Heartland Dental Prepares for Support Office Expansion

Heartland Dental, the largest dental support organization in the country, today announced that it will enhance operations in Effingham as well as potentially open additional support offices. Markets throughout the region are being considered for the locations of the new facilities, which—like the Effingham Support Office—will house non-clinical support positions.

“Our support-office operations is the backbone for delivering top-notch service to our supported dentists and their teams,” said Patrick Bauer, Heartland Dental President & CEO. “Given our size today and where we want to be tomorrow, we are always focused on advancing our support. Within a span of 20 years, Heartland Dental grew to more than 800 supported dental offices and 11,000 employees in 34 states—all with non-clinical support centralized from Effingham. Today we have the great privilege of analyzing the potential of expanding the geography of our support-office functions, and we couldn’t be more excited.”

Since its inception in 1997, Heartland Dental has grown to support more than 800 dental offices, 1,200 dentists and 11,000 employees. The company has 570 support office employees, 520 of which work in Effingham. The company’s Strategic Plan calls for the addition of supported dentists and dental offices, making the new regionalized model for core functions like accounting and information technology (IT) for example, most suitable. No decisions have been made about the types of positions that will be created and when. And although a timetable isn’t set, Heartland Dental retained global real estate expert Cushman & Wakefield to conduct a formal location search.

“We have worked very hard to get to this point,” said Dr. Rick Workman, Founder & Executive Chairman of Heartland Dental. “It is a source of great pride to be in the position of considering ways that we may want to expand our non-clinical support operations because it is the foundation for how we create value for dentists and teams. Although we are open to considering all options, Effingham, Illinois is where it all started, and it will continue to be the ‘heart’ of Heartland Dental.”