Dentist, practice owner, and entrepreneur Dr. Vu Kong joins us to share his remarkable journey into dentistry and business ownership. Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, Dr. Kong originally planned to pursue mechanical engineering before his father—a former dentist—encouraged him to consider a different path. After graduating amidst a financial crisis, limited opportunities led him from Michigan to Illinois, where he and a friend began conceptualizing a practice just six months out of school; one that would eventually become High Point Dentistry.

So how do you go from launching a practice to building a multi-location business? What lessons come from selling it all—and starting again? And how do you lead with purpose while raising a family? Dr. Kong opens up about growth, sacrifice, and what he’s learned about leadership, culture, and data along the way. Tune in for an honest look at what it takes to grow smarter, not just bigger.

Here are five takeaways from Michael’s discussion with Dr. Kong:

1. Growth Requires Purpose, Not Just Profit
Dr. Kong emphasizes that expanding to multiple practices should be driven by mission and sustainability—not just financial gain. Without a clear purpose, growth can quickly become overwhelming and unfulfilling.

2. Leadership > Clinical Skills (When Scaling)
While clinical excellence is essential, Dr. Kong believes leadership is the most critical skill for practice owners. He’s invested more in leadership development than clinical CE, and credits that shift for his long-term success.

3. Data-Driven Decisions Beat Gut Instincts
Early in his career, Dr. Kong made decisions emotionally. Now, his organization is fully data-driven, using metrics to guide everything from staffing to profitability—especially important when managing multiple locations.

4. One Practice Can Be More Profitable Than Many
Contrary to popular belief, Dr. Kong argues that a single, well-run practice can outperform a multi-location group in profitability. Bigger isn’t always better—especially if systems and leadership aren’t in place.

5. Family Alignment Is Crucial for Entrepreneurial Success
Scaling a business requires personal sacrifice. Dr. Kong credits his wife’s support and their shared vision as essential to balancing growth with family life.

Transcript

Michael Jerkins:

And I think they bought a bunch of them and spent a bunch of money on infrastructure in ’22 and ’23, but someone that’s listening might correct me on that. But there’s some very public failures of these large entities.

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast For Doctors, By Doctors. I’m Dr. Michael Jerkins and, once again, unfortunately folks, you’re stuck with just me for this episode. Dr. Ned Palmer is out today, but will be back on our next episode.

But today, we have a fantastic guest—another doctor entrepreneur who has taken the skills they’ve learned in training and turned them into a large-scale business that is not only treating patients, but also providing opportunities for doctors to be in control of their practice and practice the way they want to—on their own terms—and continue to grow that over time.

Talking to doctors across the country, this is something a lot of us want: how can we continue to treat patients, be clinical, use our skills, but at the same time potentially build a business—whether that’s related to our clinical work or not?

Our guest today is someone who’s done it and built it up from scratch, with practices spanning two different states. I think he has a lot of insights people will find useful as they consider how to turn clinical skills into a business.

So I won’t waste your time further. Let’s go right to the interview. We are really excited today to welcome Dr. Vu Kong. Dr. Kong is a general dentist and seasoned dental entrepreneur with a passion for building a new kind of DSO—one that redefines the future of dentistry.

As the founder and CEO of High Point Dentistry, Dr. Kong leads a group of seven offices across Texas and Illinois, bringing a unique perspective at the intersection of healthcare, leadership, and business.

Welcome to the show, Dr. Kong. Tell us a little bit about your journey into dentistry and what you’ve built today.

Vu Kong:

Thanks for having me. I guess I’ll start from the beginning. My father was actually a dentist, and his father was a dentist—but they were dentists in Cambodia, so it was totally different. They didn’t have to go to school for four years for dental school or anything like that. So it was a little bit different.

My dad’s career was cut short because there was a civil war that happened in the ’70s. So he only practiced for about two years before the war broke out. If you know the history of Southeast Asia, there’s a lot of civil war in that region.

We were fortunate that my parents escaped to Thailand, and that’s where I was born—in a refugee camp. When we came to the United States, I didn’t even know my dad was a dentist growing up. They were just typical immigrants—worked hard, saved their money, started a business. In their case, it was a restaurant. That’s where I grew up working—basically as child labor.

Dentistry wasn’t on my radar. I actually went to Michigan State for mechanical engineering but decided later that it wasn’t for me. I remember talking to my dad, telling him I was thinking of changing my career, and that’s when he brought up dentistry. I was like, “Oh yeah, I forgot you were a dentist.”

I always wanted to help people, and I really wanted to own my own business, too. Medicine was starting to close its window for private practice, and dentistry felt like the last frontier for business ownership in healthcare. So that was my journey.

MJ:

You knew you wanted to be a practice owner even before dental school, or did that come during school? I mean, you grew up around small businesses and small business owners, but did you know that was the goal from the start?

VK:

Yeah, that was on my radar from the get-go.

MJ:

So I’m guessing you were in the minority of most dental students I talk to—most don’t go into it with entrepreneurial aspirations. Since you had some experience with small business and wanted to do it, were you satisfied with the amount of training you got on how to actually run a practice?

VK:

We had like one class on it. It was just a brief overview, so the training was very minimal. A lot of it is just learning on your own. But I was fortunate to have mentorship from my parents, who were small business owners.

That said, I saw a lot of what they did and thought, “Man, that’s a lot of work.” Even though they owned their business, at times it felt like the business owned them. I really kept that in mind.

MJ:

Interesting. So you go to dental school, you know your long-term plans, maybe don’t get the best training—like most of us in medicine or dentistry—and then what? What were your next steps after graduating? How did you take your first step as an entrepreneur?

VK:

I graduated in 2008 during the financial crisis. I went to school at Detroit Mercy, and Michigan was hit hard, especially because of the auto industry. So I decided to move to Illinois—Chicago—and took a job that offered the best clinical learning opportunity.

I moved out to Rockford and worked for a company seeing a lot of Medicaid patients. It was high volume. I worked there for six months and knew I had to get out. There were a lot of things that weren’t done the best way. That’s when I decided I wanted to branch out and start my own practice.

MJ:

So how did you do that? Walk us through it. There are people listening who are dental students or just graduated. You’re six months out of school and already thinking about starting your own business. How did you go about it?

VK:

A lot of research—especially demographics. I had a friend and classmate who also moved to Rockford, and we started brainstorming. Lots of coffee and whiteboard discussions. I had a partner when I started, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him. We were so young and had no idea what we were doing.

We found a location, worked with banks, and were fortunate that school debt wasn’t as high as it is now. We were able to get backing and open our practice. Honestly, it was a bit of luck—we chose a good location and built a strong foundation.

MJ:

Probably underselling your preparation a bit by calling it luck! Sounds like you were deep into demographics and planning. So you opened practice number one, and as we mentioned in your intro, you now operate several practices across multiple states. That’s a big leap. A lot of people stop at one. How did you know you were ready to grow?

VK:

That’s a great question. Right now, opening multiple practices is kind of trendy. But I don’t advise it unless you really have a solid goal. It’s draining—personally and financially. If money is your only reason, it’s going to be a tough road.

For me, it goes back to my parents. I didn’t want a business that consumed my life. I wanted to build something sustainable. So before going the multi-practice route, you need to be financially prepared—enough saved up, and ready to take a hit in income. Whether you’re doing a startup or acquisition, it’ll be a cash drain for a while.

MJ:

How long was your first practice open before you added a second location?

VK:

That was around year three. But we had a lot of failures along the way. That second practice took about two years just to break even. During that time, my partner moved back to California, and I had just had my first child. Running two practices was too much. So I sold the second one.

Looking back, that was a good decision. I spent the next four to five years really focusing on growing the first office, improving systems, and building a strong foundation.

MJ:

And after that four or five years of hunkering down—was that when you started to expand again?

VK:

Yeah. I had that first practice for about 10 years. It was solid—great patients, long-term staff, very profitable. I always had growth in mind, but I remember this one moment really clearly.

One of my first employees knocked on my door right after I finished a root canal. She sat down and said, “Hey Dr. Kong, I’m thinking of quitting. I just feel like there’s no room to grow here.”

That hit me hard. When an employee wants to grow more than you do, that’s a problem. And that was the catalyst. We wanted to offer opportunities for employees to grow within the organization. So in 2019, we really started our growth phase and opened two more offices.

MJ:

So 2019, two more. Walk us through the others if you don’t mind. I know I keep asking you about this, but what was the timeline there? Because I know our audience will be curious.

VK:

So 2019—this was literally about four months before COVID. We opened two practices and things were going great. They were both startups, so zero patients. The first four months were great. Then COVID hit, and we had to shut down.

It wasn’t like our existing office—when that reopened, we were slammed with pent-up demand. These other two practices took much longer to rebuild because we didn’t have that consistent patient base or re-care. We basically had to start them over again.

But things eventually went well. We were able to grow those practices. I wanted to keep growing, but I felt like Chicago wasn’t the best place for that anymore. It was already pretty saturated with not much growth potential. So we made a five-year plan, and that’s when I made the decision to move to Austin, Texas, and plant our seeds here. That was in 2021.

MJ:

Yeah, we’ve had a lot of questions over the years from people who have one practice and want to open a second—or they have two and want to go to three. And clearly they’ve demonstrated they can run one well, generate cash flow, and perform at a high level, but they don’t really know how to move on to location two, three, or four. The biggest thing we hear is that they can’t find a bank partner that’s willing to continue lending if they still have existing debt from location one or two. What would you say to those people? What advice do you have?

VK:

I think going from one to two locations is pretty straightforward—you can manage that. But going from two to three, it’s not double the work, it’s ten times the work.

Unless you’ve completely maxed out your existing offices—no more room to build, produce, or be more profitable—I’d focus on optimizing those before expanding. There’s often a lot more room to grow your income with your current practices. In the end, it’s not about top-line revenue, it’s about the bottom line. That’s what really matters.

If there’s still opportunity to grow your bottom line in your current office, it’s going to pay off way more than opening a new one that ends up draining your income instead of adding to it. So that would be my advice for anyone thinking about expanding.

MJ:

Got it, that makes a lot of sense. Another question we get, especially from dental students thinking about ownership, is how to balance the clinical side with the management side—and still have a life. What words of wisdom do you have about maintaining mental health while owning a business?

VK:

Man, I don’t know if I have the right advice for that. I was very intentional about our growth phase, and I knew that if I wanted to continue growing, I had to take myself out of the chair. And I knew that meant taking an income hit.

MJ:

Love that.

VK:

It was going to be a process. But when you reach the point where you have two or three locations and you can’t be practicing at every one, you have to have a plan to step back clinically.

Work-life balance—that’s a hard one. Honestly, harder than managing seven practices is managing being a dad and husband. Your wife has to be on board. Your whole family has to be aligned with the sacrifices that growth requires. I’ve been really lucky—my wife is very supportive. But even before starting that journey, you and your spouse need to be on the same page about what’s coming.

MJ:

Yep, makes a lot of sense. I agree with that wholeheartedly. It sounds like entrepreneurship just runs in your family. I’m curious—if you weren’t a dentist, what do you think you would’ve ended up doing?

VK:

Probably something in finance. Start a bank or something.

MJ:

That sounds great. That sounds like a great idea that will definitely not be stressful at all.

It’s funny—I talk to a lot of doctors, and I’m sure you do too, who are looking for other ways to generate income outside of just seeing one patient after another. And it’s true, like you said, that in the dental space it’s a lot easier to do that than in the medical world.

It’s definitely possible in medicine—we help people do it all the time—but it’s harder in a lot of ways. One interesting thing I’ve noticed about dental school, and I’ve come to appreciate this, is how much industry is involved. DSOs come in, equipment companies, folks giving free food—it’s part of the environment. In med school, at least in my experience, I didn’t even know those people existed. They don’t let them near us.

In some ways, that’s good. In others, you don’t get educated on anything except clinical and academic stuff. So was that the case for you in dental school? Did DSOs come in trying to recruit you, saying, “Hey, owning your own practice is too hard, just join us”? Or am I being hyperbolic?

VK:

You know, maybe this dates me, but when I was in school, none of that happened. But yeah, I’ve definitely heard stories like the ones you mentioned, and it seems pretty common now. I don’t really know how I feel about that.

I know it’s getting a little harder to be a business owner in dentistry now—there’s more competition, student debt, and consolidation in the industry. But there’s still a window. I think dentistry is a little behind medicine in terms of consolidation, but it’s still a great opportunity for entrepreneurial dentists to build their own practices.

MJ:

Let’s go back to what we said in the intro—about the DSO you’re building and how you want it to be different from what’s already out there. Maybe back up first for anyone listening who doesn’t even know what DSO stands for, and walk us through what it is and how yours is different.

VK:

A DSO—technically a Dental Support Organization—is a group of dental offices backed by private equity or private capital. I think that’s the best way to describe it.

Multiple practice ownership owned by a dentist might just be considered a group practice. What we’re trying to build is provider-owned and provider-operated. A place where doctors have a great culture and a good experience. That’s my number one goal: make sure our providers enjoy working there and our patients have a great experience. That’s really it.

MJ:

Sounds pretty simple. And what I like about that is the core idea—when doctors are in control of the practice, you can be more authentically focused on patient care in a way that’s harder to replicate in non-doctor-run environments. Is that fair?

VK:

Yep. Yes, for sure.

MJ:

I’m not supposed to do this, but I’m going to sneak in a quick plug—because that’s exactly why we started Panacea. It’s all about empowering doctors to control how they practice, to have ownership, build wealth, and work on their terms.

That’s what I love about what you’re building. And going back to your story about the employee who said she didn’t feel like there was room to grow—you’ve now created an organization that offers that growth and allows people to practice in a way that works for them. It’s not just about spreadsheets. With some of these big corporate practices, things can get really impersonal.

So thinking about that—why do you think consolidation has ramped up in dentistry over the past 10 years?

VK:

I think it’s because dentistry is a very recession-proof industry. It generates consistent revenue and profit. It’s relatively safe. And historically, a lot of dentists owned their own practices—but many of them weren’t great business owners.

That created a lot of opportunity for private equity to step in and take advantage of that arbitrage. When you have a very fragmented industry, there are openings for consolidation. And that’s exactly what’s happened in recent years.

MJ:

Where do you see the consolidation trend going now? Do you think it’s going to ramp back up, or are you seeing new opportunities where individual dentists coming out of school or residency are pushing back against that model? I hear both sides—some say it’s cyclical, and others say younger dentists who’ve experienced corporate settings want more control. What do you see for the future?

VK:

What I see and what I hope are probably two different things. I hope it stays doctor-owned, with more entrepreneurial providers starting their own practices. But lately, consolidation has slowed down a bit. Financing has become more difficult for large corporations, and inflation has really squeezed profit margins. So we’ve seen a bit of a slowdown. But once rates drop and we move past this inflationary phase, I think it’ll heat up again.

MJ:

It’s interesting—you’ve got these large entities, private equity firms, venture capital, and big corporations that see dentistry as a revenue generator. But they don’t always understand the complexity of how it really works.

Walmart, for example, bought a bunch of clinics, invested heavily, thinking they’d make money from cross-selling and scale. But it turns out, primary care and urgent care are complex. Managed care is complicated. And they pulled out pretty quickly when it didn’t work.

It seems like the same thing may have happened in dentistry. Would you say it’s a similar story?

VK:

Very similar. I didn’t know Walmart did that with medical clinics—but yes, they tried something similar with Walmart Dental. I think that may have come first. Then they moved into medical, and maybe had the same idea.

MJ:

I didn’t realize that. Are those dental clinics still around?

VK:

I think they shut them down too.

MJ:

Well, they’ve got the money to try something and walk away if it doesn’t work. I think they’re still the largest employer in the U.S.—they’ll be fine.

Let me ask you this: You’ve clearly got a unique perspective on dentistry, both clinically and from a business standpoint. What’s one thing you believe about dentistry—or the business of dentistry—that most dentists might disagree with? Any contrarian opinions?

VK:

I think if you go back to the idea of owning multiple practices, there’s this misconception that more practices mean more profit. But I believe a single-doctor owner can actually be more profitable than someone who owns two or three offices.

MJ:

That’s interesting. I don’t think that would upset anyone—it’s just a different perspective. A lot of people chase growth thinking it’s more lucrative, but I hear you saying the opposite: Focus on your one practice, make it the best it can be, and you might end up ahead financially.

VK:

Exactly. I think that’s a big misnomer—people assume more locations equal more income. But a single, well-run practice can easily generate seven figures. You don’t need an empire to be successful.

MJ:

Hot take—but I think it’s a good one. Alright, let’s move to some quick true/false statements. I’ll say a statement, and you tell me if it’s true or false.

True or false: Dental school teaches you enough about running a business.

VK:

Totally false.

MJ:

True or false: Owning multiple offices is easier than people think.

VK:

It can be true—if you’ve got the right structure in place.

MJ:

Fair. But probably false for most people?

VK:

Yeah, probably not true for most.

MJ:

True or false: In the next decade, DSOs will outnumber solo-owned practices.

VK:

False. There might be a tipping point, but I don’t think we’ll see over 50% anytime soon.

MJ:

Why not?

VK:

There are still a lot of resources out there for young dentists to be successful with a single practice. And there are a lot of great providers who are going to keep private practice alive.

MJ:

Yeah, I’ve talked to a lot of dentists who tried corporate and realized it wasn’t what they expected. So maybe we’re seeing a bit of pushback. Alright—true or false: Leadership skills are more important than clinical skills when owning a practice.

VK:

100% true.

MJ:

Tell me more. You’ve mentioned you made a lot of mistakes early on. Did you feel like you lacked leadership skills at first?

VK:

In the first few years, I focused heavily on clinical skills—taking CE courses and improving hands-on care. But I neglected leadership development. It took time to realize how important that was. I had to learn through experience and attending seminars. Honestly, I’ve now spent more on leadership development than I ever did on clinical training.

MJ:

Wow. That says a lot.

Okay, last question—we always end our interviews this way: What’s one thing you’ve changed your mind about recently? It can be about dentistry or anything else. We live in a time with more information than ever—so it’s always interesting to hear when people genuinely change their views.

VK:

I’d say data. That’s one thing I’ve really changed my mind on.

Earlier in my career, I didn’t think data mattered that much. I made a lot of decisions emotionally or based on gut instinct. But now our company is completely data-driven.

MJ:

So when you first started, it was more about what felt right. But now, because you’re not physically present in every practice, you’ve had to rely more on data?

VK:

Exactly. At first, I didn’t even look at the numbers—especially profitability. I figured if we were doing good work and producing well, that was enough. But I’ve learned that to provide good care, we have to be profitable. There’s no getting around that.

MJ:

That makes sense. And I’m glad you are profitable—you’re a success story, and I think a lot of people look up to you, both as a clinician and an entrepreneur.

Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Vu Kong. This has been an excellent conversation. Where can people learn more about you or your practice?

VK:

If anyone has questions, feel free to email me. My email is my full name: [email protected]. That’s probably the best way to reach me.

MJ:

Alright—thanks again for joining us.

VK:

Thank you.

MJ:

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, prescribe it to a friend—doctor’s orders. See you next time.

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