Dental Care Alliance — Account Dossier

Why This Company

Fit:

• PE-backed DSO (Harvest Partners + Mubadala, ~$2B valuation), 400+ practices across 24 states, 3.5M patient visits/year, ~5,250 employees. Runs Denticon (Planet DDS) — IntelePeer's direct integration partner since September 2025. No CCaaS platform deployed. HIPAA-regulated. (Mubadala, DCA Website, BusinessWire/Planet DDS)

Pain:

• Front desk turnover and understaffing across 400+ practices — employee reviews document "high turnover," being "expected to do the work of 2-3 people," and "understaffed with little to no support." DCA acknowledged the problem publicly: "we are highly focused on improving in this area." Patient Service Reps at $18-$24/hr handle phones, scheduling, inquiries, and treatment plans simultaneously. (Glassdoor, Indeed)
• Patient phone experience failures — "put on hold indefinitely several times," "front staff is all brand new and unbelievably rude," overbooking creating "standing room only" conditions. At ~8,750 visits per practice annually, the network handles an estimated 14,000-20,000 inbound calls daily with no automation layer. (BBB)

Timing:

• DCA deployed its "AmaZing Customer Service Program" to all 5,250+ employees in 2025 alongside a company-wide "Brand and Mission, Visions, Value refresh" — active, funded, CEO-mandated CX investment. (DCA History)
• Actively building centralized scheduling infrastructure — hiring a Director of Centralized Scheduling to "lead and rapidly scale" centralized operations, plus Remote Scheduling Coordinators in Sarasota. This concentrates call volume into a single operation — the ideal deployment architecture for SmartAgent. (ZipRecruiter, DCA Careers)

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Decision Makers

Larry Benz, DPT — Chief Executive Officer

Decision Maker

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbenz/
• Email: lbenz@dentalcarealliance.com (inferred — [first_initial][last] pattern per RocketReach, 80% of DCA emails; confirmed for jolivio@ and tpetrovic@ via ZoomInfo)
• Cares about:
  • Patient experience as a humanistic mission — author of Called to Care, which argues removing administrative friction lets providers reconnect with purpose and improves patient outcomes (CalledToCareBook.com)
  • Multi-location operational scale — built Confluent Health to 800+ PT practices before taking DCA CEO role; launched company-wide culture programs (President's Club, ASCEND, SkillBridge Military Fellowship) in first year (DCA Bio, DCA History)
• Why they matter: Final authority on enterprise technology investments at a PE-backed DSO, with a philosophy that directly aligns with automating administrative friction so staff can focus on patients.

Connection Vectors:

• Military (U.S. Army): Benz served as Army Captain (1984-89), Meritorious Service Medal — connects to IntelePeer's Dr. Bill Harding (Board, Army Reserve MI) and Matt Edic (CXO, USMC/Naval Academy) (DCA Bio)
• ADSO Board Peers: Benz sits on the ADSO Executive Committee alongside leaders of Benevis (87% containment with IntelePeer) and 42 North Dental (IntelePeer customer) — direct peer-validation pathway (ADSO Leadership)

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James Nick — Chief Operating Officer

Primary Contact

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesnick/
• Email: jnick@dentalcarealliance.com (inferred)
• Cares about:
  • Consumer-centric dental modernization — publicly stated the industry must move from provider-centric to consumer-centric, advocating for real-time insurance verification comparable to retail pharmacy (Becker's Q&A)
  • Data-driven operational efficiency — actuarial background (12 years at Humana in pricing, analytics, underwriting); his approach to business cases will be quantitative and ROI-focused (LinkedIn)
• Why they matter: Owns operations, analytics, marketing, and insurance across 400+ practices — controls both the operational pain (front desk staffing) and the analytics function (Patient Prism data) that quantifies the automation opportunity.

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Joel Olivio — Chief Information, Technology & Security Officer

Technical Evaluator

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-olivio-cio-ciso/
• Email: jolivio@dentalcarealliance.com (inferred)
• Cares about:
  • Enterprise-wide AI deployment — led Overjet rollout across all 400+ practices, calling it "one of the most ambitious deployments of AI in the history of dentistry" (LinkedIn Post)
  • Cloud-first architecture and HIPAA compliance — 14+ years at DCA with expanded title (CIO/CISO → CITO); led Denticon cloud PMS migration (DCA Bio)
• Why they matter: Technology gatekeeper on an upward trajectory (title expansion, President's Club 2025 recognition) who has proven he can champion and execute enterprise-wide AI rollouts across 400+ practices. (LinkedIn Post)

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Tracy Petrovic — SVP Field Operations

Influencer / Champion

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-petrovic-28220a28/
• Email: tpetrovic@dentalcarealliance.com (inferred)
• Cares about:
  • Practice-level operational performance — oversees day-to-day operations across 400+ locations, directly managing the front desk teams experiencing turnover and phone volume pain (Becker's)
  • Multi-location standardization — retail operations background (Petco East Coast territory, 7-Eleven, Best Buy) brings experience enforcing consistency across hundreds of distributed locations (LinkedIn)
• Why they matter: Front-line pain owner who manages the teams experiencing phone volume and turnover burden daily across 400+ practices.

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Meredith Troy — SVP Marketing

Champion

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-troy-217a5021/
• Email: mtroy@dentalcarealliance.com (inferred)
• Cares about:
  • Patient acquisition and call conversion — championed Patient Prism deployment (July 2024) across all 400+ practices to measure marketing ROI through call conversion tracking (PRWeb)
  • Marketing ROI measurement — has 18+ months of call analytics data showing which calls convert, which don't, and why — this data directly quantifies the automation opportunity
• Why they matter: Already invested in diagnosing DCA's phone problem (Patient Prism); IntelePeer solves what Patient Prism can only identify — making her a natural champion whose investment gets enhanced, not replaced.

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Entry Strategy

Recommended Entry Point: James Nick (COO)

Nick controls the intersection of operational pain and analytical evaluation. His actuarial background (12 years at Humana) means he responds to quantitative business cases — containment rates, cost-per-interaction, FTE displacement. He publicly stated the dental industry must move to consumer-centric technology comparable to retail pharmacy. (Becker's Q&A) He oversees both the operational function experiencing the pain (front desk staffing, scheduling) and the analytics function (Patient Prism data) that can quantify the opportunity using DCA's own numbers. His 7-year tenure gives him internal credibility to champion a cross-functional technology investment.

Potential Champion: Meredith Troy (SVP Marketing)

Troy championed Patient Prism across 400+ practices and has 18+ months of call analytics data. (PRWeb) IntelePeer automates the routine interactions Patient Prism can only diagnose after the fact — enhancing her investment rather than displacing it. Her marketing ROI lens means she understands the revenue impact of missed calls and failed bookings.

Warm Introduction Paths:

1. Military veteran bond: Larry Benz (CEO, Army Captain 1984-89) → Dr. Bill Harding (IntelePeer Board, Army Reserve MI) or Matt Edic (IntelePeer CXO, USMC/Naval Academy). (DCA Bio)

2. ADSO peer reference: Benz sits on the ADSO Executive Committee alongside leaders of Benevis (87% containment with IntelePeer) and 42 North Dental (IntelePeer customer). Peer validation from board colleagues carries more weight than any outbound approach. ADSO Summit: June 15-17, 2026 (venue TBD — confirm at theadso.org) — Benz and IntelePeer customer leaders likely attend. (ADSO Leadership, ADSO Summit)

3. Planet DDS / Richard Capilla bridge: DCA's former CIO Richard Capilla — who selected Denticon for DCA — is now VP Strategic Accounts at Planet DDS, IntelePeer's integration partner since September 2025. He knows DCA's technology landscape intimately and is positioned on the partner side. (Planet DDS)

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Key Context

• No CFO for 7+ months: Victoria Garcia departed July 2025 for Akumin; no replacement announced as of February 2026. Enterprise technology budget approvals may route through COO Nick. A new CFO appointment is a timing trigger — incoming CFOs seek early-win investments with proven ROI. (BusinessWire/Akumin, DCA Meet the Team)

• Centralized scheduling buildout underway: DCA is transitioning from 400 distributed front desks to centralized scheduling — hiring a Director of Centralized Scheduling and staffing Remote Scheduling Coordinators. Erica Woolard (Senior Director, Schedule Optimization) leads the existing function. Centralization concentrates call volume into a single operation, making AI automation dramatically easier to deploy and measure. (ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn/DCA)

• AI-forward on clinical, analog on communications: DCA deployed Overjet (clinical AI) and Patient Prism (call analytics AI) across all 400+ practices but has zero inbound call automation or virtual assistant. Patient Prism analyzes calls after humans handle them — IntelePeer automates before they reach humans. No evidence of NICE, Five9, Genesys, or any CCaaS. Denticon integration is pre-built via Planet DDS partnership. (PR Newswire/Overjet, PRWeb/Patient Prism)

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Quick Reference

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