A Running Argument · Est. 2026

Everyone has an insurance plan.
Almost nobody has a health plan.

One was built around what someone else will pay for. The other is built around what actually keeps you well — and for most people it doesn't exist yet. I read across every doctor, authority, and system, and assemble the health plan none of them will commit to. This is health planning, and this site is where I define it. Original calls, original data, no PR. Health starts from the mouth.

Author Eric Chong

Cadence Weekly essay · Quarterly report

Method Original calls. Original data. No PR.

Goal Make health that makes sense, not cents.

About

Eric Chong is a founder and writer based in California, and the person defining health planning — the assembler who reads across every doctor, authority, and system to help a person build a health plan that is actually theirs. He reads denied medical and dental claims for a living, which is the unfakeable seam where the system's plan for you meets your body.

Most of what shows up here are foundational thoughts on health planning — the arguments worth defending, the reports worth running, and the plan you can build yourself. Health starts from the mouth.

BasedSan Jose, CA

BuildingNightLeak · MyTongueAI · checkmydenial

DefiningHealth planning · the assembler

34 practices called last Tuesday 7–10pm PT 33 did not answer 1.6M non-traumatic dental ER visits per year +99% growth in US urgent care 2014–2023 16.1% of US dentists are DSO-affiliated $3.9B ceded to ER for dental annually 34 practices called last Tuesday 7–10pm PT 33 did not answer 1.6M non-traumatic dental ER visits per year +99% growth in US urgent care 2014–2023 16.1% of US dentists are DSO-affiliated $3.9B ceded to ER for dental annually

The Argument

The handoff nobody is defending.

The story the dental profession tells itself is that DSOs are the existential threat. Consolidation. Private equity. A corporate buyer on every corner. That story is convenient because it has a villain with a logo. The data says that villain is a sideshow. Sixteen percent of US dentists are DSO-affiliated. That number has not moved fast enough to justify the anxiety it generates.

The real loss is quieter. It happens at 7pm on a Tuesday when a patient's tooth starts throbbing and the office is closed. It happens in the emergency room, where 1.6 million Americans show up every year for a dental problem and leave with an antibiotic and a referral to a dentist they will never call. It happens in hospital credentialing offices, where the medical system decides which providers get the referral and which don't.

Dentistry didn't lose ground to a competitor. It ceded hours, access, and position while arguing about the wrong enemy. This site is where I document what that handoff looks like, what the data actually says, and what a sensible alternative would look like if someone bothered to build it.

Original Diagram · Handoff Map v1

How a paying patient quietly leaves the practice forever.

01 Patient has a problem at 8pm.

02 Dental office is closed.

03 Patient goes to urgent care.

04 No referral back to a dentist.

05 Patient never returns to dentistry.

Repeat this loop 1.6 million times a year. That is not a DSO problem. That is a hours-and-access problem the profession has not named, much less defended.

The Receipts

Numbers the profession isn't citing.

If the DSO narrative is the wrong frame, the data has to make the real frame unignorable. These are the figures every dentist, hygienist, and office manager should have memorized. Sources logged with each.

FIG. 02 / GROWTH

+99%

Growth in US urgent care centers, 2014 to 2023. Nearly doubled in under a decade while dental office hours stayed flat.

Trilliant Health · Urgent Care Utilization Report · 2024

FIG. 03 / VOLUME

1.6M

Non-traumatic dental ER visits in the US per year. Roughly 79% are redirectable to a dental office that was open.

CareQuest Institute · Dental Care in Crisis · 2025

FIG. 04 / COST

$3.9B

Annual cost to the US healthcare system for those ER visits. Per-visit cost rose 29% from 2019 to 2022.

CareQuest Institute · 2025

FIG. 05 / TREND

+216%

Twenty-year increase in ER spending on non-traumatic dental conditions, inflation-adjusted. Still climbing.

Hugo FN et al. · JADA · 2022

FIG. 06 / FRAME

16.1%

Share of US dentists affiliated with a DSO as of 2024. The narrative does not match the numbers.

ADA Health Policy Institute · 2024

FIG. 07 / MATH

62%

Average overhead at a US dental practice. Fee-for-service does not fix the math. It moves the pressure.

ADA HPI · Economic Survey of Dental Practice · 2024

"Dentistry built itself into greatness through autonomy. In every decade since, when given the choice between rejoining medicine or entrenching isolation, the profession chose isolation. Against its own patients' interests. Against its own founding science." From the working draft · The Dental Deletion

Field Notes

What I'm hearing from the ground.

Every week I call between 30 and 150 dental practices. Most don't answer after hours. The ones that do, teach me something. I write it down here.

Week of April 14, 2026 · 34 practices · CA + AZ · 7–10pm PT Field Note №16

Of 34 practices called between 7 and 10pm Pacific on a Tuesday, 33 did not answer. One answered and rerouted the call to a scheduler for the following Monday. Zero had a path for a patient in active pain that night.

The one that did answer was a boutique practice in the Bay Area running a $250K-a-year rejuvenation model. Their front desk had a playbook. They are the only ones I have found who do.

The rest are ceding the patient. They do not know they are ceding the patient. They believe they are running a good practice — and by the metrics they were taught, they are. The metrics they were taught do not include the patient who called at 8:14pm and went somewhere else.

The Portfolio

What I'm building.

Each one is a different angle on the same thesis: the patient is the unit. The handoff is the failure. Make health that makes sense.

Live · Audit Tool

NightLeak

An after-hours leakage audit for dental practices. Calls a practice's emergency line at 8pm and grades whether a patient in pain would get help. Original data, every audit.

trynightleak.comActive

Live · Patient Tool

MyTongueAI

A tongue-first AI for early oral and systemic signal detection. The mouth is the most under-used early-warning system in the body. This is the camera pointed at it.

mytongueai.comBeta

Building · Patient Platform

CheckMyDenial

Upload a dental insurance denial. We tell you whether the denial was legitimate — and pre-fill the appeal if it wasn't. Restitution as software.

checkmydenial.comQ2 2026

In Production · Ships May 2

The Ceded Hours Report

A national accounting of dental hours lost to urgent care between 6pm and 11pm, by region. The first quantified picture of where the patient actually went.

Vol. 01Q2 2026

The Writing

Foundational thoughts and recent dispatches.

The arguments worth defending live on the left. The weekly dispatches live on the right. Long-form research lives at Dental Insider Secrets.

Foundational

Cornerstone essays. Worth re-reading.

№ F.01 · Cornerstone What is the sixth vital sign? Dental Insider Secrets · 2026 № F.02 · Cornerstone Oral-systemic intelligence: the case. Dental Insider Secrets · 2026 № F.03 · Cornerstone The after-hours revenue leak. Dental Insider Secrets · 2026 № F.04 · Report The oral-systemic gap report. Dental Insider Secrets · 2026

Recent Dispatches

A running argument, week by week.

№ 001 · Thesis Flag Dentistry is fighting the wrong war. LinkedIn · Nachos · Wk. 16 № 002 · Field Pattern The quiet patient. Nachos · r/Dentistry · Wk. 17 № 003 · The Receipts What 1.6 million ER visits actually cost us. LinkedIn · Wk. 18 № 004 · Reframe Why fee-for-service is the harder version. LinkedIn · Wk. 19

Everyone has an insurance plan. Almost nobody has a health plan.