Dental service organizations
Dental support organization
Another name for a DSO, used by the ADA, for a company that supports the business side of dental practices.
Dental support organization is the ADA's preferred wording for DSO. The ADA writes that these organizations are entities that dental practice owners contract with to manage the administrative, marketing and business sides of a practice.
Its Health Policy Institute counts a practice as DSO-affiliated when an outside entity manages some or all non-clinical functions, such as billing, marketing and human resources. The ADA says DSOs do not provide patient clinical services, and that the clinical side stays with licensed dentists.
The terms dental service organization and DSO mean the same thing in daily use. State rules on who may own or control clinical care differ. This entry is a general definition and favors no model.