Success Story
Scaling a Shared Clinical Philosophy Across a DSO
See how Branin Dental Group improved dental clinical consistency, diagnosis, and production across five practices with Spear.
40–95%
Improvement in diagnosis value per new patient exam within 3 months
31%
Increase in diagnosis value, correlated with ~$100 more production per clinical hour
$280K+
Additional annual production moving a provider from below-median to median
The Problem
Scaling a dental organization requires more than adding providers and locations. It requires a consistent clinical philosophy that drives diagnosis, treatment planning, and production across every practice.
For Branin Dental Group, maintaining clinical consistency became increasingly important as the organization expanded to five practices across Colorado’s Front Range.
Founder and CEO Dr. Scott Dudley saw that many dentists were trained to treat isolated problems instead of seeing the full context of a patient’s health.
“You can’t solve a one-tooth problem when the overall system is compromised.”
— Dr. Scott Dudley
Without a shared clinical framework, growth can start to feel fragmented:
- Inconsistent diagnosis and treatment planning that limit comprehensive case acceptance
- Transactional patient conversations that reduce trust and long-term treatment commitment
- Slower clinician development that delays productivity growth
- Variability in patient experience across locations that can impact satisfaction and retention
Dr. Dudley wanted a scalable way to align clinicians around comprehensive care while improving production, patient experience, and consistency across the organization.
The Solution: Spear Training for Building Clinical Consistency
Branin Dental Group partnered with Spear to build a clinician development system centered on comprehensive diagnosis, Facially Generated Treatment Planning, and more consistent patient conversations.
The goal was to create a repeatable approach to diagnosis and treatment planning that could be scaled across locations, improve production, and create a more consistent patient experience. Using Spear Online, Dr. Dudley created onboarding course pathways that trained doctors to diagnose more comprehensively and work from the same philosophy of care.
Branin Dental Group also incorporated Spear’s:
Hands-on workshops
Team development education
Mentorship & collaborative learning
Consistent treatment planning frameworks
The combination of online learning, workshops, and mentorship gave Branin Dental Group a scalable way to standardize diagnosis, treatment planning, and patient communication across all five locations.
The Result
As Branin Dental Group standardized clinician development, the organization saw measurable improvements in diagnosis, production, and consistency across practices.
In a seven-month internal study involving 10 doctors, 2,077 new patient exams, and 4,964 total exams, clinicians who strengthened their comprehensive diagnostic skills uncovered significantly more treatment opportunities and increased production.
“As clinicians learned to diagnose more comprehensively through Facially Generated Treatment Planning, production per hour and production per day increased.”
— Dr. Scott Dudley
The organization also began seeing stronger consistency in:
Diagnostic consistency across locations
Patient communication
Comprehensive treatment planning
Clinician confidence
Team alignment
