Emerging Groups to Watch List
Our Best Life Companies (OBL), co-founded by Chief Executive Officer, Marina Hurn and Chief Medical Officer, Ronald Abaro, DDS, FICOI officially organized as a DSO in 2020. However, they have operated as a group practice since 2014. The DSO has scaled to 12 dental practices throughout Southern California. OBL has additional acquisitions, de novos, and partnerships in progress. The DSO plans to double its size in 2022 including a new Indiana-based flagship dental practice, a first in the company’s multi-state expansion.
OBL differentiates itself as a DSO in many ways:
- 95% woman lead and operated company, providing specialized on-the-job mentorship for clinicians to advance their abilities, and in its relentless commitment to its core mission of improving the lives of its people and patients.
- Focus on providing quality affordable dentistry at scale in markets not commonly served in the industry.
- While creating the framework for OBL’s clinical delivery model, Dr. Abaro centered on creating a mentorship program guided by Regional Managing Dentists where clinicians are taught to hone both clinical and patient-facing skills. The company enables clinicians to grow personally & professionally within the organization and has a multitude of opportunities in clinical mentorship, leadership, and partnership.
- In 2021 OBL launched its uniquely equitable Partnership Program that grants doctors looking to expand their practices the expertise, resources, support to do so.
OBL’s people-centered culture stems from its co-founder’s original vision of an organization that creates the best life for its people including promotion and growth from within. This dedication to the improvement of team members’ lives and careers has equated to long-term retention of staff and managers who foster deep and meaningful relationships with patients. OBL’s teams provide a dental experience where patients are known by name and are not just a chart number, and for the patients, it makes all the difference.
OBL, which is not private equity-backed, grew by 30% in 2021 through a combination of reinvestment of free cash flow and debt. In 2022 the company plans to double its current practices under management with 2/3 being acquired wholly owned practices and 1/3 being joint ventures by way of OBL’s practice partnership program.
Over the next five years, OBL will expand into the states of Indiana, Michigan, Texas, and Florida through targeted individual acquisitions, broader roll-up deals, and new doctor practice partnerships. The company plans to execute on its 50/50/5 plan of fifty practices under ownership with $50MM in EBITDA in 5 years.
OBL understands the challenge of losing its unique employee & patient-centered culture as the company rapidly scales. Senior management has doubled down on its commitment to continue to exercise its core mission of improving the lives of its people and patients by setting internal qualitative criteria that must be met for a new practice acquisition or partnership to be made, all in assurance the challenge of keeping what makes the organization culturally unique and special remains intact.
Key executives in group:
- Marina Hurn, Chief Executive Officer
- Dr. Ronald Abaro, Chief Medical Officer
- Wanda Perez, Chief Administrative Officer
- Timothy Vandecar, Chief Investment Officer
Check out our 2021 highlight videos where our executive team talks growth and what’s to come in 2022: