You walk on eggshells beating around the bush rather than speaking to her directly. There are systems and strategies you'd love to try in YOUR practice but you hesitate to ask for her help for fear of her knee-jerk emotion-sucking NEGATIVE ATTITUDE. Or maybe it's not that black and white. She has a positive attitude, patients love her, and she's been with you forever. Fact is she even says "yes" when you ask her to do stuff. But weeks or months later you realize that little or none of what you requested got done.

One of the most difficult parts of your job as practice owner is firing an employee. Emotionally wrenching. You agonize over the decision and more often than not you make no decision at all. No decision IS a decision. You live day to day with the feeling that you could do better. There are NINE CRITICAL SIGNS IT'S TIME TO FIRE AN EMPLOYEE...

Great question! This one comes up from time to time as doctors struggle with trying to set a consistent and fair protocol for who should, and who should not be paid Team Bonus when the goal is achieved. 1) Should you pay the bonus to the employee who was on vacation while the rest of the team achieved the goal?

Two other questions about the team bonus we receive regularly are:

2) My hygienist is on Gems' Hybrid Hygiene Compensation (HHC). Should she be excluded from receiving Team Bonus?

3) I have a dental assistant who has a full-time job at another practice. She only works with us one day per week, Fridays. Am I correct in assuming that she should NOT be paid anything from the Team Bonus System since she's only here one day per week?

What if you could unearth a seldom-tapped deep (nearly endless) source of potential new team members... a source filled with people EAGER to WORK... willing and ABLE to learn just about anything you require of them. And just what if these folks were HAPPY to work for wages the likes of which you've not seen in dentistry since light cured composites were invented?

Well there IS such a source and very likely nearby your practice. Once I discovered this unpolished "Gem" I continued to draw time and again from this abundant well. I found them to be excited to work with us, passionate about and adept at learning. These were some of the best and brightest team members with whom I had the pleasure of working in my practices. Not only will you enjoy having these folks with you but your existing team members are guaranteed to WELCOME them with OPEN ARMS!

It's late Thursday afternoon before a long holiday weekend when Mary, your Dental Assistant, stops you in the hallway and says, "Doctor, when you have a moment, I'd like to speak with you in private."

Hey, the great recession has been rough. Recovery slow. Patients have lost jobs, your practice has taken a hit or you've worked twice as hard just to keep things even. Funny how it always happens this way. You're day was pretty nice until this point. Then Mary drops the "I need to speak with you in private" bomb. Of course your mind allows you to assume the worse. She going to quit. You're about to face the painful process of hiring and training a new team member. Turns out she doesn't want to quit. But she does want...

What could possibly be more traumatic than having your dental practice burn to the ground? How 'bout learning that the only computer backups were lost along with everything else in the fire. Worse than that... Dr. Bob's trusted office manager of 19 years was the one who threw the backups back into the building... right after she set the fire!

One dentist I know personally lost $300,000.00 over a period of years before he realized a penny was missing. Over 50% of dentists have been or will be embezzled. You MUST KNOW these RED FLAG WARNING SIGNS of embezzlement and PREVENTION STEPS you can take today in order to minimize the risk.