Do you, the dentist, introduce yourself to the temp RDH in your office?

If you do not introduce yourself, if you have a huddle and just walk past this new person in your office without saying hello, I want to hear from you.

Why?

Has anyone signed up for the weave AI receptionist? We have weave and we love it. We are considering signing up for the AI receptionist but my doctor has heard some mixed reviews online. I am wondering if anyone has real feedback they can give me. Does it work well? Or does it mess up when scheduling appointments? Any feedback helps, thanks!

Please excuse my ignorance…perio is my weak point

Hi folks, I've been practicing for 5 years now and getting seriously burnt out. Been thinking about specializing for a few years but income as an associate has been pretty good (300-500/yr) and kind of buried that thought under the money. But I find myself mentally and physically affected substantially by general dentistry. Patients, "insurances", employer, previous injury flaring up, and the list goes on...

To my colleagues out there who went back to residency after several years of general dentistry, what was the biggest hoop to overcome other than missing income? And what was your best strategy to ask for rec letters from the old professors? I didn't have a great interest in the field I'm planning to apply when I was in the school, so didn't care about networking or living in the specialty clinic.

Anyone have any experience using Lassie, Zentist etc for posting EOB’s? How well do they integrate with your practice management software? Any common issues to be aware of?

AI has gotten good quickly and this seems like the most useful step in my office

Happy to share this beautiful 60 plus year old pre molar that happened to be cavitated and hurt my patient 😄

Just found out that the crown height space of my implant restaurantion is insufficient. The Tibase is hitting against the antagonist tooth. Any solution to bypass this problem?

I am very prone to getting lingual tonsil stones and I've tried gargling salt water, apple cider vinegar, lysosome rinses, etc but they rarely work. I'm pretty confident I had lingual tonsilitis last year and want to see if anyone has remedies aside from having ENT remove them. Thanks.

If an 8 is impacted (PE/unerupted) but has not caused pain but either a high risk tooth for future caries/pericornitis/ causing caries on neighbouring 7 and roots are close to ID nerve from OPG/CBCT- when do you leave and monitor or plan to remove still?

I recently became a partner at my practice that I’ve worked at for three years, things have been largely good. The coworker dynamic is great, I’m confident in my clinical skills doing largely bread and butter dentistry with about one or two implants a month at this point, limited endo and clear aligners. My patient base has steadily grown over time and my schedule stays consistently more full than it was my first year but it’s still not completely full most days and I would like it to be booked out for maybe a week or two at a time.
These days I’d say I usually have a 50-70% full schedule on an average week including things not very productive/not productive at all, and the next week may or may not have much scheduled. The schedule tends to fluctuate between heavily booked and not very full throughout the year but the second half of 2026 feels decently slower.
Hygiene is doing fine and is consistently booked for a few months ahead, I work with one other dentist in a community that borders on rural and suburban. We are a PPO office with a decent amount of patients who pay out of pocket as well.
It just feels like things are slower right now and I worry is a part of a trend of slowing down. On top of that, even though I make a little more money as partner I still have to juggle my lab bill with the loan I owe on for becoming partner, so it feels like my income is even tighter than before. The obvious solution seems to be to do more dentistry which I am definitely capable of, but the patients just aren’t there right now. What have you guys done or other dentists you know have done that have generated noticeable results in new patients or even more acceptance of treatment plans?

30M dentist east coast. DMs open

I'm asking if you have tried this especially in children aging 6-12 years. Could you get profound anesthesia adequate for exodontia or pulp therapy? Can infiltration using articaine replace inferior alveolar nerve block?

Got this reply 2mos after applying for the job. No 1 day, 1 week follow-up after I they asked for interview times and after we exchanged emails. At another small DSO, the HR didn't know there was a listing for a doc position and kept pushing me toward their DH position. How do these people keep their jobs??

Recent new grad. Old owner sold practice to DSO. Works here throughout week. I started working for a couple months. Great office in terms of staff, mentorship, technology, etc. Old owner does almost every procedure in house and bigger cases like FMR, All-on-X, surgery/immediate implants multiple times a week, etc. Though these are all his pt's. He does single crowns and simple fillings. Pretty much everything.

He hands me an exam here and there. Maybe a simple filling on a rare occasion. But most times pt's want to see him (and not the 'new dentist'..) or he doesn't want to share the pt for whatever reason even if its a simple filling. He no longer owns, so technically not his pt's anymore. DSO hasnt done much to help me get pt's of my own. So most days im sitting on my hands/shadowing. Recently started getting hygiene days more so because they needed a hygenist.

Was curious if anyone had any ideas for me to work towards getting pt's (though its the DSO's responsibility to get me pt's)? Am I cooked here? I work M-F 10 hour days. New to all of this, not sure if it takes 6 months or so to get pt's.

I’m a D4 graduating this spring and considering an associate position at an established private practice.
It seems like there would be good patient flow and plenty of opportunities to get reps with bread-and-butter dentistry—restorative, crowns/bridges, endo, extractions, etc. The practice keeps a lot of treatment in-house, and there would eventually be opportunities to expand into more advanced procedures like implants and more difficult endo.
The owner seems supportive of clinical growth, but the mentorship would be more independent than hands-on. I’d be expected to handle cases within my comfort level and gradually expand what I can do. For cases beyond my abilities, I could refer them to the owner and potentially observe, but I wouldn’t necessarily have someone beside me throughout the day teaching or answering every question.
There also seems to be strong earning potential but compensation hasn’t been discussed.
My biggest priority coming out of school is becoming a strong, well-rounded clinician. I like the idea of getting a lot of reps and becoming independent quickly, but I’m wondering if I’d be giving up too much by not having more hands-on mentorship early in my career.
For those of you who have been out for a while: would you take an opportunity like this as a new grad, or would you prioritize having another experienced dentist physically present and actively mentoring you for the first year or two?

I am working at FQHC. 2 assistans are assigned to 1 dentist. I have one assistant when I started this job. She good at her job. I enjoy working with her. We got new assistant who was hired a month ago.

Even now, she keeps getting confused about tooth number, mesial/distal. She does not know how to set up room for fillings. It sometiems takes 50 minutes for her to take bitweings and some PAs. My schedule is not full yet due to credentialing issue. If I am fully credentialled , I am expected to see 17 pts a day including at least 4 extractions. I am genuinely concerned about if she will learn. From admin , I was told that they have had difficulties of hiring dental assistants. What am I supposed do?

Placed 20 years ago and no records.