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