human and a consumer,
• 0:37
  and I am what could be considered a
• 0:39
  dry finger dentist. Haven't practiced in a few
• 0:42
  years.
• 0:43
  And,
• 0:44
  my my background is is quite diverse. Currently,
• 0:49
  I I have the honor to serve as
• 0:51
  president of Capital Dental Care. We are,
• 0:54
  one of a very few organizations
• 0:56
  where we kind of hold a payer hat
• 0:59
  and we also hold an affiliated provider hat,
• 1:02
  within the same organization.
• 1:04
  What kind of sets us apart, kind of
• 1:06
  a unicorn, so you could say, is that
• 1:08
  the the payer component is chiefly focused on
• 1:12
  the care of more than 360,000
• 1:15
  Medicaid,
• 1:17
  members here in Oregon, which are known as
• 1:19
  Oregon Health Plan Members, which in of itself
• 1:22
  is a very unique model that is one
• 1:24
  of the only in the country that are
• 1:26
  really focused not only in providing the services
• 1:30
  that,
• 1:31
  addressing disease acuity,
• 1:33
  and in addition to that,
• 1:35
  building systems and processes
• 1:38
  to prevent that disease from continuing its recurrence.
• 1:42
  A little bit more of my background.
• 1:45
  I had served as
• 1:46
  a regional clinical director for,
• 1:49
  InterDent with the general dental offices in the
• 1:51
  San Francisco Bay Area in the state of
• 1:53
  Nevada for a few years. Before that, I
• 1:55
  was a dental director for a community health
• 1:57
  center. And my other
• 2:00
  background also includes starting and operating a free
• 2:03
  dental clinic, where I was in group canals
• 2:05
  and crowns at no charge to the underserved
• 2:08
  community in the Central Valley of California.
• 2:10
  And finally,
• 2:11
  before I decided to change my career
• 2:14
  to become a dentist, I was a,
• 2:17
  a process development engineer with a master's in
• 2:20
  biomechanical engineering. I'm very happy to be here,
• 2:23
  and and thank you for this opportunity again.
• 2:26
  Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Thank you so much
• 2:28
  for giving us that that insight into your
• 2:30
  background,
• 2:31
  and a little bit more about the organization.
• 2:34
  So with everything that you're doing, what are
• 2:36
  some of the biggest issues you're following into
• 2:39
  the new year?
• 2:41
  Thank you. This is a wonderful question.
• 2:44
  This is something that, in reality, the things
• 2:46
  that truly keep me up at night.
• 2:48
  And for me, specifically,
• 2:50
  I I continue to toggle
• 2:52
  between 2
• 2:54
  major,
• 2:55
  major issues. 1 of them
• 2:58
  is around AI, and AI is used
• 3:01
  very frequently among everyone and a lot of
• 3:04
  different health care leaders.
• 3:05
  And for me, when I think of this
• 3:07
  from a humanistic perspective, it's how do we
• 3:09
  truly bridge
• 3:10
  the AI human gap. I mean, it's really
• 3:12
  easy to double down and triple down and
• 3:14
  invest heavily in technology.
• 3:16
  But how do we then connect that back
• 3:18
  to,
• 3:19
  the humanistic component of health care delivery?
• 3:22
  And secondly,
• 3:23
  this is another topic that is like
• 3:26
  has been widely discussed
• 3:27
  and talked about probably for nearly 2 decades
• 3:30
  now, and that's this idea of value based
• 3:32
  care. And,
• 3:34
  dentistry has, for a long time, been really
• 3:37
  mired in this idea of
• 3:40
  surgical care and the number of procedures and
• 3:42
  types of procedures that are being performed in
• 3:44
  order to treat dental disease.
• 3:46
  But I believe the roots of value based
• 3:49
  care really
• 3:50
  call into
• 3:52
  shift that mindset
• 3:54
  from
• 3:55
  dentist thinking as surgeons to dentist thinking as
• 4:00
  healing,
• 4:01
  disease that occurs in the mouth and, of
• 4:04
  course, the rest of the body. So those
• 4:06
  are the two biggest issues
• 4:08
  that I've continued to struggle with probably for
• 4:10
  the last 6 months or so, and that
• 4:11
  are that's really just really top of mind
• 4:14
  as we enter into 2025.
• 4:17
  Yeah. Yeah. That definitely makes a lot of
• 4:19
  sense. Thank you for sharing that. Is there
• 4:21
  anything that you're currently doing or seeing in
• 4:24
  the media that you are most excited about
• 4:26
  or anything,
• 4:27
  else that's kinda making you nervous?
• 4:31
  I would say that
• 4:33
  some of the preliminary data that we have,
• 4:36
  across, you know, our Medicaid populations and our
• 4:40
  our non Medicaid populations
• 4:42
  is that in this post COVID era,
• 4:45
  we've seen an uptick of disease acuity,
• 4:49
  as much as 30 to 35%
• 4:51
  depending on the age group.
• 4:53
  And so
• 4:55
  likely through
• 4:57
  individuals and patients who,
• 4:59
  through COVID,
• 5:01
  had delayed
• 5:02
  seeking their dental care for whatever reason, whether
• 5:05
  it was a
• 5:07
  provider related concern or whether it was just
• 5:09
  general fear
• 5:11
  of transmission
• 5:12
  of these air aerosol generating particles or whatnot
• 5:15
  have you. I believe that
• 5:18
  what what makes me nervous is that
• 5:21
  we continue to see more and more kids,
• 5:24
  more and more older adults
• 5:26
  who,
• 5:27
  have greater
• 5:28
  levels of disease.
• 5:30
  And
• 5:31
  the reality is is that the workforce is
• 5:33
  just so strained
• 5:35
  from having operated and lived through a COVID
• 5:38
  and,
• 5:39
  reimbursement,
• 5:41
  amounts for providing that level of care
• 5:44
  kind of really
• 5:46
  creates
• 5:47
  a challenge path forward
• 5:49
  for preventing these never never ever events from
• 5:52
  occurring.
• 5:53
  And so I'm
• 5:55
  I'm chiefly nervous,
• 5:57
  probably with my dental hat, that that dental
• 6:00
  disease is occurring in greater degrees of the
• 6:03
  population.
• 6:04
  And we really we really need to come
• 6:07
  back to our roots
• 6:08
  of
• 6:10
  of what dental care can provide and what
• 6:12
  dental care can prevent.
• 6:13
  And, bringing
• 6:15
  our our people, our community,
• 6:18
  to feel comfortable again and and come back
• 6:21
  in for their routine,
• 6:22
  dental care.
• 6:24
  I think the the other thing that kinda
• 6:26
  makes me a little bit nervous,
• 6:28
  particularly
• 6:29
  from
• 6:30
  a Medicaid space
• 6:31
  and also from a non Medicaid space, is
• 6:35
  that the there's such an increased amount of
• 6:37
  regulations,
• 6:40
  to to participate in these programs,
• 6:42
  or what what would otherwise be known as
• 6:45
  administrative burden. You know, taking care of the
• 6:47
  underserved and and really believing that to elevate
• 6:51
  humanity, we should provide provide preferential
• 6:54
  care
• 6:55
  to the underserved. You know, those feelings and
• 6:58
  that type of,
• 7:00
  gargantuan Samaritan effort that's been provided
• 7:03
  that by the providers
• 7:05
  really leads to a lot of fatigue in
• 7:07
  the system.
• 7:09
  And,
• 7:09
  we tend to see
• 7:11
  greater levels of of attrition
• 7:13
  and people leaving the workforce
• 7:15
  because of these,
• 7:17
  high degrees of administrative burden.
• 7:20
  So,
• 7:21
  these are the things that
• 7:23
  I guess, that also keep me up at
• 7:24
  night. I guess there's a lot of things
• 7:25
  that keep me up at night. Yeah. This
• 7:27
  is just another one that, that makes me
• 7:30
  a little bit nervous about
• 7:32
  about the future of our
• 7:34
  of the oral health of our community and
• 7:36
  how it's connected to the overall health.
• 7:39
  Yeah. Yeah. No. I completely
• 7:41
  agree and believe in everything you just said.
• 7:44
  I I talked to a lot of executives,
• 7:46
  and I feel like burnout is definitely something
• 7:48
  that is gaining more momentum in in the
• 7:51
  talks that are, going on right now in
• 7:54
  the dental space and just the overall provider
• 7:56
  space.
• 7:58
  Doctor, before I let you go, the last
• 7:59
  thing that I wanted to ask you is,
• 8:01
  in your opinion, what will the most effective
• 8:03
  health care leaders
• 8:05
  need in order to be successful in the
• 8:06
  next 2 to 3 years?
• 8:09
  Another great question.
• 8:11
  I would say that
• 8:13
  over the last few years, I had a
• 8:15
  very fixed mindset.
• 8:17
  I I believed that,
• 8:19
  you know, care can only be be delivered
• 8:23
  by my hand
• 8:24
  when the patient comes and sees me as
• 8:26
  a dentist.
• 8:28
  And
• 8:29
  through practicing through COVID myself personally
• 8:32
  and about a year or 2 before that,
• 8:35
  I started this
• 8:37
  journey of belief that
• 8:39
  that it takes a village
• 8:41
  to truly
• 8:42
  make someone whole or to heal someone.
• 8:46
  And at Capital Dental Care, in order to
• 8:48
  get here and through our general dental offices,
• 8:51
  which are the Internet affiliated,
• 8:53
  you know, practice supported practices that we have
• 8:56
  here. We heavily invested in
• 8:59
  this idea of midlevel dental providers where we
• 9:01
  have advanced dental hygienists. We have we employ
• 9:03
  dental therapists. We employ community health workers
• 9:07
  to connect and coordinate
• 9:09
  people who've been identified
• 9:11
  with needing
• 9:12
  treatment for dental disease
• 9:14
  and and their routine follow ups after that.
• 9:17
  And so this this notion of this village,
• 9:21
  not only in the teams that we work
• 9:22
  with,
• 9:23
  kind of at the management support system, but
• 9:25
  then also down at point of care, you
• 9:28
  know, kind of taking
• 9:31
  that it's that it's
• 9:33
  everyone all of the dental providers working together,
• 9:36
  much the same model as we know for
• 9:38
  medical.
• 9:39
  You know, there are medical doctors. There's,
• 9:42
  there's
• 9:43
  doctors of osteopathic medicine or DOs.
• 9:46
  There are nurse practitioners. There's physician associates.
• 9:49
  You know? And there's all the different layers
• 9:51
  that support that and surround that that really
• 9:54
  try try to drive this full person level
• 9:57
  of care. And I I believe that we've
• 9:59
  crossed that inflection point with dentistry. And, dentistry
• 10:03
  itself,
• 10:04
  you know, it truly does take a village
• 10:07
  to to shift that perspective and that notion
• 10:09
  of oral health care for that individual and
• 10:11
  that person and make them
• 10:13
  not make them. Make is such a bad
• 10:15
  word to say, but rather empower them
• 10:17
  to address their oral health needs
• 10:20
  and and have that integrated in their overall
• 10:22
  health.
• 10:24
  I think, you know, beyond
• 10:26
  this idea of this village, you know, if
• 10:28
  we go a little bit more upstream to
• 10:30
  that,
• 10:31
  it's really about this this
• 10:33
  perspective,
• 10:35
  and shifting our mindset
• 10:36
  that we're all here
• 10:38
  as people, and we all exist as people
• 10:41
  to elevate humanity.
• 10:43
  And,
• 10:44
  we are
• 10:46
  we're in such an awesome position
• 10:48
  to elevate humanity
• 10:50
  through the businesses that we're in.
• 10:53
  And one really cool thing that,
• 10:56
  I think it's cool,
• 10:57
  is that,
• 10:59
  by the end of October,
• 11:00
  all of our care delivery systems in the
• 11:03
  state of Oregon, you know, the 45 plus
• 11:06
  brick and mortar offices, the 160 collocations,
• 11:09
  the 5 mobile dental health vans, the preventive
• 11:12
  teledentistry that we we do,
• 11:14
  you know, beyond being all connected to 1
• 11:16
  cloud based dental practice management software system.
• 11:20
  But by the end of this month, it's
• 11:22
  gonna have a full integration
• 11:25
  of physical and behavioral health information and social
• 11:28
  health information for that patient
• 11:30
  through our partnership with Reliance Health Information Exchange.
• 11:34
  You know, by the end of the month,
• 11:35
  we'll have,
• 11:37
  real time access
• 11:39
  to
• 11:40
  the medications the patient's taking, the allergies that
• 11:43
  the patient is taking,
• 11:44
  and and so much other rich level of
• 11:47
  information. And so when we start thinking of
• 11:49
  how do we truly
• 11:51
  break down the these these
• 11:53
  clinical silos and technical silos that we exist,
• 11:56
  you know, this this idea of elevating humanity
• 12:00
  and breaking through these
• 12:02
  these barriers with paradigm shift that can really
• 12:05
  revolutionize
• 12:07
  how we take care of of people, of
• 12:09
  our people, of our neighbor, of our mom,
• 12:12
  of our dad, of ourselves
• 12:14
  as consumers.
• 12:15
  That ultimately is by being on the same
• 12:18
  infrastructure,
• 12:20
  as all health care providers.
• 12:22
  And
• 12:23
  so
• 12:24
  going back to the root of this question,
• 12:25
  you know,
• 12:27
  you know, how can, you know, what will
• 12:29
  you know, how can we gain and garner
• 12:31
  and empower health care leaders to be successful
• 12:33
  in the next 2, 3 years? It's all
• 12:36
  about shifting this mindset.
• 12:38
  You know, shifting the mindset that
• 12:40
  our our roles in our community and within
• 12:44
  the businesses that we each serve in is
• 12:46
  really truly to elevate humanity, and and it
• 12:48
  is possible to do.
• 12:51
  Yeah. Of course. Thank you so much for
• 12:52
  those final thoughts, doctor. This has definitely been
• 12:54
  an informative discussion. So, again, I wanna thank
• 12:57
  you so much for coming back on Becker's
• 12:58
  health care, and I look forward to connecting
• 13:01
  with you again soon. Thank you very much,
• 13:03
  and thank you for having me.