Heartland Dental acquires Tru Family Dental
Effingham-based Heartland Dental has acquired Tru Family Dental, a Southfield, Mich.-based regional dental support organization that includes 10 offices in Illinois and 13 in Michigan.
The all-cash transaction closed Monday, Dec. 21. Heartland Dental supports more than 1,700 dentists in at least 1,100 offices across 38 states.
Tru Family Dental was founded in 2014.
Heartland Dental is the nation’s largest dental support organization providing non-clinical, administrative support services. The company is majority owned by KKR, a leading global investment firm.
“We are thrilled to welcome Tru Family Dental into the Heartland Dental family, and we believe our similar doctor-led and patient-focused organizations are well-aligned for mutual success,” said Patrick Bauer, Heartland Dental president and CEO (shown). “Tru Family Dental has achieved incredible milestones over the past six years, all the while supporting its doctors to provide exceptional oral health care to their patients. Together, we will continue to build and strengthen Tru’s infrastructure while using Heartland Dental’s proven systems and processes to best support these great doctors and their teams in delivering their communities the highest quality dental care and experiences.”
As a result of the acquisition with Heartland Dental and its supported PCs, the Tru Family Dental team will access increased resources and support services including drawing on the nation’s best clinical and leadership training, state-of-the-art equipment, best-in-class purchasing methods, and superior benefits. Supported doctors will especially benefit from the industry leading structure which provides them a valuable stake in the performance of their practices. Tru Family Dental practices, which in Illinois are located mainly in the Chicago suburbs, will be supported by teams to assist with marketing, office operations, information technology, human resources and payor relations.
Tru Family Dental co-founders, Naimish Patel and Brandon Halcott, said they are excited about joining the Heartland Dental family, which will continue to support the Tru Dental Family philosophy in adhering to complete clinical autonomy for its supported doctors, while enhancing the organization for future success.
“Being new to dentistry, we built a great rapport over the years with the Heartland Dental leadership team in order to learn from them. Their commitment to clinical autonomy and doctor leadership is aligned with ours,” said Patel. “Supported doctors can now take advantage of Heartland Dental resources, which would have taken us years or even decades to perfect on our own,” added Halcott.
Tru Family Dental supported doctors will gain access to Heartland Dental’s benefits such as real-time access to a nationwide network of more than 1,700 Heartland supported clinicians, scale to obtain the best clinical products at the best prices, a dedicated payor relations team working on the behalf of doctors to navigate the payor landscape, operational support, and a patient marketing team to help supported doctors efficiently and effectively source and communicate with their patients. In addition, the 23 newly supported offices will access teams focused specifically on technology, operations, and more.
“We believe there are things that only dentists can do – and things they can most definitely delegate,” added Bauer. “At Heartland Dental we provide support for those needs which can be delegated. Our supported doctors enjoy management relief, enhanced work/life balance, opportunities for growth, and access to a community of like-minded professionals.”
