Multi-location · Healthcare group · 2024
A regional dental group with 10+ clinics and second-generation ownership was losing the comparison-shopping war to a VC-backed DSO that opened several nearby locations. Nine months of regional press, a founder byline, creator partnerships, and a GEO refit across every clinic changed the trajectory.
The challenge
The client is a dental group with 10+ clinics across two neighboring states. The CEO is a family physician by training who bought into the practice his father started and expanded it over more than a decade. Revenue sits in the eight figures. In early 2024, three things happened in sequence: a major insurance network renegotiated its reimbursement schedule, a VC-backed DSO opened several locations near the group's flagship clinics, and the review velocity from happy patients slowed because the front desk had nobody focused on requests.
The net effect was a new-patient booking decline of about 18 percent in the first quarter of 2024 versus the prior year. The DSO was running Google Ads at a scale the group could not match, and their "new patient special" landing pages were showing up above the group in Maps. Worse, patients were arriving at consultations already armed with competitor quotes, asking the group to match prices on treatment plans the CEO did not agree were appropriate.
The CEO wanted a narrative wedge, not a price war. His exact framing on our first strategy call: "I do not want to be the cheaper version of what they are selling. I want to be the version that cares whether you are still around in ten years."
"The DSO sells a transaction. We sell a relationship with a family practitioner. We were just bad at telling that story where people were actually looking for a dentist."CEOSecond-generation owner, regional dental group
What we did
The program covered every clinic across a two-state press market under one partner-led plan. It leaned into the family-owned-versus-DSO narrative, which was the CEO's own language, and built both a press spine and a creator wave around it.
Maya pitched the newspaper's business reporter on a feature about family-owned care pushing back against DSO consolidation. Two months of phone calls, two clinic visits, and an afternoon with the founding generation produced a 2,800-word feature. A statewide business magazine followed with a state-level angle three weeks later.
One creator in each of six metro markets the group serves. Each has between 40K and 180K followers and posts primarily about family life and local business. Each creator took her own family to one of the group's clinics and filmed the visit (with the clinic staff and children consenting). Combined reach: 640K. Booking attribution tied to creator-specific discount codes.
One profile per clinic, each with a new photo library and a set of Q&A entries keyed to "is [competitor DSO] right for me" and "family dentist [city]" queries. Review request routing tied to a texting workflow that ran post-visit instead of end-of-month. Review velocity recovered inside five weeks.
The piece made the case for why the CEO had considered selling to a DSO and then changed his mind. 1,700 words in the CEO's voice over three drafts. Ran in late 2024. Shared in industry circles, picked up by a dental-practice-owners Facebook group with 22,000 members, and became the single piece referenced by 40 percent of inbound inquiries in the following months.
Nine answer-shaped pages on queries like "Is [DSO competitor] right for my family?" and "What is the difference between a DSO and a family dental practice?" Each page 1,400 to 2,000 words, neutral in tone, cited independent dental-industry sources. Every page included a FAQ schema block. AI Overview citations appeared for 9 of 12 tracked "best family dentist [city]" queries within five months.
Four KPIs on a single Notion board the CEO could open any morning. New patients via source code. Reviews received. AI Overview citation count. Organic call volume by clinic. Weekly readouts. The CEO opened the board most Mondays and messaged the team about two specific clinics in month four that needed more creator support.
The results
The 41 percent new-patient booking lift in the first 90 days is the headline the CEO now quotes in industry panels. Organic call volume across the group's clinics rose 68 percent over the nine-month engagement. By month five, nine of the twelve tracked "best family dentist [city]" AI Overview queries cited the group. The review gap against the DSO closed in most of the group's markets.
The two acquisition offers from larger DSOs arrived in month seven and month eight. The CEO declined both. He has said publicly that the offers were the clearest signal he had chosen the right story: a private-equity DSO rollup was trying to buy what he had built, not compete with it.
"We were losing the comparison-shopping war. Now when someone Googles 'family dentist near me' or asks ChatGPT, we are the answer. The newspaper feature changed how patients introduce themselves at intake."CEO, regional dental group.
Press placements
2,800-word feature by the paper's healthcare business reporter. Included on-site visits to two clinics and an interview with the founding generation. Reposted by the state dental society newsletter.
State-level feature on three independent dental groups facing DSO expansion. The client profiled at length, with revenue and clinic-count data shared with permission.
Ghostwritten founder op-ed. Picked up by dental-practice-owner communities online. Became the most-referenced piece in inbound inquiries through early 2025.
Trade publication analysis piece. The client one of four groups profiled. Maya quoted as the PR partner supporting the family-owned-story strategy.
Honesty section
We under-invested in intake training. The newspaper feature sent a new class of patient to the clinics who arrived with the CEO's story already internalized. They introduced themselves as readers of the feature and expected a specific conversation. The front-desk staff was not prepared for that shift in patient language. We should have built a short intake talk track for the front desk when the feature ran, so the story the reader brought in was continued at the counter instead of reset. We caught it in month five and wrote the talk track retroactively. It is now a standard deliverable in every multi-location program whenever a major regional feature is on the calendar.
About this case study
Nine months, from April 2024 to January 2025. First press piece ran in week six, in the region's largest daily newspaper. The 41 percent new-patient lift was measured at the 90-day mark and held across the full engagement.
Engagement fees are confidential, and this program predates our current pricing. Comparable multi-location programs today run as an Enterprise Program, from $30,000 a month with a six-month minimum, scoped to location count and the number of press markets.
Yes, if the story is there. The family-owned-versus-DSO narrative is a specific wedge. If your group is itself a private-equity rollup, the press angle flips and we would pitch a different story (perhaps around patient retention or a standout clinician). We assess fit on the strategy call. We typically work with groups of 25 or more locations.
Client confidentiality. The engagement and results are real, with written permission to publish them, and the CEO's quote is used with approval. We withhold the group's name, markets, and other identifying details. Reference calls are available once a proposal is on the table and a one-page NDA is signed.
Yes. A national dental trade journal published the op-ed in late 2024. The piece was ghostwritten in close collaboration with the CEO over three drafts. He owns the final language and the byline is his. We ghostwrite as a service when clients have strong ideas but no writing cadence.
Priya and Maya screened 38 candidates across six markets. Criteria: 40K to 180K followers (we avoid mega-influencers), consistent family-content posting history, zero prior dental-brand partnerships in the last 12 months (to preserve authenticity), and a willingness to film their own child's visit. Six met all four criteria.
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