The Employee Costing Your Dental Practice Its Best People
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Release Date: 09/07/2026
Who’s More Important in a Dental Practice: Front Office or Clinical Team?
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
A Dentaltown post started a bigger conversation: A dentist wanted to bring back a former dental assistant, but a current front office employee didn’t want her back. Then someone argued that the assistant was more important because she directly contributed to production. So, who is more valuable to the practice? In this episode, Dana and Sandy talk about what really makes someone valuable to a dental practice, what to consider before bringing back a former employee, and why front office vs. back office conflict is often a symptom of a bigger issue. They also discuss why patients can feel...
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Will AI & AEO Recommend Your Dental Practice?
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
AI is changing how patients search for dentists, but simply creating more content isn't enough. As AI-generated content floods the internet, credibility, expertise, and proof may matter more than ever. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana Pardue and Sandy Pardue welcome Grace Rizza, founder and CEO of Identity Dental Marketing, back to the show for a conversation about how AI is changing dental marketing, search visibility, content creation, and the way patients discover and evaluate dental practices. Grace explains why using AI effectively isn't as simple as asking ChatGPT to write a...
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Should We Pay Employees to Show Up?
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
What if employees got a bonus simply for showing up? In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana and Sandy tackle a surprisingly controversial question: Should reliable attendance be rewarded, or is showing up on time simply part of the job? Sandy shares an attendance incentive she has used in dental practices for years involving ping-pong balls, cash rewards, and one simple qualification: reliability. But the conversation goes much deeper than bonuses. Because an attendance incentive won't fix a practice that hasn't clearly defined its expectations. Dana and Sandy discuss the importance of...
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The Right Patients, the Right Marketing | Grace Rizza
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Getting more dental leads isn't always the answer. The real goal is attracting the right patients and giving them a reason to choose your practice. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana Pardue and Sandy Pardue welcome Grace Rizza, founder and CEO of Identity Dental Marketing, for a conversation about what dental marketing looks like as AI, automation, Google Ads, Meta advertising, and patient expectations continue to change. Grace explains why effective marketing can't be one-size-fits-all. A startup practice looking for patient volume needs a very different strategy than a...
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The Employee Costing Your Dental Practice Its Best People
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Every dental practice has probably had one. They’re great at their job. Patients love them. They’ve been there forever. Maybe they even make the doctor’s life easier. But behind the scenes, they gossip, intimidate coworkers, ignore rules, create drama, or make new employees feel like they’ll never quite belong. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana Pardue and Sandy Pardue tackle a difficult question: What is that “indispensable” employee actually costing your practice? Dana and Sandy discuss why practice owners often tolerate bad behavior from high performers, how resentment...
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Part 3 of Systems. Staff. Training. | Your Team Isn’t the Problem. Your Training Might Be.
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
You hired good people. You gave them a job description. Maybe you even told them to “go sit next to Jessica” for a few days. But did you actually train them? In the final episode of our Systems. Staff. Training. series, Dana and Sandy tackle the training gap inside dental practices and why expecting employees to “just know” how to do their jobs can be an expensive mistake. Today’s dental team is expected to do far more than answer phones and schedule appointments. They’re handling insurance conversations, money, patient objections, unscheduled treatment, technology, scheduling,...
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AI, Accountability & the Opportunities Hiding in Your Dental Practice | Cory Pinegar of REACH, Part 2
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
Technology can help your dental practice do more—but it shouldn’t replace the human experience that keeps patients coming back. In Part 2 of our conversation with Cory Pinegar, CEO of REACH, Dana Pardue and Sandy Pardue continue the discussion about the future of the dental team, beginning with the balance between automation, AI, and personal connection. Cory explains why technology should amplify good people rather than eliminate them and why some responsibilities are perfect candidates for automation while others still require empathy, communication, and human judgment. The conversation...
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Rethinking Dental Staffing: People, Technology & Creating Capacity | Cory Pinegar of REACH, Part 1
Dental Drill Bits with Sandy Pardue and Dana Pardue
What if your staffing problem isn’t simply about finding more people? In Part 1 of this special two-part Dental Drill Bits conversation, Dana Pardue and Sandy Pardue sit down with Cory Pinegar, CEO of REACH, to explore how dental practices can rethink staffing, training, technology, and the way work gets done. Cory shares the story behind REACH and explains why practices often have more than a hiring problem. Missed calls, inconsistent follow-up, turnover, limited training, and too many competing responsibilities at the front desk can all create bottlenecks that affect growth and...
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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...
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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_outlineEvery dental practice has probably had one.
They’re great at their job. Patients love them. They’ve been there forever. Maybe they even make the doctor’s life easier.
But behind the scenes, they gossip, intimidate coworkers, ignore rules, create drama, or make new employees feel like they’ll never quite belong.
In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana Pardue and Sandy Pardue tackle a difficult question: What is that “indispensable” employee actually costing your practice?
Dana and Sandy discuss why practice owners often tolerate bad behavior from high performers, how resentment spreads when rules aren’t applied equally, and why your best employees may quietly leave rather than continue working in a toxic environment.
In this episode:
- When high performers become a liability
- How toxic employees drive good people away
- Favoritism, cliques, and broken trust
- Handling complaints without creating gossip
- When bad behavior crosses a legal line
Practice owners often ask, “What happens if I lose this employee?”
Maybe there’s a better question:
Who am I going to lose if I keep tolerating this employee?
Because your best employees are watching what you address, what you ignore, and whether the same standards really apply to everyone.
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.