Every patient choosing a practice, every clinician considering a role, every investor doing diligence — they all read the same signal. Most organisations in the sector have never seen it themselves. We've scored 163 organisations to establish the benchmark. If you're not in it, you can be.
Every DSO and dental technology business in North America has a digital presence. Most have invested in it. A website. A Google profile. Social channels. Some have invested heavily. None of that tells you whether what you've built is working — or whether the gap between what you claim and what the market records is larger than your competitors'.
The audit's central diagnostic concept is the mismatch: the spread between what an organisation presents itself as and what the market actually records. A DSO that positions as premium and patient-centred but carries a 3.2-star Google average has a mismatch. A dental technology company that claims clinical innovation but has no published outcomes data has a mismatch. The positioning isn't wrong. The gap is a liability.
Competitors without the same gap have a structural advantage in every channel where that gap is visible — patient acquisition, clinical recruitment, investor due diligence.
Website claims. Positioning language. Brand identity. The story you control across owned digital channels.
Patient reviews. Employee sentiment. Press tone. Clinical peer commentary. The signal the market creates when you're not speaking.
The Mismatch Index — a derived score measuring the spread between what you claim and what the market records. The higher the gap, the larger the liability. Every informed decision-maker sees it.
Your mismatch compared to the 3–5 organisations competing for the same patients, clinicians, and capital in the same markets.
The Dental Presence Index runs on the same forensic architecture as The 198 — a publicly available database of 198 historical corporate failures, each scored across ten death zones, with lead indicators identified for every case.
The 198 was built first. The calibration methodology, the batch scoring process, the rubric discipline, the principle that the framework is never bent to fit a case — all of it was established there before it was applied here. You can read every scored company, every death zone definition, and every lead indicator. The instrument is visible. The methodology is not a claim.
That's how we know it works before we point it at your sector.
Audit the auditor ↗"The framework bends for nothing. Ambiguity is flagged, not forced. A forced classification is worse than an honest flag."
'Your competitors are winning patients and clinicians you are losing.'
Multi-site dental practice operator groups. 10 or more locations. PE-backed, founder-led, and every model in between. The primary competitive dimension for a DSO is patient acquisition and clinical talent. The digital presence is where that competition plays out before a single appointment is booked.
A DSO that positions as premium and patient-centred but carries a 3.2-star review average and a Glassdoor built on complaints about rushed appointments is not just underperforming. Every patient and clinician who does a five-minute check is being lost to a competitor without the same gap. The question the audit answers is not whether this is happening — it is exactly how large the gap is.
'Your credibility gap is costing you clinical adoption and investor confidence.'
VC/PE-backed dental technology businesses — software, devices, diagnostics, workflow. From pre-Series A to NASDAQ-listed. The primary competitive dimension for a dental technology business is clinical adoption and investor credibility. Neither happens without an evidence infrastructure.
A dental technology company that claims to be evidence-based but has no published outcomes data, no named KOL relationships, and no presence in dental trade media cannot cross the clinical trust threshold — regardless of how much the website cost. The gap between what a founder believes their digital identity communicates and what a clinical buyer finds when they search is the specific gap this audit quantifies.
Composite organisation. Regional DSO, Southeast US, approximately 45 locations, PE-backed. Built from patterns observed across the calibration batch — not a real organisation, but a real score profile.
This is the level of specificity every organisation in the dataset receives. A position, a gap, and a named priority — not a summary, not a recommendation to "invest in digital." A forensic finding with a single actionable conclusion.
The score you just saw was produced by five dimensions, each weighted by how much it drives commercial outcomes in the dental sector. D4 Market Voice — the patient reviews, the employee sentiment, the press record — carries the highest weight in the patient and talent framework because it's the signal that makes or loses the decision before a single conversation happens.
The Mismatch Index isn't a separate judgement. It's a calculation: what the organisation controls (D1, D2, D3) versus what the market records independently (D4). The gap is the finding. The Priority Gap is where a targeted intervention closes it fastest.
| # | Dimension | Forensic question | OPS Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Discoverability | Can the right audiences find this organisation when they are actively looking? | |
| D2 | Credibility Signal | When found, does the evidence support the claims being made? | |
| D3 | Identity Coherence | Does the organisation present one consistent story across all touchpoints? | |
| D4 | Market Voice | What does the market record when the organisation is not speaking? | |
| D5 | Competitive Delta | Relative to direct competitors: is this organisation gaining or losing ground? |
A patient choosing a practice, a clinician considering a role, and a PE firm evaluating an acquisition are reading the same digital presence — but weighting it differently. The audit produces three framework scores from the same five dimensions, one for each audience. The gaps between those scores are often the most actionable finding.
Is this organisation winning the patients and clinicians it competes for?
Is this organisation winning the trust of clinical buyers and partners?
Does this digital presence support a credible investment narrative?
Every organisation in the audit receives a scored position across five dimensions, a Mismatch Index, and a Competitive Delta against the organisations competing for the same patients, clinicians, and capital. The score exists whether you see it or not. The gap is visible to anyone doing due diligence before a decision — a patient, a clinician, an investor.
Where you sit in the sector
An Overall Presence Score, a Presence Tier, and a ranked position within your segment — DSO or Dental Technology — against the organisations you actually compete with.
What the market records vs. what you claim
A Mismatch Index quantifying the spread between your self-presentation and the market's independent signal. Every informed decision-maker already sees this gap. Now you can too.
Where to intervene first
A single Priority Gap — the one dimension where a targeted intervention would generate the greatest improvement in position and the largest reduction in mismatch simultaneously.
You're already in this dataset — or you want to be. Either way, the next step is a call with Chris to walk through your score, your gaps, and what to do about them.
No report to buy. Just a conversation.
163 organisations scored across DSO and dental technology — from Heartland Dental with 1,900+ locations to pre-Series A dental AI businesses that launched in 2024. This is the benchmark cohort: the established field against which every new score is measured.
Only two organisations in the entire dataset scored Sector Leader. The rest sit in Competitive, Underperforming, or Liability — and most don't know which. If you're not in the initial set, you can be scored against it.
163 organisations form the benchmark cohort. If you're in it, your score exists — and so does every competitor's. Either way, the conversation is the same: a call with Chris to walk through your findings, understand where the gaps are, and leave with a clear action plan.
Chris Kelly is a Fractional CPO/CTO and the founder of The Unanswered — a forensic advisory practice working with founder-led businesses. The Dental Presence Index is how the conversation with the dental sector starts.
Also relevant to PE firms and investors evaluating the sector · Talk to us
A short form, then a call with Chris. Nothing published, nothing shared.