Back in 10

Business travel sounds glamorous until you're exhausted, dehydrated, living out of a suitcase, and wondering why you didn't pack your own pillow.
And apparently, Jen doesn't travel without TWO.
In this Off the Cuff episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah are taking you behind the scenes of life on the road. Between dental conferences, speaking engagements, and industry events, they've learned that maintaining your routines while traveling isn't just about staying organized. It's about taking care of yourself.
We're talking protein coffee, healthy snacks, hotel room rituals, packing hacks, and why a little preparation can make a big difference in how you feel when you're away from home.
You'll also discover why Savanah travels with a bag full of treats, why Jen steams every piece of clothing the moment she arrives, and how one very special ass pillow is apparently changing lives at 30,000 feet.
Because traveling for work shouldn't mean abandoning the habits that make you feel your best.
And sometimes, the best travel advice comes with a really good laugh.
What's the one travel essential you refuse to leave home without? We'd love to hear it!

The phones won't stop ringing. Recall is falling behind. Your front desk is overwhelmed. And someone inevitably says, "We need to hire another person!"
But do you?
In this episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah challenge one of the most common reactions to an overwhelmed dental practice: adding another employee before figuring out what's actually broken.
Is your team truly understaffed? Or are outdated workflows, unclear responsibilities, manual processes, and inefficient systems creating more work than necessary?
From Savanah's legendary color-coded Post-it Notes to Jen's absolute horror over sticky-note chaos (and her eventual confession that she used them, too), this conversation gets into the messy reality of running a dental practice.
They talk about decision fatigue, accountability, technology, and why even the best employees struggle when the systems around them aren't working.
And no, this isn't an anti-hiring episode. Sometimes you genuinely need another team member.
But before you add another salary to payroll, do a little detective work.
Because hiring another person won't automatically fix a broken process. It might just give you one more person working around it.
The question isn't always whether you need more people.
Sometimes it's whether you're giving the people you already have what they need to succeed.

You’re on PTO.
So why are you checking your work email?
Somewhere along the way, many of us started confusing great leadership with endless availability. We answer the text. Check the email. Solve the problem. And convince ourselves the team needs us.
Jen once processed payroll while IN LABOR. Savanah admits she checked her work email first thing in the morning while recording this episode… on PTO.
So yeah. We need to talk about boundaries.
In this episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah get real about personal and professional boundaries in dental leadership and why being responsive is NOT the same thing as being constantly accessible.
They talk about protecting PTO, after-hours communication, setting expectations with your team, social media boundaries, working from home, and what happens when your team becomes so dependent on you that you can’t actually step away.
Because if everything requires you, you may not have a boundary problem.
You may have a dependency problem.
Start small. Decide what your boundaries actually are. Communicate them. Build systems that allow people to function without you. And then comes the hard part:
Respect your own boundaries, too.
Want more conversations like this? Comment BOUNDARY and let’s keep talking.

Breaking up is hard to do. Especially when your PPO is helping fill the schedule.
But is it actually helping your practice?
In this episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah talk about the leadership and business side of knowing when a PPO relationship may no longer make sense.
Before you panic about empty chairs, it's time to look at the actual numbers. How many patients really have that plan? What are you writing off? Which procedures are taking the biggest hit? And is that PPO keeping your practice profitable or simply keeping it busy?
They also talk about what happens after you make the decision. Your team needs to understand the change, know how to talk about it, and feel prepared for patient questions. And your patients deserve thoughtful communication about what going out of network actually means for them.
Because you're not breaking up with your patients.
You're changing your relationship with their insurance company.
And sometimes, that's exactly what a financially healthy practice needs.

Your title says Office Manager. But your responsibilities? They might look a whole lot more like COO.
Hiring and firing. Managing payroll. Reviewing the P&L. Negotiating with vendors. Implementing technology. Leading the team. Making operational decisions. Turning the doctor's vision into actual execution.
So where exactly does office management end and executive leadership begin?
In this episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah don't completely agree on the answer. And that's kind of the point.
They go back and forth on what should fall under an Office Manager's role, what crosses into COO-level responsibility, and why the lack of a clear industry standard makes this conversation so complicated.
But they do agree on this: if you're being held accountable for the success of the business, you need the authority, trust, skills, and compensation to actually own what you're being asked to do.
Maybe the question isn't whether you deserve a different title.
Maybe it's whether your title, responsibilities, authority, and paycheck actually match.

What does it actually take to become a Practice of the Year?
Back in 10 went LIVE from the Henry Schein One booth at AADOM for a very special conversation with the newly crowned Dentrix and Dentrix Ascend Practices of the Year.
Savanah and Jen sit down with Betsy Cord, Kym Page, and Melissa Floyd to talk about what happens behind the scenes of exceptional dental practices and, spoiler alert, technology alone isn't the answer.
They talk about using technology to create efficiency, getting the entire team involved, the importance of ongoing training and cross-training, making the move to the cloud, and finding ways to make everyday workflows easier for both the team and the patients they serve.
But when we asked these leaders what they were most proud of, the answer wasn't a feature, a workflow, or even the award.
It was their people.
This episode is a celebration of what can happen when great technology supports great leadership and a team that's committed to getting better together.
Congratulations to the Dentrix and DentrixAscend Practices of the Year, and a huge thank you to Henry Schein One for inviting Back in 10 to be part of such a special moment.

Your schedule is full. Your team is busy. Production is up.
So... why is there less money left at the end of the month?
In this episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah talk about the financial squeeze happening inside dental practices and why increasing production doesn't automatically mean increasing profit.
Payroll goes up. Supplies and lab costs go up. Overhead increases. Insurance write-offs take their share. And sometimes, the expenses we cut in an attempt to save money end up costing the practice even more.
They also tackle a conversation more practice leaders need to be having: Should your office manager understand the P&L? And how can they help protect profitability if they don't have the full financial picture?
Because production tells you how busy you were.
Profit tells you whether the business is working.
The goal isn't simply to do more dentistry. It's to build a financially healthy practice while doing great dentistry.

"I'm exhausted."
"I hate this job."
"We're understaffed."
"I'm doing the work of three people."
"I need a vacation."
We've gotten really comfortable calling all of it burnout. But is it?
In this episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah dig into what burnout actually means and why labeling every hard season, stressful week, or frustrating workplace experience as burnout can keep us from identifying the real problem.
Is it burnout? Bad leadership? Broken systems? Lack of accountability? An impossible workload? Or have you simply outgrown the job?
Because burnout isn't just being tired. It's what can happen when chronic workplace stress goes unmanaged long enough that exhaustion turns into detachment and you start wondering whether the work you're doing even matters.
And for leaders, calling it "burnout" isn't enough. We have to get curious about what's causing it.
Before you plan the pizza party, fix the problem.

This one wasn't planned.
What started as an off-the-cuff conversation about expectations and accountability quickly turned into Jen sharing her own experience working within a DSO and what can happen when performance goals, KPIs, and financial pressure start driving the conversation.
This isn't an episode about what every DSO gets right or wrong. It's one leader's experience and an honest conversation about what she saw from the inside.
Jen and Savanah talk about what happens when high-performing practices are continually asked to do more, whether goals are always as attainable as they look on paper, the pressure that can land on practice and regional leaders, and why focusing only on financial KPIs can cause us to lose sight of the people behind them.
Because yes, the numbers tell a story.
But are we paying attention to the right numbers?
No agenda. No perfectly packaged lesson. Just an off-the-cuff conversation that went somewhere we didn't expect.

You know the conversation needs to happen.
But what if they quit?
In today's hiring market, that's the fear many dental leaders carry every single day. You know someone isn't meeting expectations, but the thought of losing another team member makes accountability feel impossible.
In this episode of Back in 10, Jen and Savanah unpack one of the biggest leadership challenges in dentistry: how to hold people accountable without leading from fear.
They discuss:
Why accountability has gotten such a bad reputation
How fear changes the standards leaders are willing to uphold
Why clear expectations should always come before consequences
How to approach accountability as a conversation—not a conflict
The importance of giving your team the tools they need to succeed
Why protecting your culture sometimes means having the conversation you're trying to avoid
Because accountability isn't about catching people doing something wrong.
It's about helping great people succeed by making expectations impossible to misunderstand.