The acquisition adds insurance and billing functions to Henry Schein’s dental solutions.

Henry Schein Inc announced that it has acquired a 70% ownership position in eAssist Dental Solutions (eAssist), the developer of a virtual dental billing outsourcing service. 

Headquartered in American Fork, Utah, eAssist was founded in 2011 by James Anderson, DMD, and Sandy Odle to assist with billing challenges in his dental practices. Anderson will continue to manage the eAssist business as chief executive officer, along with the current eAssist management team. In 2020, eAssist had sales of approximately $31 million. Henry Schein expects that eAssist will be slightly dilutive to the Company’s 2021 financial results and to be accretive thereafter. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“Henry Schein has a long-standing commitment to supporting dental practice growth, efficiency, and profitability through our comprehensive offering of solutions,” said Stanley M. Bergman, chairman of the board and CEO of Henry Schein. “We are delighted to add eAssist to our leading portfolio of value-added services, which will help our customers improve their critical insurance and billing functions so dental teams can focus on delivering quality patient care. We welcome our new colleagues to Team Schein and look forward to continued success together.”

eAssist reportedly uses a combination of technology and human expertise to provide outsourced insurance billing services to dental practices, helping practices to free-up resources to focus on patient care and clinical outcomes. According to Henry Schein, by enhancing collections processes, eAssist allows dental practices to simplify operations and reduce stress related to cashflow.

“By addressing the important topic of collections, we not only expand our value-added services, but also strengthen our relationship as a trusted advisor to our customers,” said Jonathan Koch, senior vice president and CEO, Henry Schein Global Dental Group. “eAssist will help practices enhance cash flow from timely collections and more accurate claims submissions and processing.”

eAssist is currently designed to support dental practices of all sizes through technology supported by a network of dental billing professionals. In addition to its core dental billing service, newer offerings from eAssist include securing detailed patient eligibility information, billing certain dental procedures through medical insurance, and practice bookkeeping.

“Henry Schein represents an exceptional and complementary cultural fit as a partner for eAssist,” said Anderson. “Through new and powerful sales, marketing, and technology resources, we expect to bring the myriad of benefits from eAssist’s technology-powered service offerings to many more dental practices. Henry Schein has a clear commitment to advancing dental practice efficiency and profitability, and we believe they are the right partner to help us help even more dentists succeed.”