As medical-dental integration moves from concept to operational reality, Henderson, Nev.-based PDS Health is reimagining primary care around prevention and whole-person health.
In April, PDS Health Medical, the organization’s medical arm, appointed Brett Bingham as president to lead operational growth in primary care and take advantage of its existing scale and infrastructure.
As one of the industry’s leaders in the push for medical-dental integration, the integrated healthcare support organization currently has a network of more than 1,000 practices across 24 states.
Mr. Bingham recently connected with Becker’s to talk about what led him to join PDS Health, how his previous experience in healthcare will translate to the new role and where he sees medical-dental integration continuing to advance.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What drew you to PDS Health Medical? What does the opportunity here represent that you couldn’t find elsewhere?
Brett Bingham: PDS Health Medical offers something rare: the culture, scale, vision and agility to help redefine primary care in America. The U.S. health system has incentivized primary care providers to become order takers and referral makers. That’s not how I view the role of primary care. I see primary care as prevention-driven, relationship-based and central to improving the health of the population.
PDS Health gives us the best of all worlds: a national platform, provider ownership and autonomy, Epic as the EHR and the power of integrating medical and dental. The mouth-body connection is well established, and PDS Health is uniquely positioned to act on it at scale.
Q: How will your experiences and lessons from your time at Banner Health serve you in your role with PDS Health Medical?
BB: I’ve been fortunate to serve with outstanding organizations, including Banner, and I’m grateful for the leaders, peers and teams I’ve worked alongside. My time there, and in other settings, gave me experience across multiple payment models, value-based care, provider networks, medical groups, health plans and all aspects of a health system.
Those experiences reinforced how complex healthcare transformation is and how important it is to align people, strategy and execution around a common goal. That perspective matters at PDS Health Medical because we are building a model that must work for patients, providers, payers, employers and health systems simultaneously, and we have the platform to do it.