Aspen Dental

Aspen Dental (known officially as Aspen Dental Management, Inc.) is an American dental support organization that supports Aspen Dental-branded dentistry locations. Its headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois.

The organization provides support services to around 1100 independently owned dental offices in the United States. Aspen Dental branded dentistry locations are targeted at individuals who may not currently have a relationship with a dental provider or otherwise face financial or other barriers to care.

Aspen Dental was founded in 1998 in East Syracuse, NY as the result of a merger between East Coast Dental, founded by Robert Fontana, and Upstate Dental, which Fontana had previously left in 1997.

By 2000, Aspen Dental had expanded to 33 locations in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

In 2006, private equity firm Ares Management acquired Aspen Dental for an undisclosed amount. At the time of the acquisition, Aspen Dental operated 87 locations across seven states.

In 2010, Leonard Green & Partners purchased Aspen Dental from Ares Management for about $500 million. By August 2010, private equity firms were bidding on Aspen Dental and Kool Smiles, the two largest national chains of dental offices in the United States.

Between October 2010 and July 2015, Aspen settled with state consumer protection authorities in Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts and agreed to pay reimbursements to former patients and financial contributions to consumer protection probes in those states without admitting fault or wrongdoing.

In June 2012, a PBS series entitled Dollars and Dentists produced by Frontline in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity described Aspen Dental's business model as one where dental services are advertised at steep discounts, but where patients were subsequently overcharged or given unnecessary treatments.