DenScore (GIA 2020)

DenScore Co-Founder and CEO, Kyle Gernhofer

DenScore: Helping people make informed choices about their Dental Care

Answers provided by: Kyle Gernhofer, Co-founder & CEO | DenScore Inc.

Founders are vital to the success of an Insurtech Start-up. Can you tell us a little about your background?

• I grew up in Traverse City, MI, and after finishing dental school at the University of Michigan, I practiced dentistry for 14 years. Four of those years were spent in the Navy and being deployed overseas. The other ten years I ran a San Diego private practice with my business partner. 

What motivated you to start DenScore, and when did you start it? 

• I started DenScore about a month before joining the 2020 GIA cohort. I had recently left my San Diego private practice to help my mother recover from her stroke in Michigan. While I wasn’t ready to leave the dental field entirely, I didn’t want to start a new practice from scratch. Over the years, I’d met many patients who’d had negative dental experiences, often due to a lack of information needed to make informed choices about their care. I founded DenScore to address this issue and empower consumers with the information they need to make educated decisions about their oral health.

Who else is on your team? 

• Our team includes five people involved in day-to-day operations, along with several others who provide support as needed.

We would love to hear more about DenScore. Can you talk about DenScore’s mission?

• Our mission is to help consumers make informed decisions about their dental care—whether it's finding the best dentist, selecting the right dental insurance, or choosing dental treatment that meets their needs. About 18 months ago, we launched an online dental navigation tool offering free 24/7 dental advice, making DenScore the only platform of its kind globally. Thousands of users have benefitted from our tool, and to expand our reach, we began publishing directories to help people find the best dental insurance and dentists for their needs. Our 'best dentist' directories now cover over 2,200 cities, and we offer 300 'best dental insurance' directories nationwide across categories like implants, braces, high annual maximums and more. Many of these directories rank on Google’s first page, generating substantial leads for our top-ranked dental plans. 

Knowing people have a hard time finding dental care, and having a good experience with Dentists, how is DenScore working to solve that specific problem?

• Through DenScore's free dental navigation tool and our online directories, we help consumers make more informed decisions about their dental needs while enabling dental insurance plans and dentists to acquire high-intent customers/patients.

Can you talk a little bit about DenScore’s intersection with the insurance industry?

• Currently, we provide the most value to dental insurance plans offering individual or family products. A large percentage of people using our dental navigation tool request information directly from insurance plans about enrollment. Similarly, thousands of people visit our 'best dental insurance' directories when searching Google for stand-alone dental plans. 

Can you talk about your target customers and why they are interested in your solution?

• While DenScore is a trusted resource for consumers making important decisions about their oral health, our target customers are dental insurance plans offering individual or family policies and multi-site dental groups seeking a competitive edge. We provide a unique way for these insurers and dental groups to connect with high-intent customers and patients, leveraging the trust we've built with consumers.

What gives DenScore a competitive advantage within the industry, or rather, what makes your company unique?

• Digital marketing is essential for dental insurers and dental groups to reach their audience, but traditional methods like Google search ads, banner placements, and SEO consultants can be costly. We offer a new approach for dental insurers and dental groups to acquire customers and patients at a fraction of the cost, providing more flexibility and better customer service. What sets us apart is how we generate leads: our free dental navigation tool has already helped thousands of consumers find dentists and dental insurance. This trust we've built with consumers results in high-quality leads for our partners. Additionally, our ongoing organic growth through SEO makes our solution defensible against competitors.

What highlights/updates can you share about DenScore? What exciting things are happening for DenScore?

• One of the highlights we're excited to share is our partnership with Devoted Health, one of the fastest-growing Medicare Advantage plans in the country. Starting on the first day of open enrollment (10/15/24), Devoted Health began promoting our dental navigation tool on their website. Members can now use our tool for assistance with their dental benefits - whether they're searching for a dentist, have questions about coverage, or need information about dental treatments.

How has DenScore grown/pivoted/changed since your time at the GIA?

• During the GIA in 2020, we envisioned DenScore as a tool for dental insurance companies to identify top-performing dentists in their networks, aiming to improve care quality and reduce claims spending. However, in 2022, we pivoted after realizing the barriers to pursuing this path. Following months of customer discovery, we recognized the need to build a product that consumers would actively use before engaging dental insurance plans or other large organizations. This pivot has strengthened our position, and now, in many ways, it feels like dental insurance plans need us more than we need them - which is a good feeling to have. 

What impact has the GIA had on DenScore? 

• While DenScore has gone in a completely different direction since our time in the GIA, the program's impact remains profound. The guidance and support from other founders, mentors, and industry leaders were invaluable, and many of the relationships built during that time continue to this day.  

Where do you see DenScore headed in 2025? What is your vision for DenScore and what can we expect to see from DenScore in the upcoming year?

• To date, we've partnered with multiple dental groups representing over 100 dental offices to support lead generation. By the end of 2025, we aim to expand our reach to 500–1,000 dental offices nationwide. While we haven’t yet partnered with dental insurance plans in this capacity, our 'best dental insurance' directories are generating significant traffic, so we plan to collaborate with at least one major dental plan by year-end and several regional plans throughout 2025. We’ll also continue to leverage our website traffic to boost ad revenue through Google Adsense and affiliate partnerships.

What else do you want people to know about DenScore?

• I'm in Des Moines until November 12th so if anyone would like to meet for coffee at Scenic Route, let me know!

How can the GIA community continue to support DenScore? 

• If anyone would like more details on how we partner with dental insurance plans, please feel free to reach out to me anytime. Additionally, SEO is very important to us, and we work on it diligently every day. If any of the investor companies have a 'GIA section' on their website, it would be incredibly beneficial for all of the GIA cohort companies to receive backlinks. A simple dropdown with a list of the GIA cohort companies would provide significant SEO benefits. Please reach out if you have any questions.

What’s the best way for someone to contact you if they would like to learn more?

• kyle@denscore.com is the best place to reach me!

• You can also find Kyle on his LinkedIn.

• Check out DenScore’s website for additional information.