About Altius Dental

Providing Reliable, Quality Dental Care in Texas

Altius Dental was founded in 2016 by Drs. Gunjan Dhir and Gaurav Puri. As dental specialists and lifelong entrepreneurs, they spent the previous 8 years opening practices in rural and underserved areas of Texas. Entering these markets, they quickly realized that there was an emerging oral health crisis that was not being addressed.

Many providers in these rural areas were starting to retire and no younger dentists were seeking to replace them. Furthermore, many larger DSOs were not moving into these markets to provide care. The result is that patients, particularly Medicaid kids, had significant barriers to access to care and would often have to travel 45 minutes or more to see a dentist. They knew then and there, that this was a challenge worth taking on. They did not see the value in opening another dental practice in an overserved, urban area while there were people out there truly in need of a dentist.

In 2017, they made the commitment to build the DSO infrastructure and executive team needed to address this market. In the past 4 years, they have opened or purchased dozens of practices to become the largest DSO focused on rural populations in the State of Texas. And while the challenges of serving rural communities are sometimes great, it’s a mission that everyone at Altius has embraced.

Full Mission & Vision Statement:

To provide quality, compassionate, and accessible oral health care to underserved and rural communities in Texas and surrounding areas.

• To become partners for good and strengthen the communities in which we serve.
• To help our patients develop good, life-long oral health habits through education, action, and great customer care.
• To provide great, stable jobs and career options for people living in the communities we serve.
• To create opportunities and advance the careers of our associate and partner dentists as well as our company team members and leaders.

Encapsulated in the words of President John F. Kennedy is the essence of our cause:

We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

— John F. Kennedy