1. Hours- Every office is different. It will depend on managers, clients and doctors. It was nice for paychecks but not for work/life balance. My first week I worked over 50 hours. I went home a cried after that week because I felt misled.
2. Management (Office Manager and Regional Manager)- Again every office is different. Had a few office managers (Hint hint). One manager left early almost every day and would come in late every other day. Me and coworkers were left high and dry. We would speak up to the OM and RM but nothing was ever done. We even spoke to owner doctor but still nothing was done. Others OM managed by intimidation and lying. They didn’t even know their head from their bottom. If we had questions they would make up something in the moment and then later on (when they realized it was the wrong answer) they blamed us. If there was an issue in the office our managers would act like they were on our side but after they talked to doctors and RM separately they would come back and say we were wrong. It was miserable. We always got blamed for seriously everything. We were threatened about our overtime and getting work done. After a long time went on the RM finally realized it wasn’t all our fault and made some changes. They claimed they had no idea all of the stuff in our office was going on. Which is either bs or it just goes to show you our OMs never supported us and lied to the RMs.
4. Providers (Doctors and hygienists)- This truly depends on what providers y
Operations Manager-San Diego-(no longer employed by PDS).
Absolutely Brutal.
I have been in the dental profession over 25 years both as an EFDA and as management. Never in all my days would I have ever told a dentist how to diagnose a patient and/or what treatment to recommend. THAT is not my place. Never has been. Never will be. I did not let the office team know I knew dentistry, just to get a feel for how dentistry was practiced. It was cringe-worthy. Sell, sell, sell is the name of the game. The Benefit Coordinators knew nothing about dentistry and their training was abysmal. Insurance pre-auths were the worst I've seen. Billing the patients was emotional, to say the least. I felt like a shyster. As the OM, I was responsible for everyone's mistakes. That is nothing new to me, but honestly, I'm not the clinician and I can't make clinical calls. Nor did I want to "coach' the doctor(s) on how to sell dentistry, even though I was instructed by the Regional to do so.
PDS emotionally flogs their OMs for production. Public embarrassment and humiliation is the norm and not the exception. It was an exhausting place to work. I hated the morning huddles because I had to amp up the team to sell a 10-12k day or whatever the goal was for the day and add on the difference of what wasn't made the day before. It was nauseating.
Training is non-existent. Even if you received some, the Regionals didn't know dentistry and the training was weighted on $$$$
ProsNothing about the company. Everything about myself.
I worked for PacDen for less than a year, began looking for new position within 6 weeks. As "seasoned" dentist of 15 yrs experience, I was looking to move to new state, following economic growth, leaving state where I practiced/owned, a rather successful practice, seeing the local economy in decline. My interview, in office appeared promising, full waiting room, 13 ops full. What was not disclosed,was 4 ops were one day a week ortho, 3 general dentist, sharing 5 ops, endodontist in 2 ops, and hygiene in 2 ops. Once work started, i was paid half rate first day"training" then for 4 months $500 dollars a day, Hours were 8-5 M-TH, F 7-3, except on days when endo is there, it's not uncommon to work over 2-3 hours. I left one Friday at 7:30, with no extra pay. Scheduling is so messed up, your can expect to do hygiene 25% of your time, yet they keep metrics on your production. The "holy" metrics. If your proportion of fillings is too high, vs crowns, The regional manager "coaches" you to do more crowns. IE, over diagnose, to up production. If you are under "Average Daily Production" you are paid 26%, over ADP, 31%. Remember, you may be doing a lot of hygiene, the hygienist have their own schedule, and may not be able to do recare hygiene, or new pt prophy. Then you get to go to their "indoctrination" in Irvine CA. In my group, the founder, not dentists, told us what he expected. 8 minute crown preps. No problem here, but, when do you get that proficiency? 1,2,3, yrs out? 5 or 6? E
First few months they do a great job overworking you like a mule for a few cents per gallon. Mileage reimbursement doesnt always cover the cost of driving to some god for saken places; you have to deal with traffic, construction or accident related; paying almost 100$ in gas (which is about a weeks worth) and coming back with half a tank for a few dollars. They firmly believe this reconciles the horrible torture one has to go through working with them. As you can see horrible management is a common trend through out this corporation. The regional is the most incompetent person ive ever met. Many of my colleagues had children and she would become furious if they needed to pickup their kids. No matter how many times you tell her you are unavailable on a certain date she plays stupid and puts you on the schedule leading to chaos amongst the teams. Unless you are part of her circle of money makers forget you are in her mind. They work you until late night sometimes, and being a young person i committed to certain hours in the day not working all night for a few hundred bucks. Its despicable to mention the scheduling is handled by a person no one knows (it used to be the regional but shes always on vacation) and places people anywhere even if they have teams. They dont seem to honor your hiring title and put you everywhere thats not your specialty. Working for this company will destroy your passion for dentistry; especially if you are not into selling patients treatments like a r
ProsNothing really...mileage maybe | they are great liars..
ConsHours suck, specialty regional is a childish liar, pay days
I worked for PDS for 8 months in Las Vegas. I was promised at least 4 months of training since I had no dental background. I did not get that at all but placed into the office as an Operations Manager after 1 month and accepted to bring a failing office up to par.
No help from my Regional Manager at all, she even acknowledged to myself and on of the Dentist in the office she has ignored our office. Nov 2014 my RM gave one of the Dentist off without consulting me and forgot the other Dentist was on vacation. This hurt our numbers since we had no production for 4 days from the one Dentist and two from the other. The staff lost hours and the best friend of the RM who is in charge of specialty switched our Endo day that we had a full schedule telling myself and the staff the Doctor was going to be on vacation that is why we got switched. Come to find out that was a lie and another office sent an email blast for the day that we had a full schedule asking for patients for the Doctor we were told was on vacation.
Dec I get written up for the office doing so bad in Nov, I feel the RM did this to protect her own butt so to speak since it was her fault the office did so bad due her allowing the other Dentist to take off.
I was given no support by this RM, even after my write up you think she would come to my office to show me how to correct things she claims I was doing wrong, NOPE. One of my staff members who is the sister of this Specialty RM again who is friends wit
ProsGood benefits
ConsLong hours, no training, no help from Regional Manager, blame for other peoples mistakes and short comings
Busy office, lots of distractions, supportive doctors
I worked on the children's side of the office and found the environment supportive and lively. Each specialty, however, has it's own clique that seems to lead to a bit more gossip and passive aggressiveness than I would prefer. The waiting room is busy, loud, and at most times, distracting. You are required to answer phones, check in patients, have them sign forms, bring back charts, process payments, coordinate fees, check out patients, and make appointments...all while trying to manage accounts, eligibility, calling insurances.
It's a lot of work, and can be very difficult at times. My training was alright but I was told early on that I would not fully understand the job for months (which caused a lot of anxiety for myself, and probably my coworkers). I trained for 8 weeks at another office before working in my office. I do not believe that I was prepared, but I did have the support of my office manager and front office coworkers. Many questions that I had were met with advice to reach out to other offices for support; something that I was not 100% comfortable doing as a new hire. The did offer training classes at their regional support center in Rancho Cordova. All in all, I felt very insecure in my position for over a year.
The adult side was very disconnected from the kids side in terms of support and I failed to ever feel comfortable being on that side over the course of my time with the company. My training office was not like this at all, so I am ass
ProsSupportive Doctors, supportive coworkers, good hours, fair pay.
ConsNo real breakroom, loud environment, lots of changes, office gossip/cliques
4.0
Postal Support Employee | Irvine, CA | Apr 24, 2013
Awesome opportunity in a fast-growing company
I've worked for this company for some time now and while I can't lie and say everything is perfect, I will say that most of the reviews here are pretty harsh compared to what I've seen and been a part of, both in the National Support office as well as working in a couple of the PDS affiliated offices.
First of all I will say this can be a fast-paced enviornment. The offices work hard to keep the schedules full and everyone working full time, but the emphasis was always on the patient's well being. I've worked in private practices before and there were a lot of days where it was dead or there were giant holes in the doctor's schedule and we stood around or cleaned things over and over. While working in the PDS office, we hustled, but the days flew by and I slept well at night knowing that I had a full time job with job security.
I loved the team that I got to work with and our manager was great about trying to send us to courses to improve our skills (some of them offered free of charge by PDS). After starting in a local office I worked my way up through a couple of positions until I landed my current position at National Support. There's no way I would have had that kind of opportunity if I had stayed at the private office I was in before. I've had countless experiences with patients that have been so greatful to our office for helping them or patients that have told me their entire perception of the dentist has been changed because of visits to our office. And thanks to PD
Proscareer paths and development, continuing education, job security, community outreach
Consbenefits need work
1.0
Call Center Representative | Henderson, NV | May 30, 2019
Management sucks
To be honest the job is not stressful at all nothing that has to do with the actual job description. I believe that the work environment is toxic because of management they are self serving and only look out for former employers that worked at Diamond starting from management to Q.A unless you worked there or are hardcore sucking up to them you will not get anywhere. I remember this girl being from Diamond and hitting the floor she literally just sat there not taking any calls and eating and she sat right in front of management but because she was from diamond she was never told anything now this girl is in Dallas as Supervisor. It's all about who you know and the guys supervisors are into guys so they are very inappropriate with the guy agents. That's called harrassment but nobody saids anything because in Vegas they can fire you for simply no reason and one of the supervisors loves to threaten people with saying they can get fired. All supervisors talk bad about the agents and tell your business to everyone on the floor. Another thing is that one of the supervisor there is always on his phone watching you tube videos like all day! And is always eating probably because he got high before he walk in to work . This guy sits in his car and gets high and smoke out other Agents such as a guy that is a lead now. Also usually when the company gives things like personal days off or paid vacation they are suppose to approve it but in this case they only do it when they want to o
ProsPay rate and comission
ConsManagement, Breaks, shift change, personal days only if management approves your petsonal time
When I first came on to this company it seemed amazing. ( They have a great speech that really pulls you in) I honestly wish I did more research on this company before I started.
You have the regional managers who are not supportive at all. They barely work and when they do come in they are taking care of their personal business. The regional manager will say I'm here to help but in turn does nothing. They don't take responsibility for things they mess up on or they try to flip it on you.
My regional manager was amazing at this, or if she didn't know something ,instead of saying I need to look into this. She would make up an answer. If you dare question her she got completely nasty.One thing that truly amazed me was how unprofessional the regional managers are .
My regional manager who actually bad mouthed a dentist in sterilization in front of the team. Saying they could not diagnosis .Once another regional manager was there when this was happening and joined in .
Or you have my regional manager , if they are upset at you will actually ignore you.This place is literally kindergarten .
Pacific Dental is such an unhealthy work place and you can see clicks in this company. So if you are not in the click with the regional manager team you will be targeted.
They don't provide you with proper training, and expect the managers to be sales man. They don't hire the right people for these positions, you only need to know how to sale. There is a regional marketing manager w
Job descriptions are always skewed to meet the demands and wants of young, unexperienced, immature dentists. Management largely come from prior retail and these people have no clue on what is manageable, ethical, comprehensive care. They jam pack the schedules and expect you to multi task, keep the waiting patients happy, and keep a smile on your face even though you are over worked, no break, under paid, and will most likely stay late every day. Clinicians are expected to see multiple patients at once WITH A TIME RESTRAINT. Highly doubt a thorough job is being done despite that most hygienists are talented, it's just not possible. Doctors in this company are young and new to the field. Extremely arrogant, and sub par in skill level, and have no ability to train their staff to maintain or excel everyone's knowledge and skill. Dead end road to being a clinician. Due to high volume and packed schedules, there is never anytime to properly train new staff, it is a one for all-everybody has to pitch in to train at a moments notice. There is no consistency, nor time to train staff to become great. They luck out on having devoted, already tenured and talented staff that never last long. Benefits are sub par and non progressive despite being a billion dollar industry. You are expected to twist your life around to do 80 hours of work in 40 hrs a week. You stay late and go in late to "cut your hrs" to stay within the 40 hrs to prevent Over time. You will not get to plan
Questions And Answers about Pacific Dental Services
What is the work environment and culture like at Pacific Dental Services?
Asked Jul 13, 2016
Your core values are false. I took the job because of what your online core values and culture displayed. Once I entered, within the first week, I knew I would hate it there. Management is fake, a lot of gossip and rump kissing takes place because certain individuals think that’s the way to go to get what they want and it literally works out for them and screws everyone else over, why?...because management allows it. So stressful with always pushing, pushing and pushing tx, not respecting your appointment times as a RDH, they want cookie cutter treatment plans for ALL patients when not all patients need the same, but since it makes money if we do, then that’s why they push all of that excessive and unnecessary treatment. Pts complain all the time and management is always looking for who to blame instead of stepping up and resolving an issue in a successful and professional way. This whole corporate PDS just sucks to work in. Plane and simple.
Answered Aug 14, 2020
Our core set of values provides the foundation for how we conduct business, distinguishes the strength and character of our organization and directs all our critical decisions. PDS values a positive work environment for each and every team member. We continuously listen to online feedback and have recently provided training for leadership throughout the company, addressed performance concerns where needed, and renewed our commitment to a healthy work-life balance for our valued team members.
Answered Jul 1, 2019
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Pacific Dental Services a better place to work?
Asked Dec 19, 2019
I would create a schedule in a way that made sense. I would not follow through with same day dentistry if the schedule did not allow for it.
Answered Nov 5, 2020
My focus would be patient care, assistant care and treating everyone equal.
Answered Oct 16, 2020
How are the working hours at Pacific Dental Services?
Asked Jul 13, 2016
Get ready to go in earlier and stay later and at the same time get in trouble for staying later and getting OT??
Answered Aug 14, 2020
Their handbook clearly states you are on call 7 days a week 24 hours a day
Answered Feb 25, 2019
Are dental assistants pushed to do sales?
Asked Jul 13, 2016
Each one of us must take personal responsibility for providing the best dentistry possible to every one of our patients. This includes offering multiple treatment choices with a range of payment options. It’s very important to note that this is not up-selling or sales driven, but rather providing options to our patients so they can make choices that best fit their oral health needs and wants.
Answered Jul 1, 2019
In essence, yes. The company is sales driven.
Answered Apr 23, 2018
After you interview how long till you know if you have the job?
Asked Jul 13, 2016
3 days later.
Answered Aug 14, 2020
Two weeks are more. when traveling it takes to long for mileage to get paid.
