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Why Isn’t The Staff Trained?

Why Isn’t The Staff Trained?
by Roger P. Levin

Over the last few years, I’ve had many conversations with dentists who complain that they can’t find well-trained team members for their practice. They believe that hiring skilled dental staff members is harder than ever before. While I agree with this assessment, I wonder if this is a new phenomenon—or if we’ve simply never gotten it right.

Dentistry Is a Complex Business

Our field has become dramatically more complex over the last 20 years. In order to work with the many new technologies, a dental assistant today has to have much more knowledge than in the past. The same is true for administrative staff. They deal with numerous insurance companies that all have different rules, regulations and policies… with a range of payment options, including patient financing… and with ever-changing software and communication systems.

Unfortunately, I’ve observed significant issues with training for both leaders and teams during the last 10 years, due mainly to the fact that it hasn’t kept pace with the increased complexity of dental offices. Many practice owners have no choice but to hire untrained team members, yet they have no proper training program in place. The new hires get little more than on-the-job training. Doctors and their teams do the best they can, but it’s not good enough.

Read full article on Dentistry Today.