Dental practices across the U.S. are telling themselves the same story: “We just can't find good people anymore.” Job postings go unanswered. Promising candidates ghost after the second interview. New hires leave before they've finished orientation. And the conclusion most practices draw is that the talent simply isn't out there.
That diagnosis is wrong, and it's costing them.
Chris Mizenko.
The staffing crisis hitting dentistry isn't a pipeline problem. It's a retention problem wearing a recruitment mask. Industries that have been grappling with high turnover for decades -- education, hospitality, healthcare -- have learned this the hard way.
The issue was never the supply of willing, capable workers. It was the conditions those workers were being asked to stay in. Dentistry is arriving at that same realization now, and the practices that understand it first will have a significant advantage in the years ahead.
The good news: The solutions already exist. They've been field-tested in other sectors, and they don't start with a bigger signing bonus.
Two industries, one headache
Before I worked in dental practice support, I spent years leading multisite teams in early childhood education -- an industry that has battled chronic turnover for as long as anyone can remember. The work was meaningful. The people were committed. Yet talented team members left regularly, not because they didn't care about the work, but because they didn't feel seen doing it.
What I observe now, sitting across from office managers in dental practices, is strikingly familiar. They're shorthanded. They're covering roles they shouldn't have to cover. They're investing time and energy into bringing someone new up to speed, only to watch that person leave a few months later. The geography is different. The underlying problem is the same.
Turnover is not unique to dentistry. It is a cross-sector reality, and the practices and organizations that have navigated it successfully share a common thread: They stopped treating retention as a human resources function and started treating it as a leadership one.
The appreciation gap
One of the most important -- and overlooked -- drivers of turnover is simpler than most practice owners expect: People don't feel appreciated in the way that actually resonates with them.
This isn't a soft observation. It has real operational consequences. A team member who doesn't feel genuinely valued becomes disengaged before they ever submit a resignation letter. By the time they leave, the practice has already been paying the cost of their checked-out presence for weeks or months.
What makes this complicated is that appreciation isn't one size fits all. Some team members are energized by public recognition -- a shout-out in the morning huddle. Others find that kind of attention uncomfortable. What matters to them is a quiet, direct word from the doctor or manager who says, "I noticed what you did, and it made a difference."
For others, appreciation is tangible: a bonus, a gift card, a team lunch. And for some, the most powerful expression of value is simply being asked for their input -- being treated as someone whose perspective shapes how the practice operates.
If you're leading a team and applying one style of appreciation uniformly, you're likely missing the majority of your team members. Taking the time to understand what makes each person feel genuinely valued -- and then acting on it consistently -- is one of the highest-leverage investments a practice leader can make. It costs relatively little, but the return is significant.
A practical starting point: Think through your team member by member. When did you last acknowledge this person in a way that actually landed? Do you know what they respond to? Have you ever asked?
Retention is recruitment's understudy
There's a natural tendency in these conversations to jump straight to recruitment -- job postings, sign-on bonuses, better benefits packages. Recruitment matters. But if the environment people are recruited into doesn't hold them, you're running a revolving door, not a practice.
Before optimizing a hiring funnel, ask a harder question: Would your current team members recommend working at your practice to a friend? That question -- as simple and uncomfortable as it is -- reveals more about a turnover problem than any exit interview.
The practices that built stable, committed teams in education weren't always the ones with the highest pay, though fair compensation absolutely matters and shouldn't be dismissed. They were the ones where team members had a genuine sense of stake in something larger than their daily task list. That sense of stake is what transforms someone into a person who stays.
Beyond the bonus: Attracting and keeping quality candidates
When the conversation turns to what actually moves the needle on retention and recruitment, the answers that have proven most durable across industries share a common theme: People stay where they feel like contributors, not just workers.
Give people a seat at the table.
In multisite education teams, some of the most effective retention tools weren't compensation-related at all — they were invitations. To advisory committees. To curriculum and process reviews. To decisions that affected the whole organization.
Team members who feel like contributors become invested. They stop thinking of themselves as filling a role and start thinking of themselves as stakeholders in an outcome. Dental practices can create the same dynamic. Bring team members into conversations about scheduling protocols, patient experience improvements, or technology decisions. A dental assistant who helped shape the new patient onboarding process has a reason to stay that goes beyond her hourly rate.
Create pathways, not just positions.
One of the things that drives talented people out of any field is the feeling that there's nowhere to go. In dental offices, where organization charts are often relatively flat, this is a real challenge.
But career growth doesn't have to mean a new title. It can mean becoming the person who trains new team members. It can mean leading the morning huddle, owning a vendor relationship, or spearheading a continuing education initiative for the team. These roles create identity and purpose. They communicate that this person is trusted, and that signal compounds over time.
Connect people to something bigger than the practice.
One of the most underused retention strategies in dentistry is the professional community. Encouraging team members, not just doctors, to participate in dental association events, local networking organizations, or study clubs builds something important: professional identity.
When someone sees themselves as a skilled professional in their field, not just a member of a single office's team, they invest more deeply in their craft. And that investment tends to make them more committed to an environment that supports it, not less.
Recruit to a philosophy, not just a job description.
Candidates in today's labor market are evaluating practices the way practices evaluate them. Interviews that paint an unrealistically positive picture set up early disillusionment and accelerate turnover.
Practices that are honest about the realities of the role -- while being equally clear about the support, the group philosophy, and the genuine growth opportunities available -- attract people who are the right fit and who stay because of it.
The shift that changes everything
The dental practices that are building stable, high-performing teams aren't necessarily the ones with the deepest pockets. They're the ones that have made a fundamental shift in how they think about their people, from resources to be managed to professionals to be developed.
That shift starts with leadership. It shows up in the small, consistent decisions a doctor or office manager makes every day: who gets recognized and how, who gets invited into a conversation, who gets offered a new responsibility. None of those decisions is expensive, yet all of them are felt.
The turnover crisis in dentistry is real. But it is not unsolvable. Other industries have walked this road and found their footing, not by waiting for the talent pool to improve, but by becoming the kind of place that people choose and keep choosing.
Chris Mizenko is the co-founder of Zen Dental Support, a revenue cycle management company helping dental practices run with greater clarity and efficiency. Before entering the dental space, he spent years building and leading multi-site teams in early childhood education — an experience that shaped how he thinks about culture, systems and the human side of running an organization. Contact him at [email protected].
The comments and observations expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of DrBicuspid.com, nor should they be construed as an endorsement or admonishment of any particular idea, vendor, or organization. Some content may be AI-generated.
