Whose the boss? Managing dentist or Full Time Specialist at Corporate Dental Office.

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2TH MVR

Orthodontist
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I am a soon to be Full Time Orthodontist working at a Western Dental and Orthodontics office. One side is dental. The other side is ortho. So I'm curious. The office as a whole has a managing non-dental onsite manager who runs the ENTIRE office. I consider her my immediate boss along with the other corporate level bosses. My question involves the Managing Dentist. Simply put .... is this person another one of my bosses? Or .... are we equals?

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He's your boss. If anything you are the office
Manager's bosss since they are in charge of front desk, assistants and hygiene. The managing doc is lead to all the doctors. Unless of course you are an independent contractor. At that point I would only answer to my corporate level docs.
 
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Well,

Not exactly the answer I was looking for. Hopefully it is different for my situation. I am not an independent contractor, but an employee. The office is managed as two different entities with different software. Seems like I should be the "managing" Orthodontist. I've only been at this practice for 2 months and the managing dentist apparently is trying to remind me who the real boss is.

Corporate dentistry drama :eek:
 
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At all the coporate offices that I've worked for, the managing GPs have always treated me as an equal. I, however, I’ve always treated all the GPs (not just the managing GPs but the associate GPs as well) there as if they are my boss because I feel I need them more than they need me. More referrals = more starts = higher bonuses = less chance of getting fired. When these GPs quit their jobs and start their own offices, I usually try to keep in touch with them so they continue to refer their patients to my private offices. That’s why whenever any of these GPs wants me to remove wire(s) or bracket(s) for fillings or cleanings, I immediately send one of my staff over (or I, myself, come over) to the GP side to do whatever the GPs request....no matter how busy we are at the ortho side.

In addition to referring patients to me, these GPs also help me take care of the ortho emergencies since I am not at the corp office 5 days/week like them. They help re-placing the separators. They help calming down the angry parents when a poky wire (a quad helix, an RPE, or a tongue crib etc) keeps their kids awake at night. They help by saying nice things about me to the parents when the parents start to lose trust in me. I’ve always had very good relationships with the GPs at the corp offices.
 
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Unsure about WD, but from my experience in pacific dental services, 'smelly' is correct. The office manager was the boss of the assistants and front office, and the 'owner doctor' was the boss of the doctors (associates and specialists).

Sometimes they can be okay, but usually due to corporate pressure to produce they can be a real pain in the ass - welcome to corporate dentistry.
 
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