Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

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