Providence-based technology firm First Circle Inc., owned by Delta Dental, has been nationally expanding its app-based, dental care deal-hunting platform Chewsidental.com for the last several months. Users search for a Chewsi dentist near them, choosing the price and dentist they prefer, then pay using the cloud-based Chewsi app during the appointment.
Blaine Carroll, president of Chewsi, joined Delta Dental of Rhode Island as vice president of strategic initiatives in 2014 and became president of its subsidiary company, First Circle, in 2017. He previously worked as a senior Wall Street equity research analyst for nearly 20 years, representing investment banks, including Cowen & Co., Adams Harkness & Hill, Oppenheimer and FTN Equity Capital.
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Carroll graduated from Providence College and earned his MBA from Babson College. He is also a chartered financial analyst.
PBN: How much does Chewsi interact with its parent company, Delta Dental? How do the two work together?
CARROLL: Chewsi is an entirely new product offered by a subsidiary of Delta Dental of Rhode Island, but it is not a Delta Dental-branded product – and it is not insurance. The Delta Dental Plans Association rules prohibit co-marketing, so Chewsi isn’t co-marketed with Delta Dental of Rhode Island. It’s a whole new way of saving on the cost of dental care.
Chewsi helps its members get savings they can’t get on their own. It helps make dental care affordable if you don’t have insurance – as is often the case with part-timers and retirees. But it also helps you save money, even when you have dental insurance if the dental care you need isn’t covered by your employer’s plan – things [such as] teeth whitening, veneers, braces for adults, Invisalign, implants, etc. Typically, more than 20 percent of the dental services provided aren’t covered by an employer’s plan.
PBN: Doesn’t providing discounts to patients and higher payments to dentists classify Chewsi as competition for Delta Dental?
CARROLL: Not really. We see it as less about competition and more about disruption. Chewsi complements dental insurance, no matter who the dental insurer is. We know that the industry is changing. There will always be people who want the feeling of comfort of being “covered by” an insurance plan for which they pay a monthly premium. But there are plenty of people who don’t have access to dental insurance or who see the value in paying only for the care they need, when they need it, and using a solution [such as] Chewsi to save when they do. Chewsi connects users directly to dentists who offer savings on care – savings users typically can’t get on their own.
PBN: Where does the national expansion Chewsi is planning stand now?
CARROLL: Chewsi has already launched in Massachusetts, central Connecticut, Rhode Island and southern New Hampshire, and will launch later this year in Hawaii, New Jersey, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and parts of Kansas and Illinois. And, we are in discussions to expand Chewsi into a number of other states, too.
PBN: Do you have an estimate on the amount of non-cosmetic dental care that has been purchased through Chewsi that may not have been provided otherwise?
CARROLL: It’s hard to identify care that wouldn’t have been provided without Chewsi specifically because we don’t always know whether a Chewsi user is uninsured or has a dental benefit plan that didn’t cover the service. What we do know is that Chewsi has been instrumental in helping people say yes to the care their dentist recommends. In other words, those who put off needed dental care because they’re uninsured and don’t want to bear the expense right now, as well as insured people who need uncovered care or who’ve bumped up against their policy’s waiting periods or maximums are using Chewsi to save now, instead of putting care off for another time. That’s a win both for the oral health of Chewsi users and for the dentists who are seeing more patients move forward with recommended care.
PBN: Does Chewsi’s business model still work in the event that “Medicare for All” becomes more than a political talking point?
CARROLL: Yes, it does. If we’re talking about Medicare in its current form, dental services [such as] cleanings, fillings, tooth extractions, dentures and other dental devices typically aren’t covered.
Currently, there is a huge gap in oral health care for Medicare-eligible adults and Chewsi can help with that. One of the ways that Chewsi is not like dental insurance is that you can use it to help anyone save; there’s no need to designate “dependents” as there is with dental insurance. So, I can use Chewsi to help an elderly family member without dental insurance save on care.
More broadly, there’s an important discussion to be had around the role that a person’s oral health plays in their overall health. We know that poor oral health is linked to heart disease, diabetes and other chronic health conditions. By making big savings on dental care available to everyone – regardless of age, employment status, family situation, etc. – Chewsi helps encourage and [makes] it possible for more people to prioritize their oral health and, in turn, improve their overall health.
Rob Borkowski is a PBN contributing writer.
