From banking to leading regional dentist: How Dr. Alan Arrington built Southeastern Dental Center, a high-tech, 12,000-square-foot facility transforming care in rural Georgia
As a college undergraduate, Alan Arrington, DMD, never imagined he would someday be opening Southeastern Dental Center, a 12,000-square-foot dental facility representing the biggest investment in healthcare in rural Harris County, Georgia. That’s because he was a fi nance major.
But once he started a career in banking, he found that the prospect of spending the next 20 years climbing a corporate ladder just didn’t appeal to him. Instead, he wanted to be in business for himself, and to live near his small hometown rather than a big city.
“I was friends with my family dentist,” he recalled. “He seemed to like what he did, and he was successful. So I called him and asked if I could hang out with him and see what dentistry was like. He said, ‘Sure, no problem.’” What Dr. Arrington saw in that practice resonated with him. “It seemed like a good fi t for me—to have a profession that was rewarding, just interacting with and helping people, but also having a comfortable lifestyle at the same time.”
Thus began Dr. Arrington’s path to becoming not simply a dentist, but a major regional provider.
Starting Small
Still, the 17-operatory dental center was not yet even a dream. First, he had to go back to school. “I treated dental school like a job,” he said. “I spent time hanging out with oral surgeons, asking questions. I tried to squeeze my own GPR-type situation into those 4 years. When I got out, I was confident with taking teeth out, and with bread-and-butter dentistry like crowns and fillings. I felt like dental school prepared me, and I worked extra hard to make sure I felt confident.”
That confidence stood him in good stead as he started his first practice in a house in Harris County. “The first years were very lean,” he said. “From a business standpoint, I had no idea what I was getting into. I just did my own thing.” At first, his team included one assistant, one hygienist, and a front desk employee. “I had to let the hygienist go after about a month, because we didn't have enough volume,” he recalled. “I was cleaning teeth for the first year. I had a staff of two, and if anybody called out, I had a staff of one.”
Through community ties and hard work, Dr. Arrington’s practice grew. “Creating a business in a small town can be hard, because you have to do a good job right out of the gate,” he acknowledged. “You have to treat people right and do what's right. That’s what we did.”
Within 10 years, he started offering new services, such as implants and IV sedation, to set his practice apart. “I was doing some things that nobody else in the area did from a general practice standpoint,” he said. “We invested in a cone beam CT unit, intraoral scanners, CEREC mills, and 3D printers. Those are things we use on a daily basis that absolutely provide a lot of value to patients, and as long as you provide a lot of value, you're going to be successful.”
