Part 2A of Systems. Staff. Training. | What Is Your Staffing Problem Really Costing You?

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 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.