(by Sandy Baird, MBA) Is your schedule driving you crazy? Scheduling is one of the most important elements of your practice. It is intimately tied to your profits, stress level, and patient satisfaction. Yet, I see practice after practice allowing their schedule to reduce their income, create work chaos, and drive patients away. Is this what is happening in your …
The Burnout Monster Is Lurking. I See It!
(by Sandy Baird, MBA) Professional burnout is an epidemic! According to a recent Forbes article, research shows that job burnout affects around 66% of the American workforce. This is an all-time high! Companies across all industries are recognizing the impact on their business, including higher absenteeism, weaker performance, poorer customer service, and reduced efficiency. It is one of the most …
Why Dental Practices Plateau and the Leadership Framework that Breaks the Ceiling
(by Marni Blythe) Most dental practices don’t stall because of clinical skill, technology, or patient demand. They stall because leadership hasn’t evolved alongside the practice itself. In fast-moving clinical environments, how leaders think, communicate, and make decisions directly shapes team performance and operational stability. When leadership development keeps pace with growth, practices gain clarity, alignment, and resilience. When it doesn’t, …
Focused Remote Work
(by Michael G. Neece) Have you ever started your day with optimism and a long to-do list only to finish with a deflated or perplexed feeling and most of the list undone? This is a common story, especially now that most of us are working remotely and are suffering from meeting fatigue and email overload. The good news is that …
2026 Strategic & Budget Plan for Dental Offices
(by Valerie Woo, DMD) Build a 2026-ready strategy & budget for your dental practice with VTO, Rocks, code-level analysis, and a practical pre-2026 checklist. From “Someday” to Done If planning your year always seems to be the thing that “never gets done,” you’re not alone. Most dental owners can see the profit leaking – vendor creep, inefficient scheduling, supplies overages, …
Grief in the Season of Light
A Healthcare Provider’s Journey Through Holiday Loss (by Dr. Parul Dua Makkar) Grief changes everything. It alters how we move, how we breathe, how we belong to the world. When I lost my younger and only sibling, Manu, and then later my father, the ground beneath me shifted in ways I could never have prepared for. Their deaths did not …
Compassion Fatigue in Dentistry
(by Catherine Murphy, DDS, MSD ) Dentistry demands empathy, compassion, and dedication from its practitioners. Dentists often find themselves immersed in the daily challenges of alleviating pain, restoring smiles, and improving oral health. However, amidst the pursuit of serving patients, there lies a silent struggle known as compassion fatigue. The world renowned traumatologist, Charles Figley, who referred to compassion fatigue …
Medical Protocols for Periodontal Therapy
(by Kathryn Gilliam, BA, BSDH, MAAOSH, HIAOMT) When I thought about the ulcerated epithelial lining being an open wound, I finally questioned: Why we don’t treat it like medical practitioners treat wounds? And in fact, why are we not using more medical protocols in general? As a practicing dental hygienist, I’m always looking for new techniques, technologies, products, and knowledge …
What Software Reports Should I Look At?
(by David Harris) A friend who is a dental CPA and practice management speaker asked us the other day what reports from practice management software should be reviewed by a practice owner. Here is our answer: Using PMS Reports to Monitor Your Practice Obviously, there is no report called “Is embezzlement happening?” in any PMS, so this is really about …
How to Divide Duties Between Team Members
(by David Harris) There have been a lot of articles written that give dentists vague encouragement to allocate duties between team members as a way of lowering embezzlement risk. However, what most of these articles are lacking is any practical advice on how do do this. This lack of clear direction leaves a dentist in a predicament; they intuitively realize that …