1. A cleint recently told me how he now uses our dental office manuals as part of his hiring procedure. He has the applicants go home with our General Policy Manual and read it. Then if the applicant actually comes back and passes an open book test, he hires them. I thought that was a creative way to determine if an applicant has initiative and can understand written policy. 2. Ask applicants about their past accomplishments. What this does is highlight the go-getters, those who take initiative and get things done. Of course, we also recommend that you verify those accomplishments...

I just returned from a new client’s dental practice where an epic conflict between the back and front had laid siege to the dental office. The doctor thought this Clash of the Titans would quickly blow over. Instead it blew up. And what was this battle over? Chart colors.Did you say, “Chart colors?”I’m afraid so. You see, one of the back office dental staff had “issues” with one of the dental front desk . This turned into a joust over what color the charts should be. So from that point on, when the back office person took a patient up front,...

Several years ago, when my Mac laptop still had a battery that could be taken out, I called Apple to order a new one as my old battery had stopped holding much of a charge. I was leaving town the next afternoon to consult a dentist and was hoping to get a new battery sent to me overnight so I’d have it before I left. Unfortunately it was too late in the day for next day delivery so I figured I'd make the 45 minute drive to the Apple store to buy a new one. Before I could get off the phone...

Recently I was using a dental client’s computer and noticed that it was running really slow. On a hunch, I installed anti-spyware software. Spyware, for those of you who don’t know, is computer software that is installed secretly on your computer to intercept or take partial control over your computer without your OK. Commonly this is done when you or one of your dental staff download something from a web site. The download could be something as innocent as a solitaire game. The key point is that something was downloaded to your computer by you or one of your staff.  What...