Like businesses all over the country, Mortenson Dental Partners has had to adapt to the changing landscape posed by the COVID-19 crisis. As a leading DSO, we continue to capture and analyze the most relevant data to help us make the most informed business decisions. With the leadership of our doctors, we rely on good science and validated research to drive our clinical decisions. While the pandemic has presented us with many challenges, we are poised to emerge from it as strong as ever. Here is a summary of our experience with COVID-19, and a look at where we stand today.
Early Days of the Outbreak
In the early days of the outbreak, our leadership team was following industry trends from China and other countries to help anticipate how the virus would affect our business. As it became clear that COVID-19 was becoming a serious threat to the United States, we established a task force to plan for different levels of impact. Within days, we provided our team members with a one-stop web resource for the latest news and other pertinent information, such as our standard safety protocols, practice print-outs, answers to frequently asked questions, and more. The website also included an incident reporting form and an area for team members to submit a question directly to our National Director of Clinical Affairs. We also communicated regularly with our patients to keep them informed of our status and safety measures.
Transition to Essential Care
When state dental boards and the American Dental Association recommended that all non-essential care be postponed, a limited number of our practices remained open for emergency services. Keeping these select “hub” practices open allowed us to continue serving our patient base in multiple regions while consolidating our PPE supply. It also allowed us to do our part in keeping dental emergencies out of local hospitals dealing with an influx of COVID-19 patients. As we worked to balance our responsibility to protect our team and patients with that of serving our communities, ensuring that additional safety measures were properly in place became paramount.
Phased Reopening
We are fortunate that our national presence helped us prepare for the restrictions that would be put into place in many of our regions, as well as how and when those restrictions would be lifted. Anticipating PPE shortages, we were able to secure high quantities of masks and other PPE through various supply chains. We incorporated a gradual, phased approach to reopening practices for patient and team safety, ensuring that adequate PPE was available and proper disinfection was conducted at every location. We are pleased to report that patient volumes since reopening have exceeded our own projections as well as industry levels nationwide. We attribute this success to our patients’ trust and confidence in our doctors and practice teams, our ability to source PPE, and our emphasis on safety in communications to patients.
Living Our Values
This experience has seen our resilient team pull together through a challenging time like never before as they worked for each other and our communities. Throughout, we have truly lived our values of caring for everyone, expressing gratitude, sharing abundantly, and building relationships. In the end, it’s all about helping others. As the country begins to reopen, MDP is emerging with financial stability and an even stronger team culture. While we cannot predict what the future holds, we feel well prepared to weather another COVID-19 storm if needed.
Looking for Guidance?
We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges for many in the dental industry. If you’re looking for guidance to help you move past this crisis and are considering your options, please view our Doctor Opportunities or contact our Development team.
