Business Profile: SmileSelect Dental is continuing local dental practice

R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press
Wendy Holzencamp, newly-elected Masonville Township supervisor, stands outside the township hall on South Main Street in Rapid River.

EDITOR NOTE: The Daily Press will be featuring a series of articles on local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run on a regular basis in the Daily Press.

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ESCANABA — SmileSelect Dental, located at 2500 7th Ave. S. Ste. 216 near Pathways, is the practice now owned by Dr. Michael Ernest Highers, DDS. The young dentist, an Army veteran and technology enthusiast, took over the business that had been owned by Dr. Donald Pfotenhauer, DDS, close to one year ago and rebranded. With two dental surgeons onsite, SmileSelect is currently taking new patients.

Highers grew up in Houghton Lake in Lower Michigan. His family moved to Florida, where he attended high school and then worked construction for a little while before joining the U.S. Army. He served for four years, which included deployment to Iraq.

“Then I used my GI Bill to pay for my college, my undergrad,” Highers said. “If it wasn’t for the army, I never would have went to college.”

He earned a bachelor of science from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, then applied to the University of Detroit Mercy in order to be closer to family in Michigan. There he obtained his Doctorate of Dental Surgery (DDS) in 2021.

For a couple years, Highers worked as a locum tenens dentist. Locum tenens jobs involve temporary contracts and usually require travel; the roles are meant to fill the gaps when other healthcare providers from various places are out for extended periods, such as maternity leave, or when a practice simply needs additional staff because demand is more than the regular team can keep up with. Highers said he found such work valuable and informative.

“When you go to university, you learn dentistry from a lot of different people who’ve been doing it for a long time. There’s more than one way to do everything,” Highers explained. “The school is an evidence-based dentistry clinic, so they teach us about all the modern, newest stuff, but you also get to learn how people have been doing it for years.”

Similarly, after earning his degree, his early work also allowed him further learning on the job — “I also got to see how different practices are run by being locum tenens,” Highers said.

But he was ready to settle into a steady, full-time position when an opportunity came along that happened to be “perfect timing,” Highers recounted. Don Pfotenhauer, a beloved Escanaba dentist, was retiring.

(For clarity, Dr. Kris Pfotenhauer, DDS — Don’s son — is still practicing in a suite down the hall in the same building.)

A 1974 Daily Press article announced that Don Pfotenhauer, Jr. of Gladstone had graduated from dental school at the University of Michigan and was intending to return to Delta County to practice in Doctors Park.

Almost 50 years later, Highers came across a link to Pfotenhauer’s post on the Michigan Dental Association website, which had been shared by one of Highers’s former classmates from dental school.

“What was unique about Don is — all of these other dentists who are retiring will post their practice information,” Highers said. “Like their numbers, how much money they make, how many hygienists, all that stuff. But Don was the only one who wrote, ‘I’m looking for someone to take care of my wonderful patients.’”

Highers said that the sentiment struck him, so he gave the doc a call. That was in late summer of 2023. He got to know the Pfotenhauer family before Don finally retired. On Halloween, Highers signed the Articles of Organization for SmileSelect Dental — a PLLC — with the State. A hard transition of the business took place Jan. 2, 2024, Highers said.

He has learned that Pfotenhauer left big shoes to fill, remarking on the impressive work he’s seen in patients returning to the chair: “His patients have crowns that are older than me, and they’re still in great shape!”

Pfotenhauer had explained to his successor that there was a dearth of dentists in the area, as several from Manistique, Escanaba and Gladstone recently retired in rapid order.

Highers said that SmileSelect retained the majority of Pfotenhauer’s patients and has people coming from as far away as Houghton.

SmileSelect also brought in a second dentist. Dr. David Perry is a more recent dental school graduate, but is also a licensed DDS with his own patients and performs the same types of procedures.

In addition to the two associated dentists, SmileSelect also has a manager, a scheduling coordinator and a dental assistant. The practice is currently seeking to hire a dental hygienist.

Business varies widely as far as what sort of work comes through on a given day.

“Our production kind of ebbs and flows. Sometimes we’ll get a bunch of new patients, and then we’ll take care of everything they need. … Some weeks we’ll have mostly cleanings all day, and then some weeks we’ll be doing mostly fillings,” Highers said.

Socket preservation — a procedure that fills space after a tooth is pulled to prevent bone loss — is also done at SmileSelect. Cosmetic work like veneers is also offered. As an office of general dentistry, they also provide such services as basic extractions and root canals — unless they’re more difficult cases, in which case they may be referred out. Beginning in January, SmileSelect will begin dental implants.

One thing that stands out about the practice in Suite 216 is its cutting-edge equipment. While traditional dentures can take five appointments and several months to make, for example, SmileSelect uses materials and technology that cuts it down to two or three.

Stating that the machines and materials in the in-house laboratory are FDA-approved, Highers excitedly showed off some of the gadgets in the office.

A 3D scanner sounds like a Geiger counter as it takes repetitive photographs inside a person’s mouth. Scans, accurate to 30 nanometers, may then be uploaded to a 3D printer. Artificial intelligence can produce a design for a crown within minutes, and the printer pumps it out in a few more minutes.

Another AI tech is utilized in the x-ray software. Images are taken, color-coded and labeled to show things like existing restorations, bone level and decay.

“My goal with the technology and my philosophy as a dentist is to reduce patient discomfort, increase their understanding, and give them options,” Highers said. “I treat people, not teeth. Each person’s needs are unique.”

Recognizing that it can be hard for someone seeking dental work to secure an appointment, SmileSelect strives to get new patients and emergencies in within 72 hours.

“We’ve got plenty of capacity for new patients, but the issue is a lot of people don’t know we’re here because it’s not by the road,” Highers said.

The practice is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Friday. Interested potential patients may call 906-789-9400 and expect to be greeted in a friendly and helpful manner.