Parker is also a results-driven CEO. Still, when we sat outside his office, which is packed with sports memorabilia, including framed Super Bowl and Olympics tickets and a football signed by University of Alabama coach Nick Saban, he was positively gleeful as he unveiled a chart that would make most chief executives weep. On it, one line, representing the annual number of patient visits to Sarrell’s clinics, climbs upward to more than 140,000, while the other, which shows the average reimbursement per visit (almost entirely from Medicaid or CHIP, with minimal copays), plummets from $328 in 2005 to $124 last year. The drop-off is due to a combination of treatment and education. Once new patients’ cavities have been attended to, and bad oral health habits addressed, subsequent visits for cleanings and checkups generally cost taxpayers less. “There's no business in the world that wants to say that every time someone comes into my store or my restaurant they spend less than they did the last time,” Parker says.