Part 2B of Systems. Staff. Training. | What Is Your Staffing Problem Really Costing You?
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Release Date: 08/10/2026
Part 2B of Systems. Staff. Training. | What Is Your Staffing Problem Really Costing You?
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
What does your staff really cost your dental practice? The answer goes far beyond payroll. In the Staff portion of our Systems. Staff. Training. series, Sandy and Dana look at staffing as a business investment. Being understaffed can mean missed calls, unfinished follow-up, rushed patient interactions, neglected recall, and opportunities that quietly slip through the cracks. Sometimes what looks like a performance problem is really a capacity problem. This conversation digs into the real ROI of having enough of the right people, why dental experience shouldn't automatically determine who gets...
info_outline
Part 2A of Systems. Staff. Training. | What Is Your Staffing Problem Really Costing You?
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
What does your staff really cost your dental practice? The answer goes far beyond payroll. In the Staff portion of our Systems. Staff. Training. series, Sandy and Dana look at staffing as a business investment. Being understaffed can mean missed calls, unfinished follow-up, rushed patient interactions, neglected recall, and opportunities that quietly slip through the cracks. Sometimes what looks like a performance problem is really a capacity problem. This conversation digs into the real ROI of having enough of the right people, why dental experience shouldn't automatically determine who gets...
info_outline
Part 1 of Systems. Staff. Training. | The Systems Problem You Didn't Know You Had
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Every dental practice has systems—whether they're written down or not. In Part One of our special three-part series honoring Dr. Robert Westerman's 90th birthday, Sandy Pardue explores the first leg of Dr. Westerman's timeless philosophy: systems. Many practice owners believe their biggest challenge is finding better employees. But what if the real problem isn't your people at all? What if your practice depends on knowledge that's locked inside one employee's head? In this episode, Sandy explains why documented systems create consistency, reduce stress, simplify training, and protect your...
info_outline
Sucktember Starts Long Before September
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
September has earned a bad reputation in dentistry, but is “Sucktember” really the problem? In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Sandy and Dana Pardue challenge the idea that a slow September is inevitable. Instead, they look at the systems behind treatment acceptance, unscheduled treatment, and patient follow-up. Many practices are sitting on hundreds of thousands, or even more than a million dollars, in diagnosed treatment that was never scheduled. The patient owns the decision to move forward, but the diagnosing practice still owns the process. That includes clear communication,...
info_outline
How Your Hiring Process Is Costing You Hygienists
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Finding a great hygienist is difficult enough in today's market. The last thing your practice needs is a hiring process that unintentionally drives qualified candidates away. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Sandy and Dana Pardue challenge one of the most common assumptions in dentistry: that the hygienist shortage is the only reason practices can't fill open positions. While the shortage is real, many practices are creating unnecessary barriers through slow decision-making, gatekeepers, personality assessments, and interview processes that put the doctor—the very person candidates...
info_outline
Are You Teaching Your Team Not to Think?
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Episode Description Every dental practice wants employees who take ownership, solve problems, and think independently. But what if the biggest obstacle isn't your team—it's the way they're being led? In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue explore the leadership habits that unintentionally create dependent employees. From constant reminders and answering every question to rescuing projects instead of coaching through them, they explain how well-meaning leaders can accidentally train their teams to wait instead of think. Learn how clear expectations, documented...
info_outline
The Million-Dollar Follow-Up Problem
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Every day, patients leave dental practices knowing they need treatment... yet many never schedule. The result? Health problems worsen, patients disappear, and practices unknowingly leave hundreds of thousands—even millions—of dollars in diagnosed treatment sitting unscheduled. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue tackle one of the biggest missed opportunities in dentistry: treatment plan follow-up. Dana also shares her personal health journey and why following through on recommended care made all the difference, creating a powerful reminder of what patients...
info_outline
Navigating No-Shows
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Are broken appointments disrupting the flow of your dental practice and impacting your bottom line? In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Michael and Sandy dive deep into a chronic challenge faced by many dentists: managing broken appointments. Sandy, drawing from her wealth of expertise, sheds light on effective strategies to tackle this issue head-on. She discusses how proper appointment confirmations can make all the difference and shares her sharp observations on recognizing patterns that often lead to last-minute cancellations. Sandy stresses the imperative of clear and consistent...
info_outline
You Don’t Have a Staffing Problem
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Why do so many dental practices struggle with staffing, accountability, and turnover? According to Sandy Pardue, the issue may not be the team at all — it may be leadership. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana and Sandy dive into the uncomfortable but necessary conversations around leadership, onboarding, staff meetings, expectations, accountability, and why many practices unknowingly create the chaos they complain about. From poor onboarding experiences to managers who were never trained to lead, this episode breaks down the habits that quietly damage team culture and drive good...
info_outline
The Hygiene Hiring Crisis
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Most hiring conversations in dentistry start with the wrong question. “Do people even want to work anymore?” But today’s workforce trends tell a different story. Employees are evaluating workplaces just as much as employers are evaluating them—and many candidates are prioritizing flexibility, leadership, clarity, and culture over compensation alone. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana and Sandy unpack one of the biggest frustrations in dentistry right now: hiring hygienists in a changing workforce landscape. Together, they break down how practices can stop hiring...
info_outlineWhat does your staff really cost your dental practice? The answer goes far beyond payroll.
In the Staff portion of our Systems. Staff. Training. series, Sandy and Dana look at staffing as a business investment. Being understaffed can mean missed calls, unfinished follow-up, rushed patient interactions, neglected recall, and opportunities that quietly slip through the cracks. Sometimes what looks like a performance problem is really a capacity problem.
This conversation digs into the real ROI of having enough of the right people, why dental experience shouldn't automatically determine who gets hired, and how desperation can lead practices into costly hiring decisions.
Sandy also shares one of her favorite quality-control metrics for evaluating staffing: collections per full-time-equivalent team member. It gives practice owners another way to look beyond payroll and ask whether their staffing is actually supporting the production and growth of the practice.
And finding great people is only half the equation. Sandy and Dana discuss what happens when practices hold onto the wrong employees too long, how that affects high performers, and why strong systems and documentation make turnover much less disruptive.
In This Episode
- How to recognize when your practice is truly understaffed
- The hidden financial impact of not having enough of the right people
- Sandy’s collections-per-full-time-equivalent metric for evaluating staffing
- Why attitude, intelligence, and coachability can matter more than dental experience
- How poor hiring and retention decisions can ultimately cost you your best employees
Key Takeaways:
The goal isn't to have the smallest team possible.
It's to have the right people, in the right roles, with enough capacity to execute the systems that make your practice successful.
If you're focused only on the cost of adding another employee, ask a different question:
What is it costing your practice not to have enough of the right people?
📲 Join the Conversation!
Where is your biggest staffing challenge right now?
Finding the right people? Having enough capacity? Keeping your best employees? Or knowing when it's time to let someone go?
Join the conversation in the Dental Drill Bits Facebook Group. We'd love to hear what's happening in your practice and may feature your experience in a future episode.
🎟️ Front Desk Pro Live
Front Desk Pro Live is coming to Dallas on September 18!
Don't let the name fool you. This one-day, in-person training is designed for the entire team and dives into communication, patient objections, phone skills, collections, reactivation, unscheduled treatment, and the overall patient experience.
Use promo code Secret Sauce when registering.