They got the credit. I did the heavy (word) lifting.
Client: The LEAD Magazine & onDiem
Year: 2024-2025
Role: Lead Copywriter, Ghostwriter
Deliverables: B2B thought leadership piece on behalf of C-suite leaders at onDiem
Surprise, surprise! It was me. As the ghostwriter for Joe Fogg (CEO and Founder of onDiem) and Daryl Freier (Chief Product Officer at onDiem), I wrote the following articles for The LEAD Magazine, a premium publication that highlights clinical and business leaders in dentistry.
To craft these articles, I had several informative conversations with C-suite leaders in dentistry and dental staffing. The result: writing that not only delighted the onDiem team, but also successfully communicated how staffing could be a strategic, profitability-boosting asset for dental service organizations (DSOs).
B2B Content: “Beyond Stop-gap Staffing”
Beyond Stop-gap Staffing
3.6.25 / 8 min read / Link to published article
In the fiercely competitive landscape of dental service organizations, most approaches to staffing remain reactive rather than strategic. The focus is most often on short-term wins—filling a chair for a day or covering a shift at the last minute—instead of building a foundation for sustained growth. However, as patient demand surges and market competition intensifies, leadership at forward-thinking DSOs are shifting their perspective. They treat staffing not as a stop-gap measure, but as a strategic lever for long-term profitability.
To explore this approach, I recently spoke with several DSO executives and dental leaders within the onDiem network: John Murphy, Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Aspen; Joshua Perry, CEO of Access Care; and Misty Mattingly RDH, BS, Senior Vice President and Chief Dental Hygiene Officer at Sage Dental. As some of the most experienced authorities in our industry, they candidly shared both the challenges their organizations have faced and the strategies they’ve adopted to turn staffing into a competitive advantage. Their insights, combined with broader trends, shed light on how DSOs can reframe workforce challenges as opportunities for sustained growth.
The Staffing Conundrum: Why Now?
“We’re at a crossroads,” said John Murphy of Aspen. “Demand for dental services is at an all-time high, and the workforce just isn’t keeping up. That puts enormous pressure on us and our margins.”
Murphy’s perspective is critical. In the midst of rising labor costs, evolving patient expectations, and expanding access to dental care, practices must find innovative and flexible ways to maintain capacity.
This challenge highlights a critical gap in the traditional DSO staffing model. In their quest to attract top talent, practices may sometimes underestimate the factors that keep employees engaged and committed long-term. (Smaller practices with limited resources, in turn, may not always be aware of state and local laws that require even part-time dental workers to be classified as W-2 employees entitled to all associated benefits and protections.) For many dental workers, particularly part-time staff, access to benefits and flexible scheduling can be a non-negotiable.
Addressing these issues requires creative and strategic solutions, such as collaborating with staffing partners who can offer benefits and administrative support that DSOs and practices may struggle to provide on their own. By tackling these gaps proactively, DSOs can not only reduce turnover but also enhance employee satisfaction and loyalty.
Let’s explore how staffing can become a growth driver by focusing on three critical elements: retention, quality, and optimization.
The New Growth Equation: Retention + Quality + Optimization
Transforming staffing into a growth driver requires a multi-pronged approach that prioritizes retention, quality, and optimization. These three elements come together to create a sustainable staffing strategy that addresses immediate needs while positioning the DSO for long-term growth and success.
Benefits as a Competitive Edge
Retention isn’t just about keeping staff; it’s about reducing the costs and risks of turnover. According to Joshua Perry of Access Care, “One of our early pain points was losing part time employees who needed a more comprehensive health insurance program. At the time, we simply couldn’t offer it without skyrocketing costs or administrative headaches. That’s where our staffing partnership with onDiem came into play.”
Staffing companies such as onDiem are W-2 compliant nationwide, allowing them to provide all dental professionals (regardless of their full-time or part-time status) on their platform with W-2 benefits such as comprehensive health insurance, PTO, malpractice insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, and more. Through onDiem’s SafePay™ offering, practices and organizations such as Access Care have been able to hire and book their own temps through onDiem’s platform—immediately granting them access to these benefits without dealing with the administrative burden or cost.
Perry credits onDiem for Access Care’s improved retention rate, noting that it increased significantly within the first year of partnership. “This partnership was a game-changer for us,” says Perry. “It allowed us to provide benefits to our essential part-time and temp employees without the administrative headaches—and was more cost-effective than building the infrastructure ourselves.”
Choosing a staffing partner that allows for this arrangement not only can enhance retention for the DSO, but also position the DSO as an employer of choice in a highly competitive labor market.
Building a Pipeline of High-Performing Talent
Retention alone isn’t enough; DSOs must also ensure that the talent they retain and recruit is top-notch. “Like any other dental organization, we’ve had our share of mismatches,” Misty Mattingly of Sage Dental admits. “Sometimes we’d bring in a temp who wasn’t a good fit, and it would disrupt the team dynamic or patient experience.”
Mattingly’s solution? Building a pipeline of high-performing talent. “Our philosophy is simple: hire the best temps, and rehire them when possible,” Mattingly explained. “By treating temporary staff as an extension of our team, and choosing a staffing partner with the same philosophy, we’ve reduced mismatches and built a high-quality pipeline.”
Staffing services can play a pivotal role here by offering access to pre-vetted professionals—and in the case of onDiem, by providing access to fully W-2 compliant and certified workers to mitigate costly legal risk. Additionally, sophisticated staffing platforms allow DSOs to track and re-engage high-performing temps, creating a seamless talent pipeline.
“It’s not just about filling roles; onDiem has helped us create a system where we know the best possible talent is always within reach when we need them,” Mattingly emphasizes. “That confidence lets us focus on scaling our business and improving our standards of patient care.”
Flexible Solutions for Dynamic Needs
Staffing challenges are rarely static or fully predictable. Holidays, unexpected sick leaves, and the addition of new columns or service lines all demand flexibility. “One of our biggest headaches was managing staffing during peak periods,” Murphy noted. “We’d often end up short-handed, and it impacted patient satisfaction and care.”
Murphy’s challenge is unfortunately shared across the DSO and practice community. But by moving away from traditional and frenzied “whack-a-mole staffing,” as Murphy puts it, and toward staffing strategy that maximizes your practices’ capacity, a DSO stands to gain for the years to come. “At several of our locations, dental chairs regularly went empty, because it’s hard to ramp up when you’re in the throes of high patient need,” he explained. “Our staffing partner helped our team switch our approach, and now we are proactively staffing to each location’s full capacity, treating more patients, and witnessing significant growth in our margins.”
Flexible staffing solutions such as onDiem expertly adjust to dynamic needs—enabling DSOs to cover peak periods year-round; test new markets or specialties by bringing in specialized talent temporarily; and expand operating hours or columns without immediately committing to full-time hires.
“Our staffing partner helps us adjust in real-time,” Murphy added. “That flexibility has been a big part of our growth story.”
Dental Staffing: A Strategy for Sustainable Growth
Our partner organizations offer a compelling example of how DSOs can evolve their approach to staffing. By focusing on retention, quality, and optimization—and by partnering strategically with a staffing service — they’ve turned a regular challenge into a driver of growth.
“Staffing isn’t just about today,” Murphy said. “It’s an investment that can pay off with growth and profitability. It’s about building the kind of workforce that ensures we’re here tomorrow.”
Collaborating with Staffing Companies: A Strategic Partnership
Moving beyond stop-gap solutions requires a close partnership with staffing services. Murphy describes his organization’s collaboration with its staffing partner, onDiem, as “an evolving partnership that’s delivering meaningful results.” Based on our partners’ experiences, here’s how DSOs can get it right:
1. Align on goals
“Initially, we weren’t clear about the best way to manage and leverage temp workers,” says Murphy. “We treated staffing as a quick fix instead of a strategic tool. Once we aligned with our staffing partner on long-term goals—like entering a new market or improving retention—things started to change.”
2. Lean on data to improve quality
Modern staffing platforms such as onDiem offer analytics that can inform your staffing decisions. “onDiem helps us track and stay connected with our most effective temps,” Murphy explains. “This helps us avoid costly mistakes, and relieves some of the anxiety that comes with staffing.”
3. Use temp staffing to test the viability of new markets
Temp staffing isn’t just about filling gaps; it’s a strategic tool for expansion. “We wanted to test adding weekends or evening shifts for patients who want to be seen after hours,” Perry shares. “Bringing in temporary specialists allowed us to assess demand without committing to permanent hires.”
B2B Content: “Leveraging Contingent Labor for Sustained DSO Growth”
Leveraging Contingent Labor for Sustained DSO Growth
10.17.24 / 8 min read / Link to published article
Think beyond “quick fix” staffing to improve long-term recruitment, retention, and patient access to care. Traditional temporary staffing solutions may fill a short-term need—but a consistent, contingent labor workforce can maximize capacity for existing operatories, flex to address evolving patient needs, and encourage long-term resilience and growth.
Acquisition, new builds, and capacity expansion: What’s the most strategic growth option for DSOs?
In the rapidly evolving landscape of dental care, dental service organization (DSO) leaders are confronted with a critical dilemma: how to most effectively grow revenue while mitigating risk. Should they acquire existing practices through due diligence, accurate valuation, and successful integration of leadership and staff? Should they invest time and money into new build-outs— which require capital-intensive site selection, construction, permitting, and hiring of new staff?
Could it simply be less risky—and more cost effective—to increase capacity within their existing practices?
Many DSO leaders do see the opportunity to expand operations wherever they may have under-utilized operatories or additional time slots on evenings and weekends. However, these opportunities are frequently hindered by staffing limitations, or the fact that existing full-time employees often do not want to take on these additional shifts. This brings to the forefront one emerging strategy for effective capacity expansion: contingent labor.
How dental practices use contingent labor to tackle staffing challenges
Temporary staffing once served as a mere stopgap to ensure continued production during employee absences. These days, it’s increasingly recognized for its ability to enhance flexibility and boost productivity in unused operatories during non-peak hours.
With access to vetted, trained, and W-2 compliant staff—who are willing to work as little as a single shift or as much as three to four days a week—practices can create more sophisticated staffing plans that fill the gaps, increase appointment availability for patients, and capture production with just a few new investments in operating overhead. This approach evolves temporary staffing into a more flexible and sustainable staffing strategy—one that relies on a contingent labor workforce that can regularly fill staffing needs for the long haul, without running afoul of any contract labor laws or regulations.
Investing in a mutually beneficial relationship: recruitment, retention, and employee value
Recruiting and retaining skilled staff (particularly hygienists) remains a significant undertaking; according to a recent study by the ADA Health Policy Institute, 88% of practices describe this task as “extremely challenging.” Issues of training shortcomings, salary dissatisfaction, and burnout are pervasive, with over a third of dentists feeling overworked. To address these challenges, DSOs must invest in their staff—and demonstrate how an employee’s value is inextricably linked to personal career development.
High-retention practices support their teams through training on new technologies and the creation of work environments where staff feel
genuinely valued. Yet temporary staff members are often left out of these retention efforts, though they experience the same issues of dissatisfaction and burnout when they feel undervalued or overwhelmed.
For every single place of employment, temporary dental workers must become deeply familiar with unique cultural and behavioral dynamics, the objectives and priorities of the business, the collection of tools and software, and ways to effectively contribute to the success of the practice. (This applies even when a temporary staff member works only sporadically for a practice.) When practice owners and managers acknowledge this reality—and choose to see “temps” as a consistent, contingent labor force worth investing in, both the practice and the dental professional will see significant growth.
Flexibility, stability, and increased access to care: The industry trends that point to contingent labor
Trends in the landscape highlight the necessity for DSOs to embrace more flexible staffing models that effectively meet both operational demands and patient expectations. A contingent labor model is particularly relevant for today’s workforce (ranging from students to long-serving professionals) — which increasingly values flexible employment that offers the stability of healthcare benefits, paid time off (PTO), and a predictable workload. Labor-compliant part-time roles not only accommodate these needs; they also mitigate patient cancellations and help manage the ever-fluctuating schedules of dental practices—ultimately protecting practices from lost revenue.
Contingent labor also addresses the needs of the patient community, which now demands shorter wait times, greater adaptability to their schedules, and more convenient appointment slots. As of March 2024, the average wait time for an initial appointment stood at 14.6 days. A contingent labor force can close this gap in access to care by opening up capacity for available production, or by taking on evening and weekend time frames.
With a contingent labor strategy, practices can respond to the growing demand for more dynamism in scheduling—increasing production for the practice, flexibility and stability for the dental professional, and access to care for the patient.
Successfully implementing a contingent labor strategy
At onDiem, we’ve made it a best practice to regularly collaborate with the leadership of the most successful DSOs in the country. It’s how our team can best understand the internal objectives and communication challenges DSO leaders face when optimizing staffing for production potential.
“I can’t confidently count on my area managers to give me an accurate perspective on who’s available to work, and when,” one executive told us. “I know my team members are taking additional shifts on temporary staffing platforms. I know they’d be willing to work in more flexible ways if I only had insight into their availability.”
This conversation, among others, helped us understand a key component of a successful contingent labor strategy: Practice managers must have accurate insight into when dental professionals are willing and able to work. Our team responded by developing the onDiem availability calendar—a platform feature that not only records a professional’s availability to work, but also dynamically updates a practice’s open shift calendar to optimize for the most effective and productive staffing mix. The same executive is now looking at ways to take advantage of our platform for their entire staff—not just for insight into overall availability, but also to take advantage of a cost-controlled way to ensure W-2 compliance and provide employee benefits such as health insurance and PTO.
How organizational leaders can start gaining the benefits of a contingent labor workforce:
1. REVIEW CURRENT ORGANIZATIONAL NEEDS.
Understand your existing staffing strategy to find the right contingent labor solution.2 .DE-RISK BY GRASPING 1099 V. W-2 DISTINCTIONS.
Hiring a 1099 worker as an “easy fix” can lead to a costly, long-term headache. Turn to leading partners on this topic such as onDiem to navigate complexities and mitigate risk.3. IDENTIFY YOUR BEST INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL PARTNERS.
Traditional temporary staffing platforms are not always built for long-term staffing needs. Use an external partner who thinks beyond their own business value and invests in yours.4. CREATE A COMMUNICATION STRATEGY FOR YOUR REGIONAL AND PRACTICE MANAGERS.
When they clearly understand the value of contingent labor, managers can help communicate needs and objectives at the staffing level.5. COMMUNICATE YOUR PRODUCTION AND BUSINESS GOALS IN YOUR KEY MARKETS.
A platform like onDiem will assess your business goals in order to connect you with qualified professionals in your markets on and off platform.
Dispelling the myth: “Contingent labor is expensive.”
When comparing hourly rates with traditional temp staffing in mind, platforms such as onDiem, which focus on providing a contingent labor workforce, may appear to be a more expensive solution. However, the daily cost of our contingent labor is comparable to what a DSO would pay their own employee. After factoring in fringe benefits—including but not limited to healthcare benefits, PTO, and state & federal taxes, the daily rate for onDiem is within 5% of a fully loaded W-2 employee.
The real benefit for practices within a DSO comes from the incremental production driven by a supplemental workforce. A contingent workforce solution such as onDiem can foster a consistent and dependable professional community within your practices, forge mutually beneficial relationships between practice management and staff, and allow for increased productivity and satisfaction for all. Reducing vulnerability to sick days, vacations, and run-of-the-mill employee turnover with reliable contingent labor will drive an optimized dental practice.
Contingent labor: the key to successful staffing and DSO growth
As DSOs navigate the complexities of growth and market potential, the key to their success is within their ability to staff in more sophisticated and dynamic ways. By leveraging contingent labor solutions in response to new industry trends and demands, DSOs can ensure sustainable growth and continued excellence in patient care. The future of DSOs will depend significantly on their ability to integrate these staffing dynamics into their operational strategy.
Executive Summary
By embracing contingent labor, DSOs can gain a workforce that grows revenue and expands capacity while mitigating risk.
To successfully implement a contingent labor strategy, invest in your supplemental workforce and in solutions that give accurate insight into staff availability.
Contingent labor addresses key industry trends: the professional’s demand for flexible employment with comprehensive benefits, and the patient’s need for improved access to care.
The incremental production driven by a contingent labor workforce outweighs the cost of implementation—and leads to long-term business value.