The Smilist grew from 0 to 116 offices in the New York Metro area and sees over a million patients a year. Its billing work grew with every office. Since May 2026, Ventus has run two of its claim workflows across every office: claim submission and claim status. Here is how the team took the repetitive claim work off its plate, and what changed.
The results
Dental DSO · 116 offices · Claim status and submission
The challenge
Philip Toh and his co-founder Rob built The Smilist as a patient-focused, technology-first DSO. Growing that fast raised one question above the rest. In Philip's words: one of the things we think a lot about is just how do we grow at scale without sacrificing all the things that we're accustomed to.
And it's certainly very different than an office of one location versus 115 locations.
In billing, scale showed up as two kinds of repetitive work. Before a claim could go out, someone had to find the X-rays and perio charts the payer needs and attach them by hand. After it went out, staff logged into payer portals one claim at a time to check its status, catch denials and follow up on balances.
The attachment work set the pace for the whole team. Raquel Shuler, who runs revenue cycle management, describes how every day used to end: hundreds of claims still waiting on attachments.
Every new office added to the pile.
The only answer was more billing staff. That is the opposite of how Philip wants technology to work: technology allows us to deliver a certain level of service, not only for the patients, but also for staff.
The goal, as The Smilist puts it internally: how do we get the team members to work at the top of their license?
How Ventus works with The Smilist's team
Claim submission. Before a claim goes out, Ventus pulls the attachments it needs, X-rays and perio charts, and adds them to the claim. In Raquel's words: we used to attach everything by hand. Now Ventus pulls the X-rays and perio charts, and billing takes half the time.
Claim status. Ventus AI agents log into the payer portals The Smilist already uses, the way a person would, and pull the status of open claims every day. Denials are flagged as soon as the payer posts them, so the team works what changed instead of checking every claim. This is the part Philip singles out: Ventus is helping us pull timely statuses on open claims so we can act faster.
No new systems. The team kept its portals, its records and its workflow. Nothing was replaced. Raquel again: Ventus went live in 6 weeks without changing our systems. I blink and they make something happen. They're my dream team.
For Philip, the point is people, not software: the human aspect is something that we don't want to lose.
Ventus takes on the volume so the billing team can spend its time on the claims that need judgment.
How the rollout went
- May 2026
Start
The Smilist signs on for all 116 offices. No new systems: Ventus works in the portals and records the team already uses.
- 6 weeks in
Claim submission live
Ventus starts pulling X-rays and perio charts for every claim that needs them. The end-of-day attachment queue starts shrinking.
- Next
Claim status live
Agents take over the daily portal checks on open claims, so the team works only the claims that changed.
The results
- 2×
less manual billing time, from 8 hours a day to 4. Ventus pulls the X-rays and perio charts a claim needs, so billers no longer attach them by hand.
- 3×
smaller attachment queue at the end of the day. The billing team used to finish every day with hundreds of claims still waiting on attachments. The team calls it a record.
- 4,000+
claims a week run through Ventus across all 116 offices, with the status of open claims pulled from the payer portals instead of checked one by one.
| Measure | Before Ventus | With Ventus |
|---|---|---|
| Attachments | Billers found and attached X-rays and perio charts by hand | Ventus pulls them and adds them to the claim |
| Claim status | Staff logged into payer portals claim by claim | Agents pull the status of open claims from each portal |
| Denials | Found when someone checked | Flagged as soon as the payer posts them, ready for follow-up |
| Adding offices | More offices meant more billing staff | New offices without new billing staff |
| Systems | — | The same portals and workflow; nothing replaced |
“We broke our own record. We used to end every day with hundreds of claims still waiting on attachments. Now our queue is 3× smaller.”
Raquel ShulerDirector of Revenue Cycle Management, The SmilistWhat it means for growth
The Smilist's billing team no longer grows with the office count. The claim work a new office adds goes to Ventus, and the team keeps its time for denials and the claims that need a person.
“We took it to the fifth level of what we'd been asking for all this time. Now when we add more offices, I don't have to add staff.”
Raquel ShulerDirector of Revenue Cycle Management, The Smilist“Ventus stands out from the noise in the AI and automation market. Their approach allows them to ramp up quickly in the messy middle of RCM, helping us pull timely statuses on open claims so we can act faster. The team moves fast and consistently delivers real results.”
Philip TohCo-founder & President, The Smilist