Scaling precision: How Pearl's AI helps Onsite Dental deliver consistent care from Silicon Valley to shipyards

Onsite Dental made its name by delivering dental care on tech company campuses in Silicon Valley, part of lush perk packages that kept workers on campus and productive. However, when COVID hit, those offices emptied, and Onsite Dental needed a new footprint.

After a deft pandemic pivot, the DSO now delivers to a much more diverse set of companies whose workers either needed to be on-site, like carpet factory workers in Georgia, shipbuilders in Virginia, and Boeing engineers in Seattle, or needed coaxing back into offices, like Comcast in Philadelphia.

But the cross-country model presented scaling challenges: Onsite’s 39 locations were delivering care to vastly different patient populations with different teams in different regions. Pearl gave executives a window into each location’s performance, ensuring consistent clinical care, minimizing missed treatment opportunities and—bonus—boosting ROI.

Pandemic-pivot growing pains

Onsite Dental’s operating model is more complicated than most. Some dental units are spread out across several miles, as in northern Georgia, where several Onsite Dental teams visit 70 different plants on a rotation basis. Other areas are heavily consolidated: “10,000 people are on campus at a time [in Newport News],” said VP of Technology Behrod Ganjifard, requiring only one Onsite Dental unit.

In response to this complex picture, Pearl has helped OnSite solve three key challenges: chart auditing at scale, tracking clinician performance, and speeding up insurance claims.  

Chart auditing at scale

Onsite’s chart auditing process relied on random selection: a dentist was chosen for review, and their charts were audited. Pearl’s AI-powered chart audits enable a more comprehensive approach by surfacing network-wide performance insights.

Clinician oversight

Pearl also allows executives to zoom in on location and provider data, showing which locations or clinicians need extra attention. “ [At scale you’re able to say,] OK, this doctor has a high misdiagnosis or low, and then you can hone in on the exceptions or the opportunity,” Ganjifard said.

Insurance claim adjudication

Pearl allows DSOs to expedite the claims reimbursement cycle by providing objective AI-backed evidence of diagnoses. “[We’re able to say,] Hey, there’s really something here. AI is finding it,” Ganjifard said.

Clinician adoption equals results

In May 2024, Onsite Dental piloted Pearl’s AI-powered Second Opinion software in 10 offices around the country -- “offices that we thought needed AI immediately to address some issues,” explained Ganjifard.

The results were illuminating. Pearl powered an average 20% uptick in treatment per patient across the network, but results varied greatly based on adoption. If the clinicians weren’t onboard, then the office and the patients didn’t see the benefits of AI. But those that did saw dramatic results.

At Onsite Sony Pictures location in Culver City, for example, per patient production exploded from an average $26.95 PPV before the pilot from May to July 2023 to an average $137 PPV during the same period in 2024, without any significant expansion of services.

Dr. Todd Hauck, who has worked for Onsite for nearly a decade, said not only did Pearl convince his patients about needed treatment, it convinced him.

“Patients see that something objective is saying I have a cavity and the doctor is agreeing, so it’s probably true,” Hauck said. “But then it's also convincing me.

“Pearl is telling me a cavity has progressed into the dentin, whereas my eyes are saying it was maybe just short of it. It’s been able to convince me that a couple of things need to be treated right now rather than reevaluated for another six to 12 months.”

Taken together, Pearl’s effect on PPV at the Sony Pictures location has been a staggering 408% increase in PPV.

By the numbers:

• • 20% increase in treatment per patient attributable to Pearl

‍

• • $242,959 in just three months

Power users get results: Sony

• • $26.95 to $137 PPV
  • 408% increase

Source: Pearl, Onsite data

Training for success

The next step for Onsite Dental will be clinician training to increase AI adoption at its 39 locations nationwide. Dr. Hauck said Pearl’s training sessions were comprehensive and that the software is  “intuitive.”

“We see that the guys that are using it, use it really well,” said Ganjifard. However, “there are others who don't have the protocols in place to say, ‘this is a part of your larger-scale training.’”

In the meantime, with white-collar customers returning to the office, Pearl will be even more crucial than ever to Onsite Dental’s future success. “Our core clients stayed, and our big clients are expanding,” said Ganjifard.