While today’s dental school graduates often diverge from the once traditional path of private practice ownership, Dr. Michael Plunkett began forging his own winding, nontraditional path through dentistry back in 2004, when he graduated from dental school and began his career in a community health clinic in Kansas City. He soon realized that his passion was not necessarily limited to the oral surgery specialty that drew him into dentistry and decided to explore the health policy and administrative side of health care.

“When I was coming through my training, I realized the options for me were to become an oral surgeon or another clinical dental focus,” said Dr. Plunkett. “At some point, I was exposed to health care administration and policy, and I realized I was very interested in how dentistry fit into the broader health care system.” 

Dr. Plunkett worked full time on Kansas City’s eastside at an integrated medical and dental  public health clinic that served the Latino community while completing his master’s degree in public health with a focus in health policy and administration. In 2007, he moved to Portland and took a full-time position at OHSU where he taught classes in dental public health and healthcare policy and was responsible for developing the community-based education program where students participate in clinical rotations at community health clinics and small private practices with a focus on serving Medicaid populations. 

“At the time, there was a big movement nationally for dental students to get more experience in diverse practice environments to broaden their clinical scope and career perspectives,” said Dr. Plunkett. “The concept was blossoming at the time, and it has really taken off since then at OHSU and most other dental schools.”

During his time at OHSU, Dr. Plunkett stayed active seeing patients at the Multnomah County Health Clinic and at Willamette Dental.

In 2010, after the passage of the Affordable Care Act at the federal level Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber embraced and championed health care reform in Oregon. Integration of care including behavioral and dental health into the overall system was a major part of Kitzhaber’s vision.  Dr. Plunkett was recruited by Care Oregon, Oregon’s largest Medicaid Health Plan to build a dental program.  As the Dental Director for Care Oregon, Dr. Plunkett helped launch the integration of dental benefits, built partnerships, and built the dental program from the ground up. 

“The Affordable Care Act was a very big change to the health care system, and the Governor was doing a lot at the time to integrate services,” said Dr. Plunkett. “Companies were taking notice and looking at how they had to integrate different health care functionalities to be a good partner at the state and national level.”

At the same time, from 2010-2014, Dr. Plunkett served as the founding Dental Director for Neighborhood Health Center, which was supported by Care Oregon and is now a federally qualified health center. 

In 2014, Dr. Plunkett joined Kaiser Permanente Dental and has served in number of roles varying from business development and operations to his current role as Vice President-Business Strategy and Administration for Permanente Dental Associates. 

“Moving into a system that’s predominantly commercial and serving large employers with only a small Medicaid population is a very different experience because the business and operations side involves more complex administrative functions and there’s a much broader constituency that you’re serving,” said Dr. Plunkett of his transition to Kaiser. “I was moving from a purely community health and Medicaid focus to a large, integrated commercial system.”

Kaiser’s commitment to integration throughout its medical system made Dr. Plunkett a perfect fit to contribute to its growth in business and patient services, given his experience leading a community health center system and a statewide integrated dental program at Care Oregon.

“We (Kaiser Permanente)  are without a doubt the most integrated medical-dental system in the country,” said Dr. Plunkett. “We are effectively a large integrated department in a multi-specialty health care system. While we function as a comprehensive dental system, we’re integrated in the same way that other large medical services.”

Dr. Plunkett still teaches classes at OHSU in the areas of public health and policy, as well as finance and practice operations where he focuses on models of practice, acquisitions, selling, and everything from large corporations to private practices. His unique and broad experience has allowed him to see dentistry from nearly every perspective of the industry, offering unique insights into the future of dentistry and how that future will be forced to adapt to outside influences.

“My past and current experiences have shown me that overall economic forces in the system we live in, including the economy, what large employers are going through, what’s happening at the federal and state level, budget issues, etc. all have an impact on dentistry – and sometimes a very direct impact,” said Dr. Plunkett. “If you don’t at least understand some of the macroeconomic forces and overall environment that you’re functioning in, you’re not going to have the tools to deal with the challenges you’re facing in your specific practice.”

Dr. Plunkett seeks to instill this broader perspective and insight in his students at OHSU’s School of Dentistry, ensuring that they understand the impacts that the world around them is having on their industry and their own lives. 

“You don’t have to be a health policy expert, but you do have to understand, for example, that if a company like Intel is likely to leave its geographic area or if the state is planning to change its offering to all public employees, it’s going to have downstream impacts on resources for the industry and that will affect the kind of players in the industry who can sustain bad times and good times,” said Dr. Plunkett.

At the same time, he also recognizes that the challenges facing young graduates are greater than ever before, particularly the economic forces.

“The barriers to entry (to private practice) are higher than ever before,” said Dr. Plunkett, recognizing that the cost of living has increased dramatically in major cities throughout the United States, while at the same time “a significant number of practices are now owned under corporate dental service organizations” leading to a smaller number of private practices for sale that are often prohibitively expensive for young dentists who once may have considered that route into dentistry. 

Dr. Plunkett believes it is important that dentists – particularly recent graduates – understand the systems around them that could impact their futures and urges his students and colleagues to seek a seat at the table to help develop solutions that put the profession in a good strategic position to succeed.

One way to ensure dentistry has a seat at that table where decisions are being made that impact the industry is through involvement with the Oregon Dental Association (ODA).

“I think it’s really important for any profession to have a collective voice because that’s the way the system works – if you don’t have a collective voice, you don’t have a voice,” said Dr. Plunkett. “That’s what political leaders are looking for: constituencies, not individuals.”

Dr. Plunkett has been involved with the ODA since he moved to Oregon in 2007 and believes that the organization provides a key avenue for dentists in the state to impact the legislative process and the prioritization of the profession in policy discussions.  

“When we come together – even when we have differences internally about how the practice of dentistry should move forward – and demonstrate that we are working together, that projects a positive message externally,” said Dr. Plunkett. “It’s important to show that when it comes to caring for the public and having a dental system that works for all members of society, dentists come together.” 

From working in public health to teaching the next generation of dental students to serving as the Dental Director for Care Oregon and now supporting Kaiser’s dental system, Dr. Plunkett’s broad range of experience allows him to provide a unique perspective on every facet of dentistry – and where we go from here. 

“Not everyone can treat every person or every population, so we really need to have some way of bringing all our colleagues to the table to assure decisionmakers that we have everyone’s best interests in mind,” said Dr. Plunkett. “If I were meeting with the Governor, and I had one minute to talk about dentistry, I would want her to know that no matter the challenge, dentists have the best interest of the public in m