He Went From Vet Hospitals to Running a 130-Office Dental Group | Dave Gaspar, BOAC #59

In this episode of The Business of a Clinic, Jared speaks with Dave Gaspar, CEO of SmilePartners, a DSO with 130 offices across seven states. Dave’s career cuts across two worlds that rarely get compared: veterinary hospitals and dental clinics. Before SmilePartners, he worked at Banfield Pet Hospital, then Pacific Dental Services, before moving from COO to CEO at SmilePartners. That journey gave him a frontline view of retail healthcare: how clinics reduce friction, build trust, support clinicians, and help patients say yes to the care they need. The conversation starts with the surprising overlap between vet and dental. Dave explains why both depend on access, providers, patients, treatment acceptance, payment, communication, and empathy. The difference is that veterinary medicine often sits closer to life and death, which taught him how deeply emotion shapes healthcare decisions. Jared and Dave also discuss what makes clinics work at scale. Dave argues that success is simple, but not easy: get providers, bring in patients, deliver the diagnosed care, and collect for the service. The hard part is that people sit inside every step. They also explore hiring dentists, onboarding clinicians, moving from COO to CEO, reducing friction across 130 offices, and how to decide whether technology or AI is actually worth adopting. Dave’s framework is clear: does it help the patient, the clinician, the team, and the business? The episode closes with Dave’s biggest lessons from leadership: slow down, build relationships, align on the why, and never disappear when things get difficult. Chapters 0:00 Opening 1:00 Introduction to Dave Gaspar 2:00 SmilePartners, 130 offices, and Dave’s background 3:20 Veterinary hospitals vs dental clinics 5:00 Retail healthcare and reducing friction 6:00 Insurance, payment, and dental complexity 7:00 Why veterinary medicine is more emotionally charged 9:00 Patient communication in vet vs dental 12:00 Patients who can and cannot self-advocate 13:00 Empathy, sympathy, and healthcare trust 15:00 The four things every successful clinic does 17:00 Learning dentistry from the operatory 18:30 Following up with patients is simple, not easy 21:00 Treatment acceptance and patient motivation 22:30 Hiring and onboarding new dentists 24:00 Being shoulder to shoulder with clinicians 25:30 Scaling hiring standards 26:30 Mission, vision, values, and repetition 28:00 The CEO role: reducing friction 30:00 Why Dave misses being in dental offices 31:00 Healthcare’s technology moment 33:00 How to judge new tech and AI 34:00 Patient, clinician, team, and business impact 35:00 Explaining the why before adding friction 37:00 AI reception, hidden costs, and verification tax 38:30 Keeping healthcare simple 39:30 Dave’s biggest leadership mistakes 40:00 Slowing down to build alignment 42:00 The vet lesson that changed his career 44:00 Automation, people, and the future of care 45:00 Closing thoughts The Business of a Clinic explores how private healthcare clinics can grow by improving patient relationships, patient engagement, clinic operations, retention, follow-up, commercial systems, and the overall patient experience.