Webinar Recording - Value Based Care in Dental - The Clinical Dimensions of Value-Based Care​

Dr. Enrique Acosta is a board-certified pediatric dentist and the Founder and President of Pediatric Dental Centers of Florida (PDC), a dentist-owned multi-location dental organization providing pediatric dental and orthodontic services throughout South Florida. He brings more than three decades of clinical, academic, and healthcare management experience, with a particular focus on improving access to care, clinical quality, operational efficiency, and sustainable models for serving pediatric populations.

Dr. Acosta received his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, completed his specialty training in Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Puerto Rico, and subsequently completed a fellowship at Columbia University. He later earned an MBA from the University of Miami, combining his clinical background with formal training in healthcare and business management.

His academic and institutional experience includes serving as an Assistant Professor at Temple University and later as Assistant Director and Co-Founder of the Pediatric Dentistry Residency Program at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. These roles provided him with extensive experience in pediatric dental education, hospital dentistry, clinical program development, and the training of future pediatric dentists.

As Founder and President of Pediatric Dental Centers of Florida, Dr. Acosta has overseen the development of PDC into a multi-location dental organization serving a large pediatric patient population across South Florida. The organization provides preventive, restorative, orthodontic, and hospital-based dental services and has extensive experience caring for children enrolled in Medicaid and other managed dental programs.

Dr. Acosta's work increasingly focuses on the practical application of value-based dental care at the provider level. His interests include clinical quality measurement, preventive care, patient access, utilization, outcomes, data analytics, provider performance, and the alignment of payer and provider incentives. Through PDC, he has worked to integrate clinical protocols, centralized operational systems, technology, and performance measurement across multiple dental practices.

His perspective on value-based care is grounded in the day-to-day realities of delivering dental care at scale. He brings to the discussion the viewpoint of the practicing clinician and dental organization—examining how value-based models can translate from payer and policy concepts into measurable improvements in clinical care, patient outcomes, access, and cost.

Dr. Mary Lee Conicella is Aetna’s Chief Dental Officer and oversees dental clinical initiatives and policies, with a focus on driving member engagement and improving health outcomes.  She was instrumental in creating Aetna's Dental-Medical Integration program and several strategies to reduce dental opioid prescribing.  These initiatives received global recognition in the groundbreaking NIH report: “Oral Health in America: Advances and Challenges.”

Dr. Conicella received her DMD from Temple University and is a Fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry.  She serves on the National Dental Association’s Corporate Round Table and received the NDA President’s Award for her contributions to the mission of the NDA and the profession of Dentistry.  Dr. Conicella also serves as the Clinical Advisor to the National Association of Dental Plans’ Board of Directors and was recently honored with NADP’s Gabryl lifetime achievement award, recognizing her volunteer leadership and efforts to improve consumer access to affordable, quality dental care through advocacy, research, and the promotion of dental benefits. She is a member of the NYU College of Dentistry Dean’s Strategic Advisory Council and holds a life membership in the American Dental Association.