Imagine a dental clinic where treatment plans aren't shaped by insurance codes, production targets, or what a patient can pay. There's only one question: what does this person actually need?
In this episode of The Margin Line, Joe Lynch sits down with Dr. Khaleila Brannon, Director of Dental at Health Care for the Homeless in Baltimore — the leader of Maryland's only dedicated dental program for individuals and families experiencing homelessness. After seven years in private practice, Dr. Brannon walked away to lead a clinic where treatment planning isn't tied to revenue, dentures are provided at no cost, and patients sometimes need shoes before they need a crown.
She walks Joe through:
- The "truest form of treatment planning" — what care actually looks like when money is fully removed from the equation
- Why a patient's dynamic life (a couch one week, a tent the next) demands a completely different operational model than private practice
- The private foundation funding that makes no-cost dentures possible, and the digital workflow that delivers them in a fraction of the time
- Building trust with patients who have every reason not to trust a healthcare system
- Hiring for empathy and adaptability over credentials, along with her favorite interview question for surfacing both
- Why she sees children, the elderly, and the unhoused as the populations where dentistry can do its most meaningful work